By the looks of it, 1951 was a very popular year (or a very alarming year) for America to examine its drug problem. All the major networks were devoting some amount of time to the subject, by way of either documentaries or discussion programs or new reports – the end results were all the same – America was infested with drugs and drug dealers and drugs were the scourge of our nation’s youth.
Of course, 1951 was the year of the Historic and landmark Kefauver Crime Commission hearings on Organized crime in America. And it was alleged the biggest supplier of drugs to America’s Youth were the Mafia.
And fueling the outrage were reports and testimony from parents, formerly addicted kids, law enforcement and civic leaders – painting a picture that The Mob was busy supplying high schools with a vast array of narcotics with dealers practically on every street corner and it was universally agreed it all started with Marijuana.
Reports of overdoses were legion – drugs and drug culture were well-known by youth in the 1950s – as was evidenced in this documentary where a reporter asks kids, no older than 13 if they knew what certain drug-related phrases meant. They all knew in great detail and this alarmed the parents of America that much more.
Hot on the heels of the Red Scare, the Cold War and in 1951, knee deep in a war in Korea, America now had to deal with mass addiction to Heroin on the parts of its youth and it was reaching pandemic proportions.
Small wonder a few scant years after this broadcast, the Youth of America fell head over heels in love with Rock n’ Roll – it needed some place to put all the anxiety and paranoia.
All that said, there’s a certain level of alarmist in this program, first of a six part series called The Nations Nightmare. Bill Downs, a respected journalist for CBS News approaches this as if his own kids were strung out in some alley – but he treats the other episodes with the same extreme delivery.
The 1950s were far from perfect, but I think most will agree the entire country wasn’t nodding out or climbing the walls for a fix. Cooler heads did prevail, as they prevail in all generations, don’t forget.
Of course, these days we have Fentanyl to contend with and that IS a problem with a lot of consequences we’re having to face.
For a reminder we’ve always had anxiety and wretched excess in drugs to contend with – here’s The Nation’s Nightmare from July 19, 1951 from CBS Radio.
