December 8

How Drug Abuse Affects You and Your Neighborhood

YOU personally may not misuse drugs. But so many persons do, that you cannot help but be affected.

Drug addicts terrorize people on the streets and in their homes. They reportedly commit half the crimes in metropolitan areas of the United States! As a result, you may fear to venture from your home alone after dark.

It is reported that addicts “shoplift” over $2,000,000,000 worth of merchandise a year; so stores raise prices to compensate for their losses. Also, drug abuse by employees costs American corporations thousands of millions of dollars a year; a cost passed on to you in higher prices. And hundreds of millions of dollars are spent yearly on programs to fight drug addiction​—increasing your taxes.

But you can be affected in other ways. A driver “high” on drugs may ram into you on the highway. Or perhaps a member of your own family will fall victim to drug abuse​—bringing you untold sorrow.

Appalling Epidemic

Drug abuse has clearly reached crisis proportions. “The real drug scene involves millions of Americans,” science editor Alton Blakeslee wrote, including adults “who are abusing alcohol and tobacco and sleeping and pep-pills and tranquilizers to get through their day.”

But youths particularly are affected. Drug abuse has become “an extremely deadly epidemic” in American schools, the House Select Committee on Crime reported this June. The Committee said:

“Our investigation demonstrated that the drug crisis in our schools greatly exceeded our worst expectations . . . It is infecting our youth and contaminating our schools and leaving a trail of devastation.”

“It is only the uniquely gifted and self-possessed child who is capable of avoiding involvement with some form of drug abuse.”​—Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1973.

Appalled by the problem, President Nixon declared: “America’s Public Enemy No. 1 is drug abuse.” The director of one of New York city’s addict treatment centers, Dr. Mitchell S. Rosenthal, said: “The misuse of drugs is pandemic [a wide-spread epidemic], with no segment of society spared.”

Is this true? What is the situation in your neighborhood?

Your Neighborhood Affected

If you live in New York city, you probably have little doubt about the magnitude of the drug problem. You may regularly see drug addicts “nodding” on the streets. And if you are a youth in school, you may see drugs being passed around.

New York Congressman Charles B. Rangel wrote: “Heroin has destroyed the functioning of our school system. . . . drugs are as available as chewing gum, young girls shoot up in the locker room and 13-year-olds buy dope from 15-year-old peddlers.” But what if you live in other cities?

The drug problem is there too. Professional all-star basketball player Nate Archibald noted: “Drugs are everywhere. It’s not just New York. I see ’em in every city we go to. You go to the bottom, it’s there.” Here are some reports:

✔ A subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee investigating organized sports said: “Drug use exists, in varying degrees, in all sports and levels of competition with few exceptions.”​—Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, May 12, 1973.

✔ “The Navy revealed yesterday that its drug problem has reached such proportions that there is no Navy ship afloat or Naval station without a drug problem, and ‘many of them are major problems.’”​—San Diego Union, July 21, 1971.

✔ “Addicts sporting habits that often cost $200 a day have spawned a wave of drug-related crime. Authorities ascribe as much as 70 per cent of Detroit’s armed robberies​—90 per cent of its bank holdups—​to the upsurge.”​—Newsweek, February 28, 1972.

✔ “Drug abuse has risen dramatically in Oklahoma City . . . and no slowdown is in sight.”​—The Daily Oklahoman, April 17, 1971.

✔ “A state survey of teen-age drug use reported that more than 40 percent of pupils in the ninth to 12th grades in Massachusetts have used illegal drugs in the past year.”​—Boston Sunday Herald Traveler and Sunday Advertiser, August 27, 1972.

✔ A comprehensive survey of over 15,000 pupils in grades seven through twelve in Anchorage, Alaska, shows that over 41 percent of the students have used drugs, other than tobacco and alcohol.​—Journal of the American Medical Association, February 5, 1973.

✔ “Southern California drug abuse authorities report that as high as 80 percent of all high schoolers experiment with illicit drugs. Young people are frequently exposed to drugs as early as fifth grade.”​—Up-Look, Vol. 1, No. 1.

Wherever you go​—east, west, north or south—​drugs are there. They are even in small towns. In Palm Springs, California, for example, the drug problem is so bad that some parents worry about sending their youngsters to school. In Aspen and Boulder, Colorado, drugs are freely used in public. In East Jordan, Michigan; Nashua, New Hampshire; Lansing, Illinois; yes, in just about any place one looks, illegal drugs are used.

Even if some may think otherwise, the illicit use of drugs is probably rampant in their neighborhood too. Fred Hilligiest, whose thirteen-year-old son became a missing person in Houston, Texas, found this to be so. ‘I didn’t have any idea what was going on,’ he said, ‘how many kids were hanging around, taking drugs, and all that. But in the first three weeks we started looking for David, I got a college education.’

‘I thought it was maybe 10 percent of the kids in that kind of life, taking drugs,’ Hilligiest said. ‘But as I went along, it seemed like everybody’s kids were into it, maybe more like 80 percent.’ It is just as Archibald said: “You go to the bottom, it’s there.”

But is drug abuse only an American problem? What about other countries?

Drug Abuse World Wide

United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim observed: “Drug abuse . . . grows and takes on new forms. In some countries, it has reached the dimensions of a national emergency.” The Medical Tribune of November 22, 1972, carried the headline “DRUG TAKING FOUND COMMON IN CHILDREN WORLDWIDE.”

Drug abuse is a particular problem in Britain. London’s Daily Mail declared: “Illegal drug use is today virtually out of control.” Dr. H. Dale Beckett, chairman of the British Association for Prevention of Addiction, said: “There is probably not a school in the whole of the United Kingdom in which drug experimentation does not take place.”

The situation is similar in Australia. The Minister for Customs, D. L. Chipp, observed: “I can guarantee that if you have a child entering teens this year that child will be offered dangerous drugs or narcotics of some description before he or she is 18.”

The Spectator, a newspaper in Ontario, Canada, carried the headline “HEROIN EPIDEMIC THREAT​—NATIONAL TALKS CONSIDERED.” To the west, in British Columbia, the illegal heroin market is said to be among the province’s top ten industries. So widespread is heroin addiction that Vancouver’s mayor said: “We would need an army to clean it up.”

And so it goes in country after country. Like a gigantic, ugly tidal wave, drugs have inundated the world.

What is the reason? Why do people abuse drugs? How great really is the danger?

Why They Turn to Drugs

THERE are no simple answers to why people turn to drugs. A few experts suggest that there are as many reasons for abusing drugs as there are people abusing them. Yet there is a fundamental reason for the problem.

It is that drugs are so available. For example, over 525 tons of barbiturates alone are produced annually in the United States. The American public consumes most of this tonnage on doctors’ prescriptions. Dr. Mitchell S. Rosenthal said that in 1971 enough mood-altering drugs were prescribed by doctors “to keep every man, woman and child in [the United States] either ‘up,’ ‘down’ or ‘out of it’ for a solid month.”

But are these “legitimate” prescription drugs dangerous? Are they a significant factor in the present drug-abuse crisis?

Drugs Used in Medicine

Barbiturates are sedatives, which doctors commonly prescribe to induce sleep. There are some twenty-six types of them. Practically all barbiturates are produced by legitimate pharmaceutical houses, but a large part of the supply is diverted into illegal channels. On the streets, the pills are called “downers” or “reds.” So great has the problem become with them that authorities have called 1972 “the year of the downer.”

Addiction sometimes results when these drugs are regularly relied upon to get to sleep. Many other persons abuse them simply for “kicks,” and become addicted. About one million persons in the United States are barbiturate addicts. An addict is one who needs drugs to avoid withdrawal pains. Sudden withdrawal can be so severe for a barbiturate addict that it can kill him. Also, over 3,000 persons in the United States each year die from overdoses of barbiturates!

There is also a deluge of stimulants, commonly known as “pep pills” or “uppers.” Amphetamines are the principal ones. Doctors often prescribe them to suppress the appetite, reduce fatigue or relieve depression. However, it is estimated that half the legally manufactured amphetamines find their way into illegal channels. These drugs, too, are dangerous and have either killed or ruined the lives of many persons.

Thus “legitimate” drugs, prescribed by doctors, are a major factor in the drug crisis. Yet the drugs grabbing most of the headlines are probably even a greater problem.

Drugs Without Accepted Medical Use

Heroin is the most dangerous of these. Ten to twelve tons of it a year are reportedly smuggled into the United States. Some 560,000 Americans are addicted to heroin, or about ten times the number in the early 1960’s. Heroin truly constitutes a deadly plague!

In New York city alone about four persons die every day from its effects! The average daily cost of a heroin habit is $40 or $50. To get this money, addicts steal more than $3,000,000 in property in New York city, on the average, every day! No wonder Newsweek reported: “New York City . . . is being killed by heroin.”

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is the most potent of the dozens of hallucinogenic drugs. In recent years many underground laboratories have begun producing it. Thus, despite the heavy demand, the price of an LSD tablet has fallen to about a tenth of its cost a few years ago. Although it is not physically addicting, as is heroin or the barbiturates, LSD produces weird effects in users.

Basically, the drug causes changes in sensation. Vision is particularly altered. Illusions and hallucinations can occur, even months after taking the last dose. On a “bad trip” perceived images may be terrifying. Also, one on LSD becomes very susceptible to suggestions or influences from others and the environment. Thus news reports often tell of horrible experiences. For example, the London Daily Mail of April 26, 1973, reported how a schoolteacher under the influence of LSD tried to walk on the Thames River and disappeared beneath the surface without struggling.

With marijuana, the dimensions of the drug crisis grows. Although marijuana is illegal, an estimated twenty-four million Americans have used it, and perhaps eight million do so regularly. Marijuana’s effect on users is milder than LSD, although it, too, produces a distortion of the senses. When smoking marijuana, five minutes may seem like an hour. Sounds and colors may seem intensified. Also, habitual users have been adversely affected, suffering staggering gait, hand tremors, thought disorders and disturbances in perception.

Does inhaling the smoke harm the body? Interestingly, a recent letter by medical doctors at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York city, observed: “Marijuana smoke induces cancer in tissue cultures of human lung.” Dr. Morton A. Stenchever, who headed a University of Utah research team, concluded: Marijuana “may be a much more dangerous drug than we realized.”

Yet, despite the harm done by drugs, people continue to use them. Why? Why are millions more turning to them every year?

Drug-obsessed Society

Many authorities blame it on modern society’s obsession with drugs. One doctor explained: “Anyone who listens to commercials or reads drug ads knows he can calm down, perk up, fall asleep, lose weight and ease any number of pains and discomforts by taking one or another pill.” Drugs are often prescribed for almost any symptom.

Dr. Matthew Dumont, director of drug rehabilitation for the Massachusetts Department of Health, declared: “If there’s any single source of the drug menace in America today it’s my brotherhood​—the physicians. . . . Physicians write prescriptions for 13 billion tablets of amphetamines and barbiturates each year.” The House Select Committee on Crime felt similarly, claiming: “The fault [for the drug menace] lies squarely with our pharmaceutical manufacturers, drug wholesalers and retailers and doctors.”

But these persons are not alone at fault. Adult consumers are too. They should realize that drugs are poisons, and so use them only when their possible benefits may outweigh their harm.a Yet if adults take drugs for every problem or tension, or even for pleasure, why should youths avoid them? Is it surprising that young ones should reason: ‘If grown-ups use tobacco, get drunk and take pills, why shouldn’t I enjoy myself smoking marijuana or taking “downers”?’

That parental drug use is a factor in children’s turning to drugs has been documented by various studies. For example, a major Canadian study calls drug abuse a “learned behavior.” “Adolescents modeled their drug use after parental use,” psychiatrists from Toronto’s Addiction Research Foundation explained. Surely, then, if you do not want your children to abuse drugs, you should not smoke, abuse alcohol or needlessly take pills.

But more than a proper adult example is needed. Proper association outside the home is also vital. A study by Friends of Psychiatric Research found that eighty-four out of every one hundred addicts were introduced to drugs by their “friends.” When offered drugs, many young people take them out of curiosity. They may, at first, find the effects pleasurable. But then they become “hooked,” and soon are in terrible trouble.

However, there are other reasons for turning to drugs. It is not simply because they are so available and that we live in a drug-oriented society. What are these other reasons?

Unsatisfying, Frustrated Life

Dr. James E. Anderson, an expert on drug problems, pointed to a fundamental reason, explaining: “Drug use is in effect a signal that there was a vacuum in the life of a person.” A similar observation was made by Dr. Matthew Dumont, who said: “We have to consider what’s missing in the life of young people who use them.”

Very often the problem is in the family. This was the finding of a survey of teachers, administrators and counselors in Dade County, Florida. Also, Dr. L. James Grold, assistant clinical professor at the University of Southern California, noted: “I have found, almost invariably, that the basic problem is in the home.” He said: “The teenager often begins experimenting with drugs from the family medicine chest as a means of avoiding the tension and frustration that exists in the household.” But what are the causes of troubles in the household?

Often fathers are wrapped up in trying to make their way in the world. Mothers may feel neglected, and become confused about their goals or role in life. Little open communication exists. And there is little companionship or genuine consideration for one another. Thus, even though children may be provided everything in a material way, they feel frustrated, dissatisfied or simply bored. Drugs are taken to fill the void​—in a quest for pleasure and “kicks”—​or just to soothe emotional hurts.

At times drug abuse is used by youths as a way of getting back at parents. One son of a famous movie actress explains his use of drugs: “I wanted to shock mother​—hit her right between the eyes. I wanted her attention, even if it hurt. I hurt; I wanted her to hurt, too.”

But it is not simply problems at the family level that turn youths to drugs. Many youths feel that the whole system is, in effect, falling apart. They see the war, the assassinations, the greed, the hypocrisy, and everywhere the desperate pursuit of material things. This repels them. So they “drop out” of this way of life. Their attitude often is, in effect, ‘let’s eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.’ So they turn to fast living and drugs​—anything for “kicks” and to titillate the senses.

What, then, is the answer?

Is Education the Answer?

Drug education programs have been instituted in many schools, but without real success. In fact, the programs have often cultivated curiosity, and, as a result, youths have turned to drugs to see what effects they really have. Dr. Helen Nowlis, a pioneer in drug education, illustrated the failure of the programs. As she stamped out a cigarette, she said: “See, I’m an example. I know what smoking can do to me. And I smoke.”

So more than programs that simply tell of the harm that drugs do are needed. But how can sufficient motivation be provided so that young people will refrain from using drugs, and for those already addicted to break free from them?

An editorial in the Canadian newspaper The Spectator pointed to an answer. Commenting on the widespread use of marijuana, it said: “Mankind has always craved for stimulation of the senses. Against this, the law is powerless; the only effective weapon is religion, and the generally sad state of that in our society needs no comment.”

Why has worldly religion been a dismal failure in coping with the drug problem? A principal reason is that it has endorsed the life-style, philosophy and goals of this system, the very things that the young have rejected as empty and meaningless. But there is a solution to the drug problem! The basis of it is education that motivates one to adopt an entirely different philosophy of life and to pursue goals altogether different from those popular today.

Many young drug addicts have found an answer, and are now realizing real satisfaction in living. They have become a fine asset to their communities, and are helping others to find a meaningful life. Let one of them tell how he declined into the depths of addiction, but then found a way to cope successfully with the drug problem.

[Footnotes]

How I ‘Kicked’ the Drug Habit

A HEADLINE across the front page of the Youngstown, Ohio, Vindicator of December 6, 1968, read: “LIBERTY POLICE NAB 18-YEAR-OLD YOUTH FOR SELLING LSD.”

I am that youth. The court sentenced me to ten months in the Trumbull county jail. However, I was out after thirty days, and was soon back in business “pushing” (selling) drugs. I needed the money to support my own drug habit, which included all sorts of drugs, particularly LSD.

Yet I had a long way to go to reach the depths to which heroin addiction often sinks one. In all, I was in jail more than two dozen times; three times I was put in a mental hospital. More than once I was stripped naked, locked in a padded cell, and left to undergo the agonies of withdrawal​—“cold turkey,” as it is called. The last time I was taken from the cell and admitted to a hospital in critical condition; the last rites were even performed. But I pulled through and was convicted on burglary charges, finally being sent to the Mansfield unit of the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Yet that is all behind me now. I have overcome drug abuse. It has been over three and a half years since I last touched drugs, and I am confident that I never will again. This is because I have found a real answer to drug abuse.

Before telling about this, however, let me describe briefly my early life. Perhaps it will provide clues as to circumstances that often lead to drug abuse. Then, if you should notice such a pattern developing in your family, action may be taken to correct matters before it is too late.

Spoiled from Youth Up

My parents were divorced in 1951, when I was just eight months old. A battle followed, and, oddly enough, my father obtained legal custody of me. An arrangement was made for me to see my mother one day a week. When mother remarried, the battle continued, each side trying to impress me the most with material things. As a result, I became very spoiled.

Then mother gave up trying to “buy” my affection. She had begun progressing in a home Bible study with Jehovah’s witnesses. Soon pot- and pan-throwing, fighting, smoking and other bad habits began to disappear. On my visits, she and my stepfather would take me with them to meetings for Bible study. When returning home I would tell my dad the things I learned. But he did not like it. His relatives urged: “You should take him away from his mother. Jehovah’s witnesses twist the Bible​—they’re crazy!”

So a concerted effort was made to turn me against my mother. I was enticed with expensive gifts, and my father allowed me to do about whatever I pleased. Thus, one day when my mother came to pick me up, I told her: “Mom, I don’t want to see you again.” She turned to my father, and said: “John, you coached him to say that, didn’t you?” I was nine then, and it was many years before I saw mother again.

Dad remarried in August 1960. Spoiled indeed I was, and I made life miserable for my dad and stepmother. Yet never did I receive a spanking or any firm discipline. I had started smoking on the sly when I was seven, and when I was ten or eleven I would get drunk. Also, I sniffed glue, and experimented with marijuana. My undisciplined upbringing and early drug abuse twisted my thinking.

When I was about thirteen, a girl snubbed me, so I threw gasoline on their driveway, lit a match and scorched the garage. Dad paid $800 in fines and expenses. I was also caught shoplifting at about this time. But troubles were just beginning.

Sexual Immorality and Jail

While a sophomore at Liberty High School I was caught with a girl friend in an embarrassing situation in the girls’ rest room. I was expelled from school for two weeks. That summer I burned my “straight” (conservative) clothes in the backyard as a protest. My stepmother and dad were furious, and cornered me in my room. I grabbed a tear-gas gun and “shot” dad, then dove out the window. The police were called, and officer Fred Faustino pulled me from the roof and placed me under arrest. That was my first confinement in jail.

Later that year my girl friend’s father caught us in bed after school. We all ended up down at the Liberty police station. But the very next day I was involved again with this girl at her house. How little regard I had for authority, or what anybody said to me! Two weeks later, when the girl’s uncle tried to interfere, a young friend and I planned to murder him, but it did not work out.

I had become a long-haired rebel, a real troublemaker. Yet I was searching for something, something to grab hold of, some type of future. I wanted to be someone, to have attention. I began to think marriage was the answer. Our parents discussed this but decided we were too young and were only infatuated.

So we made plans to run away, and in February 1967 we did, heading west with $420 of stolen money. Our journey ended abruptly when we were apprehended in Los Angeles and flown back to Ohio. Waiting police handcuffed me and took me to the Trumbull county jail, where I spent two weeks.

Now no school around would have me. Only by begging was my father able to get me admitted to the John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in nearby Warren, where I completed my junior year. While there, I became more deeply involved in drug abuse. That summer I was arrested for breaking and entering several homes.

My senior year was a disaster. Checking school records recently with principal Frank Lehnerd, we discovered that I had been absent seventy-five days! In February 1968 I hid my girl friend in my room for three days, thinking our folks could thus be pressured to let us get married. But all I got was three months in a correctional institution in Columbus, Ohio. I was released in time to take my final exams, pass them, and graduate from high school.

At my first opportunity I encouraged my girl friend to leave home again and take a bottle of aspirin to fake a suicide attempt. I thought this would surely convince our parents that we loved each other. Crawling home, vomiting blood, she was finally turned against me when her mother said: “He doesn’t love you; you’re just his puppet. He wants you six feet under.” I was never again with that girl, but this tragic affair sank me even to lower depths of depravity, spurred on by deeper involvement in drugs.

Sink into Drug Addiction

I was not yet a real addict, but was a heavy user and a pusher. I even went to New York to pick up drugs. Finally, a concerted police effort nabbed me​—I sold drugs to a plainclothesman and was picked up with the marked money on me. That is when the front-page headlines reported my arrest. But my dad employed a good attorney, and I was out of jail by January 15, 1969.

Soon I was pushing drugs again, making plenty of money. But I needed it, for I had started “mainlining” heroin​—putting it directly into the vein with a syringe. For a few months I was spending $40 to $50 a day for drugs. Dad tried to help me. He got me jobs, but I held them only a few weeks. I was so addicted I would “shoot” drugs right at work.

This was not difficult to do. I carried the drugs to work in a compartment in my ring. Then I went to the bathroom, and, using a syringe, I injected the drugs right into the vein. But to make sure to get every bit, I would pull back, filling up the syringe with blood, and shoot again​—doing this up to ten times or so!

Then I would be off. I would get a “rush”​—as if all of a sudden I had been dropped off a building. Then I would get limp​—even the hair of my head felt limp. The whole idea of being an addict is to get as many “rushes” as one can.

At other times I would “speedball,” shooting a mixture of “speed” (methedrine) and heroin​—an “upper” and a “downer.” Then one’s body doesn’t know what to do​—relax or speed up—​it is just in a turmoil.

When one takes LSD, there is an entirely different effect. While on it, I used to think I could do anything, that I could be God and control my own destiny. Joe Schovoni, my attorney, recently told me that once while on LSD I really scared him when I told him that I could take a baby right out of a pregnant woman. It is terrible what drugs cause one to think and do. In all, I took well over 200 LSD tablets.

For over a year I lived just for “kicks,” “shooting” drugs, living with girls, and trying to avoid the police. I lived in one dirty place after another, ‘going from rat hole to rat hole,’ as dad aptly described it. The police even accused me of robbing my dad’s home. My “buddies” cleaned him out of thousands of dollars’ worth of property. In August 1969 we took off for the infamous Woodstock festival, where I peddled multiple vitamins as LSD and made a lot of money. Climbing up the scaffold next to the stage to get a good view of the performers and the crowd, I remember thinking that everyone seemed drawn by a mysterious force.

Shortly after returning home I began to reap what I had been sowing. I hit absolute bottom, and barely survived.

Narrow Escape

It was September 5, 1969. I was really “strung out,” needing drugs in the worst way. So I broke into a drugstore in the little town of Vienna, outside of Youngstown. Scrambling inside, I collected various items​—but then sirens! Trapped by the police with drawn guns, I broke down mentally, running toward them screaming, “Kill me! Kill me!”

They charged me with breaking and entering. Bond was set at $5,000. I was then taken to the familiar county jail. I had been there so often that they actually had my name inscribed over one of the cells! I was stripped naked and thrown into the tiny padded cell, a place so small that I could not stretch out lengthwise. There I began going through withdrawal. Recently Harold Post, the jailer, showed a friend and me the cell, and said: “I thought you would just lie there and die. I didn’t want anything to do with you.”

I cannot blame him. I was absolutely rotten! I rolled in my own urine and excrement like an animal, climbed the walls and beat at the vinyl padding. As Post recalls: “He was begging, I mean really begging, he was on his knees begging. But he wouldn’t take the medication offered him.”

Sheriff Richard Barnett was there at the time, and when I visited him earlier this year he recalled how critical my condition became: “You wouldn’t take any oral medication​—you were a wild man—​you’d just spit it out. So rectal suppositories were prescribed, and I had to insert these in you.” However, when I did not improve, I was taken to Woodside Receiving Hospital, a mental hospital in Youngstown.

At four in the morning my dad received a call from a nurse. She said: “Your son is sick, he needs your help . . . He’s dying.” Dad immediately got in touch with Dr. Bert Firestone, and he had me transferred to St. Elizabeth Hospital. There I was in critical condition for days. Dr. Firestone assured my father that they would try to pull me through, but that he could not guarantee I would live. St. Elizabeth’s hospital records report: “This patient was admitted . . . because of severe withdrawal symptoms due to the use of narcotics.”

Dad posted $5,000 bond, and in three weeks I was released from the hospital. But the experience did not cause me to change, even though I promised dad over and over again that I would. I still had long hair, and was soon back on all kinds of drugs. You may wonder why a person keeps going back to drugs, even after horrifying experiences like heroin withdrawal or bad LSD “trips.”

Well, when I got to feeling better I would start thinking about girls again, “kicks,” and all my associations​—hippies, “free love” people, motorcycles and running around. My amplified type of music further played on my base desires. Then I reasoned in my heart, ‘Oh, there is nothing really so bad about doing it again.’ However, my last several LSD “trips” got progressively worse. Finally, in desperation, I called my mother, closing a gap of many years. My stepfather, an elder in the congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses, arranged for me to have a Bible study where I lived.

Rocky Road to Recovery

I had my first Bible study with one of Jehovah’s witnesses in March 1970. Also, I visited the Girard Kingdom Hall. I had on black leather bell-bottoms and round granny glasses, and my hair was long. I wanted to prove that Jehovah’s witnesses were just like everybody else, just as hypocritical. But I was impressed. They showed real interest in me, and they all had the same answers to my questions. Yet my heart was not really touched, for that night I went back down to my old hippie haunts and “shot up” heroin again.

However, as I continued to study off and on, I realized that what the Bible teaches is the truth. Still, I could not, or, at least, I would not break away from drugs and my immoral way of life. Then, the last weekend in April, I had a horrifying LSD “trip.” I “saw” my girl companion decompose on the car seat next to me. The ugliness and terror of the experience is indescribable. I thought it was the end​—that I would surely kill myself. But I called on Jehovah God, using his name, begging that He help me.

Even though it was 3 a.m. I called the Witness with whom I had been studying, and he reassured me that Jehovah would help me if I was really serious this time about changing. I vowed that I would never take drugs again, and I never have. There is not a day that I do not wake up and thank my Maker for helping me to survive those experiences.

My trial came up the following week for the drugstore burglary back in September. Since public opinion was against me due to my record of repeated crimes, the judge sent me to the Ohio State Penitentiary for an offense that could carry a fifteen-year sentence. I began serving my time a few days later. Really this was a blessing for me. Why?

Because it gave me time to meditate and study. I analyzed my life, and realized how fruitless and destructive it had been. I begged Jehovah to forgive me, and told him that I wanted to do his will with all my heart. I totally immersed myself in a study of the Bible, with the help of the publications of Jehovah’s witnesses. Then, toward the end of June, through the efforts of my father, I was released. About two weeks later, on July 10, 1970, I symbolized by water baptism my dedication to serve Jehovah God.

Helping Others

I now began seeking out former close associates, not to take drugs with them, but to explain to them why I changed, and how I was able to do it. I felt a responsibility because I had started so many of them on drugs, and they had been my customers. I must have contacted at least three hundred former friends, and I feel that some will eventually respond to the Bible truths we discussed.

One of the first persons I studied the Bible with was one of my main drug customers. I had taught him how to “mainline” heroin, holding his arm and hitting his first veins for him. His family was so impressed by the change that I had made that they also participated in the study. However, he continued walking in my old footsteps. Thus far at least six of such former cohorts have died of drug-related causes. But another former associate did respond to my efforts. It was unusual how we met again.

I was calling from house to house in the ministry and had just turned away from a house when a long-haired fellow came running up the driveway. After introducing myself, he almost immediately asked: “What did you say your name was?” When I repeated it, he said: “No, you can’t be, you’re not the one from Murray Hill Drive!” He looked familiar, but I could not place him until he said his name. Sure! Together we had planned to murder my girl friend’s uncle. But he refused to believe who I was until I pulled out my wallet to produce identification. My appearance had changed completely.

I eventually started a study with him, and he progressed in Bible appreciation, quit drugs, and was baptized early in 1972. That summer we told our experiences at the district assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. We also have had the opportunity to speak to classes of students about the drug problem and why they should avoid drugs. Youngsters who knew about my past involvement in drugs asked teachers to arrange these talks.

For example, in November 1972 we spoke to six classes at the Mahoning County Joint Vocational School. Over 600 students in all were present! They were extremely attentive, and accepted over a hundred books and about a hundred magazines that explain further the faith and hope that enabled us to overcome drug abuse. On December 5, 1972, I received a folder with five dozen letters from these students. They were very appreciative, yet most of them said that they could not believe we had really been so deeply involved in drugs. No one could make such a great change, they felt.

Documenting the Change

That is a common opinion. For example, the Seattle School District’s chief security officer, Charles O’Toole, asserted: “There is no return (cure) from drugs.” Also, the chief of the Narcotics Division in Youngstown, William A. Friednamer, told me that in all his years of dealing with drugs he had never seen a heroin addict stay off drugs for more than three or four months. “But now there is you,” he added, almost in unbelief.

It is understandable, therefore, that many might be skeptical when reading my story about overcoming drug addiction. For this reason, earlier this year I made visits on dozens of persons who had dealings with me as a drug addict, including police officers, probation officers, jailers, judges, attorneys, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, and so forth. I told them why I had come to see them and asked for their comments.

Most simply could not believe that I was the same person. They all, of course, knew my name​—it was notorious. But on occasion I had to produce identification to prove that I was really the same person. Nearly all wanted to know: ‘How long have you been off drugs? How is it possible? What made you change?’ I was grateful for the opportunity to explain.

The Real Solution

Denny Corodo is one of the police officers that I visited. He was in on my arrest at the drugstore break-in. He is now a captain, and is devoted solely to giving talks to high schools and other community groups about drugs and the drug problem. “You’ve really changed! I can’t believe it!” he kept saying as we talked over the past. “You’ve had something happen to you, something that affected you mentally, some realization of some kind.”

I told him that was right, that I had come to appreciate that I was accountable to my Creator. And this realization did not just reach the mind, I said; it sank into my heart. A desire to serve God has crowded out of my heart immorality, drugs and all such things, and it has provided me the motivation and strength to do what is right.

Also, on March 1, 1973, I had an appointment with Dr. Firestone, the physician at the St. Elizabeth Hospital who cared for me during withdrawal. When I came in, he exclaimed:. “I just can’t believe this is you!” He then asked if he could bring in other doctors on the staff who were acquainted with my case. They, too, were amazed at the change I had made. “How did you get out of this mess?” they wanted to know.

I explained that I came to realize that I was not the maker of my own destiny. Too many times I had ended up on dead-end roads. I had run on my own standards; I had felt like I was God and could make my own rules and do whatever I wanted to​—just pursue pleasure. But then, I said, through a Bible study, I came to have a healthy fear of my Creator. Also, I could see that there is a group of people who really live according to what the Bible teaches, and that these are Jehovah’s witnesses.

“What is so special about Jehovah’s witnesses compared to other faiths?” I was asked. I explained that by studying the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses I was able to see clearly God’s grand purpose for mankind. For example, what the condition of the dead is, the certain hope of the resurrection, and how this earth will be made a paradise under the rule of God’s kingdom. It is faith and conviction regarding these things, I said, that has enabled me to overcome drug abuse.

I told the doctors that I had examined other religions, including even Buddhism, and that I had been raised a Roman Catholic. But there is simply nothing solid in these religions​—no conviction, no real hope and faith in the Creator, Jehovah God. For this reason they have been unable to provide the necessary motivation for young people to give up drugs.

For nearly three years now I have served as a full-time pioneer minister of Jehovah’s witnesses. And I have found that I am not the only one who has made such a big change in his life. I have come to know many true friends who, after studying the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses and coming to an appreciation of their Creator, have broken free from the drug habit. If these can do it, you can too, if you are a drug abuser. Practicing the true religion is clearly an answer to the drug problem!​—Contributed.

Needle Infections

● The epidemic of drug taking has resulted in an increase of infectious diseases caused by the use of contaminated needles and syringes. Repeated needle punctures break the skin’s protective barrier and open the way for infectious diseases to travel throughout the body. In one city, twenty-four young adults died in one year from heart infections alone. In the case of one young girl, bacteria traveled past her skin where contaminated needles had been used, through her veins, and lodged on a heart valve. Despite treatment with tens of millions of units of antibiotics, she died.

Religion in Politics​—to What Does It Lead?

YOU have probably noticed that in recent years the churches have been placing a lot more emphasis on social and political issues. Many clergymen around the world are joining a rush to “get involved.”

Sincere persons wonder if this is the proper role of religion. They may note that, on the surface, participation in community affairs and political activities appears to be well motivated. News headlines tell of clerics who suffer imprisonment and even lose their lives in the fight for a social cause.

But what is really behind this growing political activity? Is it motivated by devotion to Christian ideals, faith in God and a desire to see his will done on earth? To what will it finally lead? A review of recent political trends in religion will help to bring the answers into focus.

Christendom’s Changing Stance

The booklet Church and Powers published by the French Protestant Federation makes this comment about the historical relationship of religion and politics:

“The undeniable fact is that in the political field, the organized church has more often than not been directed, willingly or unwillingly, toward two extremes: either it has claimed, sometimes by force, authority over the political powers, . . . [or] it has accepted to be the principal agent, accomplice or silent witness of an unjust social order.”

However, Catholic archbishop Marcos G. McGrath of Panama says this is no longer universally true: “The old concept of a church as a parallel structure to the secular power, and sometimes identified with it, is rapidly changing.”

Now, under the banner of “helping the poor,” “relevance” and “social justice,” an increasing number of the clergy are taking a new direction. Radical social and political criticism is replacing their traditional progovernment stance. They are urging the rank and file to take an active part in politics, even encouraging them to do so with the “leftist” socialist elements.

Church Leaders Promote Politics

In May of 1971, Pope Paul VI made public a seventy-page “apostolic letter” sent to Cardinal Roy, archbishop of Quebec. Regarding the Catholic view of politics, it says:

“It rests with Christian communities to analyze objectively . . . which choices and commitments should properly be made in order to bring about the social, political and economic changes that prove to be necessary and often urgent. . . . It is the Christian’s duty to take part in this research and in the organization and life of political society.”

What is the pope telling his subjects to do? In a front-page editorial headed “Paul VI, Christians and Politics,” the Paris daily Le Monde draws the conclusion: “There can be no mistaking; this is a true pontifical document, carefully prepared, that could have as its title: ‘Christians Brought into Social and Political Life.’”

How far might a sincere Catholic go to bring about ‘urgent political changes’? Can he participate in the previously condemned “left,” the socialist or Communist movements? These are often the ones most actively promoting “social, political and economic changes.” In answer, the letter continues:

“Today, some Christians are drawn to socialist trends. . . . [acute discernment] will enable Christians to see to what extent they can commit themselves to follow that road. . . . One is obliged to recognize that a variety of legitimate [political] choices are possible.”​—Le Monde, May 15, 1971.

The left-wing Italian newspapers, Stampa and Avanti, noted from this that Pope Paul now allowed Catholics to cooperate with certain forms of socialism. Gabriel Matagrin, bishop of Grenoble, France, went still farther, stating: “Nowhere does the letter state that it is impossible for a Christian to be a communist or for a communist to be a Christian.”​—Annecy Catholique, October 1971.

The 136 French bishops assembled at Lourdes in October of 1972 lent their voices to the growing chorus. A long report entitled “For a Christian Practice of Politics” emerged. Quoting from this, the Catholic journal America shows the extent of political participation recommended for the faithful by these bishops:

“Certain imperatives clearly emerge for one who takes the Word of God seriously: ‘respect for the poor, defense of the weak, . . . overthrow of totalitarian powers.’ The Gospel is not neutral about such matters, and those who are witnesses of the Gospel ‘may be led to interventions in political matters that will astonish some.’”​—November 18, 1972.

Clergymen in many parts of the world have taken to this view of the “Gospel” with fervor. Does this report from United Press International “astonish” you?

“In Latin America the Roman Catholic Church is something unto itself. And in much of it, radical Catholicism and Castro-style Communism go hand in hand under the slogan: ‘Viva Christ. Viva Marx.’ . . . Theirs are not the plaster saints of traditional Catholic piety, but angry flesh and blood figures of the recent past​—Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and the Rev. Camilo Torres, a Colombia guerrilla priest.”​—The Jersey Journal, April 20, 1973.

A report in the magazine Latin America also notes high-level political activity. It says that three archbishops and ten bishops in Brazil’s northeast with “a reputation for being ‘left-wing’” recently issued a “blistering attack on the government and all its works.” The report continues:

“Such a development could hardly have occurred, in the view of many observers, without the green light from the Vatican . . . Furthermore, the declaration of 6 May appears to show that, in contrast with its previous policy, the Church is no longer afraid of stepping into the political arena.”​—May 25, 1973.

Do you find it difficult to relate such activity to the “Gospel”? Many do. Yet many Protestant leaders have also taken a similar stance toward politics.

Shortly after the Catholic bishops met at Lourdes, the French Protestant Federation held its triennial assembly. Le Monde headlined its long report on the meeting: “Politics the Crux of the Discussions.” The previously quoted booklet, Church and Powers, was used as a basis. Concerning a Christian’s political outlook, the booklet says:

“A number of theological trends generally known among the French Protestant public, particularly the young, point out that in the face of recognized social injustice, love of neighbor requires definite commitment in the world, . . . and personal ‘involvement in politics.’”

This “personal ‘involvement in politics’” could go to the point of “revolutionary rebellion,” say the Protestant leaders.

In the same vein, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Philip Potter, told Berkeley, California, seminarians and faculty:

“The role of theology is to be an agent of change​—with a refusal to be caught by what is! . . . Revolution and violence is admittedly dangerous. But didn’t Easter bring the promise of revolution?”​—San Francisco Examiner, June 11, 1973.

The World Council and other Protestant bodies have recently been strongly criticized for making large financial contributions to revolutionaries and “being obsessed with political and social issues.”​—New York Times, August 29, 1973.

Of course, not all clergy and laity are in agreement with the foregoing activities. But the fact is that there is a growing trend of religion in radical politics, and that fact is worthy of note.

Why the Change?

As we have noted, throughout history political leaders could usually count on full support from clergymen. Now, after all these hundreds of years, why is their position changing?

Notice what the Catholic publication America suggests as a reason. One recent article refers to a “‘gathering storm’ in the Protestant Churches as the ministers who have serious doubts about basic theological doctrines try to engage their parishioners in social action programs.” (September 1, 1973; italics ours.) A similar reason is given for Catholic political activity: “Many priests and nuns have abandoned their role as preachers of a meaning-system (called ‘the gospel’), and are seeking ‘relevance’ . . . in radical political activity, which may (or may not) be a consequence of faith, but is certainly no substitute for it.”​—October 28, 1972.

That is the crux of the matter, is it not? “Serious doubts” and lack of faith in the gospel’s “relevance” are driving many clergymen to look for “meaning” elsewhere. Without faith in the “gospel” or “good news” of God’s Kingdom for the blessing of mankind, they believe that reform has to come by human political means. As Richard J. Mouw, writing in The Christian Century magazine, put it:

“God has chosen to call apart a people as his instrument for bringing in his Kingdom . . . the redemption of the world is, among other things, a political redemption. . . . The political sphere is not merely an area in which a Christian can be a witness; it is one in which we are called to proclaim the liberating power of the gospel.”​—December 27, 1972.

Yet the “gospel” referred to in the Bible is about God’s heavenly kingdom that will rule the earth, not an earthly, political one set up by men. (Matt. 9:35; 10:7) That is why Jesus said, “Mine is not a kingdom of this world,” and of those truly serving him, “My choice withdrew you from the world.” (John 18:36; 15:19, Catholic Jerusalem Bible) Jesus’ words agree with what the prophet Daniel had said long before. Not men, but “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin.” As for humans being the ones to run it, Daniel’s inspired prophecy says it “will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms.”​—Dan. 2:44.

Do religious leaders believe in the separateness of God’s heavenly kingdom? No! The booklet Church and Powers counters the Bible’s plain position on this matter by saying that “these relations [between Church and State] have been based on a narrow-minded reading of the Scriptures that separate the two realms.” What do they offer sincere persons to replace this so-called “narrow-minded reading of the Scriptures”?

Is it not just another brand of politics and revolution engineered by men? Though they realize the futility of their former faithless course as the “principal agent, accomplice or silent witness of an unjust social order,” are they now turning in faith to God? More important, are they instilling in sincere churchgoers faith in the gospel about God’s kingdom, which is their greatest responsibility? The record plainly answers, No.

To What Does Meddling Lead?

How do you think the political leaders are viewing religion’s militant ventures into their domain? Can religious leaders expect immunity from harm merely because they claim to represent God? Increasingly they are finding themselves viewed as political meddlers and treated as such. The Catholic periodical Maryknoll complains:

“Committed Christians are facing increasing persecution in Latin America . . . They are lumped along with guerrillas and communists as subversive threats to the power of rightwing governments. The persecution is for political rather than spiritual reasons.”​—February 1973, p. 47 (italics ours).

A number have even lost their lives and those of their followers. One, Nestor Paz, “finally took to the hills with an armed band of 70 students” in Bolivia. They “were hunted down and killed by government militia.”​—San Francisco Examiner, January 11, 1973.

Do you think this kind of suffering brings God’s approval? Notice the principle stated by the apostle Peter: “If you are being reproached for the name of Christ, you are happy . . . However, let none of you suffer as a . . . busybody in other people’s matters.”— 1 Pet. 4:14, 15, NW; Rotherham, Berkeley.

With this in mind, note the following report given by the New York Times about the recent French atom bomb testing controversy:

“The military men are telling the clergy to keep out of the business of state, to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to get on with dispensing charity and preaching the faith. . . . The soldiers are rebuking the churchmen for not following Jesus’s reminder that ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The churchmen are chastising the soldiers because they have failed to recognize the clergy’s changing role.”​—July 18, 1973.

To what will the clergy’s course of political meddling finally lead?

What Future for Religion in Politics?

The Bible graphically illustrates how God views relationships between religion and politics. They are likened to illicit sex relations and called “adulterous.” (Jas. 4:4, Jerusalem Bible) So, fittingly, worldly religion’s role in history is represented in the Revelation as being like that of a “famous prostitute . . . with whom all the kings of the earth have committed fornication.”​—Rev. 17:2, JB.

But the Bible shows that things are going to change for this prostitute. All the political rulers who have put their powers at the disposal of the worldwide political organization, the U.N. (pictured by a “beast”), are portrayed as “ten horns” that “are ten kings . . . all of one mind in putting their strength and their powers at the beast’s disposal.” Soon, now, the Revelation goes on to say, “the time will come when the ten horns and the beast will turn against the prostitute, and strip off her clothes and leave her naked; then they will eat her flesh and burn the remains in the fire.” Those who formerly enjoyed this prostitute will see reason to “turn against” her, laying her open for all to see what she really is, and then destroying her.​—Rev. 17:12, 13, 16, JB.

Now worldly religion feels safe behind her cloak of piety. As the Bible notes, she says: “I am the queen on my throne, . . . and I am no widow and shall never be in mourning.” Yet the Bible also foretells: “For that, within a single day, the plagues will fall on her . . . The Lord God has condemned her, and he has great power.”​—Rev. 18:7, 8, JB.

So religious meddling in politics leads to God’s condemnation and unexpected destruction from the political rulers themselves. And the foretold destruction will come with startling suddenness.

What can sincere Christians do to avoid the same end? The Revelation does not leave us in doubt: “Come out, my people, away from her, so that you do not share in her crimes and have the same plagues to bear.”​—Rev. 18:4, JB.

If you sincerely desire to please God in your worship, then you will certainly “come out” of religion that has become impure with the world’s politics. Instead, you will associate with the “pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father,” where true Christians are “keeping [themselves] uncontaminated by the world.” Jehovah’s witnesses will be pleased to assist you to this end.​—Jas. 1:27, JB.

Fiji​—Palette of the Pacific

By “Awake!” correspondent in Fiji

HERE in Fiji a multicolored canvas passes before the eyes. There are gaily turbaned Moslems, bearded Sikhs, busy Chinese. You will notice a few in conical hats and traditional black mandarin trousers. Madrasi womenfolk will be seen in saris of vivid pinks and purples buying sweetmeats from a curbside vendor. A Malay-type woman in unusual garb haggles with a tourist over the price of a basket.

But amidst this mixed population one nationality with a great head of hair stands a little taller than the rest, the native Fijian. With his splendid physique, and dressed in his unique sulu, described by one chief as the “kilt of the South Sea Highlanders,” the Fijian retains an individuality distinct from all others.

“But,” you may ask, “how is it that there are so many nationalities in Fiji, these remote islands in the vast Pacific?” To answer this we must open the pages of history.

The Fijian

Much of the past is sketchy. At some unknown time in the past, seafaring migrants in great double canoes sailed from the west through the uncharted waters of the Pacific. They had no sextant, compass or charts. They sailed mostly into the sun, against prevailing winds and currents. Their only navigational aids were their eyes and knowledge of the sea. Legends, and a now generally accepted theory, trace the path of these travelers back to Indonesia, considered to be the springboard to the Pacific. Fiji later became a melting pot of mixed Melanesian and Polynesian stock.

These Melanesian migrants became the South Pacific’s best shipbuilders. Their well-known double canoes were built of heavy planks hewn from split logs with stone axlike cutting tools and lashed together with sennit. The joints were designed with such precision that they rarely needed caulking. Some took as long as seven years to build. The largest Fijian canoe on record is the Rusa-i-Vanua, with an overall length of 118 feet and a deck 50 feet long and 24 feet wide, the mast being 68 feet high and each of the two yards measuring 90 feet. Such canoes could carry one hundred men with supplies for a long journey and reach a speed of fifteen knots. Centuries passed, and then the picture in Fiji changed with the advent of the European.

The European and Modern History

Though Fiji was visited earlier by a Dutchman, it felt European influence to a greater extent in the eighteenth century when explorers came this way. Among them were the sandalwood seekers. Sweet-smelling sandalwood contains an oil that has long been prized in Polynesia. A profitable market for this fragrant wood could be found in China and India, where it was highly valued for incense, religious articles, fine cabinet work and scent. A cargo of two hundred and fifty tons purchased with barter goods valued at one hundred dollars sold in China for forty thousand dollars. This led adventurous men through treacherous reefs to the shores of Vanua Levu and pitted them against the most dreaded cannibals of the South Seas.

During this period Fiji came to be known as the Cannibal Isles. This fearsome title was no misnomer either, for it was the Fijian’s passion for human flesh that caused poet Robert Brooke to write:

The limbs that erstwhile charmed your sight

Are now a savage’s delight;

The ear that heard your whispered vow

Is one of many entrees now.

Some chiefs subscribed to cannibalism with relish. Chief Ra Udreudre is said to have dined on 900 bodies in his lifetime. Then there is the authenticated account of the ill-fated Wesleyan clergyman, Thomas Baker, who was slain and then eaten, boots and all. Parts of his charred boots may be seen in the Suva Museum along with the flesh-eating forks. Whatever the causes, cannibalism overshadowed and tarnished the fine qualities of the Fijian.

In 1835 Wesleyan missionaries Cross and Cargill arrived. Some of the natives accepted the teachings of the black-coated strangers, but for wrong reasons. The islander’s idea of a god was of one who either blessed or punished them, and they worshiped these because of their power. When they saw that Europeans could produce metal tools, the printing press, firearms and warships, they reasoned that the new god must be more powerful than theirs and it would be best to worship him.

From 1840 onward, European settlers came in successive waves, hoping to find their “pot of gold.” They traded, purchased property at five cents an acre and established plantations. These required large work forces. Fijians were unsuitable, as they worked only on impulse and were unwilling to undertake menial labor. So some planters bought slaves on the open market. This demand for labor added another ethnic group to the scene.

Islands with a Varied Population

With the American Civil War, cotton growing in Fiji became a profitable occupation. Later the sugar industry was developed. Laborers were in great demand and the planters looked to India. Already Indian laborers were being used under an indenture system in Africa, and in 1879 Fiji followed suit. The indenture system continued here until 1916. Of the 64,000 Indians in Fiji at that time, 24,000 returned to India, while others remained in Fiji as settlers.

Today the Indians are as much a part of Fiji as the Fijians, contributing their own accent of color in the glittering mosaic of life. Indian taxi drivers, in white shirts and dark trousers, cater to tourists in search of bargains at the famous duty-free stores of Cumming Street.

There are also domed Moslem mosques crowned with the star and crescent of Islam. Here devotees of Allah bow six times a day. Hindu homes can be found too, containing framed pictures of the Hindu gods, such as Brahma and Siva.

Then there is the Chinese community. These are frugal, hard-working people, fitting quietly into the population as butchers, bakers, merchants, market gardeners and restaurateurs. Other peoples that add color to this palette of the Pacific are Rotumans, Tongans, Samoans and islanders from the Gilbert and Ellice group and the Solomons. Some are the offspring of those brought to Fiji as laborers or wives of the early settlers. Others simply migrated and made Fiji their home.

There is disagreement as to the actual number of islands in the group. Many say there are three hundred and sixty-one. About one hundred of these are inhabited. If the many fragments were joined in a giant jigsaw, the total area of 7,022 square miles would almost equal that of the state of New Jersey.

“Gateway to the Day”

Because the group of islands straddles the International Dateline, Fiji could fittingly be called the “Alarm Clock of the World.” It is here that each new day begins. This creates humorous problems for those living astride the dateline, for on one side it is today but on the other side tomorrow or yesterday. One Taveuni Island merchant claimed that the dateline intersected his store, and so he conducted trade through the front door until Saturday, and through the back door the next day, which he claimed was Monday, in this way trying to overcome the objection of the missionaries to trading on a Sunday.

Some of these islands are but carpets of sand. Others feature majestic volcanic peaks clad in jungle growth, encircled with reefs and foam. Even in the capital, Suva, there is an abundance of tropic growth.

The surrounding water is crystal clear. Taking a cruise in a glass-bottomed boat, you can have an unimpaired view of one of the world’s largest displays of undersea life. But most beautiful of all are the Fijians themselves.

Colorful Customs and Ceremonies

The modern Melanesian is different from his bloodthirsty forebears. He is very hospitable. The Fijian gives freely of his taro and bananas to a neighbor in need. Willful neglect of poorer kinsfolk by wealthier relations is criminal to him. This community custom, known as kere kere (“to beg” or “ask for”), might be called the South Seas social security. If a man lost his home or crops in a hurricane he could go to his richer relative and ask for food or other aid. If his kin had it, he would not be refused. Naturally, such a custom prevents individuals from amassing wealth of any kind. Kere kere sets the community-minded Fijian apart from the Indian who banks his money to build a home or buy a shop.

Ceremonies, too, add dramatic color to the way of life. Drinking yacona (kava) is a common ceremonial and social custom among Fijians. The drink is made from the powdered root of the pepper plant (Piper methysticum) in a large tanoa (yacona bowl) adorned with a rope of coconut sennit and white cowrie shells. The powder is steeped in water and strained with the fibers of hibiscus bark.

During the ceremony, when the one seated at the tanoa considers the drink to be of the right consistency, he throws the fibers over his shoulder. The cupbearer, dressed in a skirt of crimson leaves, moves forward stealthily to receive the first serving with a polished half coconut shell. With arms outstretched he carries the bowl to the guest of honor. A ripple of applause arises from the red- and black-painted participants. Then the bowl is returned for the next serving.

Of course, yacona is not confined to ceremony, for it is consumed daily and is referred to fondly as “grog.” When sunset draws the menfolk home from the cane-fields or a community fish drive, “grog” (nonalcoholic) is an open invitation to a long, gregarious evening accompanied with guitar and song.

They Walk on Fire

The most spectacular ceremony, viewed by many newcomers, is the mysterious fire walking done by both Fijians and Indians. Both races follow a two-week period of tabu (prohibition) from certain foods and from sex relations. The Indians’ preparation for this basically religious ceremony includes meditation and prayer. Then several long silver skewers are forced through the tongues, cheeks and earlobes of these Hindu devotees. After this they are led to a pit lined with six inches of red-hot embers. Facing some religious images, they begin to walk, unharmed, through the embers while their womenfolk watch and sway to the throb of drums.”

The Fijian ceremony is no less spectacular. They heat up a huge pit full of large boulders (from their home island of Beqa) until these are white hot. This takes about eight hours. Then the bete (priest) leads the colorfully dressed fire walkers over the stones without a single burn. While medical authorities cannot explain how it is possible, students of the Bible realize that it is due to the power of wicked spirits.

An International Assembly

This December, Fiji will be a focal point for Jehovah’s witnesses in the South Pacific. At Nadi, amid the patchwork fields of cane and in an oasis of palms, the Fijian Witnesses have erected large, island-style auditoriums from bamboo, reeds and palms for an international convention. Some things might not seem sophisticated or geared for efficient organization, but be assured it will be adequate and hospitable, with that warm island atmosphere that will make it authentically South Seas in atmosphere. To illustrate this warmth, last year New Caledonian Witnesses paid an estimated seven thousand dollars in air fares and other expenses for their poorer Fijian brothers to attend an assembly with them in French New Caledonia, something they could not afford themselves.

The convention program will be in English, French, Fijian, Tahitian and Samoan, with Bible dramas in all these languages, each with its own island flavor. The assembly will afford one the opportunity to see the variety in island costumes​—Fijian, Tahitian, Tongan, Samoan, Indian and Vietnamese.

If you could be here, no doubt you would have many lasting memories. Among them would be the unforgettable Fijian farewell song, Isa Lei. It is another reminder that Fiji is a colorful palette of the Pacific.

Shall We Serve Rice Today?

By “Awake!” correspondent in Panama

IF YOU were from Panama you would probably answer without a moment’s hesitation, “Yes, by all means, we must have rice.” Rice is eaten in most homes seven days a week, and often twice a day. If asked whether other staple foods were not eaten here, someone would be sure to answer: “Of course, we like potatoes, macaroni, spaghetti and other starches, but, in addition to rice, not in place of it.”

Rice is relished by small children to the extent that they will cry for it as some children in other countries cry for candy or ice cream. Children here love rice so much they are known even to pray for it. A missionary tells of conducting a Bible study with a mother and her nine children:

“We were studying about the ‘Lord’s Prayer.’ When I asked what Jesus meant by telling us to pray for our daily bread, one of the children concernedly asked, ‘What about the rice? Can’t we ask for rice too?’ Others chimed in, ‘Yes, what about the rice?’

“‘Bread’ was alright, but not in the place of rice! After their mother and I explained that ‘bread’ included rice and all the other material necessities of the day, they calmed down and were ready to continue with the study.”

What makes rice so well liked here by both young and old? It is the delicious way it is prepared and because it is so easily digested. Come, see how it is prepared.

A Basic Recipe

We will begin with a basic recipe. First, we need an iron or aluminum paila, a heavy pot with a rounded bottom. This makes it easier to turn the rice without stirring it. A heavy skillet or flat-bottomed pan can be used, but these do not serve as well. And, of course, rice in a thin-bottomed pot will burn easily.

Let us begin by preparing a small amount. Take two cups of rice, wash quickly in cold water and drain in a sieve. Do not soak rice in water; that would make it pasty. Put your pot on a high flame and pour in a little oil, lard or vegetable shortening​—about two tablespoonfuls. When it is hot, put in the rice and stir until every grain is well covered with oil. Add one tablespoonful of salt (or less) and three cups of water; either hot or cold may be used. Due to the hot flame it should boil almost immediately. Boil quite vigorously until it looks dry on the surface.

Now turn down the flame to a low simmer and cover tightly. In ten or fifteen minutes turn the rice gently with a large spoon, but do not stir. Cover tightly again. In fifteen or twenty minutes your rice is ready to serve with your meal. It should be light and fluffy. If you are cooking a larger amount it will take a few more careful ‘turnings’ to loosen the rice and get the bottom grains to the top and vice versa. Also, it will require more time, but once the rice is done it may remain on a low flame for some time without losing its fluffiness.

Not all rice is the same, some takes a little more or a little less liquid. But with experience you will learn how much to use. Do not worry if the rice has browned some on the bottom, or even if it is burned slightly. This only adds to the flavor. You may serve your beautiful white rice off the top; children love the concolón scraped off the bottom.

Variations

For a change you may want to try this: When your oil is very hot, add just two tablespoons of your dry, washed rice and toast to a golden brown. Then add the rest of the rice and stir until every grain is covered with oil, and proceed as in the above recipe. This gives a delicious toasted flavor to all the rice.

Experience will make you like most Panamanian housewives, who each have their own methods. As one said, “I never measure the water, and never look at the clock.” Even many of our twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, both boys and girls, are experts at preparing very tasty rice.

Tasty Meal Suggestions

Rice beautifully accompanies almost any type of meal and, here in Panama, generally occupies most of the space on a served plate. If yours is for a hardworking man, this would mean a heaping portion. Usually meat is prepared with a well-seasoned tomato sauce, and a small piece of meat is served with a little sauce on top of the rice, with two or three slices of fried plantain. Add a generous serving of stewed beans or lentils and you have a complete meal. A chicha, a cool, sweet drink, or a cup of coffee will do nicely to finish off the meal.

Here is another suggestion. Take one carrot, and one or two each of onions, sweet red peppers, tomatoes and celery sticks. Dice these. You can also add one mashed clove of garlic​—using more or less garlic according to your taste. Add all of this to your hot oil at the start. Also add either cubed ham, pork, dried shrimp or chicken. After all of this is fried lightly and stirred often to keep it from browning, add your rice. An extra half-cup of water may be required, but, remember, we want to keep it all dry and fluffy.

If you wish, for a change you can add two cups of finely cut, fresh, green string beans, but do not add them until the rice is reasonably dry, and you are ready to cover it for the steaming. Put the finely cut string beans on the top. Then after the first ten minutes of steaming, turn them under. They will not get well done, but will give a fresh, crunchy flavor to your nourishing rice. In fact, any of the vegetables may be added at this stage instead of frying them first.

Some cooks may prefer to add the sautéed vegetables and meat to the already cooked rice. The only drawback may be a little too much oil, which may not favor your waistline. Leftover rice may also be added to the fried mixture, but, again, watch the amount of oil. Add only a sprinkle of water, and cover tightly in order to steam for a few minutes. The rice will not lose its fullness.

Are there any leftover beans or lentils in the refrigerator? After you fry your rice, add these with the water. But when you add the salt, remember that these were already salted. Proceed as you would in the basic recipe.

A uniquely flavored rice is made with coconut milk and is truly delicious if you like the coconut flavor. Take one coconut and grate the meat with a fine grater, or put it in a blender. Add about five cups of water and strain through a sieve, pressing tightly until all the milk has been extracted. Boil until you have about four cups of liquid left. Add one tablespoonful of salt and two cups of rice. This will have to be cooked rather slowly, as it has a tendency to burn easily. When rather dry cover tightly. You may need to turn it several times before it is thoroughly done in order to keep it from sticking. It can be served with any meal.

A Special Dish

So now, with all this experience, shall we try our ‘very special occasion’ rice? It is called arroz con pollo, chicken with rice.

Cut up a three- or four-pound chicken into moderate-size pieces. Add one tablespoonful of vinegar or lemon juice, and two tablespoonfuls of salt. Add finely cut onion, tomato, celery, parsley, sweet red pepper, mashed garlic, a little black pepper and any other spices to your liking, but sparingly. Mix thoroughly and let it stand for one hour, covered. Add one cup of tomato paste or two cups of tomato catsup. Put on a low flame and let the sauce steam for about a half hour, or until it is very thick. Add eight cups of water and cook until the chicken is tender.

In a large iron pot put about four tablespoonfuls of oil, and set it on a high flame. When it is hot, add four cups of rice and fry. Make sure that each grain is covered with oil. Remove the chicken from the sauce and strain out the vegetables. Add seven cups of the liquid sauce to the rice. If there is not enough liquid sauce on the chicken, add water to suffice. Add salt to taste and boil until reasonably dry.

Now, you can either de-bone your chicken and mix the chicken with the rice, or set aside the pieces of chicken to be added later. Take the vegetables that had been strained out of the sauce, along with olives, capers, pimentos and one cup of whole-kernel corn, and one cup of peas drained of liquid. These are all put on top of the dry rice, covered and steamed for about twenty minutes.

If you are cooking in a rather thin-bottomed pot, you may want to put the pot in the oven for this stage so as to assure yourself that the food will not burn. After twenty minutes turn the rice very carefully, keeping it fluffy. Steam again for twenty minutes, covering tightly. Taste to make sure that all the grains are well done, but not pasty. If the rice is not well done, steam a while longer. When it is all done heap the rice on a large platter, with the pieces of chicken arranged on top and around. Garnish with strips of pimento and sprigs of parsley. All you need to complete this meal is a light salad.

A Valuable Food

According to one authority, rice is eaten by over 1,500,000,000 people on earth today, or almost half of the human race. Brown rice, which is the rice grain from which the husk has not been removed, contains B-complex, E and K vitamins, and has more nutritional value than polished rice. Polished rice contains about 25 percent carbohydrate, small amounts of iodine, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and almost negligible amounts of protein and fat. When is the last time that you ate rice?

We extend a hearty invitation to you to use our recipes and, if you visit Panama, to try some of our rice dishes firsthand.

What Is the Bible’s View?

Satan the Devil​—Personification or a Person?

THE Holy Bible makes frequent mention of Satan the Devil. With reference to the chief adversary of God and man, the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) speak of Satan (meaning “adversary”) eighteen times. The Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament) refer to the same one thirty-four times as Satan and over thirty times by the term Devil (meaning “slanderer”).

Many believe that the Devil is a wicked spirit person who can influence man toward evil. Others deny this. They hold that the Devil is not a person, but merely the personification of an abstract principle of evil. According to the New York Times Magazine of February 4, 1973, a Catholic Scripture scholar recently said: “No up-to-date theologian believes that Satan is a person.”

Which is the truth? Is the Devil a personification or a person? Knowledge of the Bible’s view of this matter will prove to be most beneficial. Bible scholar Louis Matthews Sweet explains why: “Not only is the Bible entirely free from the extravagances of popular Satanology, which is full of absurd stories concerning the appearances, tricks, and transformations of Satan among men, but it exhibits a dependable accuracy and consistency of statement which is most reassuring.”

The earliest direct references to Satan (literally, “the Satan”) in the Bible are found in Job, chapters one and two. These chapters introduce Satan when he is speaking with Jehovah God. (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7) This alone presents difficulties for any who, while professing belief in the Bible, claim that Satan is simply a personification of evil in someone. If “Satan” is only the evil in any person, the evil must have been in Jehovah God with whom Satan was speaking. But the Bible describes God as one “in whom there is no unrighteousness.”​—Ps. 92:15.

An experience that Jesus had with the Devil is similar. Matthew 4:1 relates that “Jesus was led by [God’s] spirit up into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.” Was Jesus tempted by evil within himself? Such a view does not harmonize with the Bible’s description of Jesus as “a righteous one” who “committed no sin.” (1 John 2:1; 1 Pet. 2:22) No, the Satan that appeared before Jehovah God and that tempted Jesus Christ was separate from them.

You will note, too, that these accounts relate conversations between the Devil and God, and between the Devil and Jesus Christ. Both Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are persons. Can an unintelligent ‘force’ carry on a conversation with a person? Also, the Bible calls Satan a manslayer, a liar, a father (in a spiritual sense) and a ruler. (John 8:44; 14:30) Only an intelligent person could fit all those descriptions. Therefore, M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia states: “All the forms of personal agency are made use of by the sacred writers in setting forth the character and conduct of Satan. . . . Every quality, every action, which can indicate personality, is attributed to him in language which cannot be explained away.”

The Scriptures indicate that the Devil was originally a perfect, righteous spirit creature. But he “did not stand fast in the truth.” (John 8:44) Only after he willingly took a course of opposition and resistance to God was he called Satan.

In the case of Adam and Eve, he portrayed God as exercising his sovereignty in a wrong way in prohibiting their eating of the fruit of a certain tree. He presented disobedience to God as the way to freedom. However, their succumbing to this selfish desire “to be like God” (or ‘to become their own boss’) brought about, not freedom, but their death and that of their offspring. Thus Jesus called the Devil “a manslayer.” (John 8:44) Later Satan tried to make Job and Jesus Christ abandon God for selfish reasons. But in this he failed.​—Job 1:9-11; 2:4; Luke 4:1-13.

However, Satan’s activity has not been limited to individuals. Jesus called him “the ruler of the world.” (John 14:30) Revelation 12:9 shows that the “Devil and Satan” is “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” Do we see in human history evidence of the influence of a wicked spirit person of superhuman intelligence?

Andrew M. Greeley, a Roman Catholic priest associated with the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, commented about the pattern of evil evident throughout human history:

“The magnitude of the evil is not proportionate to the malice of the people involved. . . . If there is a superintelligence guiding the powers of evil, one must say that his strategy has been brilliant.”

The twentieth century is especially significant in this respect. Professor of History René Albrecht-Carrié writes: “The nineteenth century is now often regarded as a century of peace, a view certainly warranted by the contrast between it and our own time of cataclysmic strife. That era sharply came to an end in 1914.” That was the year that World War I broke out.

Dr. Scott Nearing of the University of Pennsylvania points out that many believed that World War I could not happen “because people were too civilized, war was too expensive, there was too much feeling against war.”

Nevertheless, world war came in 1914. This ushered in a generation of “total war” in which World War II and numerous other wars have drenched the earth with innocent blood. Also, food shortages, disease epidemics, violence and crime on an unprecedented scale plague the present generation. But if people did not want these conditions, what brought them about?

Once again the Scriptures point the finger of blame at the person of Satan the Devil. How so? Bible chronology points to 1914 as the year for the establishment of God’s messianic kingdom of the heavens in the hands of Christ Jesus. This kingdom is to bring an end to the rule of the earth by human governments under the invisible control of Satan the Devil.

How would God’s chief opposer respond to the birth of God’s kingdom in 1914? Revelation chapter twelve explains: “War broke out in heaven” between the enthroned Christ Jesus and Satan. (Rev. 12:7) As a result, Satan “was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.” This would cause “woe for the earth and for the sea.” The unprecedented woes of this generation testify to the truthfulness of this prophecy.​—Rev. 12:9, 12.

As a mighty person, Satan the Devil presents a danger to everyone alive today. First Peter 5:8 warns: “Your adversary, the Devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone.” Will he devour you? How can you defend yourself against such superhuman odds? Certainly not by denying the Devil’s existence as a person. But by recognizing his existence and by obeying the Scriptural command: “Take your stand against him, solid in the faith.” (1 Pet. 5:9) To do so requires careful study of the Bible.2

Watching the World

Real African Christians

◆ Jehovah’s witnesses have been persecuted in some African countries because of their political neutrality. Where do other African “Christian” churches stand as respects neutrality? Burgess Carr, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, says, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that “the conference supports ‘every struggle short of sadistic cruelty’ in armed struggles against the white governments of South Africa and Rhodesia. . . . ‘Everyone wants to throw the violence bit at us. Don’t they know the Presbyterian Church in America supported violent revolution here? Was Valley Forge a tea party?’” Yet, inconsistently, he alludes not to his own churchmen, but to Jehovah’s witnesses as being subversive. He adds: “The All Africa Conference of Churches is not going to say that any national government is wrong that deals decisively with a group that threatens . . . national symbols.” After quoting Carr’s bigoted statement, the Pittsburgh newspaper adds, correctly: “Jehovah’s witnesses refuse to salute the flag of any government because, they say, their true allegiance is to ‘Christ’s Kingdom.’ They do, however, strictly observe civil laws.”

Making More, Buying Less

◆ Though American paychecks are larger, they are buying less. In October 1972 the average U.S. worker made $139.13. After taxes, that amount could buy $97.49 worth of goods and services. By August of this year average weekly pay was up to $145.43, but, due primarily to inflation, buying power was down to $94.34. Thus, in an eleven-month period the average paycheck went up $6.30 per week. But buying power dropped $3.15! And the future? The Wall Street Journal sums up one new book’s view of the economy: “Today’s inflation-fueled economy could still prove a good deal more difficult to land softly than a moon rocket.”

Church Money

◆ Some religious organizations are going to new ends to acquire money. The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Buffalo, New York, now accepts credit cards, not just cash donations. One finance committee member says: “A church can’t survive on 50-cent [cash] donations.” Credit-card donations are up to $30. Admission is now being charged visitors to London’s thirteenth-century Salisbury Cathedral. A London Observer article calls this “a last-ditch attempt to find a way of meeting the desperate need for funds.”

Jesuit Okays Homosexuals

◆ More and more clergymen are endorsing homosexuality. Now a Catholic Jesuit priest, John McNeill of New York’s Woodstock College, has added his approval. An Associated Press release printed in the Burlington County (New Jersey) Times says that he told a recent Protestant Episcopal conference: “I see no reason why two gay people who love each other and want to dedicate their lives to each other in the presence of God should not be able to do so in the church. There ought to be a ceremony of friendship or unity or whatever you wish to call it.” But the Bible says such persons should be put out of the church!​—1 Cor. 5:13; 6:9, 10.

Jesuit Decline

◆ Vatican information shows that membership in the Jesuit order is declining. The 433-year-old religious order now has less than 32,000 members world wide; the figure stood at 35,000 about five years ago.

Moral Advice

◆ Advice on morals, while sometimes welcome, must also be evaluated. Dr. Robert J. Weiss of Harvard Medical School’s laboratory of community psychiatry claims that couples are better off living together before marriage. Then, he says, after three or four years “there will be talk about marriage. But only among themselves​—they wouldn’t think of breathing a word about it to their friends.”

Farm Problems

◆ Bothered about the high cost of food? Farmers producing food in the U.S. have problems of their own. Farm Journal says of farmers: “The winners next year will be those who figure out how to get all the supplies they need.” Machinery must be ordered months in advance, even though some manufacturers are increasing production by 60 percent. Gasoline and diesel fuel are limited. Fertilizer stocks are 40 percent below last year’s level.

Accidental Choking

◆ Choking on food is the sixth leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Each year some 2,500 persons die in this way while dining out. Ninety percent of the deaths occur while the victim is eating steak. Doctors recommend leaning the victim over a chair, pounding his back and dislodging the obstruction with fingers or tweezers. A choking individual may appear to be suffering a heart attack.

Supermarket Thefts

◆ Last year almost ten and a half billion dollars’ worth of food was shoplifted from major U.S. food chains. That amounts to enough food to feed everyone in Boston and San Francisco for a year. The president of one large California-based food chain believes that 58 percent of all employees and 48 percent of the customers steal. He says the average shoplift totals $3.92. Supermarket News claims that 78 percent of all employees are dishonest. These losses, of course, are added to the already high cost of food and are paid for by the consumer.

Risky Blood

◆ The risks involved in accepting someone else’s blood for use as a transfusion become ever more apparent. A medical college professor at Kozhikode, India, claims that one third of the professional blood donors there are known to have syphilis. Why is the blood accepted? The Times of India reports: “He told newsmen here that the doctors were forced to use their inferior blood because of lack of voluntary donors. Very often patients receiving the blood had to be treated for syphilis or virus hepatitis.” Another Indian doctor says blood donation has become “a racket.”

Doctors and Their Drugs

◆ A survey by a member of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Montreal indicates that many physicians do not really know the medications they prescribe. Two thirds of 60 doctors tested were unaware of the ingredients in “222,” a pain-killing tablet. None knew the makeup of seven other often-prescribed drugs. Says the study: “The inescapable conclusion would be: In the majority of instances, when a physician signs his name below a drug combination prescription he does not know exactly what he is signing for.”

Amsterdam Crime Record

◆ Crime is increasing even in the seemingly “safe cities” of Europe. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam’s daily De Telegraaf recently Interviewed city Police Chief P. A. Jong. Of crime, he says: “The general tendency of increase is alarming.” In 1966 there were 23,000 crimes reported to Amsterdam police; the number is expected to be more than twice that in 1973. Many crimes, he notes, go unreported. Crime, according to Jong, can no longer be blamed on poverty. Instead, he adds, “we are now experiencing a sort of crime due to prosperity.”

‘Man’s Days Numbered’

◆ If God did not intervene in man’s affairs, what would eventually happen? Sir Kingsley Dunham, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, says that “some scientists believe man’s days are numbered.” Why? He points to dwindling natural resources, pollution and food shortages. What, in his opinion, is the root cause leading to man’s “end”? Dunham’s answer: “The cause of the end of the human race could be summed up as the result of greed, thoughtlessness and carelessness.”

Saving Gasoline

◆ Lebanon has one interesting regulation designed to help combat the gasoline shortage. The government has decreed that cars with even-numbered license plates may drive only on even-numbered days of the month; odd plates on odd days. There have thus been fuel savings without special stamps or registration books. Drivers accept the arrangement and traffic is lighter.

Alcohol In Britain

◆ A report from Liverpool says that residents of Britain spend the equivalent of seven and a half billion dollars yearly for alcoholic beverages.

Harmless TV?

◆ Recently a film was shown on television across the U.S. depicting two youths setting fire to an alcoholic. Less than 48 hours later a woman in Boston was murdered in similar fashion. A coincidence? About the same time two small Wisconsin boys watched a TV movie supposedly depicting Satan walking unharmed through the flames of a burning building. Three days later they started a fire and one boy was hospitalized with third-degree burns. Was the TV program responsible? If not, why did the injured boy repeatedly say to his mother on the way to the hospital: “Be sure to tell my friends . . . you can’t walk through fire. It really does hurt you”?

Jail Vandalism

◆ It is the taxpayer that covers the mounting costs of jails and prisons. Just the vandalism caused by inmates is expensive. Dallas, Texas, commissioners estimate that such destructive acts cost that county $200,000 during the last year.

Doctor-Patient Sex

◆ A survey involving 460 physicians and published in a recent American Journal of Psychiatry reveals that up to 13 percent admitted engaging in sexual behavior with their patients. Some 7 percent said they had actually had intercourse. Study also shows that 25 percent of the freshman medical students surveyed believed that such intercourse could be proper. The authors of the survey, from the University of California (Los Angeles), say their work reveals that there is “a core of both physicians-in-training and physicians-in-practice, separated by years of age and years of medical experience, who are seriously asking, ‘Why not?’”

Paper Shortage Benefits

◆ The current paper shortage has some unexpected benefits. Newspapers report that they are doing better writing and editing. They have learned what items can and cannot be deleted without protest from readers. Attempts to drop crossword puzzles, horoscopes and bridge columns bring strong complaints. Of 295 papers surveyed recently, 140 said they cut international news first; 35, national news; 67, features and women’s news; 14, sports; 11, local news. Some syndicated feature material has also been cut by 221 newspapers.

Lumberjack Shortage

◆ Foresters across the U.S. say that the number of lumberjacks is dropping. In the state of Maine, where lumbering is a major business, their number has dwindled from about 6,500 in 1955 to 1,800 in 1972. According to a New York State paper firm, only one new applicant of every 100 lasts more than one month on the job. Why? The New York Times observes: “Perhaps, as some skeptics in the industry suggest, the dearth of lumberjacks​—men of strength, stamina and special skill willing to endure every weather extreme imaginable—​reflects a general softening of the stuff that pioneered this country.”

Boating Boom

◆ Before 1973 is over, Americans will have spent about two billion dollars on new boating equipment. An equal amount will have been expended for upkeep and operation. There are now about ten million boats in the U.S. The Coast Guard’s recently published “Boating Statistics” says that 1,437 persons died in boating accidents during 1972.

An Easy-To-Read Bible

To the left is a reproduction, in the actual-size print, of a portion of the large-print edition of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Enjoy reading this 1,376-page Bible in easy-to-understand modern-day English. It is printed on fine-quality paper, and contains excellent maps, footnotes and appendix. Black cover with gold lettering. Only $5.

Please send the large-print edition of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Enclosed is $5.

[Picture on page 31]

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

Read The New Book: True Peace and Security​—From What Source?

How true peace and security will soon be realized is the stirring theme of this 192-page, hardbound book.

Released this past summer, it is already available in these eleven languages​—English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Italian, Danish, Finnish and Swedish.

Order your copy. Only 25c each.

Please send the following copy (or copies) of the book True Peace and Security​—From What Source?; I enclose $․․․․․․․․: English □; Spanish □; French □; Portuguese □; German □; Dutch □; Japanese □; Italian □; Danish □; Finnish □; Swedish □.

[Picture on page 32]

True Peace and Security​—From What Source?