Drugs – You and your dealer – 1951

It seems that 1951 was a very popular year (or a very alarming year) for America to investigate its drug problem. All the major networks devoted some time to the subject, through documentaries or discussion shows or new reports – the end results were all the same – America was infected with drugs and drug dealers and drugs were the scourge of our nation’s youth.

Of course, 1951 was the year of the historic and groundbreaking Kefauver Crime Commission hearings on organized crime in America. And it was alleged that the largest supplier of drugs to America’s youth was the Mafia.

And the outrage was fueled by reports and testimonies from parents, former addicted children, law enforcement officials and community leaders who painted a picture that the Mafia was busy supplying high schools with a wide range of narcotics, with dealers on virtually every street corner and it was widely accepted that it all started with marijuana.

There were numerous reports of overdoses – drugs and drug culture were well known to the youth of the 50s – as shown in this documentary in which a reporter asks children, as young as 13, if they knew what certain drug-related phrases meant. They all knew in detail, and that alarmed America’s parents even more.

On the heels of the Red Scare, the Cold War, and in 1951, when America was up to its ears in the Korean War, America was faced with a massive heroin addiction among its youth. This addiction reached pandemic proportions.

It is no wonder that the American youth, a few years after this broadcast, fell completely in love with rock ‘n’ roll. They needed a place where they could release all their fear and paranoia.

That said, there’s a certain level of alarmism in this program, the first of a six-part series called The Nations Nightmare. Bill Downs, a respected journalist for CBS News, approaches this as if his own children were stranded in an alley — but he treats the other episodes with the same extreme delivery.

The 50s were far from perfect, but I think most would agree that the entire country didn’t fall asleep or climb walls for a fix. Cooler heads prevailed, as they do in all generations, don’t forget that.

Nowadays, of course, we also have to deal with Fentanyl and that is a problem with many consequences.

As a reminder, we’ve always had to deal with fear and the wretchedness of drug abuse. Here’s The Nation’s Nightmare from July 19, 1951 from CBS Radio.

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