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COMICS WITH PROBLEMS issue #18
"USERS ARE LOSERS!" (1970)
Sixteen page public school handout to California Middle and High School students in 1970. First two pages (link and link) are additional teaching aids distributed to teachers and parents in 1975.
PROBLEM(s) DEALT WITH:
Using and Losing, see chart on page 14.
Ethan |
07.15.07 - 11:42 pm | #
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 That last statement is wild. One of the main reasons I don't do drugs or anything (aside from caffeine :P)is because I don't need any help being weird. Hell, in high school, I remember kids asking me if I was smoking weed but being antisocial and all, I was actually stupid enough to think they were wondering if I smoked dandelions or something and I can't say I understood why anyone would do that. Thank you, drug education programs, for sorting out mysteries like that one for me! I think...Anyway, what's wrong with being wise and weird...or maybe just weird? I'm finally moving up in the world and out of the suburbs, straight into Austin, and goddamn it, I want to embrace the weirdness!
LM |
07.16.07 - 5:24 pm | #
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 How come the didn't mention cocain in their chart?
Tony |
07.19.07 - 10:26 am | #
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LM - "think they were wondering if I smoked dandelions" What? You never heard of Dandelion Wine? hee hee http://winemaking.jackkeller.net...et/
dandelio.asp
Given the date of 1970, I have to find the "Ideas Be-come FAR OUT!" panel (page 8) especially funny. Especially since he's drawn with his fist up in the air!
Translation: Don't take drugs kids, you might get a harsh case of socially aware politics!
Consumer Reports |
07.20.07 - 11:24 am | #
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How come the didn't mention cocain[e] in their chart?
I'm more surprised they have heroin listed there, instead of not having coke, actually. Getcher smack on, kids!
Eddie |
07.23.07 - 11:01 am | #
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I actually read that comic in the 70's.
It didn't work.
Walt |
07.23.07 - 2:31 pm | #
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 Oh man, I was too young to get this booklet at the time.
But I sure do remember reading the ones they produced for the 1980's kids. The only thing it really did was peak my interest and curiosity over the subject. Those booklets came with the Nancy Reagan authoritarian /motherly model of denial. Attempting to completely justify their position with blatant lies and exaggerations only made me want to investigate and perform real research upon the subject. I ended up becoming the illicit pharmacological know it all by college.
Guess it's not what they intended to have happened!
flip |
07.23.07 - 4:50 pm | #
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 I have that comic! I'd been meaning to find it to scan and send in. However, I got it at least 10 years later, at a public library in Gautier, Mississippi. I don't remember exactly when I picked it up, but it was sometime between 1980 and 1984. I was pretty young, probably 5-7, and re-read it many times over the next few years.
Nolly | Homepage |
07.23.07 - 5:38 pm | #
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Man I've been tripping out to that back cover for seven hours now. I really get it man, it's really speaking to me.
Parliament Cigarettes |
07.23.07 - 6:17 pm | #
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Ive never wanted to do drugs except after reading that booklet.
Robubie |
07.23.07 - 8:38 pm | #
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I love that they have hidden words in the phonetic pronunciations on the big two-page chart. There's 'SIN' in HALLUCINOGEN and 'HAIR' in HEROIN. Sin I get, but Hair? Hippy reference? But they avoid any phonetic help for the "SNIFFING" category -- based on my experience, it's THOSE guys that need help with spelling and comprehension!
Dave |
07.24.07 - 1:36 am | #
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I have to also add, about the chart:
Fucking hilarious they say marijuana has the word 'Wanna' (as in to crave) in it. Right there, they say it's pronounced: Mara Wanna.
Reminds me of an old joke I heard on a ripoff Cheech n Chong LP. Not them, but it goes: "My girlfriend's name is Mara, man. She always wanna this, wanna that. Mara Wanna All the Time, man, DAMN!"
Dave |
07.24.07 - 1:42 am | #
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Shit, that back cover's really starting to get to me, man. I've been up for thirty hours now, just really understanding it. You know? But I think I'm starting to FREAK OUT MAN...
I'm feeling really cold and hollowed out. I think it's turning on me.
Parliament Cigarettes |
07.24.07 - 3:06 pm | #
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Awesome.
I need some cold hard facts about drugs so I'm ging to ask a MINISTER?
wtf?
Lex |
07.24.07 - 9:46 pm | #
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 Marijuana has no medical uses, eh? From California?
Jeremy | Homepage |
07.24.07 - 11:05 pm | #
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Oh, and will someone in Austin please graffiti that guy with long arms on page 2 all over the place? They can do battle with the snowmen. Or save that for another project. Either way, I know I'd love to see that thing on the side of buildings. :P
LM |
07.26.07 - 6:59 pm | #
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 I like the little guy in the Barbiturates row going "d-a-h-hh"...
K.T. Slager | Homepage |
08.02.07 - 11:55 pm | #
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What I like about this comic is that it proves that if you can rhyme two words together, then you have a point. "Users are Losers".
Other truths:
"Goiters ain't Loiters"
"Commies are Mommies"
"Books are for Crooks!"
etc,,
A special episode of Family Ti |
08.13.07 - 3:10 am | #
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Changes in the behaviour of users; can't get along with family, new friends, turns off from people, crap grades, becomes secretive, hostile, far out ideas...
Sounds like puberty to me.
Thaily | Homepage |
08.13.07 - 5:14 am | #
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I really like the definitions on page 3.
BAG: One's favorite drug - or 'thing'
BIG C: Cocaine
(I thought the Big C was CANCER!)
Madley |
08.16.07 - 12:41 am | #
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 (Almost) all the words on page three are mainstream enough now that even a teetotaling minister's wife would know them. Perhaps it was different in the 70s.
Hysterical Woman |
08.16.07 - 6:27 pm | #
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 I love the chart, thats my favorite. Not having the cocaine there is suprising, ecspecially if this was created in the 70's. Course if they made one now, it would probably have to be a seperate book altogether.
Liz |
10.09.07 - 6:26 pm | #
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This looks similar to, but not quite the same as, an illustrated anti-drug booklet I remember from grade school in the early 70s.
I really like the behavioral changes list on page 8:
"hangs around with NEW friends!" Apparently one of them is Marge Simpson.
"ideas become FAR OUT!" um, most of the people in my class would have thought of that as a good thing. Hey kids! Try drugs! You'll meet NEW FRIENDS and be FAR OUT!
70s kid |
11.17.07 - 8:27 pm | #
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This is actually one of the most reasonable anti-drug propaganda pieces I've seen.
Anonymous |
11.26.07 - 4:05 am | #
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This comic has some of the weirdest (and scariest) artwork I've ever seen. Why do they call the cops "Peace officers?" What the hell is that long-armed thing on page 2? Why are all the people on drugs have giant eyes and crooked mouths? They look like zombies. Some of the scentences are hilarious. Others make no sense. Everytime I read this, it make less and less sense. And the back cover must be what it's like to get high. And the people that are getting high look freaking hilarious.
Darktruth2 |
12.04.07 - 10:45 am | #
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You just think the police are wrong because you don't understand them. They only want what's best for you. Also, wanting to be high is ipso facto wrong. Cut your hair right now. You look like Cousin Itt to me. I'M TALKING TO YOU, PAUL MCCARTNEY
Anonymous |
12.10.07 - 1:32 am | #
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 The involvement of Nancy Reagan in the antidrug movement was deliciously ironic, since she was widely known to be abusing prescription drugs herself. Remember all those "unexplained falls" of hers? And the fact that she went from a size 6 to a size 2 while in the White House?
Just Say No.....yeah, right---unless it's the good stuff from your labcoated pusher/doc.
jgm |
01.26.08 - 6:58 pm | #
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Holy crap, this brought back a sea of fucked up flashbacks.
My older sister was given this comic in 1980, which would have put her in middle school. I was 7, and a voracious reader, so when she brought it home I read it cover to cover several times.
I rememeber even as a 7-year old questioning some of the more specious logical jumps... And honestly, this comic back made me one hell of lot more interested in trying them.
I mean, look how cool those stoned people are! Looks like fun.
Dr.Khron |
05.09.08 - 9:56 am | #
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Heroin - medical use none?? Not in my country. Diamorphine is used much more commonly than morphine for relief of severe pain, like post-operative pain and pain from terminal illness. Anecdotally, I've heard it's not as sedating as morphine at a dose that provides the same pain relief, meaning people's last few days or hours would be of better quality.
Sarah |
05.22.08 - 2:35 am | #
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