High Times in the 1970s

By: Overtime Staff
Topics: 60 Rewind

This week "60 Minutes" correspondent Byron Pitts reports on Mexico's battle against violent drug cartels. It's well known that American demand for drugs helps fuel the violence in Mexico, and America's appetite for getting high is nothing new: just take a look at Morley Safer's 1975 report on the small Kentucky town of Madisonville.

In this piece, "60 Minutes" camera crews captured a small town in the grips of a growing problem. At teen basement parties, kids talk about local drug offerings, and at PTA meetings, curious parents caught their first whiff of confiscated marijuana. Morley sat in the kitchens of worried mothers, drove around with the local police detective, and walked Madisonville's main streets and cemeteries. As you watch scenes with kids playing spin the bottle and and see cops with mutton chops, it may strike you that this story is a kind of time capsule from the 1970s. It also serves to remind us why the Mexican drug cartels founded in the 1970s and 80s were able to grow so strong. As Morley says in one of his 70s-style stand-ups, "there's something rotten in Madisonville..."

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by babberly April 20, 2012 8:42 PM EDT: As an adult now who was 15 when the segment aired and grew up in Mad'ville. As we called it back it the day was in somewhat like the video said. There were 4 people in the car the night Debbie died. She did die of a morphine overdose and yes, it rocked the town. Let me clarify that they had all done morphine that night. Debbie was let out of the car a few blocks from her house, walked to her house and went in and went to bed, her mother discovered her the next morning. She was a cheerleader, came from a pretty well to do family had braces and was a popular girl. I didn't know that she was into the drug scene, however it was pretty well known that the other 3 were. Only one of them went to jail, and that was because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. One of the others (a male) passed away a few years ago from Hep C.....don't know what happened to the other girl, I can tell you that she freaked out and gave the police names of everyone in town that she had seen at parties when drugs were being passed around (even if they didn't participate). She had a police escort with her for about a year and then supposedly left town. Can tell you that herion was real popular and like any other town in America, kids found prescription drugs in their parents medicine cabinets. Two guys that went to school at around the same time broke into their's father's pharmacy. Can't say it was any worse than anywhere else, I had nothing to compare it to. A lot of people I knew from school passed away from their drug use. We all know that addication doesn't discriminate. Of course the heavy users weren't going to talk to 60 minutes....it was well known in advance that they were coming. That's why they talked to the younger kids who really didn't know the extent of the amount of drugs that were present. Debbie was in 9th grade, I believe and the school she attended was 7th through 9th. The never bothered trying to talk to the High Schoolers and the ones who were know to be users.....they kinda knew no one would talk to them. Just another tidbit of information....the county was dry at the time, meaning that we stole our parents or drove 18 miles to the next county and got someone 21 to buy it for us. The PD only conducted raids of the local clubs that served alchohol (Moose Lodge, American Legion, etc....then it was only done around election time and the police confiscated all the alchohol amd they kept for their FOPD parties.......; Reply to this comment


by Congo11 January 13, 2011 5:16 PM EST: Interesting that the report talks to no teen in the town who is on drugs (kid at 4:30 is suspect LOL), nor no parent who fears their kids are on drugs. There is no direct evidence that the guys in the holding cell at the beginning are there because of drug charges. Even the girls' grave at the beginning has no last name, though the reporter mentions a last name (how many grave markers have you seen with one name?). There are also no statistics for drug movement into the town from the "big cities" or "suburbs" and only a few posturing kids' word that "only marijuana" "no wait, heroin and speed, well, not speed but mescaline" are available in the junior high (really? Mescaline?)

Essentially, everything in this report we are required to trust the reporter. There is no actual evidence that anyone, besides the chief of police, has seen drug activity in this town. Thank you, precursor to Fox News 2011!

Robert HP; Reply to this comment


by InedaName January 9, 2011 10:51 PM EST: A report on illicit drug use brought to you by Pfizer. Love it!; Reply to this comment


by GordonTheRepublican January 9, 2011 9:43 PM EST: I agree with Mick Patriot because he is a proven patriot because he says he is.

Addiction never ever existed. Ever. Never once. Not before drug war.

If we made all drugs legal, all manufacturing jobs would come back to the US of A. And gang bangers would plant daisies.

the democrats would finally realize that govermint is broke.

shawn hanity is right. guns are first amendmint rights for all patriots.; Reply to this comment


by MickPatriot January 7, 2011 1:17 PM EST: This terrible hysterical reporting by you and other idiots like you fueled the drug war! Helped a country violate it's constitution which created drug(war) lords/cartels and gang bangers. Yes it is YOU that helped create the gang bangers. Too stupid to report on the failed prohibition and warn against that slippery slope again. But that was not the popular position and against the government so of course you buckled to the hype. Easy sell. After all you are in sales much more than reporters of real news. Had these drugs stayed legal we would still be buying American made as was the case then. Well I did like Acapulco gold back then but it is nothing by today's standards. If we had left it legal with the under 21 age limits and having to sign for the 'hard' stuff at the drug store like we do now for over the counter drugs with speed in them we would have made billions in taxes for schools. Made millions for the mom and pop drug stores now extinct. Saved billions in illegal persecution of User's. Billions more in bribes to foreign governments to outlaw drugs there. Plus most of all there never would have been any gang bangers - none - no money no guns no popularity no Gang bangers. No innocent kids getting shot in the safety of their own home. Bad hysterical reporting hyping a bad situation in the wrong direction, but then again you are parrots of what is on the teleprompter not real reporters, more sensationalists than thinkers. So what should I expect. But YOU are one of the main reasons Gang bangers are rich and the government is broke! Nice work!; Reply to this comment

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High Times in the 1970s

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