There is hardly anyone who has not been talking about “purple hearts” here in the last fortnight. Only a few know and remember the proper name “Drinamyl”. The drug which is a strange combination of sedative and stimulant has been the subject of questions in Parliament and sensational publicity both in the press and on television.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has inevitably been invoked in connection with the problem of drug addiction. This is an exaggeration and drug addiction is not yet a great problem here. In its report to the United Nations for 1962, for instance, the British Government placed the number of known addicts at 532 (262 males and 270 females.) These figures may not be accurate because doctors are not required to notify the authorities when they treat an addict. But they do suggest that the problem has not become too serious. What is disturbing the public is that drug addiction is spreading among young people, particularly women.
Drug Stimulus
Every Saturday and Sunday night hundreds of young men and women can be seen drifting from cafe to cafe and club to club in Soho under the stimulus of purple hearts (so known because they are pale blue in colour and triangular in shape). The drug makes them sleep-free, tireless and talkative. Most of them are teenagers and are dressed identically – almost brimless trilbies for the boys and ankle-length skirts under short leather jackets for the girls. They are not disorderly and do not engage in gang warfare. They stave off the comedown by taking purple hearts in handfuls.
These youngsters come from all parts of the country. They are attracted to Soho by all-night cafes and strip tease and dance clubs with their juke boxes. In several of these filthy basements full of sickening smells and wasted people, they can easily buy purple hearts to keep themselves going. Those who become addicts take to selling the drug to others – buying wholesale at £5 for 1,000 and retailing them for anything up to £25. In course of time many of them land in hospital and at the psychiatrist’s couch. Doctors give five years to kids on a daily diet of 20 or 30 purple hearts.
The sheer volume of the supplies is staggering. One pedlar has been quoted as saying that the volume had risen by five times in the last one year and his own source turned up the other day with two million purple hearts in his van. Most of the supplies are said to be smuggled from Spain. Pushing them has become a highly profitable business; and even nurses and school children are believed to be involved. There is said to be even a pair of pigeon fanciers who fly each other these tablets.
Purple hearts are only one facet of the problem. Analgesic drugs like morphine and pethidine are another. More and more young women are taking to them. Certain preparations advertised for slimming are in fact stimulants. The same goes for some cough mixtures. Young people start with marijuana and go on to stronger drugs. Mothers who give their children aspirins and sedatives on the slightest pretext make them easy meat for drug pedlars in later life.
If purple hearts are one craze among the teenagers, clothes are another. “Mods” dress differently from “rockers” and the “rockers” differently from “bohies.” Fashions change with breath-taking rapidity. A suit is guaranteed to last less than three months and it may cost up to £30. A hat can be old before the week is out. These teenagers have millions to spend every week. No wonder what Mr Harold Wilson calls “soft centre candy floss” economy grows.
Once again Britain is deluged with talk of “brain drain” to the United States. Within a week or so nearly a dozen scientists, some of them outstanding men in their fields, have resigned their jobs to migrate to the United States. It has been calculated that 912 British scientists and engineers migrated to America last year, a rise of nearly 30 per cent over the previous year.
Nothing like the utter nonsense of America living parasitically on the brains of others has been said this time. Mr Quintin Hogg, formerly Lord Hailsham, learnt his lesson last year when the dons at Cambridge blocked the conferment of an honorary doctorate degree as a mark of protest against his accusations against America. In fact this time it has been recognised that the departure of first class scientists to America represented no more than a fair return for the lavish aid that British institutions receive from American foundations and that in certain cases the important thing was not where research was conducted as long as it was successful.
Frustration
Since America’s national income is eight times greater than Britain’s and consequently the expenditure on science, Britain cannot compete with her in providing research facilities. But that does not seem to be the sole cause of frustration among the scientists. Many of them have to work in dingy and overcrowded laboratories which should have been demolished long ago. Others are denied secretarial assistance which forces them to waste useful time in administrative work. More fundamental is the whole approach to scientists. It is summed up in the view that “scientists should be on tap but not at the top.” Amateurs educated in the classics still dominate Whitehall and the board rooms.
American institutions do not start looking for scientists when they have specific jobs to offer. If a scientist is available the job is created for him, sometimes a whole new research outfit. Most American advertisements are vague, asking in general for scientists and engineers. The nature of the job and salary are not mentioned. These can be negotiated. In tradition-bound Britain things work differently and in this case less happily.
The Times of India, 23 February 1964