The Massachusetts Task Force on Secure Facilities: An Examination of the Issue of Security in a Community-Based System of Juvenile Corrections

Authors' note: This article reviews the findings of the Massachusetts Task Force on Secure Facilities' Final Report “The Issue of Security in a Community-Based System of Juvenile Corrections,” L. Scott Harshbarger, Chairman (1977), and includes the comments of the authors which do not necessarily represent the official position of the Task Force.     

The bad trip: An epidemiological survey of youthful hallucinogen use

Results are presented of a self-administered questionnaire completed by 201 youthful hallucinogen users. It was found that 55.5% of the population experienced at least one bad trip, although not one of these 111 subjects sought medical help. Investigation of the subject's family, drug-use pattern, mood, and environment revealed no clear-cut predisposing factors toward an adverse drug experience. While a significant correlation existed between a high level of cigarette consumption and a certain type of drug user, the number of different drugs used by the subjects was the only variable which positively correlated with the occurrence of a bad trip. Multiple stepwise regression indicated that over the period from 1965 to 1973 a change has taken place in the sample studied, such that today a young person introduced to hallucinogens is likely to take a greater number of drugs and is more likely to experience a bad trip than was his chronological conterpart of 1965.M.D. 1955 and Med. D.Sc. 1962: State University of New York. Presently Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, New York University. Current interests are in genetic-environmental interactions in the production of psychopathology.M.D. 1975: University of Connecticut. Presently first year resident in psychiatry, Yale Univeristy. Main research interests include potential biological correlates of psychological existential metatheory.