let's talk...

...about HEROIN.

los angeles, california; the '70's:

when i was coming of age in the san fernando valley drugs were everywhere: pot in the school parking lot; quaaludes in the canyon; black beauties in the locker room; cocaine for sale at the house on the hill.

but HEROIN...?

never saw the stuff.

now maybe i hung out with a higher class of loadies, but the availability of this tabooed substance had yet to make inroads into our bucolic and sheltered chemical playground.

i remember the educational films screened for us as pre-teens in auditoriums and health classes; as a captive audience, we were subjected to graphic displays of puss oozing skin boils and black cirrhotic livers; mutated body parts and esophageal perforations with voice boxes attached that emitted the creepiest possible sounds. all these and more were altruistically compiled and exposed to our curious and horrified eyes in an effort to warn us of the dangers associated with alcohol, tobacco, sexually transmitted diseases, and drugs.

projected and magnified across standard issue pull-down movie screens were needles the size of yardsticks that mercilessly pushed into bulbous folds of human flesh; it was effective.

as autonomous and free-thinking as i fancied myself, right then and there i made a mental note to NEVER do heroin. those zombied untouchables with elastic turnequets hanging limply from their arms repulsed me.   i wanted to expand my world of feeling,  enhance my perception,  challenge my pre-conceptions and exalt my experiences;  not withdraw from it like the junkie.  to me that looked like death,  and although a rejection and suspicion of my parent's values began to define my worldview,  i still wanted to live.

that was then,  and this is now.

our kids are experiencing the san fernando valley in a very different way today.

that's what this site is about;  understanding their world through their eyes.

as moms, dads, aunts, uncles and grandparents,  we need to wake up to the pitfall that is BLACK TAR HEROIN.