The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics
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The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics
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LOOK
August 8, 1967
Page 26 & 27
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Dr Dave's Web Site
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Too often, the patient
eludes him. The session ends
like a dancs in which
partners touch, then turn away.
LOOK Page 26 & 27
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Young people must pass through a Superior Court room to reach David Smith's makeshift offices at San Francisco General. They are terrified by the sternness they see in the California and American flags on the walls- and by themselves. Smith knows their terror. Instead of frightening them further into withdrawal, he slowly pushes his patients to face themselves.
If a user is still "high" on a lingering bad trip, Smith administers antipsychotic (chlorpromazine) or antianxiety (chiordiazepoxide) tranquilizers to help him down. He also treats the physical disorders common to drug cultures and communal living: upper-respiratory-tract infections, hepatitis and VD. Then, he talks, trying to turn the young from the myth that drugs solve everything toward a belief in the active struggle to grow. If a patient cannot find reality, Smith urges him to feel it to walk in the park, touching trees if he cannot touch human beings. If he needs further help, the doctor counsels him as an out-patient or refers him to a psychiatrist or state medical facility. His method may be the best available, but it does not always work. Too many young people come for tranquilizers only. Too many go on playing the sick-patient games that keep them from helping themselves. And David Smith doesn't want to wait for patients to bring their problems to him. Recently, he has gone into the Haight-Ashbury to find them.
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Dr Smith does not condemn all drugs,
He does deplore the games drug users play.
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[www.DrDave.org]
[Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc]
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