Group Gives Letter to Class of '70 Praising Use of Psychedelic Drugs

A Harvard senior has distributed a letter to the entire freshman class claiming that the statements about psychedelic drugs recently made by Dean Monro and the University Health Services have done "tremendous injustice" to the Class of '70.

The letter was offered as a "gift of love" to the freshman by four individuals who say that they are "happy people with good rich lives" because they use the drugs. It is signed by James F. Calvert Jr. '67.

According to Calvert, Dean Monro, who has seen the letter, said that the University had no desire to forbid the distribution as long as it was signed, and the group did not enter the Freshman Union to had it out. Monro reached last night, said it was simply "a matter of freedom of speech."

For More 'Good Trips'

By handing out the letter, the group -- a "family" of 15 or 20 people -- is trying to get the freshmen to take good trips," Calvert said. The letter is an effort to counter what its authors consider the detrimental statements issued by Monro and the UHS which Calvert believes "affect the quality of the trip," and tend to send the users to mental hospitals.

Psychedelic drugs do not distort or twist the brains perception of beauty, the letter says, nor do they necessarily lead to permanent psychosis, brain damage, or genetic damage.

The letter then goes on to cite the testimony of one user of LSD who reports that he was "constantly hallucinated and utterly confused" from his use of the drug. Getting no help from UHS, the individual then "took more, a great deal more, LSD and marijuana. . .and my so called psychosis disappeared."

"We can state with full confidence," the letter reads "that after some yeas of the use of these drugs, these confusing effects [alleged by Dean Monro and UHS] are no longer associate with their use. The drugs simply increase the flow of love life, and perception in us."