The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 11

Polly Paffilas Advice Entertainment UfeslyJ Akron Beacon Journal Monday. February 11,1980. Valium: Giving us control, or controlling us? one-liner about it in the recent movie Starting Over regularly brings down the house. If Valium is used properly and that term is interpreted in many different ways it indeed is a wonder drug. It is a muscle relaxant.

It is a treatment for alcohol withdrawal. It helps control seizures. It helps control anxiety. It can be used as a daytime sedative and a nighttime sleeping pill. It comes perhaps as close as any drug can to being all things to all people.

And that may be its biggest problem. Its critics contend that because Valium is viewed as being so safe, it is treated much too casually by physicians. OFFICIALS OF Hoffmann-LaRoche, the giant Swiss-based firm that manufactures the drug at its sprawling complex here, argue that the drug is safe, non-addictive and cannot kill, unless mixed with alcohol or other drugs. All that is true if the drug is taken for short periods of time. But studies have shown that a person-who takes two or three times the recommended daily dose of Valium may become hooked on it.

Some argue that the symptoms of Valium withdrawal, such, as irritability, nervousness and insomnia, simply mark the reap- By B. D. Colen Washington Post NUTLEY, N. J. Even outside the heavy double doors, the roar is deafening as the tiny yellow tablets of tranquility rush down stainless steel spouts into large cardboard cartons below.

Three of the four tablet-stamping machines are operating, spitting out 400 pills a second, 24,000 a minute, 1,440,000 an hour, not shutting down for more than 15 hours when they have produced two lots 30 million tablets or enough Valium to supply America for only about five days. Valium is the most frequently prescribed drug in the United States and the world, used by more persons than penicillin. In 1978, retail pharmacies alone filled 44.9 million prescriptions in this country for an estimated 2.3 billion doses of the drug. And that is in the face of about a 20 percent decline in its use since a decline that has paralleled sales of other prescription drugs. VALIUM HAS become such a widely accepted part of the American culture that it is joked about in the comic strips and a pearance of the problems for which the drug was taken.

But taken in larger doses for long periods of time, Valium can catose withdrawal reactions similar to those experienced with heroin or alcohol, including life-threatening seizures. For most persons, however, Valium is a kind of psychic aspirin, taken occasionally to ease them over life's rough How people view their use of the drug seems to depend on their views of drugs generally. These persons include: The professional woman who says she takes Valium "about once a month. If you break up with a boyfriend, for instance, it's required. It's like oxygen." A woman who went to a doctor for the first time, complaining of severe headaches that aspirin didn't help.

She was given a cursory examination, then asked if she was unhappy or having problems. "I said: 'No, as a matter of fact, things are going really well TWO MAJOR questions are asked about Valium specifically and tranquilizers generally: When does a person truly need a drug to control anxiety, and how does society view such drug use? According to Dr. Dorothy Starr, a psychiatrist in private See VALIUM, page B2 Down drug road and back again Fan club touts M. I maestro Tennstedt lM for Cleveland post were, but Tranxene, a chemical cousin to Valium, is one possibility. He said the pills mostly made him sleepy.

But Valium was a different story. He started on the little pills and felt relaxed. The television could be blaring in his ear, and he'd go right off to sleep, Before Clint finally was hospitalized, he had abused every drug he could get his hands on including alcohol. HE SUFFERED hallucinations. At one point he could be violently aggressive, and at another time he would be too afraid to go outside his home.

Today, Clint said he feels good about himself and has his self-respect back. He is again trying his hand at music, one of his loves. "I even can tell my mom I love her when before I called her a slut and a bitch." Jason, 20, is newly off drugs. He called all his family members alcoholics and said he was exposed to all types of alcohol at an early age. "I always was depressed.

I wanted something to feel good, and one day I found some blue pills in a drawer," Jason said. The pills, Valium, had been prescribed by a doctor for Jason's brother after a car accident. HE WAS 13 at the time. The pills made him feel a little better, he said, but he felt like he needed more. Depressed, he overdosed on barbiturates and was hospitalized.

"I even got Valium in the hospital. They were called my 'happy His case was so bad that Jason eventually was transferred to another hospital. But he didn't like his doctor, so he found some women's clothes one day and sneaked out. But after a few days, he said he realized he needed the help and returned. "It (doing drugs) is not worth going down that road," Jason i emphasized.

"It's a one-way Clint 1 added. By Joan Rice Beacon Journal staff writer The man in the cartoon panel strolls up to a 21-flavor ice cream stand and is told by the vendor: "Sorry, sir, no Valium." Three young men from Medina laughed at the cartoon found in a drug brochure, but the humor rang a little hollow. For all of them, Valium is one of the first drugs they abused. Andy and Clint (not their real names) graduated on to at least 200 other substances. The third, Jason (also, not his name), experimented with about 20 other drugs.

The threesome agreed to talk about their Valium-related experiences during an interview at Akron Drug Abuse Clinic, 513 W. Market one of the area agencies helping drug abusers. "1 DISCOVERED Valium just after graduation from nursing school," said Andy, 30, who today is certified by the National Drug Abuse Center as a counselor for drug problems including alcohol. "The tension was very heavy," Andy said of his job as head nurse for a large, 48-bed emergency department. He admitted that a desire to experiment also was a factor.

Initially, Andy said he started taking one or two Valium to help him sleep. "I always ate the blue ones (10 milligrams)." White pills are 2 milligrams while the yellows are 5 milligrams. In a few short months, Andy worked up to 10 and 20 tablets a day. Then he began injecting himself with 200 milligrams. "I got up to 200 milligrams and realized, 'Hey, I can't get to sleep on Valium.

Then Andy switched to other drugs. CLINT, 20, who was a heavy drug user by the age of 15, said Valium is one of the worst drugs available in terms of withdrawal. "I always was nervous and hyperactive," Clint explained, adding that he went into therapy very young. Clint doesn't know what the first capsules prescribed for him Women top Washington Post Who are the roughly 20 million persons in this country who take Valium? According to a study published two years ago by a group of University of Massachusetts sociologists: About two-thirds of the Valium users in that state are women. Contrary to the stereotype of the housewife, only 14.1 percent of the state's Valium users are housewives and 48.9 percent are white-collar workers.

Over half those using Valium have family incomes over $12,000. Some aficionados criticize the podium style of conductor Klaus Tennstedt (above), but for his fans like David Grundy (right) Tennstedt is the best. By Donald Rosenberg Beacon Journal music writer When mention is made of the Cleveland Orchestra, which is quietly seeking a conductor to replace outgoing music director Lorin Maazel, a profound sense of hope fills the hearts of Klausketeers the land over. The Klausketeers, as they were so labeled by a Boston music critic, are the ardent fans of East German conductor Klaus Tennstedt, who has made quite a phenomenal impression on audiences and orchestras alike since his triumphant North American debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra ih 1974. He is now principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and chief conductor of Hamburg's North German Radio Orchestra.

The Klausketeers would, of course, like to see the conductor presiding over the Qeve-land Orchestra in September 1982 (when Maazel leaves to become director of the Vienna State Opera). But they will have to wait for a decision from the orchestra's officials, who are not ready to comment "on their search or whether Tennstedt is one of the many contenders. TO THE Klausketeers, and to many other listener, Tennstedt is a sortof musicai Messiah, whose performances possess a ritualistic atmosphere. The Klausketeers can't get enough of their master. Many of them even plan their lives around Tennstedt's American appearances so that they can travel wherever he may be.

One of the faithful is David Grundy, a resident of Pitts- Beacon Journal graphic by Dennis Haas burgh who, until last August, lived in Cleveland, where he did volunteer work on the boar ds of trustees of the Opus I Chamber Orchestra and the Cleveland Chamber Music Society. To help out his fellow Klausketeers, he began sending out a Tennstedt newsletter a little more than a year ago. Grundy mails the impromptu correspondence, which includes concert reviews, record reviews and Tennstedt tidbits, on an irregular basis to the growing number of Klausketeers, who live mainly in Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, Pitts- burgh and New York. To date, Grundy has collected about 35 names. THE AMIABLE Grundy, 43, who has met Tennstedt several times, says that the Klausketeers are not fanatics, but merely people who have an in "Yet, there is something to be said for flagrant admiration of things of value," he says.

"It obviously is a fan club because we are dealing in the same things that other fan clubs do. "I do see that the need for this would disappear if and when Tennstedt does get based in this country." And the Klausketeers seem to view Cleveland as the most logical place for the conductor to make his American musical home, even though Tennstedt's gawky podium technique (he looked like a "wounded stork" to one prominent music writer) has been criticized by quite a few musicians, the Clevelan-ders included. Tennstedt has appeared with the orchestra many times in Severance Hall and at Blossom Music Center, where he will conduct two concerts this tense admiration for the conductor's music-making. "He's has a knack for maintaining the rhythmic impulse of the music and in holding the musical line suspended so that you're waiting for the next phrase. "I find he's been successful in that where other conductors only maintain the harmonic or melodic tension.

The man's sense of tempo and balance in general ties in with my own feelings of how the music ought to sound," Grundy said. Grundy first witnessed Tennstedt at the Tanglewood Festival in the Bet kshires, where the conductor led the Boston Symphony in what he says was an "awesome" performance of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony. GRUNDY says rather emphatically that he doesn't wish this network to be viewed as a cult or groupie activity. list of users Just over 60 percent first took Valium for psychological problems and 41.5 percent had previously used another tranquil- izer. Eighty-seven percent of those surveyed believe "it is bet- ter to use will power to solve problems than it is to use tran- quiliwrs." Almost 70 percent believe "tranquilizers don't really cure anything, they just cover up the real trouble." Fifty-nine percent feel "many doctors prescribe tranquilizers more than they should." However, 74 percent believe "tranquilizers work very well to make a person more calm and relaxed.".