Leary’s Dubious Legacy

So Timothy Leary lives. Too bad we can’t say the same for the thousands of kids who “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” under Leary’s dictum--many, many of these dropped out and then dropped dead from overdoses--or the thousands whose brains turned to mush and who now live in American shelters, and mental institutions.

He claims he “never advocated drugs”--and yet that isn’t the message that got through to the kids of the ‘60s. They saw him as the Harvard professor who had the prestige of high office and by whose name they justified the use and abuse of their minds and bodies. I know; I heard it from their own lips.

We have a son who lost 20 years of his life to drugs and alcohol until finally rescued by the grace of God 18 months ago. No thanks to Leary.

Leary is now lionized by a culture which itself has so many of its notables foundering in a morass of cocaine--perhaps, by their standards, he leads down a new path of enlightenment. For those who pay for his lectures, before you follow this leader, look back at the road he traveled and what happened to those who once paid him homage.

PAUL H. NOLTE

Pasadena