University of Iowa - Hawkeye Yearbook (Iowa City, IA)

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information on drugs. We're not moralizing. We're not saying you should or shouldn't. The information we give them is truthful and reliable. We have an optional section on another night for those who want to discuss the other aspects of drugs of abuse - their legality and their morality. .. If the interest in the class holds up, Gebhart continued, then we'll know that this is one of the ways to discuss drugs. When people know more about drugs, they're bound to be a little more rational about them, and not just accept hearsay from their friends. We'd like to offer the course to all 20,000 students on campus, but we just don'thave the room. Members of the Department of Pharmacology fac- ulty are pleased with the new course and the students response. Dr. Iohn P. Long, professor and head of pharmacol- ogy, said,' I know of only one other university in the nation - the University of Chicago - now of- fering an undergraduate course on drug use and abuse. We are very pleased to see the interest on this campus. I think it is extremely important for non- health-related people to learn about drugs. Teachers, counselors, journalists, all need to have a working knowledge of drugs and their effects. Dr. Michael Brody, professor of pharmacology and adviser to the graduate student group, thinks the course is a tremendous undertaking. It fills a void in the offerings of this University, in providing a general course on what drugs are, and how they are used. People everyday take sedatives or stimulants, put salves on their skin, take many non-prescriptive drugs. They should know what they're doing. S2 i33:5 5-wg, fri-'is'ttR',ffvgftm. . I 'll it 'n A 9? ,gl It Drugs Course 207

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They should know what they're doing U of I students could learn about the effects of drugs in a new course this year that was prepared and given by graduate students in the Department of Pharmacology. The drugs under scrutiny ranged from aspirin to oral contraceptives to marijuana and the hallucino- gens. The course, Drugs: Their Nature, Action and Use, was offered by the College of Medicine's De- parment of Pharmacology for two undergraduate credit hours. The course was first given in 1969-70 under the U of I Action Studies Program to about 60 students. This year the campus grapevine was busy and the obscure listing in the University's schedule of courses resulted in approximately 400 registrants. Because of lack of facilities, 50 had to be turned away and another class time was added to take care of the un- expected excess of150 students. Concerning the material used in the course, Gerald Gebhart, coordinator of the course explained, We not only talk about drugs of abuse, we talk about oral contraceptives, antibiotics, and other drug classes and emphasize pharmacologic principles common to all of them. There really is no other place in the University or any educational system where the student can learn about drugs. Thus, he can be easily duped by TV commercials and magazine advertisements. We want to give the student information to make him a better informed drug consumer. Although the course deals with the effects of mar- ijuana, alcohol, stimulants and hallucinogens, there is a determined effort by the instructors to remain objective and give the students an unbiased evalua- tion. We want to give the students a source of reliable 206 Drugs Course

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