1971-11-18-sr-p4-letters-to-editor-re-glenn-harmon-editorial
November 18, 1971 Spokesman-Review Page 4:
LETTERS
The Spokesman-Review
The opinions and statements expressed in this department are those of the letters’ authors and do not bear any relation to The Spokesman-Review editorial policy. To be published, letters must have the signature and address of the writer. Only a representative sampling of those received can be published and none can be returned. Address letters to The Forum, The Spokesman-Review.
Harmon Case
I disagree wholeheartedly with the following editorial from the WSU Daily Evergreen.
If the author of this comment had ever seen the Navy movie about LSD, he certainly wouldn't be soft-soaping it like he did in this piece.
Contrary to what the author, L.P., said, I think you did a good job of reporting the Harmon incident.
I'm writing to let you know that all of the WSU people don’t swallow the Evergreen’s opinion-comment page at face value. As a matter of fact, I claim that L. P. is guilty of what he accuses you of, that is, poor journalism, lack of facts and a smear campaign.
TOM BENNETT.
N320 Howard, Moscow, Idaho,
Alleging his son’s brain was damaged by LSD, E. Glenn Harmon has written an emotional yet unsound account of his son's last three years, The account was carried in the Spokesman-Review, It may now make the rounds of every reactionary paper looking for another sensational account of death at the hands of drugs.
As with most sensational accounts of death at the hands of drugs, this one can neither be proven or disproven,
Harmon's son was Larry Harmon, alleged sniper who killed one and wounded four others be- fore being killed himself in a gunfight near Gonzaga University in Spokane last week. The statement written by the elder Harmon alleges that his son, after trying LSD on the insistence of friends at school in the East, became insane and later obsessed with religious fantasies. He also alleges that his son wasn't killed by a policeman's bullet, but rather by LSD. Furthermore, the elder Harmon alleges that his son was prompted into trying LSD because he lived in a dorm where ‘anything goes’? — including smoking marijuana, This is a major point in Harmon's statement — that marijuana led to the use of LSD.
It was plain poor journalism to print such an assortment of outworn fallacies, The only people E. Glenn Harmon's statement is going to reach will be those afraid to look truth in the eye. Those familiar with LSD may already he laughing.
LSD could very well be dangerous, we don't know. Science evidently doesn't know as much about LSD as those who have been stunned emotionally by its use by a friend or relative. A father of a dead man who once experimented with LSD can in no way prove it dangerous, We do not know if LSD actually did damage Larry Harmon's mind, but we know a lot of LSD users have not resorted to killing. And a lot of killers have never tried LSD.
We should also remember that marijuana does not lead to LSD use, as the elder Harmon said with such point-blank assurity.
Where is the medical or even legal proof that an LSD-marijuana correlation exists? Where is the proof—medical or legal
—that Larry Harmon killed that man and wounded those others because of LSD.
We can't know for sure if the young Harmon was demented from LSD. It could very well have been from a bump on the head or a nasty fall.
We have no facts—we have a smear campaign, believing that anyone degenerated enough to use dope won't listen to reason (or won't be capable of listening to reason) the Spokesman again resorted to a fairy tale. It is sort of like a mother telling her children not to open the cookie jar because they will let the mean monster out.
A smear campaign will never work to prove LSD’s supposed danger, or even to convince people to stop using it. It hasn't worked in the past, and has even less of a chance to work in the future.
LP
