Monday, Sept. 11, 2000 | 9:24 a.m.
What: Commit to Quit Day reception
When: 6 p.m. today.
Where: Port Cyber, 2902 Lake East Drive, near South Durango Drive and West Sahara Ave.
Cost: Free.
Information: Call 562-9237.
Sheldon Kaplan has a desire that is both simple and complex.
The former rock promoter, who once worked with such ill-fated legends as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, wants the world to kick four of its addictions: smoking, drug abuse, alcoholism and compulsive gambling.
To Kaplan's way of thinking, the four vices are equivalent to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- literary figures representing pestilence, war, death and famine, which threaten to destroy the world.
Kaplan, 62, used to be a heavy smoker and now has serious health problems because of it. He knows that quitting any habit is easier said than done, which is why he decided to create a Commit to Quit Day -- a day to focus attention on those four addictions.
Kaplan will host a reception tonight at his offices at the Port Cyber Technical Center in Las Vegas to launch the first Commit to Quit Day, which he wants to observe every Sept. 11.
Kaplan chose the date because of its numerical significance: Sept. 11 is 9/11 -- 9-1-1 is the number to call during emergencies. And as far as Kaplan is concerned, the addictions he has chosen to highlight with a day of their own have created a worldwide emergency.
If concern over the health and social issues surrounding the addictions are not enough to lure people to Kaplan's business, which designs websites, perhaps his offer of free food and entertainment at the reception will.
"I want a day to call attention to the unhealthy, destructive, compulsive behavior ... and the negative effects it has on one's own health as well as the health of family, friends, loved ones," Kaplan said.
This evening's gathering will be broadcast live over the Internet at committoquitday.com, one of two websites created for the organization (the other is thecommitment.com).
"I hope to start a chain reaction of people who will recognize the eminent dangers (of the addictions) and make a commitment to quit," Kaplan said. "We want to promote a healthier lifestyle, replacing bad habits with good ones, such as exercise, proper diet and nutrition."
The idea evolved from a booklet Kaplan published last year entitled "Cold Turkey, Before You Become One." The 12-page publication outlines his feelings about the addictions and offers his solution to curing them, which is for those who are addicted to sign a contract with someone they love stating that they will quit.
"I wrote the book as a premise of making the commitment and doing it in writing," Kaplan said. "I believe it will help people if they will sign something. This is a little deeper than a New Year's resolution. It's putting your signature where your mouth is.
"I use poetry as a mantra, something you can repeat over and over when you feel the urge (to give in to the addiction) so you will not break your commitment."
Kaplan has a global vision.
"I want to make (Commit to Quit Day) an annual event that will become bigger and bigger each year," said the soft-spoken man, whose trim figure and smartly-cut suit belie his years as a hippie in the 1960s. "I want the event to not only become national but global, and the computer Internet can make it happen. We can have a Commit to Quit day in Zimbabwe."
Fighting addiction
Kaplan singled out the four addictions because, he says, they are the most prominent ones and doing the most damage
"They are the things I understand," Kaplan said.
He opposes smoking, in part, because it is responsible for his own ill health. In the past two years he has been operated on twice for smoking-related aneurisms, which are balloon-like sacs that form on the weakened wall of a vein, artery or the heart. Doctors are keeping a close eye on a third one, and when it becomes larger he will go under the knife again.
"Smoking ruined my health," said Kaplan, who smoked for 20 years before quitting 15 years ago. "It is a direct result of my own stupidity."
He said 44 years ago both he and his mother agreed they would stop smoking. "My mother quit. She is 93 years old and she's in better health than I am," Kaplan said. "I reneged on my commitment."
His opposition to drugs is the result of many acquaintances who have died from the addiction over the years, including Hendrix (who died on Sept. 18, 1970) and Joplin (who died about three weeks later, on Oct. 4).
Kaplan said he read recently that Congress passed a bill that will give $7.5 billion to Columbia to help that country fight a drug war.
"We should spend that money in this country to cure the addiction," Kaplan said. "If Americans didn't buy the drugs, Columbia wouldn't sell them."
As for drinking and gambling, he said there is nothing wrong with either until they turn into addictions.
"It has been proven that two drinks a day will lengthen your life," he said. "But if you go over the line, that's where the stand should be taken."
The same may be said of gambling.
"I'm not saying not to gamble," he said. "But if it's getting to the point where you're not able to pay your rent and it's hurting your family, then it becomes a problem."
Kaplan's Commit to Quit organization is nonprofit. "I plan to write some grants for this, make it bigger and bigger, but I'm not interested in making money off of it," he said.
The organization's websites have more than 300 links to other organizations that help people with addictions.
"Eventually we will link to thousands of organizations that will be able to find answers to every question (about addiction)," Kaplan said.
There is HELP
This is not Kaplan's first effort at helping mankind.
In 1970 -- about the time Joplin and Hendrix died -- he gave up a lucrative career in promoting concerts and part-ownership in some nightclubs in Philadelphia to start HELP, one of the first store-front, privately-operated social services organizations in the country.
"I used to own a jazz club in Philly called the Showboat. We had some of the greatest music in the world there -- Wes Montgomery, Lou Rawls, Cannonball Adderly, Miles Davis," Kaplan recalled. "I ran the club for thee years (in the mid-1960s) and then the music started to change. Rock was coming."
After going to the popular Electric Circus nightclub in New York City -- where he saw his first hippie and had his first exposure to the psychedelic era with its black lights and Day-Glo paint -- he started the Electric Factory in Philadelphia.
"It was similar to the club in New York, but much better," Kaplan said. "The first week we opened we had the Chambers Brothers. The next week we had Cream, then Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
"This was the time when the first (rock) concerts were happening. (Concert promoter) Bill Graham was starting Filmore East and Filmore West."
Kaplan said the Electric Factory, which was one of the most popular nightclubs of that era, became one of the largest promotion companies in the United States -- and continues to be a major promoter.
"We did the Atlantic City Pop Festival, which was the stepping stone to Woodstock a week later," Kaplan said. "(Concert promoter) Michael Land heard about what we were doing at the Atlantic City race track and he decided to put on the same acts (at Woodstock)."
In August, 1970, Kaplan attended an international rock concert on the Isle of Wight, near Great Britain, where Hendrix was among the musical elite to play. The guitar legend would be dead of a drug overdose less than a month later.
On the way back to the United States, Kaplan stopped in London and happened to learn about a privately operated organization called Released, which was created to help people who were addicted to drugs.
Inspired by Released, after returning to Philadelphia, Kaplan sold his business interests and he and a friend started HELP, which in its early years received widespread coverage in national publications such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
"We saw what was coming," Kaplan said. "The whole (drug use) movement ... we saw what drugs were doing to people. The best thing I can say that I ever did was starting HELP."
The operation was open 24 hours a day. At first it was only a referral service, but eventually offered counseling and other aids for people in trouble.
"We paid our people maybe $33 a week and sometimes we couldn't pay that," he said. "At one time we were down to $9 in the bank when we got a $5,000 check from the Hugh Hefner organization."
After three years of working on a shoestring, funded by donations, HELP received a $2.4 million federal grant. With HELP solvent, Kaplan resigned and pursued other interests.
He came to Las Vegas a couple of years ago to work with Joseph Gould, a local businessman who, at the time, was trying to jump start a medical school in Las Vegas with a combination donation and loan of $15 million.
Gould died in June 1999 at age 96, before his dream could be fulfilled. Kaplan stayed in Las Vegas to start his Internet business.
Now, he said, he wants to use the experience he has acquired over the years to focus on addictions and Commit to Quit Day.
"I want to keep it nonjudgmental and nonpolitical," he said. "I want to create a positive force and environment which will make more people aware of the longterm ill effects that these self-destructive habits have on the whole of our society."
Jerry Fink is an Accent feature writer. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4058.
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