Editing Jonestown (section)

===Jones' declining physical and mental health===
Jones' health significantly declined in Jonestown. In 1978 he was informed of a possible lung infection, upon which he announced to his followers that he had [[lung cancer]] – a ploy to foster sympathy and strengthen support within the community.<ref>Goodlett, Carlton B. [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16978 ''Notes on Peoples Temple''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205013831/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16978 |date=February 5, 2015}}, ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University. Excerpted from ''The Need For A Second Look At Jonestown'', Rebecca Moore and Fielding M. McGehee, III, editors. [[Lewiston, New York]]: [[Edwin Mellen Press]], 1989.</ref>

Jones was said to be abusing injectable Valium, [[Quaalude]]s, [[stimulant]]s and [[barbiturate]]s.<ref name="reiterman446">{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=446}}</ref> Audio tapes of 1978 meetings exhibit Jones complaining of [[high blood pressure]], small [[stroke]]s, [[weight loss]] of thirty to forty pounds within the span of two weeks, temporary [[blindness]], [[convulsions]] and, in his final month, grotesque swelling of the [[Limb (anatomy)|extremities]].<ref name="reiterman446"/> During meetings and public addresses, Jones' once-sharp speaking voice often sounded slurred; words ran together or were tripped over. He would occasionally not finish sentences even when reading typed reports over the commune's speaker system.<ref name="reiterman446"/>

Reiterman was surprised by the severe deterioration of Jones' health when he saw him in Jonestown on November 17, 1978.<ref name="reitermantimes"/> After covering Jones for eighteen months for the ''Examiner'', he thought it was "shocking to see his glazed eyes and festering paranoia face to face, to realize that nearly a thousand lives, ours included, were in his hands."<ref name="reitermantimes"/>