Drugs

Chapter from “Culture Is Not Your Friend: Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness”.

When I say the word ‘drugs’, what kind of images show up in your mind? Are they of washed up junkies, spaced out hippies and pot smoking teenagers? Or of middle-aged housewives on Valium, athletes on Vicodin or kids on Ritalin?

“The European Commission estimates that adverse reactions from prescription drugs cause 200,000 deaths; so together, about 328,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe die from prescription drugs each year. “ – Donald W. Light, PhD, “New Prescription Drugs: A Major Health Risk With Few Offsetting Advantages”

Some drugs may be bad for you, even if the doctor has prescribed them. Some drugs may be good for you, even though your government has decided you are not allowed to take them. These illegal drugs are what this chapter is about.

Drugs And Science

The laws regulating drugs are not always based upon solid science. Special interests, personal tastes and morality, myths and fear have just as much to do with drug laws as scientific fact. Share on X If the scheduling of drugs was scientific and listed the various drugs according to their actual level of harm the laws would look very different. 

“Alcohol is the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual.” – The Economist, “Drugs that cause most harm”

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), alcohol alone is responsible for 3,3 million deaths each year, which is nearly six percent of all deaths. Tobacco is rated as being more harmful than amphetamine, killing an estimated 6 million people each year. So why have we not banned these drugs, which clearly are causing major harm? Why have we instead banned LSD and Psilocybin which are practically harmless? And why is cannabis illegal? A drug which has shown great promise as a treatment for PTSD, MS and cancer?

Why Are Some Drugs Illegal?

Would you believe me if I told you that the short answer is racism?
Sounds strange, but it might just be the main reason why some drugs are banned, and others are not.

In the US, opium was banned in 1875 because the white establishment feared the Chinese and their corrupt habits would ruin their young.

“Many women and young girls, as well as young men of respectable family, were being induced to visit the Chinese opium-smoking dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise.”

The ban of cannabis has a similar history. When the prohibition of alcohol ended in the US, the man in charge of enforcing it, Harry Anslinger, found his job in jeopardy. He needed a new enemy to combat, and created one.

“Working with a newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, he created hysteria around the impact of cannabis on American youth and proclaimed an invasion of marijuana-smoking Mexican men assaulting white women.” – Professor David Nutt, “Why are drugs illegal? You asked Google – here’s the answer”

Sound familiar?
Now it is no longer the Chinese corrupting the young white women, but the Mexicans. The same thing happened with Black people and their use of heroin and crack cocaine.

It is always advertised as an attempt to save good people from the harms of drugs. Never for what it is – an attempt by the government to control people. Especially those they do not like.

Unfortunately this witch hunt has not been isolated to the US, but exported through the UN via the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971.

Drugs And Human Rights

“If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.” – Terence McKenna

Can you freely decide what you put into your own body once you have reached the age of majority? Or does the state have the right to regulate what goes into it?

Your body is your temple, we keep hearing, yet the temples of drug users are routinely being desecrated by those who are sworn to protect it. Share on X If your smoke weed to reduce pain (take care of your temple) you may be forcefully removed from society, your family, your home, your job – your life, and be sent to live with murderers and rapists. Who is being protected and served by this? Not the weed smoker, that is for sure.

“Governments and law enforcement authorities have sometimes paid too little attention to fundamental rights and freedoms in their enthusiasm to design and implement national drug policies, despite their obligation under the UN treaties to protect human rights. As a result, human rights abuses have proliferated under current drug control policies.” -International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

Some religious groups are allowed to use drugs in a ceremonial setting, under the auspice of religious freedom. Yet the very basic freedom, the right to decide over one’s own body is rarely respected.

How We Deal With Addicts

From the mass killings in the Philippines, to the mass incarceration in the US, and the intervention and treatment approach in Portugal, there seems to be no consensus on how to deal with those who suffer from addiction to illegal drugs. Maybe we should start by defining what addiction is.

“At its core, addiction isn’t just a social problem or a moral problem or a criminal problem. It’s a brain problem whose behaviours manifest in all these other areas.” – Dr. Michael Miller, The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)

According to researchers in the area, addiction is an illness affecting the brain. What if we treated harmful drug use as a risk factor for disease, the way we do with tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods? And recognise addiction as a disease that may arise from the excessive use of addictive substances, the way excessive use of alcohol, tobacco and sugar may lead to cirrhosis of the liver, lung cancer and obesity?

If you were a doctor, you would probably not be comfortable with criminals treating your patients, yet that is what is happening with drug addicts. Share on X The addicts who self medicate get their drugs from street dealers, which are less interested in their health than they are in their money. Street drugs are not quality controlled, made by professionals or dispensed by professionals.

In Amsterdam, several tourists died and many were hospitalised after the ‘cocaine’ they thought they were buying turned out to be white heroin. If we truly care about the addicts’ health, we need to give them safer treatment options.

Treatment Options For Addiction

When the US government freaked out over the hippies and their use of psychedelics, they banned these drugs. And along with it, they may also have outlawed the cure for addiction. Share on X The ban did not only affect the recreational use of these compounds, but the research into their benefits as well. These restrictions have only recently began to lift, and the results so far with regards to treatment of addiction, has been very promising.

Did you know that LSD was once used to treat alcoholism, and with great results? Or that Ibogaine can be used to treat opiate addiction? How about using psilocybin to quit smoking?

In addition to treating the drug dependency itself, these compounds may also help get rid of the underlying psychiatric problems that led people to seek out drugs in the first place. MDMA for example has shown great promise as a treatment for PTSD, which is a common problem for veterans.

“Those service members with multiple deployments and combat exposure are at the greatest risk of developing drug and alcohol problems, use more prescribed medications, and often exhibit a co-occurring triad of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and pain, which complicates the problems with drug and alcohol use. Additionally, difficulties in civilian life — setbacks such as job loss, divorce and financial problems — all common for returning vets — may push as many as 13 percent of vets toward drinking and drugs.” – The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD)

Current treatment options for drug addiction consist of detox – ridding the body of the substance the person is addicted to. Replacement therapy – replacing an illegal drug with a legal alternative which is thought to cause less harm, such as Methadone and Subutex for heroin addiction. Behavioural therapy, screening for mental health issues and follow up to prevent relapse.

The relapse rates for drug addiction, once treatment is discontinued, is 40-60%.

“Relapse rates for addiction resemble those of other chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.” – National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

The War On Drugs

Never mind the moral aspect of the drug war, that we are waging a war against people doing things we do not like, and chasing sick people in need of help. What about the money? How much time and resources do we spend on chasing users? What is the cost to society to hunt them down, drag them through the courts and incarcerate them? Let us take a look at the US, where this war started.

“In 2005, federal, state and local governments spent $74 billion on incarceration, court proceedings, probation and parole for substance-involved adult and juvenile offenders and less than 1% of that amount—$632 million–on prevention and treatment for them.” – The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuseⁱ

If you are an addict, the likelihood of you coming out on top after a stint in jail is rather slim. If you do not have a job or treatment program waiting upon release, resorting to crime to feed the addiction and yourself may seem like the only good option. And before long, you will find yourself back in jail.

Now, if we are able to stop this cycle of arrest – release – relapse – arrest, if we can keep addicts out of jail and make sure they are employed, we can save a lot of money.

“For each inmate who remained sober, employed and crime free the nation would reap an economic benefit of $90,953 per year.” – The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

Those who have criminal convictions for drug use find that employers are not exactly lining up to hire them. Whether they were put in jail for recreational use of drugs, or if they are addicts, makes little difference. The criminal record itself is an obstacle to employment. Share on X By making it illegal to use certain substances, we are creating enormous costs to society, rather than reaping benefits.

Is this a sound policy? Or would we be better off spending just a little bit of that drug war money on treatment instead?

And if you are really worried that legalising dangerous drugs would lead to more people becoming addicted, take a look at what has happened with tobacco use in recent years.

In 1965, the number of adult cigarette smokers was 42,4 percent. In 2014, the percentage of adult smokers had been reduced to 16,8 percent. So what happened? Did the government crack down on tobacco use? Make tobacco illegal and incarcerate all those who used the substance? Wage war against tobacco?

No.

All they did was acknowledge the potential harm of the substance, educate the public on the subject, restrict access to the drug for children, and focus on helping people quit the habit. And it worked.

So, what can we learn from this?
That the answer to the drug problem is not criminalisation and incarceration, but education, regulation and treatment.

From Drug War To Drug Regulation

The greatest benefit in regulating drug use, is that it takes the money out of the hands of criminals. If cartel customers migrate to the legal competition, this not only reduces the cartels' income, but also their influence. Share on X

Secondly, if we are no longer chasing and incarcerating users, we will be saving a lot of money. And the law enforcement resources that have been allocated to this can then be put to better use, such as tracking down child abusers, rapists and murderers.

Lastly, making these drugs legal commodities means they can be taxed. This tax revenue can be spent on creating additional value for society, such as better education, healthcare and infrastructure.

But how would we go about regulating drugs?
Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Offer free workshops and education about drugs. Include balanced information about the safe use of the compounds, their effects and side effects, their harms and benefits, and where you can get help if you think you may be at risk of developing an addiction.
2. Restrict access to drugs for children.
3. Issue adults a licence that allows small scale cultivation of medicinal plants, such as cannabis, coca, khat etc. for personal consumption.
4. Making extracts from medicinal plants should be a job left to professionals, as stronger substances require special handling and have a higher potential for abuse.
5. Allow pharmacies to produce and sell drugs to adults.
6. Give addicts their drugs as prescription medicine.

© Merlyn Gabriel Miller