No Bad Drugs

The arbitrary distinctions at the root of prohibition

Jacob Sullum from the April 2008 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

Speaking of old prohibitionist tricks, Califano is not above scare tactics reminiscent of the “reefer madness” claims that Federal Bureau of Narcotics Director Harry J. Anslinger promoted in the 1930s. “Recent studies indicate that marijuana use increases the likelihood of depression, schizophrenia, and other serious mental health problems,” Califano writes. These studies do not show that smoking pot makes you crazy; they show that people who smoke pot, especially if they do so at early ages and in large amounts, are more likely to have “serious mental health problems.” In other words, these studies find associations, which, as Califano notes vis-à-vis the data on gateway drugs, “do not necessarily establish causality.” It could be that people with psychological problems are especially attracted to marijuana because it makes them feel better, or because they tend to act out or take risks; early use of marijuana could be a marker for psychological problems rather than a cause of them.

Having failed to explain why people should be arrested for producing, selling, and possessing marijuana when they are free to produce, sell, and possess alcoholic beverages, Califano goes on to note that all those arrests (about 830,000 in 2006 alone) don’t seem to have accomplished much. “From 1993 to 2005,” he writes, “a 107 percent increase in marijuana arrests was accompanied by a 100 percent increase in marijuana users.” Califano concludes that “something more is needed”: harsher penalties, mandatory anti-drug classes, and forced “treatment” for pot smokers.

More generally, although he claims to be recommending a “dramatic shift,” even a “revolution,” in drug policy, Califano actually wants to maintain the status quo, except with more drug treatment and better anti-drug classes. (He correctly notes that DARE, the most popular such program in American schools, “has been repeatedly found worthless.”) Califano wants to force “treatment” on people who use politically incorrect intoxicants even though he concedes “there have been few independent systematic evaluations of substance abuse treatment effectiveness.” The techniques that have not been proven effective through rigorous independent evaluations include the religiously oriented 12-step programs that Califano nevertheless wants to compel drug users to attend.

While Califano seems to favor mandatory treatment rather than jail for drug users, he says people “who dealt drugs but didn’t use them belong in prison—and for a long time.” Contrary to conventional wisdom in the drug business, then, it may be a good idea to sample your own product, so you can benefit from Califano’s curiously compartmentalized compassion.

Lest you think that Califano, a big-spending liberal Democrat, favors unproven demand-side measures at the expense of futile supply-side measures, he can also sound like the most clueless get-tough Republican, confident that we can seal our borders against the flow of drugs Americans want if only we put our minds to it. “We must mount a far more effective effort to block entry of illegal drugs into the United States and to eliminate production within the country,” he writes. “This under­taking demands the kind of attention we have committed to keeping chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons out of our nation. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy, and other illegal drugs have demonstrated a far deadlier capability for mass destruction.”

Califano, who worries that “sensational media coverage” causes “popular concerns and parental fears about substance abuse” to “ricochet from drug to drug,” does not exactly strive for a restrained tone himself. Blaming cocaine for inciting “paranoia and violence,” he says the smokable version “flooded inner-city neighborhoods and kicked off a harrowing crack-related crime tsunami.” To support this claim, he cites page 245 of Paul Gahlinger’s Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse. But Gahlinger says nothing about a “harrowing crack-related crime tsunami.”

As DeGrandpre notes in The Cult of Pharmacology, Califano’s image of crack-crazed criminals was debunked more than a decade ago by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. “The media and public fears of a direct causal relation between crack and other crimes do not seem to be confirmed by empirical data,” the commission said in 1995. “Studies report that neither powder nor crack cocaine excite users to commit criminal acts and that the stereotype of a drug-crazed addict committing heinous crimes is not true for either form of cocaine.” So-called crack-related violence was in fact prohibition-related violence, arising from conflicts among black-market participants.

Other Califano claims are absurd on their face. In his lexicon, if a single teenager reports seeing a fellow student buy, use, or possess alcohol or other drugs at his school, that is enough to render the school “drug-infested.” In a 1999 report CASA said “teens who smoke marijuana are playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette,” an activity in which there is a one-in-six chance of instant death on each turn. Three years later it likened underage drinking to “a deadly round of Russian roulette.”

In High Society, Califano trots out the metaphor for another purpose. “Russian roulette is not a game anyone should play,” he informs readers, just in case they were considering it as an alternative to checkers. “Legalizing drugs not only is playing Russian roulette with children; it is also slipping a couple of extra bullets into the chamber.” Meaning that if drug prohibition were repealed, half of America’s children would die?

Califano is on even shakier ground when he suggests that the classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill would have approved of drug prohibition, since “Mill’s conception of freedom does not extend to the right of individuals to enslave themselves,” and “drug addiction is a form of enslavement.” We can be pretty sure Mill would not have endorsed drug prohibition on this ground, since he didn’t. In fact, he vigorously opposed alcohol prohibition as a clear violation of individual liberty.

But maybe Mill was wrong. Could drug addiction really be a form of slavery? According to Califano, it’s actually a “chronic, relapsing disease” similar to “diabetes or high blood pressure.” Which is not to say that it’s strictly a biochemical phenomenon. Addiction research, Califano says, “is also psychological, emotional, and spiritual research, since this complex disease has elements of dysfunction in all these areas.” Califano’s fondness for Alcoholics Anonymous and likeminded groups makes sense, since he, like them, views drug abuse as a medical problem with a spiritual solution.

Does it matter that Califano chooses to call drug abuse a disease? I think it does, since a disease is something that happens to people, not something that they do. It follows that the choices made by people whom others identify as addicts need not be respected, since they are not really choices at all. DeGrandpre quotes Alan Leshner, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who declares “Addiction is not a voluntary circumstance. It’s not a voluntary behavior. It’s more than just a lot of drug use. It’s actually a different state…a state of compulsive, uncontrolled drug use.”

DeGrandpre doesn’t buy it. “The vast literature on careers in drug use flatly contradicts this perspective,” he writes in The Cult of Pharmacology. He summarizes that literature, showing that addicts commonly drift into and out of heavy use, stop or moderate their consumption on their own, and “mature out” of supposedly permanent addictions. Even the animal experiments prohibitionists cite to demonstrate the irresistible power of certain chemicals, DeGrandpre notes, actually show that drug use is “sensitive to the context in which it occurs.” When lab animals are kept in stimulating environments along with other animals, they are much less inclined to consume drugs than when they are isolated in boring environments and hooked up to a catheter.

Human drug use shows even more variation. A patient in pain or a soldier at war can use a strong narcotic for particular reasons and give it up without much trouble once those reasons no longer apply. A happy person can take or leave the same drug that a miserable person turns to every day. A person who uses a drug to excess during an especially troubled period may find that he can use it in moderation after his situation improves. Given these differences, it makes little sense to talk about a drug’s “addictiveness” as if it were a chemical property. “Used for different reasons, taken in different forms, and at different doses, the same drug can serve dramatically different ends,” DeGrandpre observes. “Drugs, their users, and the context of use all come together to produce drug outcomes.”

Since expectations affect the drug user’s experience, DeGrandpre provocatively but plausibly argues, the belief that a substance is powerfully addictive can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “The massive use of opiates in the nineteenth century did not translate into widespread dependence and addiction,” he notes, but that was before opiates, especially heroin, acquired a reputation as irresistible and inescapable. He suggests this “placebo script,” together with prohibition and the concomitant shift in the user population from middle-class women to young men at the margins of society, made opiates look more addictive. Likewise, says DeGrandpre, exaggerating the power of nicotine (as Califano routinely does) “teaches [smokers] that it is impossible to quit.”

Comments

Episiarch|3.20.08 @ 9:28AM|#

What matters is the spell scrawled by a government-appointed medicine man who can transform demons into angels with the stroke of a pen.

This is the crux of it: state control.

I get a prescription for my pain for Vicodin from my state licensed doctor (and pay him) and then buy the Vicodin from a state-licensed pharmacy (and pay them), I'm a good person.

If I buy Vicodin from somebody on the street to alleviate my pain, I'm a criminal. And the doctor didn't get his cut, and the state didn't get their cut.

LarryA|3.20.08 @ 9:43AM|#

Although it is not always easy to decipher Califano's meaning in this overwrought, carelessly written, weakly documented, self-contradictory, and deeply misleading anti-drug screed

Aw, tell us what you really think. ;-)

|3.20.08 @ 10:19AM|#

"Today's teens' pot is not their parents' pot," he explains. "It is far more potent.…The average levels of THC jumped from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 7 percent in 2005."

Every sigle fucking time I hear this monumemental pile of diarrheitc shit, I want to slap the mouth that is spewing it. My response to that overused and never documented claim is Bullshit, Bullshit, Lying Bullshit!

Now that that is out of my system, excellent article, Jacob. Can we make it required reading for drug warriors?

Didn't think so.

Sam Grove|3.20.08 @ 10:29AM|#

I managed to get high quite a few times while I was in prison on marijuana charges.

The only drug problem I saw there was when some guys managed to get hold of some grain alcohol and became violent.

|3.20.08 @ 10:32AM|#

There must be something wrong with me. Every time I read something like this, I think, "Well, that should convince somebody, somewhere, that the war on drugs is totally irrational and pointless."

But it just doesn't seem to work that way. People still run around in a panic and try to ban anything and everything. Instead of trying to think rationally about why the jails need to be full of essentially harmless drug users, they spend their time trying to raise (tax) money to build more jails.

People are morons.

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 11:00AM|#

JsubD,

that overused and never documented claim is Bullshit

I don't know.
Shouldn't market forces lead to innovative improvements in the product.

My impression while I smoked pot (haven't touched the stuff in decades) was that the trend towards better weed was obvious and widespread.

I would be surprised if the trend didn't continue.

Mike Laursen|3.20.08 @ 11:00AM|#

People have an immediate negative emotional reaction to information they don't like. Some are listening, though, and will process the new information later, after they get over the initial reaction -- unless someone keeps pushing on them, keeping the initial reaction going.

Mike Laursen|3.20.08 @ 11:01AM|#

In other words, give them the info and walk away for a while. A lot of people will eventually come around on their own time scale.

Rhywun|3.20.08 @ 11:05AM|#

What an infuriating article. Infuriating because people actually think like this. Argggghhh! The damage done by evil frauds like Califano is incalculable. But it seems to be human nature to look down on drug (ab)users, so I'm not holding my breath waiting for any sanity on this issue from those in power.

|3.20.08 @ 11:08AM|#

The average levels of THC jumped from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 7 percent in 2005

Number 1, I don't think this is true based on personal experience.

Number 2, since they are also telling us that marijuana smoke is full of carcinogens, wouldn't stronger pot, requiring fewer tokes, reduce the cancer risk and be a good thing?

Dave W.|3.20.08 @ 11:17AM|#

A lot of people will eventually come around on their own time scale.

A good message to the Mike Laursens Of The World!

|3.20.08 @ 11:20AM|#

My impression while I smoked pot (haven't touched the stuff in decades) was that the trend towards better weed was obvious and widespread.

I was thinking about that after I posted. The type of folks I smoked with, the kind of stuff we smoked, are hardly staistically valid samples.

Is it possiible in that from '74-'82, sailors had access to significantly better weed than, college students, white collar workers, et al? With extremely rare exceptions, we were not importers, but bought on the same market as everyone else. As a group, we may have been more discriminating due to travel experiences, but in the states we procured ounces, pounds, and kilos in town.

The potency of what I was smoking then was, at a minimum, as THC laden as what I can get in Detroit today. I am no longer as involved with the scene as I was then so that needs to be considered. That all said, I deny that you can find reefer that is even twice as potent as the good stuff from my youth, or seven times the average stuff.

BC|3.20.08 @ 11:35AM|#

"This under­taking demands the kind of attention we have committed to keeping chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons out of our nation. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy, and other illegal drugs have demonstrated a far deadlier capability for mass destruction."

So this asshole is implying that drugs are worse than a nuclear attack. This has got to be the single biggest dumb fuck argument I've heard in my entire life. This man is utterly fucking batshit insane.

Angry Mike Laursens of the Wor|3.20.08 @ 11:38AM|#

A good message to the Mike Laursens Of The World!

Hey, what the @#&* do you mean by that?! (Oh, sorry. Overreacted. We've calmed down now.)

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 11:53AM|#

JsubD,

Like I said, I haven't touched the stuff in decades...but in the spirit of discussion.

That all said, I deny that you can find reefer that is even twice as potent as the good stuff from my youth, or seven times the average stuff.

The average stuff from your youth could be more than half as potent as the average stuff today and that would not refute the claim (which when made should include a citation, if it is based on any reality).

7% THC may not be subjectively 7 times as potent as 1%.

The average can move up due to less bad shit without the quality of the good shit changing.

Also, pot smoking is one of those funny things.

Your body doesn't really develop tolerance for the intoxicating effects, but your mind does. Because dope has such a long half-life (days long instead of hours), people who smoke pot regularly are essentially a little bit high all the time. The more they smoke, the more their baseline high moves up, and the more they need to make it feel like they are getting high.

Whether or not the claim about more potent dope is true, of course, is beside the point.

Neu Mejican,
Professional Dope Smoker (retired).

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 11:58AM|#

JsubD,

The point about the subjective tolerance wasn't clear.

Because the frequency of usage significantly changes your subjective experience of the dope's potency. It makes that subjective judgment very difficult to rely on for evaluating the potency of the dope.

|3.20.08 @ 12:04PM|#

If I buy have left over Vicodin from somebody on the street in my family to alleviate my pain, I'm a criminal. And the doctor didn't get his cut, and the state didn't get their cut.

There, fixed it to match my situation.

|3.20.08 @ 12:18PM|#

Meu Mejican,
Yeah, I admiited I'm not a statistically valid sample. I suspect there is NO statistically valid sample on reefer potency variations over time. I stand by my statement
I deny that you can find reefer that is even twice as potent as the good stuff from my youth, or seven times the average stuff*.

* Average stuff (for me) being "columbian". I didn't smoke "dirt weed".

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 12:21PM|#

JsubD,

I suspect there is NO statistically valid sample on reefer potency variations over time.

Actually, I would be surprised if the DEA doesn't do regular testing on the dope that they seize. It should be a fairly representative sample of the market.

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 12:24PM|#

* Average stuff (for me) being "columbian". I didn't smoke "dirt weed".

So JsubD is really just The Dope Commonsewer?

I suspect dirt weed is closer to the average than what you smoke. Who knows if dirt weed is substantially stronger than it used to be.

Not me.

Fred|3.20.08 @ 12:25PM|#

If I buy have left over Vicodin from somebody on the street in my family my own prescription after original condition is gone, to alleviate my pain, I'm a criminal. And the doctor didn't get his cut, and the state didn't get their cut.

You are required to dispose of it when no longer needed, if you take it years later you are a criminal. People should not be self medicating, an MD should evaluate your need for meds.

Misuse of drugs is imoral, freedom is drug free, let freedom ring!

Neu Mejican|3.20.08 @ 12:27PM|#

You are required to dispose of it when no longer needed, if you take it years later you are a criminal. People should not be self medicating, an MD should evaluate your need for meds.

That is a statement screaming for a citation.

I am gonna go out on a limb and call bullshit until I see a link or text of a specific statute.

|3.20.08 @ 12:33PM|#

Neu Mejican

I think Fred was trolling satirically or, maybe, satirically trolling.

TallDave|3.20.08 @ 3:23PM|#

overwrought, carelessly written, weakly documented, self-contradictory, and deeply misleading anti-drug screed,

LOL Don't hold back, dude. Tell us what you really think!

Not that I disagree.

Quixote|3.20.08 @ 11:02PM|#

Those who falter and those who fall must pay the price. I will not rest until they are all behind bars.....

Pablo Escobar|3.21.08 @ 5:41AM|#

Smackdown!

Good work Jacob.

|3.21.08 @ 3:12PM|#

Nice article.
Maybe Califano wants to explain how I got A+s on my last (university) exams, cause, you know, I went to class stoned, studied stoned, and even took the test stoned. Awwww my poor memory and concentration skills! I think it impaired my emotional development, too.

Haha....how can impaired "emotional development" be a short-term effect? Propaganda bullshit.

Douglas Gray|3.21.08 @ 8:50PM|#

The root of demonization is this:

I recently spoke with a man whose son started taking illegal substances when he was 14; the boy is now 21 and still struggling. This man can't admit that his son is messed up; it is all the drugs fault, the boy would be happy, successful and well adjusted if not for the drugs.

This reaction still persists in a lot of people.

There is only one serious accident for every 17 million miles of driving. It is that safe, but bad things do happen. Same with drugs. There are a multi-million drugs uses, legal and illegal, every day. In a few cases, bad things happen, but even then the drugs are not the sole cause.

People don't get it. Bad outcomes are often the result of multiple causes, but only one is often singled out.

Red Green|3.22.08 @ 9:39AM|#

The other war, the war on drugs, is taking too long to go away. Califano is one reason why. The old fraud keeps on writing books and getting fed funds. His CASA says it all. He is only about ABuse. There can be nothing else. Columbia U should erect a memorial fountain in his name. Shape it like a urinal and fill it with left over urinalysis samples. His phonyscience has left quite a legacy for us to laugh at in the future.

|3.22.08 @ 10:52PM|#

"If the devout are less inclined than the doubters to use mood-altering drugs, how is it that mostly Mormon Utah leads the country in antidepressant prescriptions?"

Jacob, next time don't mistake a headline for research.

Utah leads the country in per-capita use of prescriptions anti-depressants because Mormons generally don't SELF-medicate.

Most non-Mormons happily slug themselves up with booze, dope and just about every herb that they can chew, burn or boil. We don't. It's against our religion to do so. We don't even drink coffee or tea, much less use so-called "recreational" drugs as alcohol or tobacco.

Since we don't drown our sorrows like most people, prescriptions are our only option when some kind of medication is needed. The same studies that show Utah at the top of the Pharmacy Phrequent Phlyer list also show us at the BOTTOM of per-capita rates of ABUSING prescription drugs, and we tend to get off of anti-depressants faster than folks in other states.

I would also point out that only 60% of the people here are Mormons. A lot of the people on mood drugs are non-Mormons.

Al Francher|3.23.08 @ 9:39AM|#

Did somebody try to slander the Mormons again? You said "generally don't SELF- medicate", well then ,medicate,they still do. A doc"s script makes it different? Sounds ,to me, that you drank the kool-aid of self delusion. But then ,such is life in a theocrazy.