Jacob Sullum on Crack and Meth Myths in Forbes

Harper Collins

While most people have discovered through personal experience that the government was lying to them about marijuana's hazards, Jacob Sullum says, it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as crack cocaine and methamphetamine. Any attempt to question the use of force in dealing with these drugs therefore must begin by separating reality from horror stories, Sullum writes in Forbes, and that is where Columbia neuropsychopharmacologist Carl Hart comes in.

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Comments

[Enough About Palin]

I have personally seen people turn their brains into charred dust by using crack. And all those pictures of Meth-heard aging 20 years in just two or three are photo-shopped.

[PM]

Yeah, I've been exposed to a couple of meth users in my personal experiences, and their behavior and mental functioning were perceptibly different after vs before they started using. I still favor ending drug prohibition, but I hate Reason's insistence that every drug must also be found perfectly harmless (or even healthy). The vast majority of people who use alcohol don't become alcoholics, but it doesn't mean there's no such thing as an alcoholic or that alcohol use doesn't entail some degree of risk. Yet nobody wants to reinstate alcohol prohibition, and apologetics for the safety and efficacy of alcohol are practically non-existent. No other drug should be any different. Acknowledging that any given substance is going to fuck certain people up isn't the same as calling for its prohibition or universalizing its negative properties.

[Enough About Palin]

Meth-heard = meth-head

Man, I gotta put down the pipe!