For centuries Europeans drank—and for
some today, drink—a lot of ale. Numerous accounts of polluted water in
the 13th to 18th centuries abound, which apparently forced the citizens
of London and Germany to drink plenty of alcohol—one entry from St.
Paul’s Cathedral allowed for one bola (gallon) per person every day.
Others claim that such an amount was unsustainable on the environment,
if not the liver.
Whether or not the English and Germans
drank a gallon a day, it is certain that beer was an integral part of
daily life, especially in monasteries. While it was common knowledge
that a little alcohol elevates the spirits, it certainly was not
considered a drug. At least a portion of the water sources really were
contaminated. Even if widespread pollution is a myth, who wouldn’t want
to believe it true if the solution meant breakfast with ale?
Our beliefs about the substances we
ingest has always dictated public attitude toward them. “Drug” is a
relative term. Ayahuasca has long been medicine for the soul—advocates
call it “grandmother medicine,” with the grandfather being peyote.
Marijuana’s history as a Schedule One substance is much shorter than its
common usage in numerous cultures. Substances that alter consciousness
are usually deemed sacraments, not sacrilegious. That changed roughly 50
years ago from a policy perspective.
That attitude changed for the same reason
that the idea of building a wall on our Mexican border persists:
racism. Carl Hart, who chairs the Department of Psychology at Columbia
University, recently stated that the war on drugs is simply a war on race. This is not mere speculation. Last year an interview was published
with a former aide to Richard Nixon in which he stated the war on drugs
was specifically waged to put down any chance of minority revolt.
“Drugs” are simply chemical substances
with a physiological effect. Sugar is a drug, as is tobacco and
caffeine, all of which have detrimental effects when used in excess. A
beer a day might not be a bad thing, but a six-pack (or gallon) daily
slowly kills you. Since these are socially acceptable and legal, we tend
to gloss over their categorization as drugs. We certainly don’t have
moral directives against these substances, save for certain religious
groups, such as Mormons opposing alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine—at least
in the form of coffee and tea since no sanctions against soda and chocolate exist. As stated, it’s always relative.
The relativity of drugs within groups is one thing. When
it affects policy, however, a moral argument is waged against citizens
who might not share those morals, and that is a problem. While we are
currently undoing five decades of marijuana prohibition Jeff Sessions
has recently stated
that marijuana is “only slightly less dangerous” than heroin—a provably
false claim. Society is waking up from a daze; our attorney general is
attempting to keep us in it.
Sessions, who also champions Nancy
Reagan’s failed war on drugs—the same racially motivated drug search
Nixon, in a lineage kicked off by Harry Anslinger, initiated—is
partaking in the same form of verbal gymnastics his forebears used. In
his imagination, marijuana is a gateway drug. Reagan went a step further
when she personified drugs:
Drugs steal away so much. They take and take. Drugs take away the dream from every child’s heart and replace it with a nightmare.
Trade one boogeyman for another, in this
case the “other” races in our nation. Hart argues that such language
confuses the public. It's not only the drug that is vilified, but the
ethnicities most associated with using that drug—an approach that
recently hit a roadblock with the opioid epidemic.
Oxycontin, a commonly prescribed opioid, and a flowering cannabis plant.
Strangely, we’ve never had a marijuana
epidemic. Yet no substance has been used to incarcerate more Americans.
Marijuana is not being and has never been treated as an issue of
rehabilitation, as is occurring in communities plagued by opioids. Hart
believes this strikes at the heart of the race issue. Discussing other
nations with more sensible drug policies, he says:
They do this all around the world, because their first concern is keeping people safe, and not morality.
Why are morals not being used to combat
opioids, especially considering numerous people use marijuana for the
very same reason—pain relief? In 2015, 52,000 people died from overdoses;
two-thirds of those were associated with opiates such as fentanyl and
OxyContin. This has prompted Senator Claire McCaskill to ask
pharmaceutical companies to release literature they use to influence
doctors to prescribe their drugs.
As long as drugs like marijuana remain
Schedule One and no national legislation addresses legality (as is
happening in the states), such a question remains impossible to ask. But
it does show the different approach politicians are taking to this
particular drug problem. Sessions has never discussed opioids as a
gateway drug; he has even called data showing legalized marijuana helps
combat opioid addiction “stupid.”
As Saralyn Lyons reports in Johns Hopkins University's HUB:
To keep drug policy in America from being hijacked by morality and exaggeration, Hart encouraged a reframing of the conversation: Drug users should "come out of the closet" to change the narrative that users are inherently abusers. "Drug users are me," he said.
Personifying certain drugs as evil while
calling opioid users “victims” strikes at the root of this linguistic
(and psychological) posturing. Hart suggests a more compassionate
approach, not one sponsored only by a “white face,” to deal with our
actual drug problems—this includes crack cocaine in minority
communities, another drug treated as a crime and not a tragedy. This
means removing morality from the picture to investigate the real effects
of each drug and how we’re addressing them.
And that means being honest with data.
And that means being honest with data.
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