Illegal Drugs Are a Major Public Health Hazard; Legalize Them All?

The junk problem, in its present form began with the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 in the United States. Anti-drug hysteria is now worldwide, and it poses a deadly threat to personal freedoms and due process protections of the law everywhere.- William S. Burroughs, October 1991

Please don't try to tell me about the "evils of drugs;" I've lived them.

I've seen things that even the most hyperbolic of the anti-drug propagandists won't use in their material. I'm still alive at almost 49 years of age but I'm not entirely sure why. I don't use now, but it's mostly because I'm afraid of going back to prison and not getting out alive. No one has really come up with an entirely convincing argument why I, as an individual should not use drugs.

The "Ugly Stuff" is real.

Some of the more absurd arguments against marijuana and the lesser opiates are balanced out by truths of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other less well known drugs. Even "Ecstasy" has been shown to be very damaging to the repeat user causing what some believe to be irreversible damage to the brain and nervous system. What people will do to themselves with a needle can be truly gruesome and nightmarish. I say on the basis of my observations of others, and also on the acts of self mutilation I have inflicted on myself, repeatedly.

Novelist William S. Burroughs, especially in his first two novels "Junky," and "Naked Lunch" tells it like it is. Although Burroughs, due to his longevity and literary successes seems to have become an opiate-addict hero over the years, his views were anything but pro-heroin. He just made one really important point, that drugs are a major public health hazard and that the largest part of the threat comes from anti-drug hysteria, much more so than from the drugs themselves.

There are however some types of deviance that seem to disgust just about everyone, even the practitioners of the deviant behaviors. The needle fixation is one such behavior. An injection can be a clean, smoothly and accurately executed procedure using a brand new syringe for the first and only time. But for the cocaine user in the depths of a full blown binge, eventually the act of injection can be reduced to a hellish, bloody, frustrated exercise in self mutilation through multiple jabs from a dulling point. I used to think I was better than that. I watched a pretty young blonde prostitute jam her ankle for nearly a half hour with the same syringe full of cocaine and partially clotted blood, before I finally told her to stop and scraped up another hit of coke and a fresh rig for her. But eventually, years later, it was me, adding just a little more water to try to keep the hit from clotting up. I just couldn't do that while other people were around.

"Control and its Costs"

To say that the marginal to nonexistent measure of drug control and protection that drug laws provide is worth the cost, is a statement that can only issue forth from the lips of an individual who looks eagerly forward to a prison planet. It is true that my personal experiences are not global in scope, but it seems to me that the drug laws of America are turning this "Beacon of Freedom" to the last great Stalinist/Totalitarian state.

Of course there are differences between America and its theoretical enemies, authoritarians of the left and right. The phenomenon of repressive tolerance to dissent is present, liberals, libertarians, radicals (of the left and right), and rational conservatives must be allowed to speak and then be duly ridiculed by "normal people" who then talk about how great this country is for not throwing cranks like that in jail for talking such trash. But the drug war's main result, the Prison-Industrial-Complex cannot be ignored and tolerated by people who still make a claim to some form of decency, civilization and humanity. The Prison-Industrial-Complex is a crime against humanity. Choose to ignore it at your own risk.

To say "I believe in drug prohibition" is to endorse the threat of rape, a favorite tactic of police and DAs and a very real danger in prison. A young man doing a year on a drug charge may be raped and leave prison with a death sentence (from HIV).

To say "I support the war on drugs" is to support political violence. Extremists of far right, (religious or fascist variety ;take your pick), as well as violent authoritarian left "guerrillas" whose behaviors rival their right wing counterparts in brutality, use drug trafficking to fund their terrorism. The right-wing death squads of America's more dubious allies have long been involved in drug trafficking. To blame American drug-users for the violence, as some ads by the Partnership for Drug-Free America have done, is ridiculous, as the obscene profits that fuel drug terrorism are made possible only by prohibition.

Only full legalization, with stiff taxation to develop funding for treatment, harm reduction and prevention has a chance of making a real impact; if the use of certain drugs increases for a while, so what? There is a limited amount of money in peoples' drug budgets. The use of some other drugs would decline.

I suspect the hardest hit would be the alcohol, and over-the-counter pain relief industries. Why wreck your stomach lining with ibuprofen, or destroy your liver with Tylenol, when you can simply smoke or swallow a pill of opium? By the way OTC pain meds are addictive in the sense that some people develop a dependency and need to take them daily until after a over period of years serious organ damage is done, even if the factors of euphoria, craving, and dramatically increasing tolerance are not present (and some degree of increasing tolerance to OTC meds is actually fairly common).

Somehow, in spite of the horrible deviance of Gulag America, international terrorism, and a criminalized addict population that must confess to crimes to ask for help, the question of what degree of deviance in a society is acceptable remains.

The "Zero Tolerance Policing" Policies (also known as "broken windows") made famous by Giuliani and his one time police commissioner Bratton, the man who deserved the credit for New York City's dramatic progress against violent crime , and was fired for getting more attention than his boss, are focused on restoring "order'. Even leftist author Christian Parenti in his book Lockdown America(pages 69-89)admitted that this type of policing was both "Dangerous" and "Effective", himself having been assaulted by narcotics officers in New York. Apparently, the officers had mistakenly identified him as a participant in a street corner drug deal. Giuliani and others of his ilk spoke of quality of life. Having to look at the homeless poor, an estimated two-thirds of whom are mentally ill and using street drugs, just ruins everyone's day.

Liberals want to "help" these people, but Giuliani had a better idea: have the cops beat the crap out of them, let them do a short stretch in Riker's, and when they are released, it is with the warning that they had better stay out of sight of the tourists and "respectable" people and stop ruining everyone's day by existing in plain sight, or to expect more beatings and imprisonments. The solution to drug addicts, prostitutes, panhandlers and all manner of other small time hustlers is to....well.... make them go somewhere else. Lock 'em up, but not for too long 'cause that costs. Just make them go somewhere that is so horrible that everyone's quality of life sucks already. I hear most of Newark NJ is like that.

Here in Denver as I write this, the cops are tough, but do not have the manpower or jail space to deal with the homeless. They drive homeless colonies and dope corners away from areas that are being gentrified, but there are just too many homeless here to do much about. The last count I saw had the number at over 10,000 people, and to those who say "well anyone can get a job and somewhere to live if they apply themselves" Well yes sure, you can go to the day labor place and if you're lucky, you'll get out get just under 50.00 for an 8 hour day, a good bit less after taxes and little "company store" type surcharges they tack on. If they get to really like you, you might get a long term assignment, or they might make sure you get out every day and then you can get a room in a flophouse. But getting a real job? It's not that easy to do without a home phone number and address on you job application.

Methadone treatment seeks (in the case of "maintenance") to stabilize the addict and prevent all cravings for narcotics, while removing any and all pleasurable or euphoric aspects for the practice of addiction, and quite nearly succeeds in doing so. But methadone does have a high of sorts, and the fact that it is taken orally for slow absorption into the bloodstream accounts for its somewhat boring nature (as noted earlier, when injected, the similarities between methadone and other narcotics are quite noticeable). A person who has been stabilized at an adequately high "blocking dose" will feel no psychological craving for other narcotics and indeed will not be able to feel them except at absurdly high doses. Many report a feeling of warmth and well-being coming on and increasing for the first two to four hours after ingestion.

Back when I was on methadone, if I allowed myself to relax sufficiently, I could experience a brief but intense "nod" and conversely, if there was work to be done, I could face the day energized and in a positive mental state that would last through the day. I juts had to keep busy and enjoy even the most modest successes in the day's labors. However, the important thing about methadone is that it is a "controlled" substance that is almost worthy of the title. Other narcotics may not be legally prescribed to addicts solely for the purpose of maintaining an addiction, by replacing heroin or other opiates.

To varying degrees, opiates can be purchased on the underground market without a prescription. These substances are anything but "controlled". The most significant result of the FDA's controlled substance schedule and the DEA's enforcement of it is the fact that for that in the know, heroin can be obtained more easily and often at lower per-dose prices than most of the other opiates. On the other hand, the black market in methadone is very limited, and the price of diverted methadone is relatively high, compared to other street drugs. Methadone is in fact very tightly controlled by the clinics, and even though some amount of diversion by methadone patients and occasionally even staff members is unavoidable, the majority of persons receiving methadone consume it as directed. The fact that the black market in methadone can never offer prices that are competitive with the legitimately obtained product ensures that most of the people who actually want methadone obtain it in treatment.

The control that clinic staff members wield over the methadone itself manifests as control of the addicts and their treatment to some extent. Dose reduction, threats of expulsion from treatment, and actual termination of treatment in cases of very serious misbehavior are all routinely used as behavioral deterrents. Methadone is so much more than a mere narcotic to replace a narcotic with, it is a control system in and of itself.

Sometimes a foolhardy soul will inject the cherry-syrup methadone using a huge (5, 7, or 10 cc) syringe, and if you hit it the rush is almost the same as smack coming on. I was one of these foolish adventurers. The sh*t tends to cause abscesses at the point of injection after a while. But if I'm on a roll, especially if there is a little coke too, I'll jam the huge dull one inch point straight through the inflamed and hardened tissue, I wince in pain, moan, whine, cry even but I push on until I get that hit. Whoever said we're afraid of pain needs to get their head out of the sand too. This type of behavior is disgusting to most people, deplorable and preventable to the Harm Reduction folks, but no matter how you slice it, it is deviant. If I thought it would help anyone I'd let them make a movie of me in that state. But it would be just sensational gross-out exploitation and might even glorify it to the blood drinking and self-slicing crowd.

Again, the "evils of drugs" tales are wasted on me, I've lived most of them.

Again I feel compelled to return to the question: How Much Deviance Can Society Put Up With? Big arguments take place about whether consenting adult men may place their penis, covered or bare, in consenting adult male or female partner's anus. There are other health risks besides AIDS if no condom is used, such as generalized urethral infections from bacteria. Many people are opposed to anal sex for no other reason than they feel that it is disgusting, personally. But it gets worse. In spite of all the gay male couples leading safe, monogamous and committed lives, and similar heterosexual couples who regularly engage in all manner of non-reproductive sexual practices, there are still others in both communities who are the opposite. These men and women give ideological ammunition to their persecutors and make life harder for their more responsible peers. Intransigently gay sex columnist Dan Savage often berates his fellow gay men for high risk behavior. Although outside of sophisticated urban centers, gays and lesbians are still hated and hunted, at least they took a stand. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before the government starts a war on non Judeo-Christian forms of romantic bonding. Unfortunately, things could, in fact, get a whole lot worse.

THE "EXTREME SPORTS" DEFENSE

At this point I'm thinking that maybe it's not a question of how much deviance can America tolerate, but what kind of deviance will it tolerate, and why? Playing at dangerous physical sports for kicks is not condemned; in fact it is encouraged by those who purvey the paraphernalia of the "extreme" lifestyle. When people get hurt and killed on fast motorcycles it is viewed as a tragic event, but not as a horrible form of moral degeneracy. Rock climbing, which is dangerous enough even with partners, ropes and safety equipment, is not condemned even when some extreme Zen lunatic climbs rocks "freehand" with nothing but muscular strength and pure ability standing between the climber and a lethal fall. Being an adrenaline junkie hasn't been banned yet, even though adrenaline junkies do exact a cost to society going into hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, when it becomes necessary to rescue them, or clean up the mess at the bottom of the cliff the earlier that day had been a climber.

UNIVERSAL DOGMA

The dogma of "sobriety" is nearly universal (although actual and complete abstinence is rare outside of the "recovered" addict population and certain religious groups). In both capitalist and socialist societies, seeking pleasure that has not been earned by economic participation, or involvement in socially sanctioned interpersonal relationships, sexual or otherwise (in the case of 12-step groups, the high of "belonging" which is said to result in an actual increase in dopamine levels), or manipulation of one's own internal chemistry through exercise, risk taking, and contemplative practices, is still frowned upon by the arbiters of morality. The sin of unearned pleasures, regardless of relative risk and negative health consequences is stigmatized, and those who indulge unapologetically are met with outrage and venom that is only surpassed by the hatred reserved for sex offenders.

Whether one buys into the "disease theory" or not, physical and psychological chemical dependencies usually start with a choice, and can almost always be ended with a choice. The choice to use narcotic painkillers after surgery or severe injuries results in long term addiction for a minority of patients, although some degree of physical dependency is usually present, even after just a couple of weeks of opiate based pain management. Most people are willing to discontinue their "pain meds" after the pain stops, and many find their side effects unpleasant enough to make this choice gladly. 90% of the soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam quit when their tour of duty was over.

Why does the classic picture of addiction develop in roughly 10% of the people who try just about any drug of abuse? While there may be some truth at the charges of anti-social personalities, moral weakness, and immaturity leveled at addicts, at least on an individual basis, these qualities are far from universal in this population, as much as some experts might protest to the contrary, nor are they in and of themselves enough to make an addict. Why, for some of us, must a pleasure be repeated to the point of absurdity and boredom? Why do we always seem to need more? And when pondering the behaviors of narcotic addicts and alcoholics, I will ask: what's missing?

The description by addicts of their first experience with heroin almost always describes a feeling of completeness, and realization that heroin was what was missing. Gavin Rossdale describes it in a song as clearly as anyone ever has when he sings : ".... but I don't want come back down from this cloud, it's taken me all this time to find out what I need."* Many of us needed the poppy for all the years preceding our first encounter with it.

Then there is the issue of slow suicide. There is no universal ban on this type of behavior either, be it nicotine, alcohol, or addictions to foods that through overuse and abuse lead to morbid obesity. Americans will still, I believe, stand up to the government as it tries to extend its already overly parental authority to these behaviors. Perhaps if I, or any number of Americans like me visited an orderly, centrally planned society like the communist-capitalist People's Republic of China, we would see the light and realize how much better things could be if we just let our rulers rule.

References:

Burroughs,William S.
Naked Lunch
Grove Press NY, NY, 1990

Parenti, Christian
Lockdown America
Verso, NY, NY 2000

Rossdale, Gavin
Bush
Song "Comedown"
Album "Comedown"
Interscope Records