Mark Kleiman tackles John Tierney’s piece on crystal meth today. Kleiman makes a point that Tierney grossly overlooks - drug problems aren’t just about the drug, but the form it takes. Cocaine wasn’t (and isn’t) as much of a problem as crack, because it’s not as addictive and not as dangerous. That doesn’t mean that both aren’t, but crystal meth as compared to regular, medically safe amphetamines isn’t even a real comparison.
Kleiman says all of this, but it bears repeating - drug legalization should not equal drug ignorance. Reefer Madness could have actually been a film about crystal meth…and it wouldn’t have been too far from the truth.
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When alcohol was prohibitted, people who drank anyway wanted hard liquor.
The same may be true of the prohibtion of recreational drugs. People figuring that if they’re going to break the law, they might as well use an intense form of the drug in question.
Crack isn’t more addictive than powder cocaine.
From the article:
It’s the same pattern observed during Prohibition, when illicit stills would blow up, and there was a rise in deaths from alcohol poisoning. Far from instilling virtue in Americans, Prohibition caused them to switch from beer and wine to hard liquor. Overall consumption of alcohol might even have increased.
Is that true? This is very much not my area of expertise, but I thought that current thinking about Prohibition is that, while it was widely violated, post-Prohibition Americans drank significantly less than pre-Prohibition folks.
Actually it has more to do with it being in the drug dealer’s best interest to get the druggy on soethign that is not only addictive but also creates a tolerance that requires the druggy purchasing more drugs - remember, the black market is the only completely deregulated market in first world countries, and comletely deregulated markets tend towards the evil abuse of consumers when ever they can get away with it.
also there’s the issue that illegal booze was more expensive than legal booze, so people would want to get drunk with less to save themselves money, your mechanism eric implies that the people who partake of drugs do so for the sake of breaking the law, and while that mechanism might work for teenagers and rebellious youths, the market for hardcore drugs is much more geared towards older people with disposable incomes, who can afford the more expensive heavier gear and are less likely to require leg breakers to have to squeeze payment out of the consumers at some point.
I’m told by a friend who works in prison that random drug tests are pushing people away from hash (whivh stays in the system longer) towards harder but less easily detected drugs.
Sally -
The argument is that while fewer people drank during Prohibition, those who did drank harder liquor.
If that’s the argument, then this statement seems misleading:
Overall consumption of alcohol might even have increased.
As I understand it, there’s a subtle revision of Prohibition going on, and it suggests that it made a real dent in a culture of working-class male drinking that really did cause a lot of damage. Prohibition didn’t succeed if by “succeed” you mean end drinking. But it did succeed in the sense that it made getting drunk every day cease to be a marker of masculinity in many communities.
Well, I think that Tierney’s point was not that crystal meth is harmless, just that even crystal meth, the current devil drug, is not as bad as the drug warriors would have you believe. I think that is undeniably true. When Kleinman says:
I have never heard anyone who knows anything about drug abuse assert that methamphetamine — snorted, smoked, or injected not under medical supervision — is anything but an insanely vicious drug of abuse.
- I think that he is really overstating his case. Meth is not as safe as caffiene or even cocaine but the fact is its being painted as purified evil, which it is not. Tierney’s aurgument applies with even greater force to less harmful drugs and I think that is implicit in his piece.
Moteover, I am uncomfortable with arguments that some “soft” drugs are safe enough to allow people to use but other “hard” drugs are too dangerous to let people decide for themselves whether to use them or not. That strikes me as unjustifiably paternalistic.
Moteover, I am uncomfortable with arguments that some “soft” drugs are safe enough to allow people to use but other “hard” drugs are too dangerous to let people decide for themselves whether to use them or not. That strikes me as unjustifiably paternalistic.
Er, well, there is the problem that “soft” drugs like marijuana do not lead to a physical addiction the way that “hard” drugs like opiates do. If someone has been taking opiates for a sufficient amount of time and abruptly stops, the withdrawal can kill them because their brain shuts down.
Personally, I don’t think it’s “paternalistic” to note that different drugs have different effects on the brain and body that can lead to different outcomes, and some outcomes are worse than others. It wouldn’t bother me if marijuana were legalized even though I don’t use it; it would bother me enormously if opiates, which are in fact dangerous, were legalized.
Gamera - a gun and a rocket launcher both shoot projectiles at objects. However, it’s not paternalistic to note that whereas a gun puts a small projectile into something, the rocket launcher creates a very large explosion that destroys a lot more things.
As Mnemosyne said, the point isn’t whether or not it’s “purified evil”. The point is comparing crystal meth to alcohol and saying that alcohol does a lot more damage in total (no shit - it’s legal) doesn’t change the fact that in order to do as much damage to your body with alcohol as you can do with crystal meth over the same period, you’d have to swim in a vat of 151 for several days.
Fair points. On reflction I think it quite accurate to require appropriate and accurate information and recognition of the fact that meth is in fact dangerous and addictive.To the extent that Tierney obfuscates that point, I think Kleinman and Jesse have a valid point.
On the other hand I think that Tieney’s assessment is a lot closer to reality than the drug warriors he takes issue with and that the misinformation and scare tactics used by law enforcment are reprehnsible. I would agree that dissemination of accurate information on the dangers of various drugs is necessary, and it seems clear to me that that, in part at least, is Tieney’s point.
I also agree that it is not paternalistic to to note that different drugs have different effects on the brain and body that can lead to different outcomes, and some outcomes are worse than others, I would suggest that this ought to extend only to the noting. Making policy based on this information is altogether different.
I guess on reflection my problem is Kleiman’s casual dismissal of the position that the state ought not tell me what I can smoke, snort or shoot no matter how bad it is for me, and I think that the inclination to reglulate that behavior is paternalistic because it seeks to control my behavior for my own good. I don’t think Mnemosyne or anyone else ought to be telling me what I can and can’t smoke. I ought to be able to weigh the risks and make that decision for myself. And if you are willing to legalize pot and not opium, thats just what you are doing. That seems an awefully slippery slope to me.
But to the extent the point was that we ought not to sugar coat the potential consequences, point well taken.
crystal meth as compared to regular, medically safe amphetamines isn’t even a real comparison.
Jack Shafer in Slate expounded on that very point a few days ago.
If someone has been taking opiates for a sufficient amount of time and abruptly stops, the withdrawal can kill them because their brain shuts down.
Opiate withdrawal isn’t life threatening. It’s no walk in the park, but it’s not going to inexplicably stop all brain function.
Opiate withdrawal isn’t life threatening. It’s no walk in the park, but it’s not going to inexplicably stop all brain function.
Hm. I thought I remembered reading something about it potentially causing convulsions, but maybe I was misremembering what I’d read about alcohol withdrawal, which actually does carry a risk of death:
http://www.chclibrary.org/micromed/00070960.html
Still, I think what we’ve got here is a basic philosophical difference between myself and Gamera. S/he thinks that people are always rational actors and can reasonably weigh all of the possible consequences of their actions before they, say, shoot up heroin for the first time. It may be paternalistic (or, in my case, maternalistic) of me, but I don’t agree and I do think there should be government regulations on the more addictive drug families.
My problem is I’m just too old. I actually SAW Reefer Madness in high school. Back then Marijuana would turn you into a whore and make you kill yourself. Then came LSD, if you used LSD you doomed your unborn children to birth defects and you would suffer debilitating flashbacks for the rest of your life. Then came cocaine and crack. There were stories about people who were so addicted to cocaine that they ended up sniffing their carpets trying to get the last little bit that spilled. And if you were pregnant, the unavoidable result was a crack baby that was born doomed to be brain damaged and the brain damage make the child a sociopath because the drug destroyed the part of the brain that was the conscience. Oh and crack was far worse than regular cocaine.
Later it turned out that marijuana was relatively innocuous, LSD flashbacks happen, but only seem to be horrific in the poor souls that the government experimented on without their knowledge . Crack babies seem to not be a damaged as was first thought. And crack, well it may well be as bad as its reputation, but I was well aware that its reputation was formed at a time when wealthy white people used cocaine and poor black folk used crack AND the reputation allowed legislatures to justify heavier sentence for crack possession than for cocaine.
I know nothing about the true effects of any of the above drugs, I never used any of them so I can’t speak to it. A wild night for me is 3 glasses of white wine. I also don’t know the true effects of Meth. Perhaps this time the anti-drug people are being accurate and honest. Previous experience leads me to believe otherwise, but I am more than willing to err on the side of caution. In any case, a new drug usually brings a panic reaction from TPTB. Maybe Meth should be heavily targeted and stopped, but I doubt the efforts will be any more successful than the ones against marijuana, or cocaine. I really would rather have drugs legally distributed, regulated and taxed, with the majority of the taxes going toward rehabilitation for the people whose lives are impacted.
“And crack, well it may well be as bad as its reputation, but I was well aware that its reputation was formed at a time when wealthy white people used cocaine and poor black folk used crack AND the reputation allowed legislatures to justify heavier sentence for crack possession than for cocaine.”
Thank you for pointing that out. The only difference between my abusively powder-snorting college roomate and my abusively rock-smoking friend from high school was that one had an easy way out of her problem. That being said, I know plenty of people that can do either and then put it down Sunday afternoon.
“…really would rather have drugs legally distributed, regulated and taxed, with the majority of the taxes going toward rehabilitation for the people whose lives are impacted.”
I think this can work under the right circumstances. Especially in dealing with old-fashioned narcotics, MUCH of the danger and unpredictability they present is due to the way they are handled by the distributors, ie. through the subtances that they are cut with, or the quality in general. It gets messier once you start talking about synthetic drugs, but even there, a lot of danger could be taking away by oversight, rather than having a bunch of yokels throwing together chemicals in their trailer bathroooms.
“random drug tests are pushing people away from hash (whivh stays in the system longer) towards harder but less easily detected drugs.”
When I was in the Navy in the 1980s, we used crystal meth for the same reason. Smoke a joint with friends off-duty, and for a month you were at risk to be kicked out of the Navy with no benefits. Snort a line of speed tho, and the metabolites were out of your system in 48 hours… Made the long watches and grunt work go by faster and easier, too. What a world.
It’s not the ‘paternalistic’ thing that bothers me. In fact, I don’t think prohibition is (more on that in a sec). It’s more that the view that we can repeal some prohibition but must still control the “really bad” drugs has serious problems.
Mostly, it’s that it ignores the fact that prohibition doesn’t work. We can’t make it work, because as long as there is demand there will be supply. There’s just too much money to be made. It doesn’t work on soft drugs and doesn’t work on hard drugs for the same reasons. It creates more danger than it alleviates, no matter what the drug. Scare tactics (abstinence-only drug education, if you will) are the approved method for keeping people away from drugsâ€â€Â?there’s no reason to make shit up, there’s plenty of danger that cannot be overstated in an uncontrolled market, and yet we all know that anti-drug misinformation abounds. When official sources discredit themselves (as the anti-drug sources have spent decades doing now), people listen to friends and acquaintances, who generally aren’t any more well-informed than they are. Though there are increasing resources and knowledge repositories for people who want to have information and take precautions when they use drugs, there just aren’t enough, and worse, there isn’t an environment that encourages people to go there first. And when they do leap without looking (and they will), criminalization increases the harm they can do. People wait to get treatment even when they know something has gone horribly wrong, because they’re afraid they’ll be thrown in jail. People don’t get help for their addictions. Prohibition makes the supply bad too, further endangering people. Ecstasy is a good example; increasingly stiff penalties for carrying MDMA have led to dealers carrying GHB and passing it off as Ecstasy, and while MDMA is relatively (and I stress relatively) low-risk, GHB can cause death in similar doses. This is all besides the danger of the drug trade in and of itself.
It’s not that I want people running around addicted to drugs and ruining their lives. It’s just that criminalization drives things underground and makes the drug trade and drug usage impossible to monitor or control. I think prohibition is the opposite of being paternalistic. It’s abandonment of the public to their vice as punishment for that viceâ€â€Â?I would say that’s even truer of ‘hard’ drugs. I believe focusing on harm reduction, not punitive measures, is the way to go.
I guess what I’m aiming for is “Prohibition-light.” I strongly support decriminalization of drug users (yes, even the “hard stuff” like opiates and meth). If anything, people caught with illicit drugs should be sentenced to treatment, not jail.
But, in conscience, I can’t support the legalization of dangerous drugs like opiates. I’ve got addiction in my family. It’s nasty, even when it’s “only” alcohol or “only” marijuana. And I just can’t agree to put hundreds, if not thousands, of other families through what my family’s been through. Sorry.
Mnemosyne:
I think if you look at this article from the Wikipedia, it’s not clear that your fears are realistic:
Link
Remember: back in the ’50s we were told that marijuana would turn our teenagers into sex-crazed car thieves … and, yanno what, it seems to have done just that
Remember: back in the ’50s we were told that marijuana would turn our teenagers into sex-crazed car thieves … and, yanno what, it seems to have done just that
I have to say I think crystal meth has probably been overblown as a problem in this country. Why? Because that has been the pattern with new drug problems in this country for a long time. It is a simple fact that drug warriors are always incentivized to exagerate the problem. By exagerating, the police and others can bolter their demands for ever increasing budgets and draconian laws to prosecute drug offenders with.
Crack cocaine is still with us. I have not heard that we ever managed to make it much less available than it was in the 80’s. If crack is still here, where did all the crack hysteria go? I guess we just got over it. How bad could it have really been if the emergency just kind of went away of its own accord. (if you think jailing all those people solved the problem, maybe so, but I haven’t seen any numbers suggesting that crack isn’t still available more or less at the same level as ever before.) I hardly ever hear about crack-whores, crack-babies and plain ole crack-heads anymore. Is the problem any more or less than when we saw all the alarmist news reports and semi-glamourous movies about the (dare I say it) crack epidemic?
In the 50s the level of amphetamine abuse was ridiculous. The drug was routinely “abused” and there was relatively little fall-out as a result. This is the kind of less harm model we should think about returning to.
I understand that meth and old fashioned Pharmaceutical grade amphetamines aren’t the same thing. Maybe if the pills were still easy to distribute to users there wouldn’t be so much demand for bathtub meth.