DRUG POLICY: MYTHS AND ALTERNATIVES
by Richard Korn, Ph.D., Retired Professor of Criminal Justice
A precondition for any rational discussion of drug policy is
the acknowledgement of its irrationality and its contamination by issues
of political expediency. Corruption of policy leads to corruption of law
enforcement; corruption of law enforcement leads to the protection of major
drug dealers and the proliferation of drug abuse.
We thus face this paradox: it is the policy itself which nurtures the problem.
Human beings have immemorially searched for anodynes against physical and
emotional suffering: they have everywhere sought and found chemical pathways
to relief and pleasure. Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine may be singled out as
specific agents.
But specificity ought not to disguise a more fundamental truth, which is
that any substance can and has been abused. ln a world in which starvation
is endemic, obesity caused by uncontrollable overeating is a major cause
of disability and premature death in affluent countries.
Yet obesity is almost unknown in the wild: only domesticated animals and
humans suffer from this disease. (Certain exceptions support this general
observation: in cultures where starvation is prevalent, obesity is venerated.)
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
1. The harmful effects of some illegal drugs have been exaggerated, and
their beneficial effects neglected or denied. For example, the benefits
of cannabis sativa for glaucoma and for easing the nausea associated with
chemotherapy in cancer have been ignored, with the result that patients
are either deprived or forced to turn to illegal sources.
2. Large scale research which is necessary for a scientific cost/benefit
analysis of specific illegal drugs is rendered impossible.
3. Billions of dollars continue to be wasted on failed attempts to detect
and punish cultivators, sellers and users of interdicted substances.
4. The profits from the illicit drug traffic continue to be diverted for
political corruption. Examples include U.S complicity in Southeast Asia
during the Viet Nam war and CIA support of drug-dealing by high political
figures in "friendly" countries.
PRINCIPLES OF A MORE PRODUCTIVE POLICY
Many medical authorities agree that:
1. Substance abuse should be viewed as an illness to be prevented, where
possible, and treated where prevention seems impossible. Arrest and prosecution
of abusers should be terminated.
2. Patients who find it impossible to profit from treatment should be maintained
under medical supervision, and not stigmatized as criminals or forced to
turn to criminal sources for impure or contaminated drugs.
3. The roots of drug abuse lie in those socioeconomic conditions which produce
pain and unhappiness. Some of these conditions can be alleviated by social
programs; those which cannot (e.g., the degenerative diseases of aging)
should be accepted.
4. It is a myth that the mere availability will cause substance abuse. The
availability of glue did not cause the "glue-sniffing" fad among
teen-agers. The only systematic way to discourage drug-trafficking is to
render it unprofitable; the only demonstrable way to make it unprofitable
is to provide better and cheaper sources.
5. There are critical differences betweeen encouraging the use of a substance,
ignoring its use, positively discouraging it, prohibiting it, punishing
its users, and eradicating it. Any fruitful discussion must take these distinctions
into account. For many decades the tobacco industry successfully promoted
the use of cigarettes. In recent times, the positive discouragement of smoking
has been reversing this trend. Public opinion, nourished by the dissemination
of medical research, can be effective in the discouragement of substance
abuse: the best form of discouragement is an informed citizenry.
June-July 97 -
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