In 1982, Nancy Reagan formally launched the post-modern
prohibition movement, the war on drugs. While begun under President
Richard Nixon, her infamous “Just Say No” speech at the Longfellow
Elementary School in Oakland, CA, officially established the war on
drugs as national policy.
Her original campaign sought to address an assortment of alleged
youthful vices, including alcohol and drug use, peer violence and
premarital sex. However, shrewd moralists, clever politicians and
opportunists within the police-corporate system (the domestic corollary
to President Dwight Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex) used the
speech to capture the new cash cow, the war on drugs.
During the last three decades, the war on drugs has proven an
ever-deepening failure. Like 1920s Prohibition that fashioned the
modern crime syndicate, this “war” established a new service business
for corporate capitalism, the prison-industrial complex.
While it is impossible to tabulate the full costs of drug use in the
U.S., even the most conservative estimates are staggering. Millions of
people (some estimates run as high as 20% of the population) either
regularly abuse or are addicted to “drugs,” whether legal or illegal,
whether a commercial or underground product. One estimate places the
costs associated with of drug addiction/abuse at “over $484 billion per
year” that includes costs for policing, healthcare, crime and lost
earnings.
In 2010, the U.S. government spent an estimated $15 billion waging
its fruitless war on drugs. Two academic experts, Jeffrey Miron and
Katherine Waldock, estimate that de-criminalizing (i.e., regulating)
currently illegal drugs would save Americans approximately $41 billion a
year in federal and state government expenditures relating to drug
enforcement.
In the years since Mrs. Reagan uttered her dubious words, the total
costs of the war on drugs is estimated at $1 trillion. According to a
study released by the Associated Press in 2010, the $1 trillion
expenditure covers: border efforts at interception drug trafficking;
foreign drug wars in Afghanistan, Mexico and Columbia; arrest and
prosecution of those in federal prisons for drug offenses; arrest and
prosecution nonviolent drug offenders at the state and local levels;
and marketing “Just Say No”-style messages to America’s youth and other
abstinence programs.
The
AP concludes its report with the following cautionary words:
“This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke
illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of
those drugs imported from Mexico.”[
http://nevergetbusted.com/2010/articles/ap-us-drug-war-has-met-none-of-its-goals]
The line between the legal and the illegal, like that between the
moral and immoral or the licit and illicit, is arbitrary. It is a
terrain of social conflict that changes over time through popular
struggle. At any one time, the line appears “fixed” as much by moral
authority as by formal legal regulation and enforcement
practice. However, the appearance of “fixed,” to the extent that it can
be, is in name only.
The failed temperance campaign that culminated in the passage of the 18
th Amendment establishing 13 years of Prohibition (and which was repealed by the 21
st Amendment)
unraveled after the 1929 stock market crash. Today’s “war on drugs” is
unraveling. Its failure is evident in the ever-growing costs related
to enforcement, at the federal, state and city levels, as well as the
social and personal costs incurred by those who succumb to their drug of
choice.
It appears that a goodly proportion of Americans, either just once
for fun or on a more continuing basis, have taken an illegal substance
or have a family member, friend or neighbor whose been arrested due to a
drug-related offense (including alcohol-related acts). This common
awareness underlies the nationwide effort to establish a new drug
policy, one from the bottom up. It is defined by efforts to legalize
medical marijuana clinics (now legal in 16 states and the District of
Columbia) and to decriminalize “non-hard” drugs like marijuana and some
party drugs (e.g., LSD). In the wake of the fiscal crises faced by many
states, there has been a move to reduce the nonviolent prison
population, particularly those arrested for a nonviolent drug-related
offense.
In the wake of the Great Depression, America ended Prohibition, an
unworkable and expensive moralistic campaign masquerading as public
policy. (The church had taken control of the state, imposing its
temperance beliefs as national policy.) As economic and social pressures
mount during the aftermath of the Great Recession, there will likely be
a significant increase in all manner of drug taking throughout the
nation. This will, hopefully, lead to a rethinking of the nation’s
failed “war on drugs.” Lets hope.
* * *
America is a drugged-out nation. To appreciate the enormity of drug
use, one needs to acknowledge the scope of “drug” taking. The first
step in this process is to give up the fiction that separates the legal
from the illegal, the regulated from the un-regulated and the
over-the-counter from backstreet drugs. A second step is to map out the
labyrinth-like world of the abused and/or addictive drugs and see how
they saturate social life.
Ken Liska, in “Drugs and the Human Body,” defines a drug as “any
absorbed substance that changes or enhances any physical or
psychological function in the body.”
The following overview of drug taking in America is necessarily cursory, outlining the boundaries to this (in a 1950’s film
noirsense)
underworld. Information is drawn predominately from federal sources,
including the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Legal unregulated “drugs”
Today, coffee, sugar and chocolate are widely enjoyed products that
some considering harmful “drugs.” Many, many Americans can’t image
starting the day without that first cup of java, cut with a hearty dose
of sugar and topped off with a tasty chocolate donut.
Coffee
One of the first “drugs” to take hold of the West was coffee,
introduced into Europe in 1645. In England, for example, coffee houses
flourished, serving as the era’s “speakeasies,” inebriating the new
merchant class. Over the next century, efforts by the powers-that-be to
close these houses of ill repute were repeatedly rebuffed. It was not
until 1820 that coffee’s active ingredient, caffeine, a psychoactive
stimulant, was identified. Between 2001-2004 some 265 cases of caffeine
overdoses ended up in Emergency Rooms visits. While medical
authorities do not list caffeine as an addictive drug, some Christian
religious groups do so and encourage their members to avoid it.
Sugar
Coffee drinking is aided by another often-alleged addictive
substance, sugar. Sugar has been in the West since the Crusades,
brought back from the Holy Lands as a new spice. In the U.S, sugar is
considered a food but has no nutritional value. However, withdrawal
from sugar can be as difficult as cutting coffee or alcohol. Many warn
that people couldn’t get enough sugar and that it made people hyperirritable. Research shows that sugar affects opioids and dopamine
in the brain, and thus might be addictive. Some researchers have found
that cocaine and methamphetamine addicts eat a lot of sugar.
Chocolate
While Columbus first brought back cocoa beans to Europe, Cortès
popularized it in Spain in the 1520s; a century later it spread to the
rest of Europe. Chocolate, along with other sweet and high-fat foods,
releases serotonin that makes people happier. Cocoa products contain
neuroactive alkaloids common to wine, beer and liquor. Today, many
people, but especially woman, are called “chocoholics” and, when denied
their “drug” of choice, suffer withdrawal symptoms, including seasonal
affective disorder (SAD) and pre-menstrual syndrome.
Legal regulated drugs
Three other legal drugs, alcohol, tobacco and prescription
medications, are regulated to varying degrees by individual states,
localities and/or the federal government.
Alcohol
Alcohol, like tobacco, is an over-the-counter consumer product
regulated principally by buyer age requirements. With the repeal of
Prohibition in 1933, alcohol has become a huge industry. According to
an alcohol-industry trade association, “the U.S. beverage alcohol
industry contributed nearly $382 billion to the U.S. total economic
activity in 2007.” (“Contributed” includes wages, taxes and a nebulous
category dubbed “economic activity” seems to mean sales.) Its legality
comes with a significant social cost.
Ethyl alcohol (or ethanol) is the intoxicating ingredient found in
beer, wine and liquor. A standard drink contains 0.6 ounces of pure
ethanol; this is equivalent to 12 ounces of beer, 8 ounces of malt
liquor, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces (a “shot”) of 80-proof distilled
spirits.
In 2009, 52 percent of Americans age 12 and older are considered
regular drinkers, having consumed alcohol at least once in the 30 days
prior to the survey. More revealing, federal data shows that 24 percent
of drinkers had binged (5+ drinks within 2 hours) and 7 percent drank
heavily (5+ drinks on 5+ occasions).* However, per capita alcohol
consumption has declined over 12 percent over the last three decades, to
2.31 in 2007 gallons from 2.64 gallons in 1977.
Since 1982, the number of alcohol-related driving fatalities has been
cut nearly in half: in 2008, 13,846 people died in car crashes due to
drunk drivers compared to 26,173 in 1982. Mirroring the decline in
drunk-driving fatalities, the rate of drunk driving for the 2006-2009 is
estimated at 13.2 percent, a decline from the 14.6 percent for the
2002-2005 period.
In 2008, 70 percent of the an estimated 189,000 alcohol-related
emergency room visits made by patients aged 12 to 20 involved alcohol
only; 30.0 percent involved alcohol in combination with other
drugs. Between 1975 and 2005, deaths due to liver cirrhosis has
remained relatively consistent at approximately 12,900 deaths per year.
[*Data drawn from National Survey on Drug Use and Health at www.samhsa.gov]
Tobacco
Cigarettes have (almost) lost their cool. Of Americans 18 years and
older, an estimated 46 million still smoke cigarettes. Smoking is more
common among men (24%) than women (18%). In the U.S., cigarette smoking
is the leading cause of preventable deaths, accounting for
approximately 443,000 deaths (or 1 of every 5 deaths) each year.
In the nearly half century since the U.S. Surgeon General issued a
report linking smoking to cancer in 1964, there has had a dramatic
decline is smoking. Since 1998, tobacco sales in the U.S. have declined
by 2 percent a year; since 2000, there has been an 18 percent decline
in the number of cigarette packs sold: 17.4 billion packs were sold in
2007 compared to 21.1 billion packs in 2000.
However, this has taken place with a significant uptick in the number
of “cigarette pack equivalents” (CPE’s), non-cigarette nicotine
product, totaling 1.10 billion CPEs. These include: 714 million moist
snuff, 256 million roll-your-own tobacco and 130 million small cigars.
Prescription medications
A doctor’s prescription is required to “legally” purchase a
pharmaceutical medical drug. In 2009, 16 million Americans age 12 and
older had taken a prescription pain reliever, tranquilizer, stimulant or
sedative for nonmedical purposes at least once in the prior year
prior. From 2004 to 2008, the reported incidents of prescription drug
overdoses more than doubled to 305,885 from 144,644.
Among the leading abused prescription drugs are: opioids (for pain),
depressants (for anxiety and sleep disorders) and stimulants (for ADHD
and narcolepsy). Opioids include
OxyContin,
Vicodin and
Percocet;
depressants or tranquilizers include barbiturates such as pentobarbital
sodium (e.g.,
Nembutal) and benzodiazepines such as diazepam (aka
Valium) and alprazolam (aka
Xanax); and stimulants include
dextroamphetamine (e.g.,
Dexedrine), methylphenidate (e.g.,
Ritalin and
Concerta) and amphetamines (e.g.,
Adderall).
With regard to antidepressants, in 2008, adolescents made 23,124
visits to an emergency room for drug-related suicide attempts, and young
adults made 38,036 such visits; of these visits, 23 percent of the
adolescents and 18 percent of young adults did so for “OD-ing” on an
antidepressant.
Since 1998, there has been a significant increase in the hospital
admissions of benzodiazepines tranquilizers like
Valium and
Xanax. While hospital admissions over reactions to depressants
increased 11 percent between 1998 and 2008, benzodiazepine-related
admissions nearly tripled.
Prescription steroids, which increase muscle mass and may be
prescribed for muscle-wasting conditions like cancer and AIDS, are also
subject to abuse by athletes and non-athletes. Most often, they are
taken to improve the user’s appearance or performance. Good luck.
Washington’s Attorney General, Rob McKenna, among a growing number of
state and federal law-enforcement officials, has called the rise in
prescription drugs an “epidemic.” Federal data shows that among young
people ages 12-17, prescription drugs have become the second most abused
illegal drug, behind marijuana. Teens report they get prescription
drugs from parents’ medicine cabinets, other people’s prescriptions and
that they are “available everywhere.”
Unregulated illegal drugs
These drugs make up what are known as the “hard” drugs, easy to abuse
and seriously addictive. They include cocaine, heroin and marijuana;
many consider marijuana a “soft” drug, like alcohol, and should be
decriminalized and its sale regulated like tobacco.
Cocaine
Cocaine, also known as coke, snow and flake, is a powerful stimulate
that can be snorted, injected or smoked; crack is cocaine hydrochloride
powder processed to form a rock crystal that is then smoked. Cocaine
gives people a real high, making them feel euphoric and energetic;
however, it increases blood pressure and heart rate, often leading to
heart attacks, strokes and seizures. In 2009, 4.8 million Americans age
12 and older had abused cocaine in some form and 1.0 million had abused
crack at least once in the previous year.
Heroin
Heroin, also known as H, smack or junk, is the hardest of the “hard”
drugs. Processed from morphine, it usually appears as a white or brown
powder or as a black, sticky substance. Injecting, snorting or smoking H
makes one feel euphoric; however, it depresses breathing, thus, an
overdose can be fatal. In 2009, 605,000 Americans age 12 and older had
abused heroin at least once in the prior year.
Marijuana
Marijuana, derived from the dried parts of the Cannabis sativa hemp
plant, is the most commonly used illegal drug in the U.S. In 2009, 28.5
million Americans age 12 and older had smoked marijuana at least once in
the previous year. Known as pot, mary jane, ganga, weed or grass,
smoking it makes one feel euphoric, often distorting perceptions, memory
recall and conventional linear thinking. One feels high.
Unregulated club drugs
These drugs make up what are known as the “party” drugs, taken
at bars, nightclubs and concerts; they are even easier to abuse and can
lead to serious abuse. While club goers might take cocaine, heroine and
marijuana to enhance a good time, a crop of specialty drugs have
emerged designed tp enhance a singular good time. These include
LSD
(aka acid),
MDMA (aka ecstasy) and
PCP (aka angel dust) as well
as
Rohypnol (aka roofies),
GHB (aka liquid ecstasy) and
ketamine (aka
special K, vitamin K, jet). And there’s also
methamphetamine that is
really in a class by itself.
LSD
Acid became popular during the oh-so psychedelic ‘60s, altering
perceptions and invoking a world of hallucinations. Acid “trips” can
last about 12 hours and, for some, fostering enormous pleasure, for
others terrifying delusions. In 2009, 779,000 Americans age 12 and
older had abused LSD at least once in the prior year.
MDMA
MDMA (aka 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) better known as ecstasy,
is a synthetic stimulate with psychoactive properties. In 2009, 2.8
million Americans age 12 and older had abused MDMA at least once in the
prior year. Most disturbing, a 2010 NIDA study found that 4.5 percent
of 12th graders had used MDMA at least once in the prior year.
PCP
PCP (phencyclidine) is a synthetic drug popularly known as angel
dust, ozone, wack and rocket fuel and can be snorted, smoked or
eaten. It is a “dissociative” drug, distorting perceptions of sight and
sound. However, many users complain of unpleasant psychological
effects that mimic schizophrenia, including delusions, hallucinations
and extreme anxiety. In 2009, 122,000 Americans age 12 and older had
abused PCP at least once in the prior year.
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a very addictive stimulant that goes by a variety
of street names, including meth, speed, chalk, ice, crystal and
glass. More revealing, it has become known as white people’s crack and
is very toxic to the central nervous system. In 2009, 1.2 million
Americans age 12 and older had used methamphetamine at least once in
the prior year.
* * *
Abstinence was imposed on the nation in 1920 and repealed in 1933; the 18
th Amendment establishing Prohibition is the only Amendment to be repealed. In the early 20
th century,
Americans could get ripped on good-old Coca-Cola. Originally intended
as a patent medicine, Coke once contained an estimated nine
milligrams of cocaine per glass. By the ‘20s, the coke was out but caffeine gave the drink a jolt.
In 1937, just four years after the passage of the 21
st Amendment
repealing Prohibition, Congress passed the
Marihuana Tax Act. During
the ‘30s, hemp was popular and profitable, used for a variety of
commercial purposes, including the smoking kind. The Act sought to
garner the federal government much needed tax revenues without outlawing
marijuana production or consumption.
In 1970, President Nixon championed the
Controlled Substances Act
that superseded the Marihuana Act and started the war on drugs. In a
1970 speech, he declared, “this nation faces a major crisis in terms of
the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people.” A
year later, he upped the ante: “Public enemy No. 1 in the United States
is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary
to wage a new, all-out offensive.” America’s war on “domestic
terrorism” had begun.
Now, four decades later, the forces of moral order, in league with
the police-corporate complex, have scooped up $1 trillion and left
behind a failed, second temperance movement, the “war on drugs.” These
drug-opportunists have left wrecked lives in their wake. An untold
number of drug-related dead bodies and destroyed lives litter the
national landscape.
Nationally, prescription drug abuse is killing more people than crack
cocaine in the 1980s and heroin in the 1970s combined. Now, as the
Great Recession begins to draw out to (dare I say) a possible second
Great Depression, financial reality might force those in power (whether
moralist, politician, police or greedy corporate con-artist milking the
drug scam) to abandon the prohibitionist mindset that has been in-force
since Nixon.
As the Great Recession drags on and misery intensifies, the ab/use of
both legally-regulated and illegal drugs will likely increase. It’s
time to rethink America’s failed drug policy. Get ready for the coming
drug tsunami.
