The War on Drugs

This post takes a broad view of drugs and drug policy.  But as an introduction I want to clean up a related loose end.  I have written two posts about marijuana legalization.  Here's a link to the first one:  http://sigma5.blogspot.com/2012/11/legal-marijuana.html.  I wrote that post just after Washington State voted to legalize recreational marijuana sales and use.  In my second post (see:  http://sigma5.blogspot.com/2015/01/legal-marijuana-report-from-front-lines.html) I did a status update to report on how things were going roughly two years in.

An additional two years (and a little more) have now transpired so I would like to start off with another update.  In my first post I didn't know how things would go but I expressed considerable hope.  In my second post I was concerned.  Things were proceeding more slowly than I thought they should and I saw a number of outstanding problems.  I can now report considerable progress.

The Federal Government has not officially changed its position.  So Marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug but the Obama Administration moved to a more "hands off" stance with respect to efforts by states to loosen things up.  This allowed my state to make considerable progress.  I was concerned that there were two different regulatory regimes within Washington State.  That has been fixed.  Recreational and medical marijuana are now under the same regulatory regime.  So that problem has been fixed, at least in my state.  Also, the number of retail outlets has expanded considerably.

Various initial start-up problems had meant that legal pot was expensive.  Those are behind us and pot prices are low and availability is generally high.  Various city and county jurisdictions have outlawed sales but legal pot of good quality at a relatively low price is available with little (jurisdictions that have outlawed it) or no (the rest of the state) problems.  As a side note, the situation now mirrors the availability of alcohol in "county option" states like Texas.  This has led to a listing in the Yellow Pages (when there were still Yellow Pages) section of many directories in Texas for bootleggers.  They would contract to deliver alcohol to you if you lived in a "dry" county.  I expect similar idiocy to prevail in those parts of my state that continue to prohibit retail pot sales.

And the number of states that allow legal sales of pot for recreational use has climbed quickly since my last post.  There was a story in the paper not long ago about a "drive through" recreational pot store being opened in Las Vegas to cater to tourists.  Following the recent passage of "Proposition 64" recreational pot will be legal in California starting on January 1, 2018.  I expect that the move by California, historically the home of a large number of illegal pot "grow" operations, will accelerate the trend toward legalization at the state level.  On the other hand, with Trump in the White House I expect no forward progress on the national front.

With that out of the way, let me move to a more broad look at drugs and drug policy.  Chinese workers were imported in the nineteenth century to build the transcontinental railroad.  They brought opium with them.  It joined alcohol (imported by Europeans), cocaine (long used in South America) and the mind altering drugs peyote and mescaline (used by natives in Central and South America respectively).  Alcohol devastated native populations as their bodies were poor at tolerating it.  The other drugs had niche markets and didn't initially represent a serious problem.

That all changed in the late nineteenth century.  This was a period when "snake oil" salesmen peddling various "tonics" became popular.  There was no regulation at the time so they were free to come up with any formulation that would produce sales.  A druggist named John Pemberton introduced Coca-Cola.  The original formulation included a small amount of cocaine to juice sales.  The "Coca" part of the name is a shout out to this ingredient.  And at the time there was noting illegal about doing this.  It was not even considered unethical.

But then Laudanum became popular.  Laudanum contains opium and the most important active ingredient in opium is morphine.  Morphine is addictive.  This is good for repeat sales.  And as a tonic that pepped a person up and made them feel good it was a complete success.  Needless to say this made Laudanum quite popular.  But it also produced large numbers of addicts.  And these were often women who were members of prominent families.  And one of the problems with morphine is that the body develops a tolerance to it over time.  So that as time passes it takes larger does to get the same effect.  And this too was very good for sales.

But this came to be seen as a big problem.  By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century laws were passed that outlawed retail sales of anything containing opiates.  The large population of Laudanum addicts were either weaned off of it or eventually died off.  By roughly 1920 there was no "drug" problem except, of course, alcohol.  Prohibition came in, failed, and was mostly abolished by the early '30s.  By now most of the country has gone "wet" but there are still some holdouts, some states and counties (see above) that have stayed "dry".  And this return to "wet" was mostly a good thing but for some it created a problem.

The repeal of prohibition caused big problems for the federal officials that had been tasked with its enforcement.  The enforcement operation was a failure by every measure but one.  Bureaucrats that had been running prohibition had come to control a large budget and staff.  With prohibition gone there was now no reason to keep them on.  Unless, that is, a new mission could be found.  So the people in charge invented the drug problem and just repurposed their organization to go after drugs and drug dealers rather than alcohol and alcohol dealers.  Their solution has made a giant problem for the rest of us ever since.

As I indicated above, the Laudanum/opium/morphine problem has been pretty much solved by this point.  Oh, they did their best to hype the problem with the active cooperation on Hollywood and sensationalist newspapers.  But a bigger target was necessary.  And that's where marijuana came in.  Various versions of the now notorious "Reefer Madness" movie were released in the late '30s.  The film was wildly inaccurate and completely ridiculous.  But most people had never heard of marijuana until this film came out. It was heavily promoted and people just assumed that it was reasonably accurate.  And that's where most people's perception of pot came from for a long time.

Pretty much nobody cared about this early phase of the War on Drugs except a few bureaucrats whose continued employment depended on it.  And various kinds of drugs made handy villains for sensationalist books, films, and magazines.   So various boogey men like Fu Manchu peopled popular fiction.  But all that changed in the "swinging '60s".

Youth was feeling rebellious for various reasons that I am not going to get into.  But this resulted in a general attitude of distrusting authority.  Whatever authority said was bad must be good.  So a lot of experimentation with illegal drugs took place.  Among the drugs that people tried out in substantial numbers were mescaline, peyote, and morphine.  It was quickly discovered that, to put it mildly, these drugs were not for everybody.  So their use dropped off fairly quickly.  As did the use of new drugs like LSD as I have indicated elsewhere.  But a drug that got and kept a large following was marijuana.  Cocaine also developed a smaller but equally long term following.

And all of a sudden drug enforcement could again become a big deal.  And at the time youth was socially liberal.  So conservatives could go after drug using liberals as degenerates and bums.  And conservatives are always happy when they can denigrate their opposition.  So Richard Nixon, the standard bearer for conservatism at the time, declared an official War on Drugs.  He pointed out that they were illegal (not like "good" drugs like nicotine and alcohol that conservatives consumed in large quantities) so, by definition, the people who consumed them were criminals.  And the only appropriate thing to do with criminals is to throw the book at them.

And once the hoopla for drugs like mescaline and LSD died down it was important to maintain as the official position that marijuana and cocaine were horribly dangerous.  Without them the "drug problem" was not big enough to have substantial political impact  So the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1971.  This resulted in something called the "CSA Schedule".

The Schedule was a list used to determine the official government position on how dangerous a particular drug was.  A "Schedule 1" drug was horribly dangerous, the worst of the worst.  The danger was reduced as you move through the schedules.  So a "Schedule 5" drug was not very dangerous.  Which schedule a drug landed on made a tremendous difference in how regulators and law enforcement treated that drug.  Even being listed on one of the less dangerous schedules triggered various regulatory requirements and restrictions.  And the listing of a drug on Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 triggered the tightest regulations and the harshest restrictions and penalties.

Heroin and LSD are on the Schedule 1 list.  This is probably appropriate.  But so is marijuana and that is totally ridiculous.  Amphetamines, Morphine, and Oxycodone are on the Schedule 2 list.  All have a high potential for abuse and addiction.  But they also have potentially beneficial uses so it is appropriate to treat them differently than the "no beneficial use" attribute that characterizes Schedule 1 drugs.  But cocaine is also a Schedule 2 drug.  This is less idiotic than putting marijuana on the Schedule 1 list but it doesn't seem right.  To fill in the picture I will note that Anabolic steroids are Schedule 3 drugs and Valium is a schedule 4 drug.  I don't recognize any of the drugs on the Schedule 5 list.

My point is that the CSA Schedule is much more of a political document than it is a document based on science or practical experience.  Technically it is jointly administered by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).  But it is a political document more than anything else.  And this dominance of political considerations to the detriment of scientific analysis or a review of practical experience is the hallmark of the War on Drugs and has been all along.

Did you know that there is an explosion of heroin use and that it is a now a pressing public health crisis?  You did if you have spent any time with the press in the last year.  But if you have been following along with this post so far then you should be very skeptical at this point.  And your skepticism is well justified.  It is hard to make something up out of nothing.  (At least that used to be true.) So there turns out to be a small kernel of truth imbedded in all the sensationalism.  Heroin usage and various problems following therefrom are up by a lot in the last few years.  But what is up even more is the abuse of dangerous prescription drugs.

Oxycodone is the active ingredient of many prescription pain medications.  Examples include Percocet, Percodan, and OxyContin.  And have I mentioned that Oxycodone is an opiate, a drug in the same chemical family as opium?  "Oxy" use has shot through the roof.  But this is not because "Breaking Bad" chemists are mixing up batches of the stuff in their bathrooms and kitchens.  A high volume and sophisticated pipeline has built up over time to funnel large quantities of Oxy from the pharmaceutical company that owns the rights to illegal street dealers.

Illegality is taking place at every step of the way from manufacture to ultimate consumption when it comes to heroin.  For a small percentage of the volume that flows down the equivalent Oxy chain every step is legal.  Some people have a severe pain problem of limited duration.  They get a legitimate prescription from a legitimate doctor.  They fill the prescription at legitimate pharmacy.  They take their one time supply of the pills home.  And there they consume them for a relatively short period of time to deal with their pain.  Every step in this chain is and should be legal.  People legitimately and legally get the relief they need for the limited time they need it.  Then they go back to their normal, Oxy free, lives.

But the spectacular volume of "legal" Oxy manufacture is well beyond the legitimate need I have just described.  And only a few percent of production ends up being consumed by completely legitimate users.  The rest is diverted into illegitimate channels where it is sold by drug dealers.  This pattern is typical of abused drugs that are available by prescription.  There is a relatively small legitimate market for these drugs.  And for that market everything is not only completely legal, it is as it should be.  But various techniques are used to facilitate the diversion of a far larger quantity into illegitimate channels.  This does no end of good to the bottom lines of the "legitimate" drug companies involved.

All the executives of these companies need to do is look the other way at the right time.  Sure, the drugs end up where they are not supposed to be.  But the company has already made its profit.  And the stock holders are happy to reward executives for this kind of behavior.  All it takes is a little unethical behavior.  And it is currently not even illegal.  The pharmaceutical companies have taken a page out of the NRA handbook.  They have gotten legislation passed that shields pharmaceutical companies from any kind of legal jeopardy for their unethical behavior.  Looking the other way is now completely legal.

The fix to this problem is simple and obvious.  You make it illegal for drug companies and executives to look the other way.  Then you crack down on them.  The problem is that this would result in a sudden and drastic reduction in the profits that undergird those outrageous salaries and high dividends.  So senior executives and big investors would be mad.  And they would take their anger out on politicians stupid enough to even think of doing this.  So expect a lot of hot air to be expended but nothing to change when it comes to the "legitimate drugs" part of our drug epidemic.

So that's where we are.  If we assume for the minute that the War on Drugs is completely legitimate then the strategies and tactics we at currently employing have failed utterly.  Drugs are more widely and easily available at lower prices than they ever have been before.  But the War on Drugs is not completely legitimate.  It is probably not even mostly legitimate.  It is at best partially legitimate.  And the biggest reason for the failure of efforts to win the War on Drugs is the large quantities of nonsense that is thrown around.  We are not going to get anywhere unless we reduce the nonsense to manageable quantities.  In service of that here are two quick BS tests:

Any politician or bureaucrat who is not in favor of moving marijuana from Schedule 1 down to one of the low risk schedules is full of BS.

Any politician or bureaucrat that is talking about "the Opioid epidemic" who doesn't focus on the prescription drug component as opposed to the illegally manufactured component of the crisis is full of BS.

People who are full of BS should be either ignored, if possible, or told to shut up and go away.  They are the people making things worse instead of better.

There has been no real problems caused by recreational marijuana legalization in Washington or anywhere else.  Lots of tax revenue has flowed onto state coffers and the system is now working quite well, at least in Washington State.  I think cocaine is a more serious drug.  I am in no way an expert but my understanding is that "crack" cocaine can be quite addictive and destructive.  But this whole "bust people and throw them in jail for a long time" strategy is a total failure.  It's time to try something else.

And the "something else" I recommend is switching from a "law enforcement" approach to a "medical problem" approach.  And I think this can be made to work for all drugs, not just marijuana and cocaine.  It costs fantastic amounts of time, effort, and money to bust, convict, and incarcerate people.  And you ruin their lives so they are a burden on society for the rest of their lives.  And this system is often used to further disadvantage people like minorities and the poor.  Drug use is at the same level in white suburbs as it is in black inner cities.  Yet most of the people who are in jail come from black inner cities.

Why not just monitor the situation?  If problems occur then treat these problems as medical problems.  Throwing drunks in jail doesn't work.  AA works.  AA is much more a medical approach than it is a law enforcement approach.  Throwing people who manufacture, import, sell, or consume drugs in jail doesn't work either.  If it worked we'd all know about it.  If these people in the drug trade are not causing problems either to themselves or to society treat them like the problem drinker who somehow manages to keep everything together.  Ignore them and their problem.

Many people think there is such a thing as an "addictive personality".  Our experience with addictive drugs is that some people get hooked and some people don't.  Some people who get hooked seem to be able to get off drugs fairly easily.  Some don't.  Nicotine is generally considered one of the most addictive drugs there is.  My father had little trouble quitting cold turkey after smoking for many years.  My mother's experience was the opposite.  She found it almost impossible to stop smoking.  She repeatedly tried to quit.  She once stopped for 7 years before going back to smoking.  In the end it was more a glacial tapering off to nothing than anything else.

A related idea is "harm minimization".  If a person can use drugs and suffers no ill effects then intervention is not necessary.  For those who seem well and truly hooked then perhaps some kind of "maintenance" program can be used.  If this allows them to lead a relatively normal life that puts no one besides themselves in harm's way then why not?  People who as a result of drugs are doing serious harm to themselves and/or to others need a more aggressive intervention.  In some cases incarceration might be the best option for them.  But it is likely this group will be small.

This different approach will save society a lot of money.  It drastically reduces the amount of graft and corruption underwritten by the drug trade and our current response to it.  It's got to be good to take money out of the hands of drug gangs and the people they bribe.  If we stop throwing so many people in jail it also substantially increases the number of productive members of society.  This goes for the time they would be spending in jail and the time after they get out.  And society saves the money currently being put into cops, prosecutors, judges and court rooms, jails and prisons, and systems to monitor them after they get out.

The changes I have proposed are nothing new.  Many others have advocated these same changes for a long time.  But there are a number of powerful groups and individuals heavily invested in the status quo.  A lot of money is being spent on the current system.  The people getting a paycheck and the companies goosing their bottom lines would lose big if we switched to the new system.

And frankly a lot of politicians over a long period of time have been able to make the current way we approach the War on Drugs work for them.  They don't want their base to figure out that they have been conned for all this time.  And then there are the people who for one reason or another legitimately believe that there is something especially evil about drugs (but only certain drugs).  They want desperately to hold on to their beliefs.

And so far the people who are on the side that says "we need to keep doing what we are doing even though it is an obvious and conspicuous failure" have managed to stymie any change either in the way most people think about the issue or in how the system works.  And the War on Drugs does have one success story it can point to.  It has been very successful in putting large numbers of minorities and other disliked groups into jail.  This supports the narrative that "there is something inherently bad about those kinds of people".  And a lot of people derive considerable benefit from that narrative.  But it is the result of selective enforcement and not a difference that is inherent to the targeted groups.  Unfortunately, far too many people see this as a good thing.

I expect no progress on moving to something that works better unless and until I see my two BS tests come into widespread and effective use.  And I hold out little hope for that happening any time soon.