The constant repetition by the press of the very term, "Drug War," has an insidious influence on public opinion. It evokes an image of our side, as opposed to their side, and the existence of a struggle for victory. Not to be victorious is not to survive as a nation, we keep hearing.
There is a continuing message being advanced, that most of our nation's troubles - poverty, increasing unemployment, homelessness, our monstrous crime statistics, rising infant mortality and health problems, even dangers to our national security involving terrorism and foreign agents - are the direct results of illegal drug use, and all of these problems would neatly disappear if we would simply find an effective solution to this one terrible scourge.
Do you remember hearing the word, Krystalnacht, from the history of the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, in the late 1930's? This was the night of broken crystal, when there was a sweep of the state-empowered police and young Nazis through the Jewish sections of the German cities, when every pane of glass that was in any way related to the Jewish culture - be it the window of a store, a synagogue, or a private home - was shattered. "If we rid ourselves of the scum known as Jews," the authorities said, "We will have solved the social problems of the nation."
I see a comparable move here, with merely a few changes in the words. "If we rid ourselves of the drug scum of our society, if we deprive them of their homes, their property, their crack houses, we will have solved the social troubles of the nation."
In Germany the Jewish population was attacked and beaten, some of them to death/ in a successful effort to focus all frustrations and resentments on one race of people as the cause of the nation's difficulties. It forged a national mood of unity and single-mindedness, and it allowed the formation of a viciously powerful fascist state. The persecution of the Jews, needless to say, failed to solve the social problems of Germany.
In our present-day America/ the drug-using population is being used as the scapegoat in a similar way, and I fear that the end point might well be a similar state of national consensus, without our traditional freedoms and safeguards of individual rights, and still lacking resolution of our serious social troubles. How severe is the illegal drug problem, really? If you go down through the generalized statistics, and search out the hard facts, it is not very large. From the point of view of public health, it is vanishingly small.
Just the two major legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol, are together directly responsible for over 500,000 deaths a year in this country. Deaths associated with prescription drugs are an additional 100,000 a year. The combined deaths associated with all the illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and PCP, may increase this total by another 5,000. In other words, if all illegal drug use were to be curtailed by some stroke of a magic wand, the drug-related deaths in the country would decrease by 1 percent. The remaining 99% remain just as dead, but dead by legal, and thus socially acceptable means.
What about the highly touted $60 billion cost to business resulting from lost productivity in the work place? This number came from a single study which contained a number of assumptions that the National Institute of Drug Abuse admits were not valid. In this study done by Research Triangle Park, nearly 4000 households were surveyed, and the average incomes were correlated with the admission that someone who lived there had used marijuana regularly. These families had a lower income, and that decreased monthly pay-check was stated to be due to the fact that there had been marijuana use. When this was extrapolated to the population as a whole, the calculations gave a figure of $28 billion. Then there were added the costs of drug-related crime, of health problems and accidents, and the number swelled to $47 billion. Adjustment for inflation and population increase increased it further up to the often quoted $60 billion. This shameful study is a major basis for our crusade against the use of illicit drugs in industry.
This is the only study of its kind that has been made, and in this study, questions had been asked concerning other illegal drug use. Had the correlations used the findings that were made with cocaine or heroin use, rather than marijuana use, there would have been no lower average income at all. The only conclusion that could have been made (with cocaine or heroin, rather than with marijuana) was that there was no cost to business whatsoever, from drug abuse. The drug that had been used in the calculation was the only one that could have provided the numbers that were needed to fuel the drug war.
The drug problem may not be the size we are being told it is, but it is large enough for concern. What are some of its causes? There is a feeling of helplessness in much of our poor population, particularly among young Black and Hispanic males. There is a total absence of any sense of self-worth in most of the residents of our inner cities. There is extensive homelessness, and an increasing state of alienation between the middle-to-upper and the lowest classes. On one side, there is a growing attitude of, "I've got mine/ and the hell with you/' and on the other/ "I've got nothing to lose, so screw you."
There is a shameful public health problem of massive proportions (AIDS, teen-age pregnancies, rising infant mortality and the abandonment of any serious effort to help those with debilitating mental illnesses). There are children who have no families, no food, no education, and no hope. There is near anarchy in the streets of our big cities, matched by a loss of community integrity in the rural areas. All of this is blamed on the "drug problem,"
although the use of drugs has nothing to do with it. Drug use is not the cause of any of these terrible problems. It may certainly be one of the results, but it is not the cause. Nonetheless, a major national effort is being made to convince the American people that winning the "War on Drugs" will indeed cure us of all ailments, if we would but relinquish a few more individual rights in the pursuit of victory.
This war cannot be won. And we will only lose more and more of our freedoms in a futile effort to win it. Our efforts must be directed towards the causes, not just the consequences of drug mis-use. But, in the meantime, things are going downhill at a rapid rate. People tell me that I am a defeatist to suggest the obvious answer, which is to legalize the use of drugs by adults who choose to use them.
I have been accused of giving the message that drug use is okay. Remove the laws, they say, and the nation will be plunged overnight into an orgy of unbridled drug use. I answer that we are already awash in illegal drugs, available to anyone who is able to pay, and their illegality has spawned a rash of criminal organizations and territorial blood-lettings, the likes of which have not been seen since the glory days of Prohibition.
Yes, it's possible that with the removal of drug laws a few timid Presbyterians will venture a snort of cocaine, but in the main, drug abuse will be no worse than it is now, and - after some initial experimentation - things will return to a natural balance. There is no "Middle America"
sitting out there, ready to go Whoopie! with the repeal of the drug laws. The majority of the population will, however, benefit from the return of the criminal justice system's attention to theft, rape, and murder, the crimes against society for which we need prisons. Pot smoking, remember, is not intrinsically antisocial.
Let me ask each of you this simple question. What indicators would you accept as a definition of a police state, if it were to quietly materialize about you? I mean, a state that you could not tolerate. A state in which there is a decrease in drug use/ but in which your behavior was increasingly being dictated by those in power?
Each of you, personally and privately, please draw an imaginary line in front of you, a line that indicates: up to here, okay, but beyond here, no way! Let me suggest some thoughts to use as guides. What about a requirement for an observed urination into a plastic cup for drug analysis before getting a welfare check, or to qualify for or maintain a job at the local MacDonalds, or to allow your child enrollment in the public schools? Would any one of these convince you that our nation was in trouble?
More and more companies are requiring pre-employment urine testing, and insisting u
pon random analyses during working hours. Not just bus drivers and policemen, but furniture salesmen and grocery store clerks. Some local school districts are requiring random urine tests on 7th graders, but as of the present time they are still requesting the parent's permission.
Recipients of public housing, of university loans, or of academic grants must give assurance that they will maintain a drug-free environment. Today, verbal assurance is acceptable, but what about tomorrow?
What about the daily shaving of the head and body so that no hair sample can be seized to provide evidence against you of past drug-use? There are increasingly strong moves to seize and assay hair samples in connection with legitimate arrests, as a potential source of incriminating evidence of past illegal drug use.
What if you had to make a formal request to the government, and get written permission, to take more than $300 out of the country for a week's vacation in Holland? Or $200? There used to be no limit, then the limit dropped to the current level of $10,000, but this number will certainly continue to drop as legislation becomes more severe with regard to the laundering of drug money.
A lot of what I have been talking about has to do with the "other guy," not you. It is your drug-using neighbor who will have to live in fear, not you. It is easy to dismiss these invasions of personal rights when they don't affect you directly. But let me ask you a not-quite-so-simple question, the answer to which is very important to you, indeed: where are your own personal limits?
To what extent do you feel that it is justifiable for someone else to control your personal behavior, if it contributes to the public's benefit? Let me presume that the idea of urine tests for cocaine use is okay with you. You probably don't use cocaine. Would you allow demands upon you for random urine tests for tobacco use? What about for alcohol use? The use of coffee?
To what extent would you allow the authorities into your private life? Let us presume that, having committed no crime, you would permit a policeman, who is visiting you officially, into your home without a warrant. But what about officials entering your home in your absence?
Would you still proclaim, "I don't mind; I've got nothing to hide!"
I doubt that there are many of you who feel disturbed about the existence of a national computerized fingerprint file. But how about a national genetic marker file? What about police cards for domestic travel? How would you react to a law that says you must provide hair samples upon reentering the country from abroad? How would you feel about the automatic opening and reading of first class mail? Any and all of these things could be rationalized as being effective tools in the war against drugs. Where would you personally draw the line?
Each of us must carefully draw that line for himself or herself. It is an exquisitely personal decision, just where your stick is to enter the ground to mark that boundary. This far, and no further.
There is a second and equally important decision to be made. Let's ease into it by recapitulation. The first requirement is to establish a line/ up to which you will allow the erosions of liberties and freedoms, all in the good cause of winning the drug war.
The second requirement is to decide, ahead of time, exactly what you will do, if and when your personal line has been breached. The point at which you say, "This has gone too far. It is time for me to do such-and-such."
Decide what such-and-such really is. You must figure it out well beforehand. And beware. It is so easy to say, "Well, my line has been exceeded, but everything else seems benign and non-threatening, so perhaps I will relocate my line from right here to over there." This is the seductive rationalizing that cost millions of innocent people their lives under the Nazi occupation in Europe.
If you can move your line, then your line was not honestly positioned in the first place. Where is your line? And if your limits are exceeded. What will ó ou do?
Stay continuously aware of where things are, politically, and in what direction they seem to be heading. Think your plans out ahead of time, while doing everything in your power to prevent further dismantling of what rights and freedoms are left the citizens of your country.
Do not give away your rights simply to make the police enforcement of criminal law easier.
Yes, easier enforcement will catch more criminals, but it will become an increasing threat to you, as well. The policeman's task should not be easy; the founders of this country made that clear. A policeman's task is always difficult in a free country.
A society of free people will always have crime, violence and social disruption. It will never be completely safe. The alternative is a police state. A police state can give you safe streets, but only at the price of your human spirit.
In summary, remember that the accused must always be assumed innocent, and allowed his day in court. The curious citizen must always have open access to information about anything he wants, and should be able to learn whatever interests him, without having some other person's ideology superimposed on him during the course of his learning.
The maverick must be allowed to retreat to his private domain and live in any manner he finds rewarding, whether his neighbors would find it so or not. He should be free to sit and watch television all day long, if that's what he chooses to do. Or carry on interminable conversations with his cats. Or use a drug, if he chooses to do that. As long as he does not interfere with the freedom or well-being of any other person, he should be allowed to live as he wishes, and be left alone.
I believe that the phasing out of laws regarding drug use by adults, and an increase in the dissemination of truth about the nature and effects - positive and negative - of different drugs, the doing away with random urine testing and the perversion of justice that is its consequence, will certainly lead to smaller prison populations, and to the opportunity to use the "drug-war"
funds for desperately needed social improvements and public health matters, such as homelessness, drug dependency and mental illness. And the energies of law-enforcement professionals can once again be directed towards crimes that deserve their skill and attention.
Our country might possibly become a more insecure place in some ways, but it will also be a healthier place, in body and spirit, with no further profit to be made on drugs by young men with guns on the streets of our cities. Those who abuse drugs will be able to find immediate help, instead of waiting for six months or more, in confusion and helplessness. And research in the area of drug effects and possible therapeutic use will come alive again in our centers of learning.
And we will once again be the free citizens of a free country, a model for the rest of the world.
Finally, I want to read an excerpt from a letter I received only yesterday, a letter sent by a young man who has found the psychedelics to be of great value to him in his growth as a writer:
Is it any wonder that laws prohibiting the use of psychoactive drugs have been traditionally ignored? The monstrous ego (or stupidity!) of a person or group of persons, to believe that they or anyone else have the right, or the jurisdiction, to police the inside of my body, or my mind'.
It is, in fact, so monstrous a wrong that, were it not so sad - indeed, tragic! - it might be humorous.
All societies must, it seems, have a structure of laws, of orderly rules and regulations. Only the most hard-core, fanatical anarchist would argue that point. But I, as a responsible, adult human being, will never concede the power, to anyone, to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inward is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast Guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual Government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable!!!
Now, were I to be guilty of invading or sabotaging that same territory in others, then the external law of the Nation has every right - indeed, the responsibility - to prosecute me in the agreed-upon manner.
But what I think? Where I focus my awareness? What biochemical reactions I c
hoose to cause within the territorial boundaries of my own skin are not subject to the beliefs, morals, laws or preferences of any other person!
I am a sovereign state, and I feel that my borders are far more sacred than the politically drawn boundaries of any country.
To which I can only say amen. That's it. See you next week.
Subject: PiHKAL: The Chemical Story. File 1 of 6
This is part 1 of 6 of the second half of PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin. Please forgive any typos or misprints in this file; further, because of ASCII limitations, many of the typographical symbols in the original book could not be properly represented in these files.
If you are seriously interested in the chemistry contained in these files, you should order a copy of the book PiHKAL. The book may be purchased for $22.95 ($18.95 + $4.00 postage and handling) from Transform Press, Box 13675, Berkeley, CA 94701. California residents please add $1.38 State sales tax.
At the present time, restrictive laws are in force in the United States and it is very difficult for researchers to abide by the regulations which govern efforts to obtain legal approval to do work with these compounds in human beings.... No one who is lacking legal authorization should attempt the synthesis of any of the compounds described in these files, with the intent to give them to man. To do so is to risk legal action which might lead to the tragic ruination of a life. It should also be noted that any person anywhere who experiments on himself, or on another human being, with any of the drugs described herin, without being familiar with that drug's action and aware of the physical and/or mental disturbance or harm it might cause, is acting irresponsibly and immorally, whether or not he is doing so within the bounds of the law.
A SHORT INDEX TO THE PHENETHYLAMINES
Pihkal Page 63
