Random Thoughts on Drug Policy

I have been thinking about writing on drug policy for awhile but have not been able to develop a framework for my thoughts so I decided to just set them out randomly and see if they organize themselves.

This is written in a Canadian context but will likely apply to other jurisdictions as well. This post is not about medical or prescription drug policy but about the non-medical or recreational use of drugs including drug addiction and what is often referred to as drug abuse.

The first thing to note is that drug addiction is the only medical condition that has been criminalized and the only medical condition that people think can be cured or controlled with only will power.

Have we learned any lessons and will we pay attention to them. I suggest we know that prohibition does not work and education does.

From 1918 to 1920 in Canada and 1920 to 1923 in the United States prohibition of alcohol sales and consumption was enacted. While well intentioned (sparked partly by the effect of drunkenness on the family resulting in families housing and food money being spent on alcohol as swell as the rise in domestic violence) it only made the situation worse by driving the production and sale of alcohol into the hands of organized crime.

On the other hand there was never any talk of tobacco prohibition, even after it’s health effects were well known, mainly due to it’s widespread use in society. What worked instead to reduce consumption was education. While some people did quit smoking the major reduction, from a large majority of people smoking to a small minority of people smoking, was from people not taking up smoking, which is why it took at least two generations to get to where we are now.

However the tobacco/nicotine industry is not ready to fade away. They have promoted vaping, ostensibly as a way for people to give up smoking and as a safer alternative to tobacco, which it may be. However it is clear their real intention is to create a new younger market of people addicted to their products. We need a serious education campaign about the tobacco industry’s true intentions here and the dangers of vaping.

What about marijuana. At one time, at least in Canada, marijuana was legally classed as a narcotic although pharmacologically it is not one. Indeed, marijuana is clearly less harmful than tobacco and arguably less harmful than alcohol. Partly for that reason, although probably more because of it’s increased middle class use, attitudes and laws have changed. It is now available through a legal market, although for purposes of the legal market the scientific name cannabis is now used and anyone with previous marijuana “marketing” experience cannot be involved in the legal sale of cannabis. That is not to say that there are no health concerns, particularly for people under 25, and education about them should be extensive, although certainly not of the inaccurate “Reefer Madness” type. Health Canada has useful and rational information on the health effects of cannabis and other drugs on it’s website.

One major thing legalized cannabis use has done is take the market way from organized crime and reduced the amount of police resources devoted to it.

Then came the opioid crisis and it seemed that people were ready to accept that drug addiction is something that happens to people rather than something they choose. But it soon became apparent that only applied to the middle class where the pushers were the medical system and the dealers the pharmaceutical industry.

We see the same class distinction with harder drugs. Cocaine use by the wealthy class at fancy parties in their lavish homes is glamorized while crack cocaine use by the poor is demonized (unless you are the mayor of a major North American city, then it is just a curiosity).

We even see harm reduction aimed at saving live attacked by the middle class.

What is most puzzling is the objection to safe injection and use sites where users can use drugs safely with clean equipment and dispose of it safely. It seems that people prefer people using drugs on the streets and in parks leaving behind dangerous needles than people being able to do it somewhere without risking their lives.

Safe supply is perhaps even more controversial but it definitely safes lives by ensuring users are using the drug they are addicted to and not given more dangerous and laced deadly drugs. It also requires them to interact with medical professionals that can help them get off the drugs or switch to safer methadone as a transition away from drugs altogether.

And of course it takes a market away from organized crime and frees up police resources and funds that can be more effectively used for health and social services.

The main argument against harm reduction seems to be the idea that the more dangerous you make drug use the more likely people will be to quit, but addiction does not work that way. It more likely just a nicer way of saying “the only good addict is a dead addict”.

This is the point where people usually say what if that was your child, or sibling or someone you know that fell on hard times, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is that drug users are fellow human beings and their lives have value.