Matthew Yglesias » Just The Facts on Drugs

Dec 15th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

Just The Facts on Drugs

Mark Kleiman offers a list of things the president-elect needs to know about drugs and drug policy. These aren’t recommendations, they’re just facts in a world where policies are often driven by hysteria or sentimentality rather than any serious effort to understand what’s happening.

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42

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42 Responses to “Just The Facts on Drugs”

linus Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I’m sentimental for the time you could get cocaine blown up your ass and people would just leave you alone.
MAX HATS Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
FACT: drugs are awesome

FACT: you should never ever do them, because this one time someone took to much acid and he thought he was a glass of orange juice, and this one time someone took acid and she thought there were bugs on her so she scratched her skin off. These examples are totally true.

FACT: If you do marijuana just once, it is a statistical certainty that you will be sucking dicks for crack in less than six months.

FACT: MDMA, or “ecstasy” leads to hugging, feelings of emotional tranquility and openness, and dancing. These dangerous behaviors are on the rise and must be stopped at all costs.
kid bitzer Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
it’s a good list, and effective in a low-key way.

the one area where i think more should be added is about the prison population (touched on in his point 11).

the most appalling consequence of our current national drug policy is the huge number of people who are in jail. way, way more than in any other civilized nation. and the ridiculous incarceration rates are driven largely by drug policy.

a second point to be made after that: the contribution of drug enforcement to the erosion of civil liberties.

henley and balko are very good on these topics.
wiley Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Lily Tomlin nailed it—You shouldn’t do drugs because you could go to prison and drugs are really expensive in prison.

Am surprised that heroin use isn’t up. Where is all the heroin being produced in Afghanistan going?
V. Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Guess what, guys? Marijuana is still fun, safe, and relatively inexpensive. That shit i’n't go’n’ change. I don’t even care that it’s illegal anymore. Doesn’t impact my ability to get high one bit. Never has, never will.

Ridiculous policy that comes down to the gov’t decision not to tax marijuana. OKAY.
Lip Sync Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
…the most appalling consequence of our current national drug policy is the huge number of people who are in jail. way, way more than in any other civilized nation. and the ridiculous incarceration rates are driven largely by drug policy.

I’d say even worse than that is the violence over drug profits. Prohibition doesn’t make sense in many ways, but its absurdity is particularly ill-advised in a country as well-armed as the United States.

Guess what, guys? Marijuana is still fun, safe, and relatively inexpensive.

It would be even funner, safer and cheaper were it legalized. Plus, maybe corporate America could get to work addressing the unfortunate THC/cannabidiol imbalance (which can make for a harsher buzz IMHO).
JimboSlice Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
but … but … but did you know that unemployment rates would shoot up if you let all of the drug-related people out of jails and prisons?
Rich Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Drugs don’t kill people. People kill people.
Katherine Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Marajuana isn’t safe. It’s about 10X as carcinogenic as cigarettes.
dob Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Katherine, you’re incorrect:

Numerous studies have shown marijuana smoke to contain carcinogens and to be an irritant to the lungs. In fact, marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke. Marijuana users usually inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than tobacco smokers do, which further increases the lungs’ exposure to carcinogenic smoke. Marijuana smokers show dysregulated growth of epithelial cells in their lung tissue, which could lead to cancer;8 however, a recent case-controlled study found no positive associations between marijuana use and lung, upper respiratory, or upper digestive tract cancers.9 Thus, the link between marijuana smoking and these cancers remains unsubstantiated at this time.

Source: http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/marijuana.html

Furthermore, when comparing the carcinogenic effects of tobacco cigarettes v.s. marijuana joints, one should not ignore the blindingly obvious fact that an average cigarette smoker, at half-a-pack a day, say, inhales a conservative 200 lungfuls of tobacco smoke. A heavy marijuana smoking session might top out at 20.

This isn’t to suggest that marijuana smokers shouldn’t take the health issues seriously – vaporizers are great, as is eating it – but to suggest that it has the same widespread carcinogenic problems as tobacco cigarettes vastly overstates the case.
John Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Nicotine is a drug. It is as addictive or more addictive than any other drug. It is essentially unregulated.

Alcohol is a drug. By far the largest share of the total cost of substance abuse is due to alcohol. Alcohol is effectively unregulated.

What war on drugs?
John from Concord Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 7:20 am
I’d like to see more focus on DEA abuses and internal DEA culture — there is awareness at all levels of the organization that any moves toward reducing penalties or (God forbid) legalization threaten their existence and funding. My sense is that they are faster and looser with truth than most Federal bureaucracies and their agents (in general) actually do tend to the kind of thuggery the NRA used to hang around the necks of the ATF.

I’m not a illicit-drug user and never have been, beyond the usual college experimentation, and I’ve never had any contact with Federal law enforcement as a suspect or target, but if I could choose to shut down one Federal bureaucracy the DEA and ancillary “drug war” apparatus would be my choice in a heartbeat. So much human misery, so little social benefit. I don’t expect this to get on the new administration’s radar until the second term, if at all, but wow it’d be nice to move past this nonsense.
Rich Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Marajuana isn’t safe. It’s about 10X as carcinogenic as cigarettes.
__

If you smoke 20 joints a day maybe…
Richard Steven Hack Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 8:18 am
“the ridiculous incarceration rates are driven largely by drug policy.”

Actually, no. Drug policy is driven by the intent to increase incarceration rates, because the “criminal justice complex” is as money driven as the military-industrial complex.

The more drugs, the more prisoners, the more money somebody is making building prisons – especially private prisons – and the more careers are being made in so-called “criminal justice”.

This sort of nonsense was started by Christian Temperance freaks – you know, people like Hector – decades ago and then was immediately seized on by statist assholes like Harry Anslinger back in the 1920’s and all subsequent law enforcement freaks to increase the power of the state and incidentally line their pockets with taxpayer money and inflate their own importance.

The exact same nonsense you find in the military-industrial complex.

Kill all these bastards.
serial csatowner Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Well, it is a sad fact that we could cut the number of prisoners in half and the existing prisons and guards would be barely sufficient to provide humane conditions of incarceration.

The good news would be that ending the Drug Wars need not result in widespread prison guard unemployment. If they understood that, they would support legalization.
Gerald Fnord Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:43 am
You’re all ignoring the truth: the drugs laws have little to do with your “facts”. Drugs are strictly a religious issue, they are bad because they’re bad, and policies like “harm reduction” and “beneficial medical use” only serve to obscure their true nature.
Hector Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I can see that none of you guys have ever known a crack baby. I suppose that working with the children of the crack epidemic isn’t Stuff White People Like to do. I do, however, and after seeing the damage that drugs can do to perfectly innocent people, I have no time for your fashionable salon-party chatter about how hard drugs should be legalized. Or rather, I value it as a good example of the kind of amoral selfishness to which liberal civilization must invariable tend.

Habitual hard-drug users should be subjected to rehabilitation and job training, and hard-drug dealers should be given a quick trial, the opportunity to make their peace with the Lord, and then dispatched with a single bullet, Chinese style. There is much that I abhor about the present Chinese regime, but they don’t appear to have much of a drug crime problem.
Ed Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
A rational drug policy would ban nicotine and alcohol, and strictly enforce the ban, and legalize all other drugs, including encouraging use of some of them as alternatives to nicotine and alcohol. Those two are probably the worst, measured by addictiveness, ability to intoxicate, and overall social costs.
mike Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Hector – Why do you so strongly oppose legalization? Do you believe that use of dangerous drugs like crack will rise if it is legal? Presumably you’re aware that crack being illegal (with some of the harshest federal drug penalties) has not eliminated its use.

The reality in many situations is that the extremely dangerous, pandemic drugs (crack, meth, bathtub gin during prohibition) were developed as substitutes for other substances that were either banned or became artificially expensive due to drug war enforcement efforts. Crack never would have been invented if cocaine had remained reasonably priced, which it would have without the level of enforcement that developed during the 70s.

The point is, people like to get high. Neither you nor any public policy will ever change that. We need to focus our policy on making this activity as safe as possible for everybody.
Midwest Product Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
1. Katherine can’t even be bothered to spell “marijuana” correctly, so why would you expect her to have any actual knowledge regarding the chemistry of the substance in question?

2. The top question on the last round of open questioning at change.gov concerned the legalization of marijuana. The response given was: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

3. @Ed: Both nicotine and alcohol are net positive contributors to our civilization. Even if that weren’t the case, prohibiting them would STILL be incredibly stupid, for the same reasons that current drug prohibition is incredibly stupid. And, as someone who researches nicotine addiction for a living, I have to ask: where are you getting the idea that nicotine is one of “the worst, measured by …ability to intoxicate”?
Trevor Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
My four-day/night stint at the Twin Towers two years back for aggravated assault (reduced to misdemeanor) informed me that around 85% of the inmates were regular guys ensnared in bad neighborhoods for simple drug possession. A hard-working carpenter had to get some milk late at night for his family at some bodega gets stopped and boom! – he has to spend months behind bars because he can’t raise the $25,000 bail money before his trial. That was the typical case. Of course, 97% of the people in there were black or latino. And, no newspapers, books, TV, cigarettes, bibles allowed. They wouldn’t even give you your meds.
Ed Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Just to respond to Midwest Product, I didn’t mean to suggest that nicotine was intoxicating. Alcohol is just about the most intoxicating thing you can injest. Its not horribly addictive compared to some other drugs, its the last thing you want to be using if you need to use good judgement or motor skills. Nicotine is not that intoxicating, but incredibly addictive. Use of both, especially nicotine, carries serious long term health consequences.

If you were told to ban some drugs and had no knowledge of the history of drug prohibition, most people would choose to ban nicotine due to its addictive quantities and alcohol due to its use being incredibly dangerous. Compared to other drugs, they are simply much worse. I don’t favor prohibiting alcohol or nicotine, my suggesting was that drug policy was especially irrational since two of the legal drugs are actually more dangerous than most respects than the banned ones.
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Matt Yglesias

Just The Facts on Drugs

42 Responses to “Just The Facts on Drugs”

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