America's toxic drug culture

“Don’t do drugs”. The motto is nailed into our brains from the time we are just gaining our freedom as young teens throughout the rest of our adult lives. Our society is constantly fed horror stories of people taking drugs and overdosing, committing crimes, or ending up seriously disabled. The narrative showing the dangers of drugs is pushed so far to the point where the major homelessness problem in America is largely blamed on drug usage. Ever since President Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, drugs have been under constant attack in the public eye. While there is truth in the fact that abusing drugs can undeniably lead to dangerous outcomes, as with anything in life, when used in a healthy and appropriate way, drugs can be safe and even beneficial to our society. Recent research and experiments show that the current schedule of drugs, a system ranking drugs from safest to most dangerous, needs reconsideration as it presents a misleading narrative about which substances are the biggest threat. Additionally, there have been many studies proving the significant mental and physical benefits of certain drugs that are not part of the wider conversation surrounding drugs. We must develop a healthier culture around drugs in America that allows us to eliminate the risks and enhance the benefits of drug usage and promote a system of recovery instead of punishment for those that aren’t able to develop a healthy relationship with drugs.

America’s efforts in the past to lessen the negative impacts of drug usage have not only fallen short but have consequentially worsened the drug problem in our country and created even. Richard Nixon first declared the so called “War On Drugs” in 1971 in an attempt to curb the large amount of heroin addictions popping up from soldiers returning home after fighting in the Vietnam War. Initially, Nixon’s policies were aimed at prevention and treatment for the drugs that were causing so many issues, essentially fighting the “demand-side” of the war on drugs. He personally believed that this issue was a public health crisis needed to offer resources to drug users to solve this issue. An article from Vox explains that Nixon believed “‘Enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation of the drug user himself,’ Nixon told Congress in 1971. ‘We must rehabilitate the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial activities that flow from drug abuse.’”. However, as the election in 1972 approached, Nixon began to shift his policies toward a more “supply side” approach which involved pushing law enforcement to criminalize the use of drugs. Nixon consequently created the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, which eventually became the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), whose main purpose was to attack drug usage through the legal system by incarcerating both drug users and traffickers. John Mitchell the Attorney General “temporarily” labeled marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, along with heroin and LSD, meaning that the drug supposedly had no medicinal value and the most potential for abuse. As a result, incarceration rates for drug related offenses substantially increased. The Equal Justice Initiative wrote that “After President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971, the number of people incarcerated in American jails and prisons escalated from 300,000 to 2.3 million. Half of those in federal prison are incarcerated for a drug offense, and two-thirds of those in prison for drug offenses are people of color” (https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/ ). Approaching America’s drug problem from the “supply side” was not only ill-intentioned (in 2016 Nixon’s domestic policy advisory John Ehrlichman admitted the “War on Drugs” was to disrupt the antiwar left and black communities), but highly ineffective. Instead, it started a toxic pattern of fighting the drug problem in the US with criminalization instead of changing the conversation around drugs.

Nixon’s legacy with the war on drugs was only the beginning. After Reagan was elected President in 1980, his policies and campaigns created mass hysteria and increased public concern about drug usage. Crack cocaine was the main drug of focus at this time mainly due to media portrayals of those addicted to this drug which allowed Reagan to gain mass public support for zero-tolerance policies when it came to drugs. New campaigns attacking all drug use, including Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, became “quickly adopted nationwide despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness”. Reagan’s ability to create public concern over the drug issue failed to educate the public on safe drug practices but instead pushed Americans to fear drug usage altogether. As a result, more and more Americans supported his harsh policies including mandatory minimum sentencing for those with drug crimes. The number of people incarcerated for drug crimes continued to rise which broke up families and destroyed lives, both of which led to more Americans to turn towards drugs. Essentially, the attempt to attack and criminalize drugs just led to an increase of drug misuse and overdoses with “between 59,000 and 65,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2016, a nearly 20% spike in a single year”, history.com estimates. But from the combined policies from Nixon and Reagan, we are able to learn a valuable lesson about how the negative impacts of drug use can be reduced. The Global Commission on Drug Policy concluded that

‘Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of these people in recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and families without reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the power of criminal organizations,’… As an alternative, the Commission – which includes activists, business leaders, former American cabinet officials, and former European and Latin American presidents — points to a number of countries that have decriminalized drugs without seeing a significant rise in use or drug related-violence (https://civilrights.org/edfund/resource/the-war-on-drugs-has-failed-commission-says/).

Criminalizing drug use or prohibiting it across the board is ineffective to creating a healthy and safe drug culture in America. Going forward, more treatment and education-based approach is needed to achieve this goal.

A deep understanding of the different drugs that are available to consumers is necessary for Americans to develop a healthy and safe drug culture. This understanding begins with correcting misleading or incorrect narratives that currently exist to change the general public’s idea of drugs. One of the top misconceptions that exists is surrounding the drug schedule put forth by the DEA. This schedule was created under the Controlled Substances Act in 1970 in which drugs were classified into different levels depending on their potential for abuse and medical value. Currently marijuana, heroin, LSD, and ecstasy are labeled as Schedule 1 drugs while cough medicine, Lomotil (diarrhea medication), and lyrica (nerve and muscle pain medication) are labeled as Schedule 5 drugs (the lowest ranking on the schedule). The purpose of this schedule was to classify different substances and subsequently impose legal regulations that made the more “dangerous” drugs harder to obtain. There are a couple of issues with this system. First, the classifying of drugs into these systems makes it extremely difficult to conduct research, specifically for Schedule 1 drugs since their supply are strictly limited. In the case of marijuana, it has been difficult for researchers to show the concrete negative and positive effects of the drug because of the lack of opportunity for research. Secondly, the schedule contributes to misleading narratives about certain drugs. Those labeled in the Schedule 1 category are often intuitively considered to be the most dangerous substances available. However, since this ranking system is simply categorizing the potential for abuse (how addictive the substance is and how popular/widespread it is), it misleads the public to believe certain drugs are more dangerous than they are. NASA scientists conducted an experiment on spiders in 1995 where they compared a normally spun web to webs spun by spiders who had been given “that had been exposed to marijuana, Benzedrine (Amphetamine), caffeine, and chloral hydrate. In that order, from marijuana to chloral hydrate, the webs look increasingly erratic and deformed. The briefing states: ‘The changes in webs reflect the degree of toxicity of a substance. The more toxic the chemical, the more deformed a web looks in comparison with a normal web.’”

Based on this experiment, one can conclude that the effects of marijuana are much less toxic than more widely accepted substances such as caffeine. Already, this seems to be basis for reconsidering the schedule of drugs in existence. This specific example is reflective of the double standard that was created because of the narratives spread during the war on drugs. Eliminating this double standard is crucial to creating an honest and healthy drug culture and eliminating overdoses and addictions.

Education about the true dangers and benefits of all drugs and substances is another important step in achieving this goal. While all drugs should ideally be researched in depth and experimented on to learn about their true effects (both positive and negative), there are a few key drugs that should be prioritized due to the gap in public perception about the drug’s presumed and actual effects. Some key substances I will be focusing on are marijuana, magical mushrooms, alcohol, and tobacco.

Conversations about both marijuana and mushrooms have been confusing and controversial in the United States. Marijuana and magical mushrooms (psilocybin) are both labeled Schedule 1 substances in the US and are talked about in a relatively negative light throughout popular culture. However, this largely negative perception of both drugs is misleading due to many of the positive benefits being unknown to the general public. Marijuana has many beneficial physical benefits such as alleviating severe body pain, nausea, muscle tightness, and appetite loss. Not only is this substance able to give the body various forms of relief, but it is a great natural alternative compared to some forms of addictive medication. Most notably, marijuana is far less addictive (studies suggest that “9% of people who use marijuana will become dependent on it) than other drugs in Schedule 2 such as commonly prescribed pain medication like opioids (the National Institute on Drug Abuse stated that “roughly 21 to 29 percent of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them”). Aside from the physical effects, many users, with the right dosage, experience positive mental effects from the CBD in marijuana such as help with anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD. These benefits do not discount the fact that marijuana has been linked to schizophrenia and other disorders, however the purpose in mentioning them is to point out that there is many benefits that is unnoticed in the conversation about drugs. Similarly, mushrooms have many physical and psychological benefits. Psilocybin benefits include “depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, quitting smoking, alcohol addiction, cocaine addiction, cluster headaches, and cancer-related or other end-of-life psychological distress” according to healthline.com. Despite being labeled as Schedule 1 drugs, both marijuana and mushrooms were declared as far less dangerous than methamphetamine and cocaine (both Schedule 2 drugs) in a study done in the UK by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. These two substances serve as examples of drugs that can have significant benefits and insignificant potential for harm but due to their placement on the DEA schedule of drugs and social stigmas are thought of as strictly harmful.

On the other hand, substances like alcohol and caffeine, two of the most addictive and harmful substances widely available to the public, are not on the DEA schedule of drugs at all and are considered socially acceptable. Alcohol is legal for those over 21 years of age and is one of the most widely used substances with two thirds of the US population stating they drank alcohol in 2018. This legal and social acceptance of alcohol is despite several short term effects (including alcohol poisoning, violence, and visual impairments) as well as severe long term effects (including “high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems” in addition to cancer). Even more commonplace is the use of caffeine with 85% of Americans consuming at least one caffeinated beverage daily. Side effects and dangers of caffeine include restlessness and shakiness, insomnia, headaches, dizziness, fast heart rate, anxiety and can be lethal in the long term. While it is possible to consume a healthy amount of caffeine (up to 400 mg per day), many have become dependent on the substance since a study found “roughly one in ten people meet key criteria for caffeine use disorder: they wanted to cut back but could not despite knowing that it was causing them harm, and they suffered withdrawal symptoms when they tried to quit”. Once again, these two substances are not even mentioned on the DEA schedule of drugs despite their extreme addictiveness and widespread use.

While I am pointing out many ways in which misconceptions are commonly spread about drugs, there are several extremely valid narratives that are also currently being spread. Drug abuse is a rapidly escalating problem in the US, specifically with opioid overdoses which account for 70% of overdoses. Overdoses are becoming such a prominent issue that “the odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose in the U.S. are greater than those of dying in a car accident” according to findings from the National Safety Council (NSC). Despite overdoses, the misuse of or dependency on drugs is common to the point where drugs have the potential to uproot many lives. Drugs can make someone more likely to commit violence, sexual assault, or suicidal acts or make them less interested in their sober lives. The addictive nature of many drugs makes it very common for many to unintentionally become addicted, especially in regard to certain pain medications that are prescribed daily by doctors after major surgeries. Therefore, it makes sense why not only our government but society, in general, is so motivated to stop this issue. To work towards coming up with an effective solution, it is crucial that the many negative side effects of drugs are not ignored in anyway. Instead, we must acknowledge the negative side effects that come with these substances and learn how to develop a healthy relationship with drugs. As mentioned earlier, this includes spreading mass awareness about how to healthily use drugs in a way that users will be able to reap the benefits without becoming addicted. As with many things commonly used in our society, like cars, sugar, and social media, moderation is what is needed to create a healthy balance when using these in our life.

Overall, the current narrative concerning drugs that are being spread into our general society’s status quo needs to be changed. No longer should we pursue the approach that looks to vilify drug users and traffickers since we learned from the past that that would only exasperate the problem. Instead, we should first educate consumers, especially young audiences across the country, about the different drugs and their end-to-end list of benefits and risks. This way we can hope that users will be able to consume drugs more responsibly and with knowing the risks that could come from it if one decided to use them. Getting rid of or rearranging the drug schedule tracking to make its implications clearer for consumers would also be helpful to stop promoting false ideas about certain drugs. Specifically, drugs that are the least harmful like marijuana and mushrooms need to be moved to lower schedule levels while alcohol and caffeine need to be added to the schedule, preferably at a high level. This too would help consumers be able to easily create a clear idea of which drugs to stay away from and which are the least harmful to them. Lastly, we need to encourage a culture of recovery where there are several resources and options for those who become addicted. No matter what we do there is bound to be a small portion of drug users who misuse these substances to the point of addiction. Instead of incarcerating them immediately with no remorse, we should do our best to provide aid to them in the hopes that they will survive, repair their relationship with drugs, and inspire others going through the same issues. All of these combined will help with the massive drug and overdose problem our country is facing and develop a healthy protocol for drug use that does not pose a serious threat to our general society.