
What Historians Wish People Knew About Drugs, Part II: Isaac Campos - benbreen
https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/what-historians-wish-people-knew-about-drugs-part-ii-isaac-campos/
======
iamcasen
I always find it funny how polarized the world is about drugs. Why is nearly
every culture against it, with the exception of mostly indigenous tribes?

I can't really imagine it's for any other reason than to have a firmer control
on the population, or an excuse to imprison people or criminalize them in a
convenient way.

People are always going to take drugs, and by and large, they are harmless. I
wish we could collectively just... get over it already.

~~~
jlos
Appropriate punishmments, which drugs should be illegal and under what
circumstances is a totally different area of discussion but the general
attitude of most societies to the recreation use of more powerful drugs is
quite sensible. Drug use is also nearly universally accepted in medical
circumstances so we aren't really all that polarized.

>> Why is nearly every culture against it

Sobriety and self-control are essential to a functioning society and
especially a liberal democracy. Freedom, to the extent we have it, requires
that we can govern ourselves.

>> People are always going to take drugs, and by and large, they are harmless

This is an argument that has never made much sense to me. People are always
going to commit every crime. Laws exist because people will break them. And
laws are effective deterents if the penalties are appropriately harsh.
Consider that alcohol consumption took almost a generation to return to its
pre-prohibition levels (around the 60's-70s').

And most illegal drugs are demonstratively not harmless, to the point its
almost axiomatic.

~~~
lawpoop
Your entire response is belied by the fact that alcohol is legal-- in fact,
celebrated-- in western societies. It's even a religious sacrament (communion
wine, seder wine).

Nutt found that alcohol _the most harmful drug_ -- even more harmful than
meth, crack and heroin-- far more harmful than ecstasy, marijuana, magic
musrooms, LSD, etc.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm)

~~~
jlos
I agree and to the point I upvoted your comment :)

I think that a key part of this discussion is making the distinction between
saying which drugs are illegal and whether drugs should be illegal at all.

Alcohol is particuarly interesting. It was a crucial part of pre-modern
society in creating clean drinking water and even for nutrition in the case of
beer. Not only that but alcohol, as opposed to LSD for example, can be taken
in doses that range from completely benign to powerfully intoxicating.

Defining what drugs should be illegal, how to punish the crime, and all the
other details around it are more difficult to navigate.

~~~
lawpoop
There is some debate nowadays about the use of alcohol as a substitute for bad
water(1).

I think the reason you find alcohol so interesting because of the Iron Law of
Prohibition(2): 'The iron law of prohibition is a term coined by Richard Cowan
in 1986 which posits that as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency
of prohibited substances increases. Cowan put it this way: "the harder the
enforcement, the harder the drugs."'

I'm reading the Kalevala (The National Epic of the Finns), and there is a lot
of talk about brewing "table beer". I didn't know the term, so I had to look
it up: beer of 1-2% alcohol, suitable for drinking during meals.

I think the reason you find such a range of "responses" to alcohol is not the
drug itself, but because of the fact that it's legal, and therefore not
subject to the Iron Law of Prohibition, you can buy it in a variety of
strengths-- from beer to wine to liquor. It's not the drug per se, but its
manufacture.

But, if you're going to go through the trouble of breaking the law to sell or
buy and use illegal drugs, you might as well make it "worthwhile". That's why
you could not find beer or wine during Prohibition, but you could get hold of
high-content whiskey and vodka, even white lighting, moonshine, etc.

Likewise, contraband drugs have from from morphine to heroin to even more
powerful manufactured opioids. If you're going to risk buying a sheet of LSD,
get a dose of 70 micrograms, instead of 20.

Meanwhile, in silicon valley and other places, there is a new trend of
microdosing(3): taking sub-threshold doses of "hallucinogens" to the point
that _you're not even hallucinating-- but you do experience the "side effects"
of increased alertness, awareness, creativity, memory, and problem solving. So
there are doses of LSD, mushrooms, etc you can take that are not very powerful
at all. It all depends on how they are manufactured and sold, just like
alcohol.

Even now in South American countries, the most popular form of "cocaine" is
coca leaves-- which, by contrast, are actually very healthy, and the first
response to potentially deadly altitude sickness when pills aren't available.

I would suspect that if drugs were legalized, you would find a lot more forms
with a lot less power.

1\. [http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-
wate...](http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-water-
myth.html)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition)

3\. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2015/11/27/lsd-
mic...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2015/11/27/lsd-microdosing-
the-new-job-enhancer-in-silicon-valley-and-beyond/#78ffd8a4114d)

~~~
Zak
_I would suspect that if drugs were legalized, you would find a lot more forms
with a lot less power._

As an anecdote, I once had the opportunity to sample coca tea - not the kind
with the cocaine removed that's legal to sell in the US, but the real stuff.
The magnitude of the effect was similar to a strong cup of coffee or energy
drink, but the feeling was a little different. It was pleasant, and I would do
it again if it was readily available.

I don't know how I'd obtain it in the US or Europe, but I'm quite certain I
could obtain refined cocaine if I wanted _that_.

------
benjaminjackman
> All of this leads to my final big point: “drug problems” are really “society
> problems.” Consider the current opiate crisis. Do you know when authorities
> in Ohio, where I reside, became convinced that Ohio had an opiate problem?
> When opiate deaths began to approach, and then surpassed, the number of car
> crash deaths in a year. This raises an important question: why are we so
> tolerant of car-crash deaths, so much so that their frequency has become our
> baseline for unacceptable accidental death in America? Harry Levine back in
> the 70s encouraged us to consider a similar question when he asked if drunk
> driving was really a drinking problem, or if we might better think about it
> as a transportation problem. Given that we allow people to drive around in
> 4,000 pound heaps of steel equipped with maps that need to be programmed,
> and hookups so they can plug in their telephones, and so forth, this strikes
> me as a pretty good question. Our tolerance of car crash deaths tells us a
> lot about us: we are highly tolerant of those things that make our economy
> go, but many of those things create just the kind of conditions that make
> “bad” drug use outcomes more likely: stress, isolation, overwork,
> loneliness, endless change, dislocation, and insecurity. When stressed,
> isolated, lonely people are exposed to new, stronger drugs, you end up with
> a problem. Our current opiate crisis is a case in point.

One thing about cars is a higher proportion of people are ramming phone
charging cables into them and scrolling around gps maps and mashing and
spinning knobs and buttons of radios or texting or eating mcdonalds or falling
asleep or whatever non driving activity you can think of that clearly
jeopardizes everyone else's well-being than are driving under the influence of
some drug. So really I think the penalty isn't proportional necessary to the
harm but instead to likelihood it's some risk you are taking. If you are
taking that risk then you don't want the penalty to involve being smashed in
the face with a book large enough to massive impair your ability to lead a
reasonable life on the first or second offense.

------
jessriedel
There is very little in this article specific to knowledge held mostly by
academic historians. If you are familiar with the general left-coast stance
and arguments around drugs, which is popular on HN, then there won't be much
in this article that's new to you.

It also makes claims like

> drugs are not either “good” or “bad.” All drugs can be both “good” and “bad”
> in their interaction with humans"

This can said about "guns" too, but these sorts of cliches won't be very
illuminating for thoughtful people.

------
jeffdavis
"All of this leads to my final big point: “drug problems” are really “society
problems.”"

Drugs are both a _symptom_ of other problems and a _cause_ of new problems.

Presciption opiates are an example where the drugs were clearly a huge cause,
not just some symptom of a social problem.

~~~
mcguire
Not necessarily. Wasn't there an article recently about prescription drug
abuse being more of a problem in areas of economic instability, higher stress,
etc.?

In fact, the previous article in the blog is looking at the correlation
between drug abuse problems and areas of the country that voted for Trump---a
hypothesis being that poor social outcomes are linked with both political
upheaval and addiction.

~~~
jeffdavis
So you are saying that the opiates did not cause problems? And we shouldn't
look critically at the way they were marketed and distributed?

No, you are just saying that they are also a symptom. Which is exactly what I
said.

~~~
mcguire
" _Presciption opiates are an example where the drugs were clearly a huge
cause, not just some symptom of a social problem._ "

~~~
jeffdavis
Right. "Not just" means something similar to "not only" and both are different
than "not".

------
OliverJones
People interested in this topic should read Johann Hari's fine book Chasing
the Scream. (2015) [http://www.worldcat.org/title/chasing-the-scream-the-
first-a...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/chasing-the-scream-the-first-and-
last-days-of-the-war-on-drugs/oclc/881418255)

Hari digs in to the history of the demonization of addicts in the United
States. This started about a century ago as a federal police initiative, in
the predecessor to the DEA.

One of the things the US did in the middle of the 20th century was to coerce
other countries into agreeing to treaties criminalizing drugs -- the Paris
Convention of 1931
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_Limiting_the_Ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_Limiting_the_Manufacture_and_Regulating_the_Distribution_of_Narcotic_Drugs)
and the 1961 Single Convention.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs)

If Hari's to be believed, the anti-addict stuff in the US was, at its core,
racist. Cannabis was, he says, believed to cause violent insanity in black and
brown people. The same was true of opium and similar drugs.

He doesn't make the argument that addiction is good, only that addicts are not
evil or morally deficient. He does make the argument that prohibition causes
addiction for several reasons:

(1) the iron law of prohibition: when a substance is prohibited, it drives out
all but the most potent formulations of the substance from the market. Nobody
smuggled lite beer during alcohol prohibition; they smuggled white lightning
and 151-proof rum. The most potent formulations are most addictive.

(2) the various dealer effects.

    
    
      a)  Addicts to prohibited substances sell some to their friends to support their habits.  This introduces more people to the substance. (This happened to me many years ago with cocaine. Fortunately for me I was broke at the time and my experience with the stuff seemed like dentist novocaine: boring).
    
      b) Retail dealers cut the wholesale product with nasty adulterants to get more stuff to sell. 
    
      c) Dealer bigshots (guys with names like El Chapo) have an underworld kind of glamour to them. 
    
      d) Dealers outside the law have zero incentive to keep their products away from children.
    

(3) the unpredictability of dosage. Wildly swinging dosages cause higher
highs, which in turn encourages dosage-seeking, which encourages, and is,
addiction. One of the problems of Oxycontin is this. See the LA Times series
on that formulation of an opiate and its marketing.
[http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-
part1/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/)

(4) the lack of supervision of addicts getting their doses. Experiments in
parts of England, Portugal, and Switzerland show that addicts who can safely
get their doses in clinics lead productive lives and can, when ready, take on
the task of curing their addictions.

It's counter-intuitive but true: decriminalizing drugs reduces addiction.

But, it will happen slowly. The narco-industrial complex is too powerful.
Decriminalizing drugs means police layoffs. It means an end to most civil
forfeiture property seizures, which will cut into government revenue. It
eliminates a rich source of scare tactics for politicians. It takes a fat
chunk out of gun and ammunition sales.

Just look at Massachusetts, where I live. Cannabis was decriminalized in
November, and the law has been in effect for about a month. Police and
politicians are wringing their hands about what to do.

~~~
OliverJones
I should add: A Peruvian buddy of mine told me that aboriginal Inca people
historically have chewed coca leaves when laboring (carrying stuff, plowing,
etc) at high altitude. It enables them to live and work at high altitude. My
hypothesis: Coca and Humanity co-evolved in the Andes. Maybe a paleogeneticist
knows how to disprove, or prove, that hypothesis.

~~~
martindelemotte
No paleogeneticist here but from what I know from : Andean people benefit from
a genetic adaptation to high altitude and don't need coca leaves (Himalayan
people also benefit from a different genetic adaptation). It does make work
more enjoyable though.

Also, coca was reserved to higher classes in the past so laborers probably
didn't have access to it. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca#History)

