British researchers evaluate 20 substances, rating each on a scale of 0-3 on each of three dimensions: physical harm, risk of dependency, and social harm. That means each substance could receive a total score from 0 to 9. When Britain's top drug drug adviser, Dr. David Nutt, criticized his nation's drug laws in a lecture, he was fired. Nutt had pointed out that alcohol was more dangerous and damaging than marijuana. So is tobacco. As you can read in You can't handle the truth,
comments weren’t the idle musings of a reality-insulated professor in a policy job. They were based on a list - a scientifically compiled ranking of drugs, assembled by specialists in chemistry, health, and enforcement, published in a prestigious medical journal two years earlier.
Alcohol was 5th at 5.54, higher than
Amphetamines 4.98
tobacco 4.87
cannabis 4.00
LSD 3.68
Steroids 3.46
Ecstasy 3.27
So why isn't drug policy based solely or primarily on things like science?
You can see the entire chart in the article. As the article notes,
Many drug specialists now consider it one of the most objective sources available on the actual harmfulness of different substances.
You can also read that
Nutt says he didn’t see himself as promoting drug use or trying to subvert the government. He was pressing the point that a government policy, especially a health-related one like a drug law, should be grounded in factual information. In doing so, he found himself caught in a crossfire that cost him the advisory post he had held for a decade.
Why should we care? Well, for starters, the Obama administration has taken some baby steps towards changing our current draconian drug laws. It has eased medical marijuana laws, is trying to emphasize addiction prevention and treatment over punitive law enforcement. And newly-installed White House drug official Thomas McClellan has argued that we should be using "evidence-based tools" in the making of policy. Some - especially law-and-order Republicans I would suppose, are already heavily critical of the administration, and one can imagine that McClellan could find himself at risk the way Nutt was: the latter was discharged the day after the public lecture cited above, even though he is a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at London’s Imperial College, and had chaired the relevant government panel for years. The rankings to which he referred had been published in The Lancet, Britain's most prestigious journal of medical research, in 2007. Imagine if you can the parallel situation here: a high ranking government adviser on drug policy publicly references an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, America's most prestigious medical journal. All articles are rigorously peer-reviewed. And for reference the research contained therein, the public official is immediately discharged.
One might think that government would want to make policy based on evidence. Of course, given the previous 8 years, we know that an administration can easily choose to ignore evidence that conflicts with the policy it wishes to achieve, be that on invading Iraq or the dangers of global warning. And we certainly have a history of demagoguery on some issues, of which drug policy must rank near the top.
Certainly some of those drugs on which we are harsh warrant such treatment based on the evidence. Heroin came in as most dangerous, at 8.32, followed immediately by Cocaine at 6.89 and Barbituates at 6.84.
Britain never went through an attempt to ban alcohol as did the U.S. And regardless of the dangers of alcohol, well-known for many years, it is so ingrained in human society that we are unlikely to try again, and instead can at best look for ways to regulate its use.
I want to quote a few more paragraphs, in part because one of America's experts on drug policy is quoted. Here I offer full disclosure: Mark A. R. Kleiman of UCLA has been a friend since 1971, when I returned to Haverford as a 25 year old junior during his senior year. We are in regular contact via email, and when he had a visiting professorship at University of Maryland, College Park, I had him come out and talk with my AP students.
Now that I have completed that disclosure, allow me to offer several snips:
It might seem obvious that the most harmful drugs should receive the most attention from the government, with beefed-up prevention and treatment programs, and tougher punishments for producers and distributors. And to conserve their limited resources, it might make sense for drug officials to stop worrying about the least harmful substances, even decriminalizing or legalizing them.
But real-world drug policy is not like that. To a certain extent, say analysts, legal drugs are acceptable and illegal ones are dangerous because, well, because they’re already illegal.
"There’s a crazy kind of logic that argues, about some currently illegal drug, ‘Look how dangerous it is! You couldn’t possibly legalize a drug as dangerous as that!’ " said Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA. The fact that a drug is against the law makes people overestimate its risks, he said, while legal status causes them to underestimate dangers.
Politicians tend to follow that same line of thinking, leaving socially acceptable legal drugs alone, while making easy prey of would-be liberalizers. In the United States, for instance, it would be politically insane to call for the legalization of the least harmful drugs on Nutt’s list - khat, GHB, and steroids - while campaigning to outlaw tobacco.
Kleiman and other experts - including Nutt - are not suggesting that either Britain or the United States should ban alcohol. America tried that once, and even during Prohibition, people didn’t stop drinking - they simply built a system of illegal manufacturing and distribution big enough to satisfy their thirst. Instead, Kleiman believes a good strategy on alcohol should include increased taxes to discourage drinking - young people and heavy drinkers are price-sensitive - and an outright ban on sales to people who have been convicted of drunken driving or other alcohol-fueled crimes.
Perhaps our policies and laws are not at the top of the agenda, not a high priority compared to other issues with which the administration must deal. And yet, perhaps they need to be.
Consider this: alcohol and tobacco contribute HEAVILY to our medical costs, and if we are attempting to make coverage universal, we certainly should be looking to eliminate or at least lessen the use of items which increase medical costs.
Many of those imprisoned or released but still restricted in their rights because of felony convictions are in that status for drug convictions. The social and economic costs of such policies are immense: the costs of building, staffing and operating prisons; the loss of tax revenue because drug felons either are unemployed, underemployed, or unemployable; the diversion of law enforcement resources in the direction of these crimes while other crimes - violent to be sure, but also financial (and these have a devastating effect on society) - go unaddressed; ... and I am sure you can add to such a list.
The title of the Globe piece are words most of us associate with Jack Nicholson in his role as Col. Nathan Jessup in "A Few Good Men." While the relevant passage makes no reference to drugs or drug policy, it is perhaps worthwhile to offer it, and to reflect on how the line IS relevant to the issue at hand.
You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
The rationale behind the remarks made by Jessup is that he is doing us a service, that he is protecting us by doing things we are not prepared to do for ourselves. There is a process of rationalization that justifies things that otherwise perhaps we might question, in the movie the death of Santiago being illustrative.
How is that relevant to the issue of drug policy? There are some who do demagogue the issue - to obtain political power, or because there is money to be made in taking the harsh law enforcement approach. But there are also those who are true believers, who hold their position on drug policy with an almost theological fervor, unwilling to brook any opposition, unwilling to consider the possibility that they might be wrong.
Jessup argues that without what he does, we would all be at risk, that his is the only way to keep us safe. Some of those so fervent for our present policies on drugs believe with a similar fervor, and will dare us to argue otherwise.
Science is a process that many do not understand. And certainly those of here understand that politics is far from being strictly rational: people respond emotionally, and emotions can be manipulated.
And yet at some point, do we not need to examine what evidence is available? Should we not be rigorous in our thinking as we make policy? Should not some be willing to educate us, to demonstrate appropriate leadership?
Or will we be in the situation that on this, as on many other issues of policy, we will be told to shut up and let those in charge do what they are already doing. Will we hear the words spoken by Jessup, and with which the Globe piece is titled:
You can't handle the truth
Peace.