Posted on by Nathan Riley

If It’s Fun, It Must Be Illegal

If it’s fun, it’s illegal—a common conviction of my youth. Often said in jest, in the 1950s as I grew up it was folk wisdom. My parents were 11 years old when Prohibition took full effect in 1922 and drank in their teens illegally and with glee. Hence the folk saying if it’s fun, it’s illegal was grounded in history.

By 1932 their rebellion became legal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt downplayed his support for repealing prohibition, and he suffered no backlash in his landslide victory. My parents never supported prohibition and spent little time justifying their view; prohibition made government do bad things. Virtually everybody in New York City agreed.

But the specter of prohibition stayed with my parents; they never thought marijuana should be illegal. They were quick to realize cigarettes caused cancer years before warning labels. My mom compromised and smoked 3 cigarettes a day, my father, whose willpower I found awesome, simply stopped. It was an individual decision. Government’s obligation was to do research and to dispute tobacco’s propaganda, but the bottom line, the decision was up to the individual.

My parents and I do not object to government expressing strong viewpoints about personal habits. My objection is to the use of government coercion. The application of punishment is rarely fair. Marijuana is illegal, but nobody bothered the fans at a Grateful Dead concert. They were clearly getting high and the police stayed away. The Dead, in turn, made sure caretakers were immediately available to help people who had bad trips.

Yes there was potential for harm, and the sensible response is helping people who are in trouble. It was manifestly obvious that most people were having fun and weren’t in trouble. The law was not enforced.

But these laws are aggressively enforced against spurned groups, especially the black and brown communities. White people with ties to the community skate when drugs are found, but the courts all too often bring down the hammer and police sweeps arrest thousands for doing the same thing that white people do without punishment. Even when it came to the tricky question of selling the illegal drugs, whites find legal exits that are denied to black and brown. There is no racial justice in drug enforcement or, for that matter, prostitution enforcement.

Forcing the law to accept individual choices would end these racial injustices. Clearly, imprisonment is unjust and doesn’t fit the crime. The push for legalization is a push for equal justice. Some people who do drugs need help. They should be able to get medical care, counseling, and other assistance without court orders insisting on little evidence that it is necessary. Medical care should not be guided by the Drug Enforcement Agency and the courts. It’s a private matter between the patient and the doctor. Doctors should be free to use their best medical judgment on the proper treatment. That would clearly include allowing patients to use drugs while attention is directed at other problems.

Legalization would bring additional medical impacts. The corporations making drugs would have to adhere to safety rules. Bad trips, fentanyl poisoning, and other ill effects would be reduced dramatically. Perhaps the most important benefit is that users will get safety information that stays the same because the product is uniform and its dose is standardized.

Under prohibition, unskilled people willing to risk arrest are forced constantly to change their preparations. Law enforcement in its fruitless efforts to stamp out drugs frequently bans an ingredient. These legal interferences mean drug users often are forced to take a new drug they are not used to. It is a dangerous form of government interference.

These legal strategies encourage additives like fentanyl, which have a big kick but often catch users by surprise. A little bit of fentanyl can produce a big high, but, as we well know, it also brings overdoses. The legal manufacture of drugs is a safety precaution for users.

The public is well aware it can buy dozens of different kinds of alcohol. But they only select drinks they like. The fact that the currently illegal drugs would be available and uniform would not require the public to buy them. We know for a fact that people exercise choice when it comes to getting high. Adding legal drugs to the list is not a big step.

It would be irresponsible to say drugs have no risk. Carl Hart, the Columbia professor who has spent his life studying drugs has found that 70% of legal users would enjoy their habits without ill effects. At the same time, he also clearly states that 30% have trouble. Making something legal does not mean it would be safe. Football is legal, but it is fraught with injury. Smoking is legal, but many smokers get cancer. Driving is legal, but hardly safe without drivers paying close attention and following the rules.

Making drugs legal will not make them safe unless the users exercise caution. But making drugs manufactured according to uniform standards would make the exercise of caution much easier and allow users to tell other users about safety.

And perhaps the most important benefit is racial justice. We don’t have to depend on police learning new habits; they will not be allowed to arrest gamblers, drug users, prostitutes, porn watchers, and other habits that are the private business of the individual.

I must renew my plea for somebody to offer help. Everybody I have approached has declined. I’m 83 and nearly blind and need a functioning adult to help me get this project off the ground. Interested? Contact me by email.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

It’s Time for “Whatever” People to Unite

Freedom Democrats reach a cross section of America among  them are viewers of porn and its performers , are close to the LGBTQ+ community, sex workers and their clients, and drug users. They number in the millions and respect each other’s habits and do not tell other people how they should live their lives.

Political scientists tell us voters join their friends and become a stable voting bloc. A key organizing tool of this new group are weekly parties. The “whatever” people form the core of the Freedom Democrats.

Around 2015, many drug reformers rejected the idea that drugs are a problem. Millions like to get high, and they objected to a negative focus that fed shame. In truth and in fact it is absurd that the pleasures of drug use should be considered criminal. People having a good time are not committing a crime!

Marginalizing people with demeaning laws betrays our heritage; the right to the pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. So fundamental is this right, that the Declaration insists that governments are “instituted” to “secure these rights.” Laws prohibiting drug use directly conflict with the Declaration. For this reason, reformers rejected the idea that their drug use requires government management.

This blog hopes open minded people will unite and vote.

For years, arguments supporting drug legalization accepted the idea that drug use is a problem. Reformers made the case that criminalizing drugs was bad policy; it increased the danger of drugs and the risk of harm to users. In 1981, the futile fight against drug use cost $1.5 billion; currently, it costs $35 billion. Except in those states that made marijuana legal and collect tax money rather than spending it. As early as 1944, NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia issued a study backing marijuana legalization. In the eighty years since then, expert after expert voiced support for similar conclusions. What is new is the growing recognition that even “hard drugs” like heroin are used just as safely as marijuana or alcohol. These scientific conclusions buttress the arguments for the universal right to get high, guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence.

Roughly ten years ago, and growing every year, drug users and reformers reject the notion that these pleasures are unmanageable. A vocal advocate for this change repudiated many of his earlier ideas. Carl Hart, a professor at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, when he started his study of drugs, thought drug use was a major cause of the crime and poverty infecting black neighborhoods like the one he grew up in. Over the years, Professor Hart’s research led him to repudiate this hypothesis; he concluded it was nonsense.

Drug use is often scapegoated as a cause of poverty, which is more closely tied to society’s neglect. Students in these neighborhoods often receive minimal encouragement at school, their families struggle and don’t earn a living wage, and government services are inferior to nonexistent. Explanations for downtrodden conditions cannot be reasonably traced to the bad habits of the residents. It’s an unworkable explanation. Middle class people use more drugs than the poor, they can afford it, and their lives don’t fall apart.

Those blaming the poor’s problems on drug use seldom mention that a half-a-million people are arrested every year, “to say nothing of the shameful racial discrimination in marijuana arrests,” wrote Professor Hart. In 2013, black people were four times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession. At the federal level, three-fourths of the individuals arrested for marijuana possession were Hispanic. Undoubtedly, the growing legalization of marijuana has improved this situation, but its main lesson is still in its infancy: society can absorb legalization without trauma.

Moreover, Hart’s years of research on drug use in a university setting dispelled the notion that crack, meth, or psychedelics were more addictive than marijuana. Other legal substances like alcohol, caffeine, or food most adults have no real problem handling but which cause some people real difficulty. The connection between overeating and obesity is a far greater health problem than drug use. But there is no call to wage war against food and make it illegal.

By propagating the myth that drugs made people dangerous, society gave new life to older racist prejudices enflaming fears that marginal groups like Blacks, Chinese, or the Irish threatened society. Myths about the danger of drug use spawn alarming headlines, increase media audiences, and justify increased funds for police, drug testing, and treatment programs. The true beneficiaries of drug prohibition. By casting it as an evil, politicians were relieved of the obligation to offer a helping hand other than making the only acceptable outcome: stop using the drug now.

Professor Hart’s fury and sense of moral failing was directed at himself and other drug users who showed little solidarity with the persons ensnared by hostile laws. In his radical book Drug Use for Grown-Ups, the professor clearly admitsthat he lived a happy life using drugs. It increased “affability, euphoria, and energy—all conducive to a party atmosphere.” If he was free to enjoy his life with these drugs, the Professor insisted that morality demanded solidarity with others captured by the criminal law. Adults who use drugs sporadically for pleasure, Hart insists, must come out of the closet for the same reasons that lesbians and gays made their habits known. Once people realized that their friends and neighbors were gay, it became difficult if not impossible to believe that it was a problem. Hart makes a convincing case that users will also change people’s attitudes.

He describes delightful moments with his wife, often with enhanced intimacy and sexual pleasure. Drugs accompanied him in many special moments in their marriage. Hart’s pleasure is not pot, he likes heroin.

The conclusions from his research reinforced his politics. He eloquently dismantles the 1980’s crack scare. It was a successor to previous racist lies that this or that evil drug made blacks insanely dangerous criminals. Today we laugh at the absurd tales in the movie Reefer Madness, but these mean-spirited tales led to a degree of police intervention that has no justification in a free society. At the height of the crack scare, Governor Mario Cuomo called for life sentences even for small amounts of crack worth $50 while Congressman Charles Rangel “advocated for the deployment of military personnel and equipment to rid cities of the drug.” These mythic drug scares are a reoccurring part of American life. They have no scientific basis and are dangerously totalitarian.

In the ensuing panic, Congress passed “legislation setting penalties that were literally one hundred times harsher for crack-trafficking than for powder cocaine–trafficking violations. From a pharmacological perspective, Professor Hart notes, crack is no more harmful than powder cocaine. “They are the same drug.”

The obvious and racist difference between powdered coke that is snorted and crack that is smoked is the color of the user’s skin. Decades later Congress stopped ignoring these criticisms, but even then they could not bring themselves to make the penalties for crack and cocaine equal. Congressional reform reduced the sentencing disparity, but still in the throes of the dangerous drug nonsense, the “reform” reduced the disparity to 18:1. Thank you, but no thanks.

Policy-based arguments seeking reform but which accept the idea that drugs are exceptionally dangerous easily leads to compromises that make the 18:1 seem like an acceptable improvement.

It is far better to insist that drug use is legal and allow adults to control their use. Drinks during alcohol prohibition were often laced with dangerous ingredients. Once drinking became legal, whiskey became safer. Making drug use legal would make drugs safer and improve education on the safe use of drugs. Drugs would have standardized ingredients and users would receive sound advice backed by medical research. Such a plan recognizes that adult drug users like Professor Hart will manage their use successfully and doctors, friends and family will help those whose use cause problems.

Drug users are often a picky lot. Those who like opium understand that methamphetamines have an entirely different effect. The users and their community can sort out these problems without having their privacy invaded by strangers and the law. Driving is legal but often dangerous, and in all probability some users will find ways to make drugs dangerous. But most users will choose safe habits. That is why Professor Hart entitles his book Drug Use for Grown-Ups. Freedom requires that we allow adults their right to pursue happiness and society will work with users to enhance pleasure rather than promote danger.

Freedom Democrats will not only fight for adults’ rights to use drugs, but they will stop racist police practices. The opposition to drug laws is another chapter in stopping the U.S.’s history of terrorism against blacks.

Professor Hart insists drug users unite and demand the simple truth that in the United States getting high and happy is a basic human right. The Declaration of Independence guarantees the fundamental right to pursue happiness.

The professor has shrewd observations to encourage drug users unity. For example, he warns that there is a negative side to “the current popular psychedelic movement.” He cautions that it is “dominated by people who justify their use of these drugs by couching it in medical or spiritual jargon.” Their careful arguments avoid “the stigma associated with using these substances, so long as the reason for use is not to get high.” But the professor prefers the libertarian attitudes like those of a psychedelic icon like Jerry Garcia. Garcia—it should be added, but the professor doesn’t mention—was a heroin user, even if the Grateful Dead’s devoted followers preferred LSD they knew that drug laws violated their rights.

Professor Hart calls for all drug users to come out of the closet. Getting high is an inalienable right protected by the Declaration of Independence. This freedom should become a cornerstone of the argument for drug legalization.

Launching Freedom Democrats requires the help of smart persons who will join an old man like me. I’m 82 and nearly blind and must find activists who want to help.

Organizing Freedom Democratic requires no special skills. The starting point are weekly parties that invite sex workers, porn watchers, drug users, and LGBTQ+, the “whatever” persons who share a common attitude. They want a new birth of freedom in the United States. The weekly parties will give people who share common views the opportunity to work together and become a political force.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Drug Use Has Comparable Risks To Drinking A High-Ball

Freedom is tied to the discovery of new ideas, what we often call “truth.”

Freedom in the United States is a constant struggle. The most famous and obvious is slavery. Slavery was practiced all over the world, long before it was used to make sugar or grow tobacco. Slaves are a constant backdrop in the Bible. Between 20 to 40% of the Roman population was slaves. Supporters of slavery insisted that once freed blacks would do no work and rape white women. Slavery, we were told, was a pillar of civilization.

As freedom became accepted, slavery conflicted with changing moral standards. Making drugs legal is no greater a change in moral standards than when the United States abandoned slavery or allowed women to vote.

Appeals to freedom, frequently meant changing minds; what was considered “right” became “bad.” Conventional morality opposed a new freedom and then became accustomed to it, even insisting on it.

Freedom permits us to challenge existing ideas; slavery stopped being a “good” and became an appalling evil to many Americans. Freedom allowed reformers to challenge existing ideas and insist on a better reality. Today it is harder to accept that drug use is criminal behavior that good people should stop, an evil that harms us. It is simply untrue that poverty is caused by drug use, multiple reasons are tied to poverty: more people than there are jobs, education that doesn’t instruct many young people, and few programs that help people learn after they are 18 and start to recognize the importance of schooling.

Arguing that drugs are an evil is being challenged. If gambling, overeating and alcohol are addictive it becomes difficult to claim heroin has some special evil factor making it more addictive than other activities. Moreover, drinking, eating, and gambling are legal and most people do not become addicted to these pastimes. People get high at reasonable times in reasonable ways. They do it for the same reason people eat and drink to be merry and have fun. Users feel convivial, have better sex and more fun high.

It’s a pleasure that adults should have the right to enjoy. More and more scientists agree controlled use is possible. Much of the argument gets enmeshed in medical jargon about receptor cells and the way the brain works. However difficult the arguments, these scientific disputes are earth-shattering in their conclusions.

With the same caution that we practice with alcohol, being cautious about how much we consume and when we drink, scientists are telling us that the illegal drugs may foster fun and are just as safe as drinking, which has been legal for nearly 100 years. Many scientists, like Carl Hart in his indispensable book Drug-use for Grown-ups, are saying the public has the facts wrong. Heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, psychedelics, etc. can be used safely, and it’s possible to clearly explain this safe use to the public. In short, there is no scientific basic for making the drugs illegal. The law has got its facts wrong and is impinging on our right to pursue happiness. Freedom Democrats can help persuade the nation to support this reasonable policy. Drug legalization offers freedom to drug users and their suppliers. It is a good thing. It makes sense to weigh the opinion of the scientists; after all, their claim is a breakthrough.

A big mistake is assuming that an illegal drug has the power to control your life. Those of us who live happily with drug users know that people can get high on Friday and be energized for work on Monday. We see this with our naked eyes but public hostility leads us to remain silent. We protect users from the law by keeping them in the closet. This strategy has a bad effect, it prevents the public from seeing the truth. Drug users know that the risk of a highball and a snort are comparable. If drug users left the closet, the public would know that drug users should have the freedom to choose their highs.

A major implication of the scientists’ conclusions is that we overemphasize the dangers of drug use. Focusing on danger moves our thoughts into anxiety, making it easier to accept the false conclusion that this is a high risk activity. A major reason that people use drugs is happiness, a right protected by the Declaration of Independence. Not just protected but one of the three core values in our democracy, “the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Making drugs legal is a simple act of respect, recognizing that the millions of Americans who get high know when they are having fun, and wish to have that feeling again and again. Drinkers know the pleasure of that first drink after work. A decent respect for opinion should make it clear that if drug users say it’s fun they know what they are talking about. The argument for drug legalization is just that simple. Don’t believe it when they tell you drugs destroy your lives. It only happens occasionally and is usually not permanent but just a stage in life. It makes more sense to say, “You should be careful, and learn how to use the drugs safely.”

In turn, it is our obligation to recognize that allowing drug users to pursue their habits is an act of respect. Users should be able to buy drugs conforming to strict government standards. A pill taken to get high should be as safe as a pill prescribed by a doctor. Obviously, there would be restrictions. You wouldn’t want pills that look like candy, you don’t want your children to eat a whole box full. The pills should be child-safe. When it says 60mg of whatever drug, it damn well had better be 60mg. At the same time, the legal drug industry should have the right to recognize that their products are used for pleasure. They should have permission to advertise that people enjoy their products, just as alcohol is advertised with people enjoying themselves.

A debate surrounding the legal sale of drugs that get you high and happy should help protect the users and minimize harms. Legalizing drugs means putting to bed the nightmares that surround the myth of addiction. If gambling and overeating can be an addiction, then it is improbable that there is something especially malevolent in a psychedelic or heroin. Sometimes addiction happens; usually it does not.

Freedom would stop the police from interfering with users’ habits. A decent respect for drug users should recognize their heartfelt plea for civility. We will not harm your children, but we will save the young from the harms of harsh criminal penalties. Instead of threats, we insist on respect and recognition, telling the public, “We will listen to you if you will listen to us.”

{If you think ideas like these can become important by showing how many people think this way, then please contact me. I am 82 and nearly blind and looking for an enterprising person to launch Freedom Democrats.}

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Allow Grown-Ups To Use Drugs

It doesn’t matter if you’re a cosmopolitan sipping a martini after a day at the office or a gourmet tasting only half a serving of dessert, you must exercise self-control. Adults can’t stuff their face without getting fat, and an adult can’t spend an evening chugging beer without getting drunk. Self-control is a critical component of good health.

So it should come as no surprise that heroin users must practice self-control.

The best research confronts the obvious truth that people all over the world get high and that those foolish moralists who would ban drugs and alcohol use cause harm and threaten the liberty of our citizens.

Carl Hart, a Columbia professor who spent years doing biased research to prove that marijuana and other drugs were harmful until he reached a conclusion that a fair reading of the evidence demonstrates that using the illegal drugs with the same self-control that we promote for drinking and eating poses no danger to health and may in fact be a sensible part of a healthy life.

My father died at 91. He had his last martini on a Thursday and died on Saturday. Drinking was one of his great pleasures, and like many of his generation that lived through alcohol prohibition, he was convinced that marijuana and even heroin used judiciously were pleasures that any adult should be free to choose. What he knew from experience, scientists have supported with research.

Professor Hart is just one of a growing chorus of reformers who believe adults should be free to choose their pleasures. It is a well-known fact that moderate consumption of alcohol reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. Professor Hart extends this same principle to heroin. He uses it. But quite reasonably insists that the user should be prudent and exercise self-control. In his book Drug Use for Grown-ups, based on his research and his personal habits, he demonstrates that using heroin with self-control is fun and can be part of a happy life.

The research is extensive and available to those doubters who want scientific affirmation for what other people discover while growing up. If you aren’t self-aware and don’t control your use, all of these substances can cause substantial harm. But in fact the greatest harm is caused by the government and law enforcement programs to stop illegal drug use.

Perhaps the most important proof and one of the key points that another researcher, Dr. Peter Grinspoon, makes in his book Seeing Through the Smoke is that overeating can be an addiction. That is, what should be a pleasure, when used judiciously, can be life threatening if the eater insists on experiencing the pleasure of food to excess.

Without a doubt, obesity causes more premature deaths than fentanyl, alcohol, and car accidents. A study in the distinguished New England Journal of Medicine, concluded, “We are also simply eating more calories per person: Portion sizes have gone up, and eating outside of the home often means heavier, unhealthier foods, and sugary drinks to wash them down.” According to the researchers, a high body weight contributed to 4 million deaths globally — or 7 percent of the deaths from any cause — in 2015.

Eating unhealthy foods causes more deaths than fentanyl or car accidents. This is a worldwide problem. It is worst in the United States. Put bluntly, Coca-Cola and soft drinks kill more people than any of the illegal drugs. This is of course not a plea to make sugary foods illegal. In terms of policy, it is a plea to give public health officials more authority over the habits of U.S. residents.

Anybody my age, 82, has watched as public health techniques dramatically reduce cigarette smoking. When I was growing up, every house had ashtrays on most tabletops. A fun evening with guests would probably lead to the smoking of almost a pack of 20 cigarettes. Nobody went outside to smoke; it happened in the living room with everybody present. Public health messages, over decades, made smoking uncomfortable, a bad habit. Cigarettes are still with us, but their use is dramatically lower than it was in 1950. The discomfort with smoking is widespread. Among young people, who quite commonly decline not only tobacco but marijuana to protect their lungs. Without arresting anybody, public health policy changed our national habits.

In one of his most arresting passages, Carl Hart argues that the illegal drugs don’t follow this public health impulse because of racism.

Controlling illegal drug use costs billions that pay the salaries of police, judges, prison guards, and even drug treatment programs. The police prison industrial complex is uniformly racist, and encourages public fear, and its arrests threaten personal freedoms. It continues the U.S. history of applying terrorism against black and brown communities. Almost uniformly, white people who use the illegal drugs are given more compassion. They have a problem. Those with a different skin color are dubbed criminals, burdened with a record, and even imprisonment for their supposed moral failings. Sheepishly, Professor Hart admits that at the start of his drug research he believed drug use caused poverty and antisocial behavior in his communities. He has freed himself from these racist delusions.

The simple truth is some of the people who use drugs harm themselves; others, quite possibly a large number of others, get pleasure and relaxation from their drug use. It contributes to their sense of well-being. The drug war and its billions of dollars threaten all users. Public health measures would dramatically reduce the number of people earning good wages to fight the drug war, but will be more effective. Without burdening the taxpayers, public health measures would solve most of the problems associated with drug use, just as it has reduced but not ended the health problems associated with smoking. And cause no threat to our freedoms.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of this approach would be the increase in freedom in the United States. Police intrusions into the lives of our citizens are prompted all too often by suspicions that an otherwise law-abiding citizen may be involved with illegal drug use. At its most extreme, hundreds of Americans have been shot and killed by police officers enforcing the drug laws. Freedom Democrats would end this threat to our liberties.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Drug Use Is No More Addictive Than Overeating

Since World War II, caring people have rejected stigma, recognizing its cruelty.

Freedom Democrats enthusiastically join in the fight against stigma. The latest group to hold its head high and say, “We are doing nothing wrong,” is drug users. It has become increasingly difficult to accept the stigma that using hard and psychedelic drugs is always harmful and should be illegal. More and more drug users reject the hostile conclusion that getting high must be destructive behavior. Some people have problems with drugs, just as some people have problems with overeating, but the growing body of evidence makes it clear that many people use drugs and have fulfilling lives. It is mean to look down on drug users.

In the United States black people were stigmatized before and after slavery. Black workers were stigmatized as lazy and stupid. Whites were often surprised by blacks’ intelligence and shrewdness. Written before the Civil War, Frederick Douglass’s autobiography was greeted with skepticism. No black, the stigmatizers said, could write that well; a white person must have been the actual author.

When it comes to stigma, the unfair treatment of blacks has lasted an extraordinarily long time, but other stigmatized groups have shed their negative labels since World War II. Historically homosexuals were mocked, occasionally locked up, until the nation went crazy. Immediately after World War II, gays became a national threat. They were considered security risks. Homosexuals could stay in the closet, but if their loves became public, they lost their jobs. It became illegal for Uncle Sam to provide employment to LG persons.

During this gruesome period, supporters of homosexuals helped lesbians and gays stay in the closet. These heterosexuals, like my parents, thought it was helpful to call lesbians and gays “sick.” Sick people deserved compassion and treatment. Psychiatrists thought that gays could become heterosexual with treatment. In other words, lesbian and gay people could become “healthy” by just being like straights. Men chasing women was considered “normal.” “Sick” had turned into a stigma.

During this same period, women fought stigmas that labeled them overly emotional flibbertigibbets who created confusion until men straightened out the problems. Men were the smart, rational backbone of government and society. Women took care of the home. This prejudice was stupid. Virtually every open-minded person understood that some women were smarter than some men and that women often had better solutions to problems. Feminism blossomed and so did the view that women are equal to men.

By the 1960’s, a growing population across the globe realized that labeling groups as “inferior” was wrong. Stigmatization demeaned same sex love, women, blacks, Spanish speaking, and in the northern United States southern whites were stigmatized. It took George Wallace running for President to demonstrate that some whites in the North were just as racist as some whites in the South.

The battle against stigma was widespread in the United States after the upheavals of the 1960’s. As the times changed even the military, long considered a deeply conservative institution, adopted anti-stigmatization policies. Gay and lesbian soldiers opened doors that allowed the transgendered to work in the military. Women, blacks, and Spanish speaking people became senior officers whose rank required them to command white men. Stigma didn’t disappear, but it became dubious and presumptively illegal in the eyes of the law.

This social change is attacked by the Donald Trump administration. Diversity is damned, and employees are dismissed for supporting it. It will be a hot-button issue as long as Trump is president.

Nonetheless, the battle against stigma is being fought on a new front. The latest group fighting stigma is drug users. Slowly but surely, it is being recognized that drug users are not sick nor demented.

In fact, much if not most of drug users’ pain is caused by stigmatizing drug use. Change has been painfully slow. In the 1960’s, using marijuana was considered dangerous. It led to laziness, opened the door to stronger drugs like heroin, and demonstrated a contempt for law. This argument failed. Marijuana use became widespread, and its users did not become drug addicts. Stigmatizing people is dangerous, wrong, and causes harm.

World War II and the German Holocaust had exposed the dangers of racial categories. Their acceptance could justify horrific acts. As the lesson of World War II became clear, segregation in the army and the classroom became illegal. The battle to give blacks the right to vote and end Jim Crow practices created interracial friendships. Smoking pot was not only fun, it was a form of solidarity with the victims of racism.

Pot use skyrocketed and by high school teenagers had been to parties where some people got stoned. It became impossible to claim pot was dangerous. The menace of drug use had been disproved. Zero tolerance, or the goal of making America drug free, became absurd extremism.

In city after city, all over the world, it became recognized that some people did drugs, always had and always will. Policy makers were forced to answer the question, what is the harm? If it was the spread of disease from needle-sharing, then it became obvious that drug users should have a steady supply of sterile needles. Though by no means universal, harm reduction became a public health objective. Cities like San Francisco boasted of their accomplishments in reducing drug related harm. Other cities kept their policies lowkey and faced attacks if their harm reduction programs became public knowledge.

Harm reduction is a major step forward, but like supporting homosexuals because they are “sick” it doesn’t dispute the belief that drug use is dangerous and inferior behavior.

A growing chorus of thinkers now argue that drug users are not sick and those who have problems deserve help. It is generally understood that gambling can become addictive and lead to financial disaster. In fact, most gamblers watch their pocketbook and stay within a budget. Gambling is fun, and that is why people like it. Drug users are just as sensible.

The argument that heroin is dangerous because it is addictive has become suspect. Gambling can be addictive for some but not for others, the same is true for heroin. Bankers, plumbers, and college professors use heroin without harming their careers. A Columbia University professor came out of the closet about his drug use. Carl Hart makes this argument in his book Drug Use for Grown-Ups. Consider this observation: lock-ups in cities all over the United States don’t help heroin users going through withdrawal. For some, it is horrible agony, but for many it’s just a challenge and they “tough it out.” Don’t think you know about heroin’s effects because you read newspaper stories or saw antidrug movies. The effects are individual, and they vary with the individual, just like gambling and drinking. Some people get great pleasure from eating and preparing food; other people overeat. You can’t generalize about drug use anymore than you can generalize about eating.

Addiction is a troublesome concept. Using heroin, methamphetamine, is a problem for some but not everyone. That is the lesson that Freedom Democrats are learning and disseminating.

In a free country, no judge should be allowed to tell a person you must go into treatment. It should be up to the person to decide if they want help. Nobody should be allowed to shout “Don’t do this! You will go to jail!” That is not freedom; it is stigmatizing and ignores the right of persons to make their own decisions about how they live their lives.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Addiction, Everybody Does It

One of the strangest promises Donald Trump has made is stopping fentanyl. The notion that being mean will stop drugs has never worked.

Freedom Democrats would be familiar with the iron law of prohibition: a more aggressive enforcement brings even more dangerous drugs to the market. When oxycodone was widely available, its safety had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That many users would experience withdrawal was an unfortunate side effect. That the drug was widely available also meant many persons used it who had received no prescription.

Freedom Democrats believe that the relationship between doctors and patients should be respected, especially by politicians. They have no expertise, and the doctor and the patient should develop their own course of treatment. No drug enforcement agency. No rules about dosage or where the drug’s may be used. That is up to doctors, their patients, and agreements about best medical practices.

Freedom Democrats, had they been in charge, would not have blood on their hands. The politicians who played the blame game are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Lawmakers blamed the pharmaceutical companies for trying to expand their market. In this one sided view, the users had no responsibility; they were simply victims of addiction, had no intelligence, and no will power.

Elected officials accepted the discredited idea that drug users aren’t citizens, have no rights, and are trapped. A nefarious evil captures the user’s soul and deprives them of choice. It’s malarkey; similar ideas have existed for centuries. Witches after all were supposed to exercise control over their victims. Back then, the witches were killed.

Centuries later Democratic and Republican politicians adopted policies that killed the users. They were denied any moral culpability; the drug users were trapped by their “habit.” The politicians dismissed the possibility that drug users were rational and able to control their lives. The way they handled their habit was comparable to the way millions respond to alcohol, food, and caffeine.

The only difference is this group isn’t stigmatized and dehumanized. The effort they put into controlling their habits receives positive reinforcement and often drug treatments.

But the closed-minded lawmakers offered oxycodone users no support; in fact, their one-sided view simply killed hundreds of thousands of users. It should take no brains at all to realize that if a person regularly uses oxycodone you don’t simply say, “You can’t have it. The law says stop.” The law offered habitual users no comfort and legal ways for changing their habits at their own pace. All too often, judges thought it reasonable to tell users you must stop now, a decision that should be made by doctors and their patients.

To nobody’s surprise, Stop Now was a gift to cartels and ingenious people who created alternative illegal supplies. History had repeated itself. Banning marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines had produced illegal markets. In fact, they offered economic stimulus to criminals, and more work for the police. The criminal justice system will thrive.

Not so the drug users. They were too often conned into believing that a pill was oxycodone when in fact it contained a strong dose of fentanyl. The number of victims of the politician’s callousness soared to over 100,000 a year dead from overdoses. More people died in one year than died in the Vietnam War. Freedom Democrats would damn lawmakers for their callousness and cruelty.

This time the witches didn’t die; it was their victims.

Trump displaying the ignorance that is a trademark simply argued that drugs were reaching America because we weren’t really trying. He slammed tariffs on Mexico.

The iron law of prohibition suggests that fentanyl will be replaced by even more dangerous drugs that kill quickly. That drug has already surfaced—nitazenes. Being mean kills drug users.

The very idea that a societal habit like ribald humor can be banned is a joke. For one thing, and Freedom Democrats are an example of this, there is no agreement that drug use is criminal. Another problem is people make money selling banned substances. Banning alcohol in the 1920’s made many fortunes.

Trump’s effort to try harder in the silly hope that the drug will stop reaching the U.S. doesn’t recognize that law enforcement and drug smugglers all too often find ways to share the wealth. Mexico is famous for its ties between law enforcers and drug cartels. Nothing Trump does will change this reality, but we do know that a new drug is here—nitazene.

Democrats of course join Republicans in chasing the impossible goal of stifling the drug trade.

We are still looking for the charismatic and verbally fluent political leader who will support doctors being able to treat drug users without strangers violating their privacy and setting rules that harm a successful treatment.

Obesity is universally recognized as a major U.S. health problem. Doctors understand that many people eat for pleasure; in other words food acts like a drug. It was my habit and mastering it made my weight drop from 270 to 195 and brought a happier life. Dr. Peter Grinspoon’s book Up in Smoke and website makes sensible arguments for allowing doctors to treat patients who use drugs without outside interference.

He makes the point that using drugs is normal. We refuse to recognize that gambling, eating, and caffeine also have addictive impacts. In my case, my addiction to food started in elementary school. I fit Dr. Grinspoon’s theory that “suffering, often alone, feeling bad about myself, in the shadows” drove my eating and explained why diets did not work.

When I was grossly fat, I used to tell people I was addicted, and it was completely visible. Only a few people recognized that I was speaking about my eating habits. People didn’t associate eating with addiction. Addiction is the all-too-common habit of confronting other problems by repetitive behavior that brings no real relief.

Freedom Democrats recognize that drug use and overeating are sister phenomenon. This humane response is alien to Trump’s angry “stomp it out” mentality. It is one reason why Trump is malicious and cruel.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Give The Doctors A Chance

“To me it makes sense to give fairly wide latitude to the doctors and their patients, as they would know best what helps them and how to integrate cannabis into their care.”

This is the expert opinion of a specialist in addiction treatment who overcame his addiction to heroin and has his own website offering advice for dealing with the good and the bad in marijuana legalization and the use of “harder” drugs. Dr. Peter Grinspoon’s book Seeing through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana (p. 100) covers the waterfront. It offers an in-depth examination of drug use.

Most of the book is accessible to any reader, but in parts it is intricate. These sections are addressed to physicians in the hopes of creating a dialogue between doctors who look favorably on legalization and other physicians who think this is a dangerous road to travel.

One of his major purposes is to dispel the shame that often sits heavily on the drug user. Another objective is to make physicians aware that patients who use drugs are competent persons who are all too often misdiagnosed and considered driven by uncontrollable compulsions.

As the advice offered at the start of this article, he lays great stress on the doctor-patient relationship, a key proposal of Freedom Democrats. The book lends professional support and wise knowledge to this political objective of making the doctor-patient relationship a private matter.

In his opinion, addiction is a clinical judgment made after a consultation between a doctor and a patient. It involves an understanding of the patient’s goals and the doctor’s care. He eagerly tries to educate physicians on the use of marijuana as medicine. He is equally opposed to physicians who believe that drug users can’t be trusted and pain medication must be used sparingly. A patient suffering pain with a drug history is often refused pain medication or given such low doses as to provide no real relief for the patient.

The book is filled with suggestions for patients and doctors about finding a common perspective that permits the doctor to work without fear that they are enabling addiction. It is way too easy for a doctor to believe that drug use is laced with such harms, and that the worried physician ignores other gains that are tied to drug use.

In other words, a patient’s marijuana use or other drug use may bring real benefits. Dr. Grinspoon insists that physicians weigh the good and the bad. He reminds us that the bad is often dubious. Medical research has focused on negative outcomes without looking at the real-world gains experienced by users. Such gains should be an objective of the doctor patient relationship.

His book is a polemic against biased research that makes illegal drugs look dangerous, even if the same drug in a hospital or medical setting is used daily. He finds study after study that weights evidence to reach the conclusion that drug use is harmful.

One of Dr. Grinspoon’s hopes is that a common language and approach to evidence can bring a productive dialogue. Unhappily the history of drug research often reveals shoddy methods that bias results. Anyone who has followed the history of drug legalization will not be surprised, but the facts and names of these biased studies are easily found in this thoughtful overview.

While Dr. Grinspoon is often angered by “scientific research” that claims drugs are dangerous, he patiently outlines steps that can make studies fair. One favorite point he hammers home is the popular belief that marijuana interferes with short-term memory. Even studies that make marijuana seem dangerous must admit that this is a temporary condition. While high, a user may have memory difficulties; these disappear as the effect of marijuana dissipates. This conclusion is well established, but all too often the news stories issue unfounded warnings about pot and memory.

Dr. Grinspoon insists that objective research would look at the gains that a person might experience, making the memory lapse insignificant. A user might find his appreciation of a book increases and discover conclusions that would never be found if the person had not used grass.

One of Dr. Grinspoon’s objectives is to make the real-world experiences of drug use be an integral part of scientific research. He is not alone; there are unbiased studies discussing the positive impacts of drug use. He wants the scientific and medical community to find a common set of standards that will permit unbiased research to become the norm.

To be sure, there are dangers surrounding drug use. Dr. Grinspoon softly but firmly wants the banning of sweet edibles that could attract a child, who munches the drugs thinking it is candy but in fact produces massive overdoses. The positive effects of drugs can lead to mistaken beliefs. For example, that a drug will cure cancer.

This is a wise book that takes the guess work out of the growing legalization of drugs by state legislatures. Dr. Grinspoon insists that physicians can and should play an active role in this new legal environment. Physicians can offer real assistance to patients, and he wants the help to increase.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

The Mistruths About Pot

The mistruths about pot

Dr Peter Grinspoon who writes for Substack (8/mo$80/yr) is on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He comes from a family that has resisted stigmatizing persons who use drugs.  He and his father, Lester, criticize misleading propaganda exaggerating the dangers of drug use. He is a voice of calm who says that drug use is manageable for society and gives confidence to users that they can deal with their problems.

In this article, Dr. Grinspoon criticizes current definitions of Cannabis Use Disorder which formed the basis of a NY Times article warning of increased dangers from pot.

*

There is absolutely no question that cannabis can be addictive, but it is fiercely debated how addictive it truly is. According to the field of addiction psychiatry, a group of specialists who have generally been anti-cannabis for half a century and who have promoted many of the U.S. Government’s mistruths about cannabis in the past, “cannabis use disorder”, (CUD), a term used synonymously with cannabis addiction, is diagnosed objectively when patients fulfill a certain number of criteria over time that have been carefully validated (see below) — just as is done for addiction to opioids or alcohol.

Some of these symptoms that contribute to a diagnosis of cannabis addiction include tolerance, withdrawal, cravings, inability to control use, use in hazardous circumstances, and continued use despite negative consequences. This is not very different from how we diagnose other use disorders except that there are no provisions for medical cannabis patients who are getting needlessly saddled with a diagnosis of “cannabis addiction” merely because they have ‘tolerance’ and ‘withdrawal’. We all have tolerance and withdrawal to many of our prescribed medications – no one says you are addicted to your SSRI, or your coffee for that matter. When diagnosing opioid use disorder, these two qualifiers – tolerance and withdrawal – don’t count if the opioids are medically prescribed, because all patients would have tolerance and withdrawal but not all of them are addicted. So why wouldn’t the same be true for diagnosing cannabis addiction, for the millions of medical cannabis patient? In short, this is how the addiction specialists, operating under the hangover of the War on Drugs, have been (in my opinion) vastly overestimating the number of people with cannabis addiction, to the detriment of all involved.

According to the addiction psychiatrists, the consequences of having CUD can be quite severe (this is true), especially in teens and young adults who are particularly susceptible (this is true). CUD is associated with lower happiness, an unsatisfying social life, lack of career success, lower socioeconomic status, car crashes, emergency room visits, cognitive decline, problems with other drugs, other psychiatric diagnoses, suicide, and low motivation (though, these are misleading; the concept of “associated” is a big problem – it is not causation; other issues, such as poverty, can be an alternative explanation). According to many addiction specialists, use of cannabis should generally be discouraged, except, perhaps if the use is “medical” which they have been skeptical about (less and less so). They believe all drug use is bad (except, perhaps, the social use of alcohol, which caused 172,000 deaths last year).

Many addiction psychiatrists believe that CUD is extremely common and cite studies that show that CUD afflicts up to a quarter to a third of adult cannabis users (which is untrue). According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), “between 9.3% and 30.6% of American adults who use cannabis have CUD.” The fact that this range is gigantic—more than a factor of three begs the question of whether the criteria are somewhat, or possibly vastly, overinclusive and whether they are sensibly applicable to medical cannabis patients (they aren’t). Many are concerned that the legalization of cannabis will result in more cannabis users (this is true) and, consequently, more people that succumb to cannabis addiction (likely true – a proportion of people using any intoxicant get addicted). Regular cannabis users can get withdrawal symptoms which can make it harder to quit.

Many people in the cannabis community don’t believe that cannabis is addictive at all—they think it is just another bogus U.S. government propaganda point. Of note, it was a propaganda point, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. A common story is, “I used it for twenty years and then I was able to stop on a dime without any problems. How can it be addictive?” Others think it can be mildly or infrequently addicting, with an occasional person who goes off the rails. Cannabis proponents point out that the majority of studies of its addictiveness have been funded and conducted under the auspices of the War on Drugs, where there was, and still is, massive institutional pressure to demonstrate harm over benefits. (This is true).

How do we disentangle all of this?

What is the definition of cannabis addiction?

There are eleven criteria for CUD. A patient needs to have two out of the eleven of these criteria for at least a year to qualify as “addicted” to cannabis, accompanied by “significant impairment of functioning and distress.” Keep in mind that if you meet two or three criteria you have mild CUD, if you meet four or five you have moderate CUD, and six or more means severe CUD.

The 11 criteria are:

1. Use of cannabis for at least a one-year period, with the presence of at least two of the following symptoms, accompanied by significant impairment of functioning and distress.

2. Difficulty containing use of cannabis—the drug is used in larger amounts and over a longer period than intended.

3. Repeated failed efforts to discontinue or reduce the amount of cannabis that is used.

4. An inordinate amount of time is occupied acquiring, using, or recovering from the effects of cannabis.

5. Cravings or desires to use cannabis. This can include intrusive thoughts and images, and dreams about cannabis, or olfactory perceptions of the smell of cannabis, due to preoccupation with cannabis.

6. Continued use of cannabis despite adverse consequences from its use, such as criminal charges, ultimatums of abandonment from spouse/partner/friends, and poor productivity.

7. Other important activities in life, such as work, school, hygiene, and responsibility to family and friends, are superseded by the desire to use cannabis.

8. Cannabis is used in contexts that are potentially dangerous, such as operating a motor vehicle.

9. Use of cannabis continues despite awareness of physical or psychological problems attributed to use—e.g., anergia, amotivation, chronic cough.

10. Tolerance to cannabis, as defined by progressively larger amounts of cannabis needed to obtain the psychoactive effect experienced when use first commenced, or noticeably reduced effect of use of the same amount of cannabis.

11. Withdrawal, defined as the typical withdrawal syndrome associated with cannabis, or cannabis or a similar substance is used to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

What’s wrong with this?

This is a nuanced discussion which I go over it in granular detail in my recent book, “Seeing Through the Smoke.” The gist of it is:

There are many reasons why our definition of cannabis addiction is not only broken but has been harmful to people.  It is overly inclusive, which I will discuss below. When you give someone a definition of “addiction” (to anything…) when they aren’t addicted, it harms them. They are treated with stigma and judgment by their healthcare providers and are discriminated against by insurance companies. This can result in tangible harms. For example, it has been demonstrated that people who are labeled with any addiction are prescribed fewer pain medications by their doctors and are not treated with as much compassion. Doctors unfortunately share the same stigma against addiction that most other people do.

Dr. Staci Gruber is a brilliant researcher at Harvard Medical School and is the director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program. As she puts it,

As in the case of opioid use disorder, for example, tolerance and withdrawal criteria are not considered for individuals who are using opioids under appropriate medical supervision. With regard to cannabis, similar exclusions from DSM-5 criteria may need to be applied.

I’d get rid of the “may” part. In fact, in a 2013 paper, “DSM-5 Criteria for Substance Use Disorders: Recommendations and Rationale,” author Deborah Hasin, who has authored several of these studies implicating 30 percent of adult cannabis users as addicted, argues,

An important exception to making a diagnosis of DSM-5 substance use disorder with two criteria pertains to the supervised use of psychoactive substances for medical purposes, including stimulants, cocaine, opioids, nitrous oxide, sedative-hypnotic/anxiolytic drugs, and cannabis in some jurisdictions. These substances can produce tolerance and withdrawal as normal physiological adaptations when used appropriately for supervised medical purposes. With a threshold of two or more criteria, these criteria could lead to invalid substance use disorder diagnoses even with no other criteria met. Under these conditions, tolerance and withdrawal in the absence of other criteria do not indicate substance use disorders and should not be diagnosed as such. (emphasis added) If the patient is using benzodiazepines, opioids, or cannabis for legitimate medical purposes, we ought to completely ditch the criteria of tolerance or withdrawal, as these are intrinsic parts of many medicines that we routinely use.

Even the person giving us studies that demonstrate a 30% addiction rate among adult users of cannabis thinks the definitions are broken. (And what does “in some jurisdictions” have to do with anything? Either cannabis is or isn’t a medicine—it’s a pharmacological thing, not something decided by the legislature or voters in Mississippi or Vermont. If a policeman is chasing me and I make it over the border from Idaho into Oregon, are my tolerance and withdrawal suddenly valid and noncontributory to a diagnosis of addiction?)

For all the reasons cited above, Dr. Gruber concludes,

CUD is likely a unique construct among those using cannabis medically, and existing tools developed for use in recreational consumers do not appear to be reliable, valid measures for assessing CUD in medical cannabis patients.

I believe that estimates of CUD have been wildly inflated by roping in millions who use cannabis medically (often with great benefit). I would abandon the concept of CUD altogether and start from scratch. We need to create an untainted measure of cannabis addiction that accommodates the current realities of the drug to better target (and not mistarget) treatment.

How I would fix the definition of cannabis addiction

Given that no one is going to ditch this definition, and that some people clearly do get into trouble with cannabis, how can we adjust the sensitivity of the definition of CUD so it better reflects reality?

I would start by eliminating the categories of withdrawal and tolerance. This makes sense given how many useful and commonplace medications have tolerance and withdrawal as common features of their use, such as opioids, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants. This change would help avoid ensnaring the many patients who are using cannabis for medical reasons, or for reasons of wellness and enhancement, into an unhelpful category of “addicted.”

Next, I would go back to the widely accepted tradition that addiction is a clinically diagnosed disease. We should get rid of this habit of diagnosing millions of people by computer-assisted telephone interviews which, with cannabis, just appears to create this hypothetically addicted body of people who don’t seem to materially exist.

Next, I would increase the number of criteria one needs to qualify for CUD. There is evidence to suggest that a higher number of criteria results in a more accurate diagnosis. The more criteria you require, the more cases you might miss, but the more diagnostic certainty you have for the cases you have diagnosed. Given that we appear to be over-diagnosing cannabis addiction, this seems like a good trade-off, as it would help us to be more certain about the cases we diagnose. It would also help the patients take the diagnosis seriously. If we get rid of tolerance and withdrawal (so there are now nine not eleven criteria) and made it so that you needed four out of nine to qualify (instead of the current two out of eleven), this would be much more accurate. If we did this, a more reasonable number of people given a diagnosis of CUD would actually have a clinically meaningful CUD.

In fact, some recent studies have shown that it is almost entirely “severe CUD,” meaning six or more criteria met (of the eleven), that is associated with psychosocial problems. In my schema (without withdrawal or tolerance), that would equate to needing to meet four out of nine criteria. The main difference is that if we tightened this up, we wouldn’t needlessly be diagnosing, pathologizing, stigmatizing, and, as a consequence, harming so many people who are using cannabis without problems and with benefit.

Further, I would search for a way to incorporate the positives of cannabis use into our diagnostic considerations, to get a more nuanced view of why someone is using cannabis. I understand that this isn’t a common feature of diagnosing an addiction, but it is the only way to make our approach to cannabis—which is a medicine as well as a drug of potential misuse, and which can have positives and negatives at the same time—remotely coherent. There was a recent, excellent article about this, “Harm reduction isn’t enough: Introducing the concept of Mindful Consumption and Benefit Maximization (MCBM)’.

My personal opinion is that cannabis is about as addicting as caffeine. People get extremely dependent on caffeine, yet still manage to enjoy fulfilling lives, not unlike the use of cannabis for many people. Caffeine usually isn’t particularly disruptive, unless you develop palpitations, heartburn, anxiety, or insomnia. Heavy, regular users of either cannabis or caffeine are susceptible to symptoms of cravings, tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms. The use of neither should be stigmatized or criminalized.

Finally – there a misconception that “all drug use is bad”  under any circumstances (except, of course, alcohol…) which I disagree with, but that is for another day.