Drug Use and the State (Part 2)
Some issues with legal drug markets
See photo credits below.
The following is an excerpt from p. 251-253 of “Conclusion: Undoing Drugism” from my new book, Drugism (2022):
[This week’s excerpt is continued from last week’s—read Part 1 here.]
Even if and when we do achieve full legalization, there will still be problems associated with drug use. This is an important point to understand. Even if we effectively implement all of the above-mentioned five steps, people will still use drugs in unhealthy ways, although they will be doing so within a society that is better equipped to support them. Drug use is entropic, after all.
There are too many examples to choose from which demonstrate that legalization and regulation are imperfect solutions. Salt and sugar are each individually responsible for more deaths each year than all illegal drug overdoses combined. The same holds for alcohol.[i] The leading cause of liver damage in the US is not illegal drugs, but acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol.[ii] We spend between seventeen and twenty times as much money on the healthcare costs associated with alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs as we do on those associated with illegal drugs.[iii] The prescription drug industry is itself riddled with issues such as contamination, fraud, and corruption.[iv]
Even after full legalization, there will still be problems associated with drug use.
Consider also the stunning level of hypocrisy that already exists in public and commercial discourse about legal drugs. It is on full display in the various publications of Dotdash Meredith. Dotdash Meredith is a media and advertising conglomerate that publishes People magazine and Entertainment Weekly, among other things. The company also owns and operates multiple websites, including verywellmind.com, foodandwine.com, and liquor.com.
On verywellmind.com, one can find articles titled, “Why Alcohol Is the Most Harmful Drug,” “Signs You’re Dating an Alcoholic,” and “You Can Quit Drinking: Make a Decision, Get Support.”[v] Yet liquor.com—owned by the same parent company—beckons readers with lists of “11 Summer Vodka Cocktails to Try Right Now,” “11 New Rye Whiskeys to Try Right Now,” and “The 8 Best Sipping Rums That Are Older Than a 6th Grader.”[vi]
Dotdash Meredith is just one of countless companies that make money by simultaneously demonizing and advertising the same substances. And, as more drugs are legalized, we can be sure that this issue will play out with newly-legal drug markets. How do we know? The same problem has already attached itself to cannabis, itself only partially legal in the US.
Salt and sugar each individually take more lives than all illegal drug overdoses combined.
In addition to the above-mentioned pieces on alcohol, verywellmind.com also has articles that offer “Ways to Say No to Marijuana,” and “Signs Someone Is Addicted to Marijuana,” and insist “Heavy Marijuana Use Affects Learning and Social Skills.”[vii] But the tone toward cannabis is quite different on another one of Dotdash Meredith’s websites, foodandwine.com. There, we can find “9 Cannabis Recipes to Try at Home” (including cannabis-infused brioche French toast and cannabis-infused salted caramel fudge brownies), learn “How to Make a Cannabis-Infused Whiskey Cocktail,” or get inspired to “Throw the THC Cocktail Party of Your Dreams with This New Cannabis Aperitif.”[viii] Whether you are a concerned parent trying to determine if your teen is smoking pot or a devoted stoner looking for new ways to get high, Dotdash Meredith will find a way to get your clicks, and a bit of ad revenue in the process.
Speaking of clicks, the various issues around data and the unchecked power of technology companies have also insinuated themselves into emerging drug markets. For example, some of the biggest players in the legal cannabis industry are not the companies that produce or sell the herb itself but the tech and software firms that have started to acquire them.[ix] While such moves may result in a more convenient shopping experience for cannabis consumers, they are part of an overall trend in which data that we generate freely is taken from us unwittingly and used to manipulate our spending habits and even our political beliefs.
It is unlikely that drug use will ever cease to be potentially problematic.
And as tryptamines like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin gain popular traction, several projects are underway which use artificial intelligence to design new, entirely synthetic derivatives of them.[x] These efforts are ostensibly justified as “a quest to remove the ‘trip’ from psychedelic drugs” (whatever that means), but they are in reality just another money-grab.[xi] A mad dash to patent and commodify these yet-to-be-created drugs has commenced while the AI algorithms work away. One such AI drug development project is backed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and claims to be capable of generating billions of new compounds.[xii]
As we slowly inch toward legalization and regulation, what could possibly be better than a few billion completely new drugs waiting in the wings to show us their side effects and LD50 ratios? Just think of the headlines: “Drugs Legalized—All 10 Billion of Them.” Even I must admit such a prospect is daunting. Talk about entropy!
The process of legalization will take time, and even if all of the above-mentioned five steps are implemented, it is quite unlikely that drug use will ever cease to be potentially problematic. It is equally unlikely that drugs will ever not be used in manipulative and/or oppressive schemes, be they financial, political, or otherwise. Legalization and regulation will help us address these problems, but they will not rid us of them entirely. Therefore, it is important for us to understand that the struggle to undo drugism extends far beyond even the fight for legalization.
The struggle to undo drugism extends far beyond even the fight for legalization.
Endnotes
[i] Hart, 55.
[ii] Ibid., 232
[iii] National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Costs of substance…” and Peterson, Li, and Xu.
[iv] Eban, Bottles of Lies, throughout.
[v] See: Buddy T., “Why Alcohol Is the Most Harmful Drug” at https://www.verywellmind.com/alcohol-is-the-most-harmful-drug-3969483 Buddy T., “Signs You’re Dating an Alcoholic” at https://www.verywellmind.com/early-signs-of-an-alcoholic-4062471
Buddy T., “You Can Quit Drinking: Make a Decision, Get Support” at
https://www.verywellmind.com/you-can-quit-drinking-67741
[vi] See: Olivia French, “11 Summer Vodka Cocktails to Try Right Now” at https://www.liquor.com/slideshows/11-summer-vodka-drinks/
Kara Newman, “11 New Rye Whiskeys to Try Right Now” at https://www.liquor.com/new-rye-whiskeys-5091741
Jonah Flicker, “The 8 Best Sipping Rums That Are Older Than a 6th Grader” at https://www.liquor.com/best-sipping-rums-5074911
[vii] See: Elizabeth Hartney, “Ways to Say No to Marijuana” at https://www.verywellmind.com/five-ways-to-say-no-to-marijuana-22322 Buddy T., “Signs Someone Is Addicted to Marijuana” at https://www.verywellmind.com/what-not-to-say-to-someone-who-smokes-marijuana-67777
Buddy T., “Heavy Marijuana Use Affects Learning and Social Skills” at https://www.verywellmind.com/heavy-marijuana-use-affects-learning-social-skills-67794
[viii] See: “9 Cannabis Recipes to Try at Home” at https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cannabis-recipes
Matt Merkin, “Weekend Drinks: How to Make a Cannabis-Infused Whiskey Cocktail” at https://www.foodandwine.com/drinks/weekend-drinks-how-make-cannabis-infused-whiskey-cocktail
Carey Jones and John D. McCarthy, “Throw the THC Cocktail Party of Your Dreams with This New Cannabis Aperitif” at https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/throw-the-thc-cocktail-party-of-your-dreams-with-this-new-cannabis-aperitif
[ix] Baccus, “Apple Just Ended…”
[x] Devine, “Artificial Intelligence Discovers…” and Farah, “Scientists are Using…”
[xi] Eanes, “Why a UNC…”
[xii] Farah.
Sources
Baccus, Thom. “Apple Just Ended the Marijuana Industry As You Know It – Tech and Traffic are Now More Valuable Than Cannabis Itself.” Cannabis.net, Aug 19, 2021.
Devine, Jimi. “Artificial Intelligence Discovers 17 Psychedelic Compounds.” LA Weekly, Nov 18, 2021.
Eanes, Zachary. “Why a UNC professor is on a quest to remove the ‘trip’ from psychedelic drugs.” The News & Observer, Jun 25, 2021.
Eban, Katherine. Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY. 2019.
Farah, Troy. “Scientists are Using AI to Develop New Psychedelic Drugs.” Double Blind, Apr 26, 2021.
Hart, Carl. Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear. Penguin Press, New York, NY. 2021.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Costs of Substance Abuse.” https://archives.drugabuse.gov/trends-statistics/costs-substance-abuse
Peterson, Cora, Mengyao Li, and Likang Xu. “Assessment of Annual Cost of Substance Use Disorder in US Hospitals.” JAMA Network Open, 4(3), Mar 5, 2021.
Photo credits:
Photo of cannabis plant from Fast Buds at https://2fast4buds.com/news/your-first-grow-setup
Photo of bottle of prescription pills from the City Government of Geneva, Illinois at https://www.geneva.il.us/240/Prescription-Drug-Disposal-Program
Photo of beer from MedlinePlus at https://medlineplus.gov/alcohol.html
DARPA seal from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
Photo of sugar cubes from CBC at https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/how-toxic-is-sugar-1.1894262
Photo of salt shaker from Medical News Today at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322745
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