It's High Time

Let us first stipulate that virtually all of us are drug users – that is, by extending the definition of drugs to include caffeine (and perhaps alcohol) and to thereby capture us coffee drinkers. Now, with some of that stigma out of the way, perhaps it’s high time to parse the word drugs to open the way for a more thoughtful discussion about the role of drugs in our own lives and society in general.

We discussed eight years ago the politics and the exploding bureaucracies behind the criminalization of drugs in the first place (click: MM 9/26/16 War On Drugs). Some of you might remember how the satirical paranoia depicted in that Reefer Madness clip of the 50’s animated the Nixon White House’s just-say-no campaign, later confirmed by Erlichmman in his deathbed confession to have largely been a cynical backhanded way to neutralize the real targets i.e. hippies and blacks (citation contained in that above-referenced intro).

And, so, we are left with the residue of some ham-handed policy initiatives as we take on the way Americans, having demonized drugs for decades, are now doing them every day, at least according to our focus piece by the Guardian, as it introduces a series exploring America’s shifting relationship with mind-altering substances (click: Guardian, Drug Use In Modern Life).

May we be open to a candid appraisal of our respective attitudes towards drugs, however defined – our openness, our fears, our moral judgements, the extent of our own use, perhaps any regrets, whether it be for past use or abstention. A personal one is not having explored possible avenues to address the need for hyper-focus and concentration when peak performance was called for (e.g. those long, standardized tests that defined one’s future – hey, coulda’ been a contender) or otherwise to extend the mind – removing the guardrails – into dimensions described by member William Steding in his Ameritecture.

The pharmacological landscape still remains somewhat murky in this day and age even with daily cannabis use exceeding that of alcohol and with the elderly representing the fastest-growing group of users, as they seek alternatives to prescription drugs (Seniors Smoking Weed). But as life can represent a challenge to the full age spectrum, who could begrudge that post-natal woman from running for the shelter of mother’s little helper?

The article cites a substantial uptick in the use of drugs that are, in the United States, federally scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act, raising the question where one turns for guidance when it comes to their legality and safety, particularly with the growing popularity of microdosing. Maybe it’s time for a more nuanced take on a legal landscape to sharpen the distinction between badass drugs like fentanyl and those proscribed out of what H. L. Mencken once ascribed to “Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone somewhere is having a good time.”

At the very least, perhaps we might be treated as adults when facing that final curtain call, the theme of our discussion in MM 7/24/17 Hallucinogens on the application of psilocybin to substantially reduce the anxiety and depression attendant to terminal patients’ impending death. Just go away and let us rest in peace.