Perspective
Perspective
Pre-publication version, final edited version published in the International Journal of Drug Policy in 1999.
Peter Webster
a review essay of:
Illegal Leisure: The normalization of adolescent drug use
Howard Parker, Judith Aldridge, and Fiona Measham
London: Routledge ‘Adolescence and Society’ Series, 1998
ISBN 0-415-158010-9 (pbk)
The Parents’ Complete Guide to Young People and Drugs
James Kay and Julian Cohen
London: Vermilion, 1998
ISBN 0-09-181553-3
Substance Prohibition lingers on in our time like a waning methamphetamine intoxication which at its height seemed to provide such clarity of mind and certainty of purpose, but whose dreadful comedown is revealing that we have been mightily deceived. ‘Noble Experiments’ of Prohibition* intended to rid the world of the ‘immorality of intemperance’ and the ‘scourge of addiction’ have left us with overwhelming prison populations, a criminal industry whose proceeds comprise over ten percent of world trade, systems of justice and enforcement riding roughshod over basic human rights, general disrespect for law and government, and increasing use of the prohibited substances by younger and younger citizens. And all of these worrying trends show every sign that they can only worsen.
The prohibition of one substance or another is a very old phenomenon indeed, as is the idea that a perceived morality may be forced upon a conscientiously dissenting minority, yet remain moral. But until the 20th Century the belief that the natural human appetite for altering consciousness with drugs could be stifled by fiat seldom lasted a moment past the realisation that regulation via taxation would provide a boon to the coffers of state. The question arises as to which is the greater hypocrisy: that of the prohibitionist fanatics of old who quickly caved in to the temptations of lucre or that of those modern-day drug crusaders quite prepared to let the cancer of black money undermine the entire global economic system? The continued pursuit of prohibitionism today in a manner more fanatic and poisonous than ever before is of major consequence to the very future of civilisation, yet curiously, a merely realistic stress on the importance of resolving the dilemma tends itself to sound like a fanaticism. The necessary hypotheses for rational debate are thus still a little-heard current in the media, and practically absent in the halls of government, and the difficult choice to repeal Substance Prohibition once and for all as a great error and self-defeating doctrine, or continue ostrich-like to ignore a major threat to the continued existence of free societies, has become a most pressing situation in our world.
Reasons for this manifold dilemma make a fascinating study. The roots, facilitations and justifications for prohibition run deep into the paradigms and structure of modern civilisation, a multi-faceted topic I have recently discussed in the pages of this journal: The economic incentives for promoting prohibition as viable policy have increased to the point where the momentum of cash-flow involved with prison-building, drug-testing, interdiction budgets, manufacture of Drug War materiel, forfeiture, and of course billions in kickbacks and bribes and the use of prohibition by shady government operatives to raise anonymous cash, is a major obstacle to any change of policy at the international level or in the leading prohibitionist nations such as the U.S. (‘Rethinking Drug Prohibition: Don’t Look for U.S. Government Leadership,’ IJDP Vol. 9 No. 5).
The illusion of modernity, prohibition as a paradigm and expression of the purported exit of modern civilisation from its primitive roots and the ‘dirty devices’ of tribal societies, still plays an important role in shaping the collective perception of drug use as a retrogression, something pre-rational and beneath the dignity of right-thinking people despite glaring contradictions involved in such a view. Never has there been a society so drug-oriented as our own, yet never has prohibitionism attained such a ‘religious’ status (for it is certainly not science nor logic which supports it). In ‘Roots and Herbs’ (IJDP Vol. 10 No. 2) I showed how the Spanish Inquisition’s repression of ‘drug use’ in the New World remains a model and important original source of the prohibitionist attitude to this day.
In ‘Drug Prohibition: A Perverted Instinct’ (IJDP Vol. 10 No. 1) I presented evidence from evolutionary and psychological research suggesting that prohibitionism may be a manifestation of instinctual xenophobia and expressed in today’s ultra-fanatical mode by default of other possible outlets. Prohibition as a last remaining socially-approved vehicle for psychologically-innate xenophobia and thus as a convenient mechanism facilitating the designation of an ‘out-group’ to be excluded from society, was also discussed in my review ‘Human Rights, Human Rites’ (IJDP Vol. 9 No. 3), in this case concerning the marginalization and exclusion of the poor, the inner-city and immigrant populations, particularly in the U.S.
Prohibition as a means of general control of society by conservative and religious fundamentalist elements was illustrated in my review of The New Temperance (‘Holy Wars,’ IJDP Vol. 10 No. 1). The ‘War on Drugs’ is seen in this analysis as a feature of the right-wing reactionary attempt to erase the very memory of the ‘Immoral Sixties,’ much as McCarthyism was a similarly-motivated movement to demonise and eliminate the last traces of the ‘Anti-American’ 1930s labour movements and populist philosophies.
Prohibitionist attitudes as a manifestation of psychogenic pathology and a means to commit malignant aggression against others were considered in my review, ‘Anslinger’s Curse,’ (IJDP Vol. 9 No. 4). Here I related marijuana prohibition and its support by radical prohibitionists to the needs and deeds of the typical necrophilous personality as defined by Erich Fromm in his monumental study, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
And in ‘Acid Test’ (IJDP Vol. 9 No. 5) I showed how the sudden and illegitimate inclusion of psychedelic drugs under the prohibition rubric despite the very positive research that had been exploring their uses, stemmed from a profound misunderstanding by mainstream science, and then government, as to the nature of the experiences produced by these unusual substances and the significance of their intimate connection with the development of pre-industrial societies the world over.
Surely the reasons and mechanisms which allowed drug prohibition to become the world-wide fiasco it is today are many, and the roots of the prohibitionist attitude grow strongly from unexamined and obsolete assumptions and prejudices of our times as well from the stages of development of Western Civilisation. The question today is that as the philosophy of prohibition is finally exposed as bogus, as its goals are shown to be self-defeating in their pursuit, as it is revealed as one of the greatest crowd-madnesses of all time, at what point will the absurdity of our collective folly lead to a general collapse of the policy, and what are the best methods for hastening such collapse? The publication of books which reveal the truth about prohibition has recently accelerated, a good sign, and predictably radical prohibitionists have reacted belligerently, tending to discredit themselves seriously in the process. The success of the medical marijuana initiatives in the U.S., another positive example, has significantly polarised the issue there in a way not yet seen, with the U.S. federal government’s continued repressive stance appearing increasingly pig-headed and wrong to the public and the media alike. A fundamental questioning of prohibitionism as such in the U.S. however, still seems remote, despite the example set many decades ago in the generally recognised abandonment of alcohol prohibition as a catastrophic failure. In the best Orwellian tradition, many Drug Warriors in the U.S. insist that alcohol prohibition was actually a success!
If I have approached the discussion of the two books under review here rather obliquely, my purpose is, as it has been in previous essays, to set the general tone of our times in such a way as to reveal how the works reviewed fit into the larger long-term picture, how they might appear, for example, to a historian observing our century from a future perspective, when prohibition had become the anthropological curiosity it must surely become. From such a perspective, some of the works published today will remain classic texts of interest not only to the specialist scholar, but will still be widely read and pondered in the same way as we today study the classic texts on alcohol prohibition or the McCarthy period of U.S. history, or the Spanish Inquisition. Perhaps only a very few of today’s tomes on drug prohibition and ‘the drug problem’ will become such classic material, and future developments must yet determine which might attain such status. If American Drug Warriorism continues apace to become an even greater fiasco, for example, perhaps Richard Lawrence Miller’s Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State (reviewed in IJDP Vol. 9 No. 1) might become a classic, having warned of the approach of drug prohibition in the U.S. attaining the status of a crime against humanity wherein drug users as a class become persecuted as were the Jews during the reign of National Socialism. Hopefully prohibition will be stopped short of this extreme and Miller’s book become an unnecessary and alarmist exaggeration. But American radical prohibitionism has not yet signalled its retreat, far from it. Other recent books, although excellent at the moment from the perspective of understanding and correcting the harms brought about by prohibition, may well be forgotten completely if a major move toward eliminating the fundamental cause of the problem, prohibition itself, is forthcoming. Two recently published books, quite excellent and needed, nevertheless fall into the second category.
Both of these volumes, Illegal Leisure and Parents’ Complete Guide, provide necessary, timely, and important information on the present status, practices, and results of drug use and policies, and each in its specific way suggests to its target audience how to discount and combat the resulting harms and harmful views now prevalent. Yet both books are important as a function of, and relative to the harms created directly by prohibition, and do not make it apparent how their applicability depends upon the larger perspective of prohibition as a great collective folly. It will be objected, fairly enough, that neither book intends to examine the larger picture, and in any normal sense one would have to agree that, for example, a book on how to repair automobiles need not concern itself with the question of how the use of automobiles should be regulated by society. But no one today seriously suggests that the whole institution of manufacture and use of automobiles needs to be re-evaluated from fundamentals, whereas prohibition as failed philosophy, even as a remote suspicion, demands that the larger question cannot remain inconsequential to any examination of the sequelae of application of that philosophy.
This is not to deny the need which these two books fulfil: to describe and recommend step-by-step ways out of the labyrinth of our predicament and to repair or prevent, even on a temporary basis, the harms now being caused by the ongoing prohibitionist agenda. These are necessary tasks, at least until a general recognition of the bankruptcy of prohibition takes centre stage. But in recommending these books, I would wish to ensure that potential readers keep in mind a larger perspective: to use the information provided not merely in reaction to local problems, but also as a basis for taking the initiative, to put prohibitionism finally on the defensive, requiring it to prove its worth or relinquish its status as the default and common-sense position. If I were to recommend these books as important without this larger perspective in mind, I would be suggesting by default that prohibitionism as philosophy was fundamentally sound and all that needed to be done was to correct the ways in which it had gone astray.
Illegal Leisure: The normalization of adolescent drug use is the result of a unique five-year investigation into the lives and situations of over 700 youngsters in the Northwest of Britain. It is, the authors claim, the only extensive contemporary longitudinal study of “how young Britons’ alcohol and drug use develops during adolescence,” and the several reasons for the uniqueness of ‘The North-West Longitudinal Study’ become clear in reading about the details of the project. Not least among the difficulties of conducting such research is finding a source of funding which comes free from the pressures of establishment agendas. The authors note, “Had this programme been funded by government departments this particular book would not have been written because the results would have been sanitised, or, in the face of resistance, delayed interminably by suspicious and nervous civil servants dedicated to not embarrassing government ministers.” Sociologists in particular, and these days scientists in general are only too aware of how the agendas of funding organisations guide research and the way in which results are reported. Especially in the case of such a hot potato as drug use by adolescents, such considerations reveal why we have such incomplete understanding even of the most basic aspects of the phenomenon, and the evidence presented in this book is groundbreaking, thus filling a great void even if only partially and by default.
The absurdity of the drug-policy situation becomes startlingly clear from the first paragraphs of Chapter 1, ‘Why are more young Britons taking drugs?’ Not only is the usual gamut of sociological and psychological explanations revealed as unsatisfactory, but the level to which such explanations fail for this important question seem to indicate some grave weaknesses in the sciences of sociology and psychology themselves, and an even greater weakness in the policy-setting institutions which supposedly depend on such science. The obvious inadequacy of such things as ‘deviancy theory’ or the narrowness of the frequently trumpeted “youth-drugs-crime-danger media mix” (page 4) makes established sociological theory and resulting government policy seem as impotent before this phenomenon as alchemy before nuclear fission. A penetrating analysis of this situation by the authors ensues, well-referenced, and concludes with an attempt to find a new explanatory approach, “to explain and link a whole range of social, cultural and economic changes” which would allow a better understanding of the youth and drugs phenomenon. Indeed, this first chapter, in conjunction with the last, ‘Towards the Normalisation of Recreational Drug Use’ provides a theoretical tour-de-force which reveals contemporary anti-drugs policy as a complete nonsense.
The authors conclude that it is not the nature of being an adolescent that has changed but rather the nature of society: the context in which the young must function has changed to an extent that they “must negotiate a new set of rules and expectations, new cultural pressures, new pathways to ‘identity’ and adulthood,” and that there is thus a “very real possibility that 1990s adolescents are a vanguard generation” that may well be signalling “the end of an epoch rather than the evolution and development of the same sort of social structure.” The willingness of the authors to take such a bold view is refreshing, and I believe that the results of their research, described in the book’s central chapters, justifies their boldness and reveals the necessity of undertaking major revisions in how research in the social sciences is accomplished, and results understood. If such a formerly ‘disagreeable’ phenomenon as the normalisation of drug use by adolescents leads to a major change of outlook in the social sciences, it will not be the first time that a scientific paradigm shift has had its genesis in ignored or rejected phenomena. Scientific revolution often seems to spring from the most unlikely places, and seldom from the mainstream.
The results of the research in the central chapters of Illegal Leisure are well-worth studying in detail, and some surprising findings are presented which expose as myths some of the cherished notions supporting prohibition. Briefly, and merely to mention two examples without exploring the evidence provided nor the conclusions drawn, the study has revealed that the role of ‘peer-pressure’ in leading young persons to experiment with drugs is a quite insignificant factor. Many carefully-conducted interviews showed that although a reason for trying a drug was often that ‘everyone else was doing it,’ seldom did the person feel, or give evidence that he was in any way pressured by friends to give it a try. Quite the contrary. Another egregious myth left over perhaps from 1950s B-movies is that of the drug ‘pusher.’ Drug policy in the U.K., and even more so in the U.S., is geared to the idea that sanctions and penalties are aimed at the ‘pusher’ or ‘professional drug dealer’ while displaying some tolerance for mere ‘users.’ But the research here indicates that there are exceedingly few ‘drug kingpins’ and that the great majority of youthful drug experimenters never even meet what could be termed a ‘pusher’ who, according to myth, ‘preys’ on his clientele and grows rich in the process. Much Drug War policy is quite evidently based on such mythology, yet the network of ‘drug dealing’ we constantly hear about in the media and from enforcement spokesmen is actually a network of friends and acquaintances, and most of the people who are arrested and prosecuted as ‘dealers’ are merely those unlucky enough to be caught casually providing their friends with drugs, or having been set up by police entrapment schemes.
Illegal Leisure in its final chapter does offer excellent and penetrating criticism of current drug policy in Britain, but never takes the final step that would imply. The book is overwhelming evidence that the philosophy and not just the practice of prohibition is fundamentally flawed, and if the reader can draw this conclusion without the book ever suggesting so directly, I still would have preferred to see at least a few rhetorical questions at the end asking whether the whole institution upon which policy was based might not be somehow at fault. ‘Prohibition’ is not even to be found in the index. The closest the authors come to fundamentals is in saying in their last paragraph, “...the complexities of drug use in the 1990s are obscured by ideological and political dogma...” for which I would grant them my Understatement of the Year Award!
The Parents’ Complete Guide to Young People and Drugs is a good companion to Illegal Leisure, not in the sense that the two books should even be read by the same audience, but rather that given the broad and important conclusions of the latter concerning the bankruptcy and harmfulness of current drug policy for the young, a far more realistic and common-sense view of adolescent drug use therefore needs to be communicated to the parents of youngsters disadvantaged by the destructive policies. This new common-sense view must counteract the mythology of the ‘youth-drugs-crime-danger media mix’ and suggest to parents in a practical way how to relate to their offspring on this difficult subject. The Parents’ Complete Guide is similar in many ways to other such volumes, having as chapters, ‘Questions Parents Ask,’ ‘What Every Parent Can Do,’ ‘Coping in a Crisis,’ and an Appendix describing ‘Facts About Drugs.’ But there the similarity ends, at least in comparison with the typical such book published by anti-drugs groups or government agencies and other public institutions. I have several volumes in my library which resemble far more a Malleus Maleficarum for parental inquisition than a helpful guide likely to enhance trust and understanding between generations. The Parents’ Complete Guide is an admirable example of good sense and simplicity compared to any other ‘parents’ guide’ that I have seen.
In comparison with other such books which fail to help, reading the balanced and well-expressed truths in The Parents’ Complete Guide demonstrates how easily such truths can be presented. The book has landmark statements such as the following on nearly every page:
We do no one any favours by avoiding the truth or doctoring it in some way to make it seem worse. We have a big gap in understanding between adults and young people when it comes to drugs. Most of that gap is caused by our reluctance to recognise that, from the young person's point of view, these can be very attractive substances, whether we like it or not. This is not to say that drug use is acceptable, but to face up to the truth that using them can be fun and pleasurable. (p. 23)
Many parents blame themselves or other people if their youngsters use drugs. Remember that drug use is very common amongst young people and can seem a ‘normal thing’ from their point of view. In many areas a majority of young people have experimented with illegal drugs, but few become dependent. Most young people use drugs because they want to and out of their own choice, without being forced to do so. (p. 24)
In order to be prepared, you must first be informed. You don't have to know everything about drugs, but you do need to avoid the many myths and half-truths that surround drug use. This can be difficult because the harm from drug use is often overstated. Sometimes an extreme example is presented as though it is what normally happens every time. Drug issues are often presented on television and in the newspapers in an exaggerated and sensationalised way. Drug users in films and novels are usually sleazy, lowlife characters. The vast majority of drug use is totally unlike these stereotypes. In view of this it can be difficult to keep illicit drug use in its proper perspective. (p. 69)
Or in comparison with how other such books may exaggerate the ‘dangers’ of marijuana, consider the good sense illustrated in The Parents’ Complete Guide in the section, ‘What can you do if your youngster is using drugs and doesn’t see any harm in it?’
This can be very difficult to cope with. Despite your best efforts your youngster starts using drugs. They enjoy it and if you tell them not to they ignore you. They think you know next to nothing about drugs and they may be right.... Then take your courage in your hands and ask them to describe to you just what it is they are getting out of their drug use.... Make it clear to them that you want to understand it from their point of view.... You will need to set clear rules if the drugs are being used in your home. For example, you could be liable under the Misuse of Drugs Act if you permit or tolerate the smoking of cannabis in your home.... Depending on the drugs your youngster is using and their methods of use you might want to check out if they are using in the least harmful way possible.... With cannabis, for example, the risks include unsafe sex whilst stoned and being caught by the police and getting a criminal record... (pp. 116-117)
The only mystery that parents are likely to be left with after reading this book is wondering, if drugs and drug use by the young are actually as the book describes, why the substances are subject to such harsh prohibition? Here, The Parents’ Complete Guide, like Illegal Leisure, fails to deliver. In the process of transmitting its common-sense advice to parents it might also have planted some seeds of doubt about prohibition itself, the very questions that need to be asked over and over until it is prohibition, and not merely its harmful effects, that is the primary object of public debate and criticism.
There are a few factual errors and inconsistencies in the book which might easily be corrected in a future edition, but which detract little from the book’s value. For instance, to reduce the harms of tobacco use the authors recommend the use of “low tar / extra filter brands where possible.” Some recent research indicates, however, that smokers compensate by smoking increased quantities of such ‘safer’ brands to achieve equivalent intake of nicotine. Even cigarette companies avoid recommending low-tar brands as
‘safer.’ Another example: Under the entry for LSD in the section ‘Facts About Drugs,’ the authors indication of lack of medical use for the substance seems to ignore the significant research literature available on the subject. If LSD was “too unpredictable” for medical use as the authors stipulate, it was shown quite convincingly by extensive surveys of psychedelic research that unpredictability was far more a function of lack of expertise and understanding on the part of therapists, than a fault of the drug. This entry should be expanded to indicate the large body of research that showed important potential uses for psychedelic drugs, and that the research was stopped as part of the prohibitionist agenda and not for lack of positive results. An expressed view of psychedelic drugs as potentially important research and therapeutic tools also would suggest to parents and youngsters that the substances are not toys to be played with, but powerful psychological agents to be used with utmost caution and guidance.
We must finally realize that not only has Substance Prohibition failed, but in addition it is the culprit we will eventually have to blame for the greater part of the problems we now attribute to the use of drugs. We may yet succeed in rolling back prohibition step-by-step, minimising its harms, permitting medical use of some now-prohibited drugs, influencing governments by stages to slowly adopt more rational strategies, while yet ignoring basic fundamentals. And it is a good project to do insofar as people are kept from harm, especially prison terms. But I believe that the Drug War and Substance Prohibition is a house of cards that might well be toppled far more rapidly could we get more of the scientific community and influential journalists and writers daily questioning the status quo, changing public opinion for the better. Due to the threat posed by prohibitionism, responsibility for reversing it becomes the common duty of all. A groundswell of public opinion demanding radical change was an effective force in another horrible war of recent memory, and that war too continued on long after even its proponents recognised the impossibility of success. Perhaps a new such bandwagon of public protest could be coaxed into existence now. The belligerence and inanity of radical prohibitionism is surely attaining the dimensions required to cause large scale resistance as did U.S. government policy during the Vietnam War. In the midst of day-to-day harm reduction efforts and other necessary but local tasks, let us not forget the larger perspective.
Peter Webster
Footnote:
* Prohibition: An interdiction of an activity (but most often the ingestion or even possession of a food or drug), for at least some persons and/or under at least some circumstances, punishable by sanctions, on strictly moral, exclusionary, or religious grounds but usually obscured with purported but problematic reasons of individual or collective health or risk. Thus prohibitions would include the ritual forbidding of certain foods or alcohol by religious groups, laws forbidding gambling and prostitution, drug laws concerning psychoactives but not drugs banned or whose distribution is controlled for valid and demonstrated reasons of public safety, and including such substances as cocaine which may be used in medicine under some circumstances but whose use outside the circumstances is unlawful.
Pre-publication version, final edited version published in the International Journal of Drug Policy in 1999.
