What If?

Harm Reduction via Decriminalization

Written by and for people with Lived Experience - Port Alberni Community Action Team - Families Helping Families

Today’s Learning Moment – 11 09 20 Issue: What Would Happen If?

What would have happened if all drugs for personal use were never illegal?  How would that change things for families?  For people who use drugs?  How would it have changed how we respond to illegal drugs?  Let’s look first at a few very brief examples of why they became illegal in the first place.

In Canada:

“In the early 1920s newspapers, women's groups, social service organizations, labour unions, fraternal societies, and church congregations all joined in a campaign to eradicate what they described as the “drug evil."  - Blaming Chinese-Canadians for degradation of white youth through drugs, they demanded harsh new drug legislation, as well as Chinese exclusion. (Carstairs 2020).

In the US, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s counsel was interviewed shortly after he was released from prison.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. Do you understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”  

Nixon presented the drug issue and the war on drugs proposal as a way to stop students from using heroin and marijuana.

My last example is taken from the book “Chasing the Scream”  The author Johann Hari studied the diary of Harry Anslinger who was the first commissioner of the US Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the forerunner of the current DEA in the states.  You can find his quotes all over the internet but this one is a prime example of the attitude of the day and why Cannabis was criminalized in the U.S.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers.  Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage.  This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others”. (Anslinger 1930)

Anslinger used many exaggerated examples of situations that were simply untrue and crossed the line of ridiculousness.  The sensationalism continued with the release of reefer madness and continued with sensationalist media.  Unfortunately, many still base their assessment of drug use on this world view of drugs. 

Meanwhile, the criminalization was not about the health effects at all.  As we can see in Canada it partly had to do with the racist perception of the Chinese and in the US with racial and political divides.

There are similar sensational pronouncements happening all the time about drug use that influence our beliefs, attitudes within our families and peer groups and systemically within our health system including many of our “treatment” models.  Here are a few of the myths that get flung around:

You can become addicted the first time you use heroin, crack, crystal meth…. I can write a very long article on why this is not true at all.

•  You can get holes in your brain from using crystal meth.  Probably derived from brain scans that showed inactivity in the brain.  You don’t actually get real holes in your brain.

•  (Recently on Facebook): Crystal Meth can change your brain and change who you are.

•  Based on the truth that this can happen with all drugs legal or not.  This change is typically not permanent. 

•  You have to hit rock bottom before you actually quit. 

•  “If negative consequences led (addicts) to transformation then I wouldn’t have a single patient left.  They’ve experienced every negative consequence in the book.  Being jailed, being beaten, being traumatized, being hurt, HIV, Hep C., Poverty.  What haven’t they suffered yet?”  (Gabor Mate)

 

The worst myth of all is that drug users are bad people because they are criminals.

We are basing almost all of our beliefs and attitudes about drugs and alcohol today on the rhetoric of the last century.  This is why we look at people who suffer from substance use with such disgust, hate and fear.  And, we then teach it to our children, generation after generation.

When I worked doing parent-teen mediation I learned much about how myths can direct how we react to substance use in the family.  I want to say this very clearly:  Parents do the very best they possibly can…with what they know. And I want to say this very clearly: Blaming yourself for perhaps making the wrong move or saying the wrong thing is damaging to you and your loved one.  It is a vicious cycle that leads you in circles.  Read that again.

Here is an example:  As a father, thinking that I know because I’ve read it somewhere or someone told me, with the very best of intentions and care, tell my daughter that if she experiments with hard drugs she will get addicted the first time she uses it.  She will then lose control of her life and end up dead in a ditch somewhere. 

There have been Canadian studies in the past that have indicated that 90% of teens in the study reported experimenting 1-3 times with various drugs.  So my daughter is likely going to experiment.  When she finds out that what I told her is not true, she will distrust my word and question my knowledge.  If I remain rigid in my views, conflicts will likely escalate as it often does, further alienating my daughter and me from each other.

What if, I caught up with the most recent information beyond the usual sensational rhetoric.  What if I questioned the myths that we’ve been taught and can sit down and have a frank discussion with my daughter about the actual facts.  I don’t just mean the facts about the harm the drugs can do, but the facts of why people use drugs in the first place, the bad AND the good.  What if instead of wagging my finger in lectures, I listened to her opinion of what drug use is, what she thinks of it?  What if I didn’t treat it like it was a psychotic criminal act but rather a high-risk activity, like, I don’t know, extreme mountain biking or snowboarding?

What if, rather than blaming myself for some imagined or unintended wrong, I take responsibility and learn about the most recent facts about addiction?

We refer you to the articles we have previously provided for reminders of best practices. They include the most up to date information from a personal perspective based on lived and trained experience.  All of us have the responsibility to make sure we know the facts and not just the opinions and myths about addiction.

All our past articles can be found here: https://ptalbcat.blogspot.com/
The link to this specific article is: https://ptalbcat.blogspot.com/2020/11/what-if.html SHARING is best done by copying and pasting this link everywhere you want.

Author: Ben Goerner

Ben is a retired counsellor who worked for decades with people suffering from substance illness. He continues to actively advocate for all aspects of people suffering from mental health and substance illness.

Families Helping Families is an initiative of the Port Alberni Community Action Team. We send out “Learning Moment” articles regularly to help folks understand substance illness. Knowledge is vital in understanding the illness of our family members. You may copy, distribute or share our articles as long as you retain the attribution. You can be added to our distribution list by dropping us a note to - albernihelp@gmail.com