You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (56 page)

4.
        David Hillman,
Chemical Muse
(2008), pp. 1–3.

5.
        Ibid., p. 2.

6.
        Ibid., pp. 176–177.

7.
        Ibid., p. 222.

8.
        Paul Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
(2001), p. v.

9.
        Gardiner Harris, “Researchers Find Study of Medical Marijuana Discouraged,”
NYTimes.com
, 18 Jan. 2010; and Jacob Sullum,
Saying Yes
(2003), pp. 15–16.

10.
      In 1990 The Partnership for a Drug Free America’s ad campaign trailed only AT&T and McDonald’s in size. Dan 3aum,
Smoke and Mirrors
(1996), pp. 296–297.

11.
      Matthew Robinson and Renee Scherlen, (2007).

12.
      “Locals Ask State Help to Battle Pot Houses,”
SPTimes.com
, 22 June 2007.

13.
      FOX News also reported that “This stuff will kill you,” Orlando Salinas, “High Living,” 13 July 2007.

14.
      Paragraph from Bill Masters, ed.,
New Prohibition
(2004), pp. 153–170.

15.
      When CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen was questioned about teen ER marijuana cases she admitted that the kids were “basically freaking out . . . It’s all in their head.” “Pot More Potent Than Ever,”
CNN.com
, 18 June 2008.

16.
      Andrew Weil,
Natural Mind
(1998), pp. 51–54.

17.
      Paragraph from John Stossel,
Give Me a Break
(2004), pp. 97–107.

18.
      Human brains are neuroplastic. They simultaneously shrink and grow different parts to suit how they are being used. Any new usage of the mind can have this effect. Internet addiction has been found to grow parts of the brain while shrinking others, as has learning taxi cab routes. Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley,
Mind and the Brain
(2002), pp. 250–254; and Tony Dokoupil, “Is the Web Driving Us Mad?”
TheDailyBeast.com
, 9 July 2012.

19.
      A study found adolescent problem drug use could be traced to early childhood and the quality of parenting. It was a symptom—not a cause of—maladjustment. Sullum,
Saying Yes
, p. 15.

20.
      Schizophrenia and childhood poverty do correlate. G. Harrison, et al., “Association between Schizophrenia and Social Inequality at Birth,”
Br J. Psychiatry
, Oct. 2001.

21.
      Graham Lawton, “Too Much, Too Young,”
New Scientist
, 26 Mar. 2005; and Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (UK), “Further Consideration of the Classification of Cannabis” Dec. 2005.

22.
      Maia Szalavitz, “Reefer Inanity: Never Trust the Media on Pot,”
HuffingtonPost.com
, 30 July 2007.

23.
      Lawton, “Too Much.’

24.
      Joseph Brean, “Caffeine Linked to Psychiatric Disorders,”
National Post
, 2 Dec. 2006, ret.
Canada.com
, 21 Apr. 2007.

25.
      Bennett Weinberg and Bonnie Bealer,
World of Caffeine
(2001), pp. 189–190.

26.
      Anna Kuchment, “Make That a Double,”
Newsweek
, 30 July 2007, p. 48.

27.
      S. Weinmann, “Caffeine Intake in Relation to the Risk of Primary Cardiac Arrest,”
Epidemiology
, Sep. 1997, 8(5).

28.
      
Environmental Nutrition
, Oct. 1997.

29.
      Caffeine levels vary widely depending on daily brewing. Over six days of testing the lowest was half the above. Rachel McCusker, Bruce Goldberger, and Edward Cone, “Caffeine Content of Specialty Coffees,”
J. Anal. Toxicol
., Oct. 2003.

30.
      Title of 2003
Newsweek
article on opium, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, “Flowers of Destruction,” 14 July 2003, p. 33.

31.
      Suzanne Smalley and Debra Rosenberg, “I Felt Like I Wanted to Hurt People,”
Newsweek
, 22 July 2006, p. 32.

32.
      Martin Brecher, et al., “Phencyclidine and Violence,”
J. Clin. Psychopharmacol
., Dec. 1988, p. 397.

33.
      “I Did It to You,”
It’s All Bad
, Black Market Records, 16 Mar. 2004.

34.
      
Dateline NBC
(TV), NBC, 29 Nov. 1994.

35.
      Akilah Johnson, “Man Said Insane in Mutilation Killing,”
LATimes.com
, 17 June 2003.

36.
      “The Pulse,” FOX, 8 Aug. 2002.

37.
      Bruce Rogers is a pseudonym. Sullum,
Saying Yes
, p. 207.

38.
      Paul Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
(2001), pp. 97, 390.

39.
      Ken Guggenheim,
Evening Sun
, 5 Mar. 2002.

40.
      “Walk Yourself,” ret.
AboveTheInfluence.com
, 9 Feb. 2007.

41.
      Smalley, “I Felt Like I Wanted to Hurt People,” p. 33.

42.
      Lauran Neergaard, “Misusing Acetaminophen Can Be Deadly”
MSNBC.MSN.com
, 22 Jan. 2004.

43.
      Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 388.

44.
      Guggenheim, “A Father’s Tears.”

45.
      Less than one percent of illicit drug users were introduced to drugs by a professional dealer. “One in Five Drug Abusers Needing Treatment Did Drugs with Parents,” PRNewswire, 24 Aug. 2000.

46.
      Kate Patton, “Kelley McEnery Baker 1976–1999,” ret.
drugfree.org
, 26 Mar. 2007.

47.
      Colin Fernandez, “Outcry from Families as Ministers Consider Downgrading Ecstasy and LSD,”
DailyMail.co.uk
, 22 Nov. 2006.

48.
      There is more latitude in other countries. For example, in the British sitcom,
Absolutely Fabulous
(1992–2004), Patsy frequently used cocaine. Although she was a dysfunctional character, she was not shown to suffer from her cocaine use.

49.
      Joseph McLaughlin,
Writing the Urban Jungle
(2000), p. 56.

50.
      One study found the annual risk of fatal overdose for a heroin addict to be one percent. M. Hickman, et al., “Drug-Related Mortality and Fatal Overdose Risk,”
J. Urban Health
, June 2003.

51.
      An addicted pretty white girl having sex with a black gangster is also featured in the movie
Traffic
(2000).

52.
      
Reefer Madness
(1936) was a propaganda film that portrayed marijuana use leading to manslaughter, attempted rape, suicide, and insanity. It was so ludicrous that it became a cult classic.

53.
      From an August 2, 2006 review at
RottenTomatoes.com
by crushin russian, a Miami University student. Ret. 11 Jan. 2006.

54.
      This is not meant to belittle the experience of addicts, however, to only present their version is severely distorted.

55.
      “Winfrey Stands Behind ‘Pieces’ Author,”
CNN.com
, 12 Jan. 2006.

56.
      Ibid.

The enjoyment of intoxication is universal. Cats hallucinate on catnip, koala bears have lifelong addictions to eucalyptus, cows and horses get destroyed on locoweed, birds get silly on marijuana seeds, and bighorn sheep risk mountain dangers to get a hit of lichen.
¹
Wild elephants and chimpanzees have even raided stills for alcohol,
²
and in Pleasant Hill, California, thousands of robins annually celebrate their migratory arrival by getting high on holly berries. They stagger about and fly into walls.
³

Getting high is so common in nature that humans probably first learned from watching animals.
^4
,
5
With these feral enablers it is not surprising that our genetic forebears, the Neanderthals, got high some 50,000 years ago.
⁶
It’s also not surprising that references to poppies, through a word that also meant “enjoy,” are found in some of the earliest human writings dating from the third millennium B.C.
⁷

Recreational drugs have not been demonized until recently. Societies have always been aware of their habit-forming nature. However, even in the case of heroin’s precursor, opium, addiction was viewed as “an uncomfortable, but not especially dangerous, personal characteristic, like addiction to tobacco.”
⁸

In ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy and the scientific method, liberty was valued above all else. Denying the freedom to pursue happiness via drugs would have been unthinkable.
⁹
In contrast, in Sparta patriotism was the grand ideal. Personal freedom, free speech, and individuality were seen as dangerous and any intoxication—even by alcohol—was a serious crime. Sparta was a brutal totalitarian military state.

Both the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans enjoyed using drugs to “induce states of mental euphoria, create hallucinations, and alter their own consciousness.”
¹⁰
Recreational drugs had no moral stigma and were used by all types of people from commoners to emperors. Any attempts to outlaw these naturally occurring substances would have been viewed as absurd. This benign attitude was also taken by biblical patriarchs, kings, and likely even Jesus.
¹¹

Greco-Romans knew how to get “high” via countless plants, such as ivy, daffodils, mandrake, and mushrooms, and their records of these preparations fill volumes. Their favorite drug was arguably opium, literally called “the juice.” (The great philosopher/emperor Marcus Aurelius was addicted.) Their favorite method of enjoying psychotropics was mixing them with their wine. They would imbibe while debating philosophy in their symposiums or while bards regaled them with tales.
¹²
Drug-induced dreams, visions, and hallucinations were seen as an avenue to self-knowledge, discovery, and creativity. In fact, altered states of consciousness were considered divinely-provided madness.

Although less is known about Europe’s drug usage in the Dark Ages, marijuana-smoking braziers have been found from throughout this time period, and arguably the most famous pot-smoker of the Renaissance was the giant Pantagruel, who appeared in Rabelais’ sixteenth-century novels.
¹³

Like the Athenians, the founders of the United States would have been disgusted by a government-led war on drugs. They fought the Revolutionary War to free themselves from government meddling. In 1776 independence was declared for the individual’s right to “liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
¹⁴
Their first president, George Washington, used marijuana to soothe his toothaches and inflamed gums.
¹⁵
Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, used opium regularly in his final years for pain relief.
¹⁶

James Madison was the country’s fourth president and the “Father of the Constitution.” He and his wife both enjoyed snuff and he defended tobacco as one of the “innocent gratifications” that makes life pleasurable.
¹⁷
The Madisons were not unique. As Ryan Grim wrote in
This is Your Country on Drugs
:

Early Americans liked to see their candidates get intoxicated at appropriate times and believed it demonstrated independence and character.
²⁰
The third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, invented the presidential cocktail party and regularly drank three times as much as his guests, even though critics called him a habitual drunk.