Confession of Ignorance

Confession of Ignorance

For more than the past decade, I have devoted the majority of my professional time and effort to the study of drug laws and drug use. Slowly I have come to realize that I know nothing about the subject. By "I", I mean all of us. I can discourse learnedly about how many people use methamphetamine and how the rates of marijuana use compare to those of 1975, but I have no basis to establish the significance of those data.
While "drug abuse" and "drug dependency" have medical definitions, "drug use" does not. What does it mean to say that many people in the United States use marijuana or that the Islamic world is largely free of alcohol use? We have no base-line idea of a "normal" society on which to anchor our statements. A drug-free world would be an impossibility, as would be a world of nothing but addicts, but where is our standard of comparison?
For instance, data indicate that 600,000 to 900,000 people, about 0.2 - 0.3% of a population of 300 million, use methamphetamine. But is that a large number about which we should be alarmed, or is it merely an outlier statistic about which we should be concerned, like a rare non-infectious disease that we would want to alleviate but which calls for no strong intervention? Frankly, we do not know.
Are there things that we do know: principles or generalities that would help determine a picture of human drug use norms? Some principles are available, although they are too general to do more than establish a vague outline.
Psychoactive drugs are as old as human culture. Some of the earliest known artifacts from the beginning of the agricultural age (8,000 - 10,000 years ago) are pottery shards containing evidence of the opium poppy. Beer is older than writing or baking (c. 6,000 years ago). Many of the hunter-gatherer societies that existed into modern times had at least some acquaintance with psychedelics. Note that this is a very weak claim. It does not distinguish between possible medicinal, religious, nutritional, or recreational uses; nor does it claim (except in the case of beer) wide-spread or majoritarian use within any society.
In many societies, including all current industrialized ones, the use of a predominant psychoactive drug is virtually universal. Between 80 and 90% of the residents of the current industrial world use caffeine daily (coffee in the Americas and Europe, tea in Asia). Before the development of modern water systems, beers, meads, and wine were universal beverages throughout the world. In the United States today around 2/3 of the population use alcohol somewhat regularly. In the Andean regions coca was widespread from pre-Columbian times to the present; and Northern and Eastern African and Arabian societies experienced widespread use of cannabis or khat. My own estimation is that until the middle of the nineteenth century -- until the development of safe drinking water and modern dentistry -- almost all English and Americans used opium on an almost daily basis.
Newly introduced drugs either establish a presence quickly or they fade from use. Coffee, tobacco, tea, and chocolate became major commodities in Europe within years of their introduction. Likewise, morphine, coca, and cocaine established themselves within a decade or less of their introduction in the mid to late nineteenth century; as did amphetamines and MDMA in the twentieth. On the other hand, drugs that are too toxic, have unreliable or unpleasant effects or bad side effects, like fly ageric mushrooms, morning glory seeds, or the various synthetic hallucinogens like STP, DPT, and others quickly fade, never finding a following.
The prevalence of any drug will vary over time. Alcohol consumption was probably highest in the U. S. at about the time of the Revolution and may be near an historic low at this time. Tobacco use increased after in introduction of cigarettes to majority use by about 1950 and has since declined to a level of about half as much. Cocaine use has had at least two major and one minor peak since its introduction in the 1880s.
Given a choice, users seem to prefer a "milder" drug. When available, coca was more common than cocaine. Khat users rarely move to amphetamines. Beer and wine continually outsell distilled spirits, which are usually consumed as mixed drinks, diluted to approximately the potency of beer or wine. Cannabis buyers seem to reject plants with a THC content of over about 8%.
Even the "milder" drugs can cause problems. Beer drinkers get drunk, get into fights, and even become alcoholics. Opium smokers can become addicts just as heroin injectors do.
Societies will accept astonishingly high levels of harm from socially accepted drugs. Tobacco is probably the leading cause of death in the United States today, with alcohol following close behind. Alcohol-related deaths, from car wrecks, to domestic violence, to assaults are unremarkable. The British public seems unable to recognize either tobacco or alcohol as harmful.
Social reactions to drugs seem to be more closely related to perceived group affiliations than to objective harm. The relationship of American drug laws to ethnic or cultural groups is well established.
Supply-oriented laws (prohibitory laws) have little or no effect on the level of consumption.
The statements are generalized observations, not firm data points, but I believe each of them is empirically testable and quantifiable. To the extent that this can be done, they can provide a theoretical structure of modern drug-using societies from which more rational policies can be developed.