USA: Attacking the meth-enger

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer performs a take-down on the current Newsweek cover story on the nation's supposed crystal meth epidemic. To be honest, I haven't made my way through the Newsweek package since it came screaming hysterically out of my mailbox earlier this week, but I always greet these kinds of stories skeptically so Shafer's piece certainly caught my attention. Questions of the extent and existence of a broader meth epidemic aside, Shafer makes a point that's so often missed in discussions about the so-called drug war:

This critique is no brief in favor of drug use. Nor do I minimize the collateral damage inflicted on others by methamphetamine users. But journalism like this ignores how, to paraphrase Grinspoon and Hedblom, drug-war measures often do more harm to individuals and society than the original "evil" substance the warriors attempted to stamp out. In the mid-1960s, just before the government declared war on amphetamines, the average user swallowed his pills, which were of medicinal purity and potency. Snorting and smoking stimulants was almost unheard of, and very few users injected intravenously.

Today, 40 years later, snorting, smoking, and injecting methamphetamines of unpredictable potency and dubious purity has become the norm—with all the dreadful health consequences. If the current scene illustrates how the government is winning the war on drugs, I'd hate to see what losing looks like.

It's hard being pro-legalization these days. Sure, everybody thinks marijuana should be legal because, one, it can be medicinal and, two, stoners are funnier and easier to deal with than crank addicts. But for those who believe in legalization as an end to a misguided and ultimately destructive federal drug war, crystal meth has offered a new challenge. Andrew Sullivan, normally a libertarian legalizer on drug issues, did a 180 a few months ago when it comes to crystal:

But I draw the line at this drug. It's evil, potent beyond belief, it's destroying people's minds, careers, lives and souls. If we don't get a grip on it, it may undo all the progress we have made against HIV in the gay world.

I'm torn, myself. I'm uncomfortable ascribing a moral status to one drug based on the destructive effects it can have on some users. Honestly, I've always considered heroin to be the big bad, and the few heroin addicts I've known have struggled mightily to keep the drug out of their lives, and not often successfully. But alcohol, cocaine, GHB, ecstasy -- any of those can and do ruin the lives of those who become addicted, even as others may use them occasionally or recreationally without falling down the hole.

None of this is to say that there's not a problem with some gay men and crystal meth -- particularly the combo of crystal meth and sex (and the widely socially acceptable recreational drug Viagra, or any of its tumescent varients). As many of those concerned with taking community action on meth, I've watched a number of people -- some friends, some acquaintences -- succumb to the drug, and having that personal experience can be a powerful motivator to action. But it's also important to make sure that a community's approach is formed rationally and accurately. Concern, compassion and action are warranted, but hysteria never is. The unintended consequences, as Shafer notes, can be just as bad, if not worse, than the original problem.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Thursday, 4th August 2005
Source: Metro Weekly (Washington DC, USA)
Author: Sean Bugg
Contact: http://www.metroweekly.com/about_us/contact_us.php
Copyright: 2005 Metro Weekly
Website: http://www.metroweekly.com/