From: govegan@uclink.berkeley.edu (Scott Andrew Selby)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs
Subject: Why Drug Free Revised
Date: 1 May 1994 23:15:06 GMT
Message-ID: <2q1d5q$8v0@agate.berkeley.edu>
Thanks for people's feedback. Much of this second edition has been changed.
If you like this, please let me know. If you have any disagreements, please
send me specific, constructive criticism. E-mail me directly
(idealforliving@uclink.Berkeley.EDU) as I am not subscribed to any
newsgroups or mailing lists.
Before passing judgement on this, first read all of it as it is coming at
the issue from a completely new perspective. This an attempt to disseminate
information about the political effects of drug use from a liberal
perspective - it is NOT about the issue of drug legalization and does not
advocate prohibition, nor is it a personal attack on drug users. Instead, it
discusses the impact of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs on people's
health, world and U.S. politics, and the environment.
If you like this file, send a SASE to the address at the end of the file for
a hard copy and pass this e-mail file on to anyone who would be interested.
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******** Personal and Political Responsibility in Daily Life ************
Recreational drug use is one of the most widespread and
destructive problems facing us today. Much like other matters of
lifestyle, drug use is not contained entirely within either the private
or the public realm, but lies somewhere in between. The ramifications
of the purchase and consumption of a beer and a cigarette include, for
instance, not only obvious harm to the consumerÕs body, but also tacit
financial support of the political causes to which the given
alcohol/tobacco corporation contributes, often right-wing in nature.
The successful election campaigns of North Carolina Senator Jesse
Helms in 1984 and 1990, for example, were both funded in large part
by profits from the alcohol and tobacco industries, of which the right-
wing congressman has been an ardent supporter.1 There is an element
of irony in this; the drugs that are used in the name of youthful
rebellion end up benefiting the extreme-rightÑ against which the
rebellion claims to be pitted in the first place. From the point of view
of activism, drugs only contribute to maintaining the status quo.
Those who are opposed to the current system often believe that there
is something rebellious about consuming illegal drugs. The reality is
that by purchasing and using drugs, they support the establishment
which they dislike so much. Their consumption also minimizes the
volume of their dissent by neutralizing their activist-tendencies.
From a health/social perspective things look even worse.
While political setbacks can in the end be overcome, nothing can be
done to bring back the four-hundred thousand people who die in the
United States as a result of cigarette consumption alone every year,
during which hundreds of thousands more fall victim to other
alcohol- and other drug-related deaths.
HEALTH
Perhaps the most obvious argument against recreational
drugs is the toll their use takes on the human body. Cigarettes have
been shown to cause lung cancer; cancer of the pharynx, larynx,
esophagus, bladder, and pancreas; chronic bronchitis; peptic ulcers;
emphysema; and various birth defects (if consumed by a pregnant
woman).2 Moderate alcohol consumption increases one's risk of
certain cancers threefold,3 and use by a pregnant woman can cause
birth defects.4 A single marijuana cigarette, often thought to be
harmless, causes as much lung damage as five tobacco cigarettes.5
Marijuana also often leads to a long term lack of motivation and
apathy among regular users.6 And underlying almost every drugÕs
list of individual problems is physical dependency (including
marijuana, commonly thought to be only psychologically addictive).7
New drugs continue to be created whose health effects are not fully
known.
SOCIAL RAMIFICATIONS
An individualÕs drug habit has a profound effect upon the
community of people with which he/she interacts on a daily basis.
For instance, second hand smoke alone is responsible for the deaths
of fifty-thousand Americans each year.8 Drunk drivers kill an
additional seventy-thousand people at the same rate.
It is clear that while under the influence of any mind-
altering drug, one has decreased control of oneÕs actions. This affects
both the individual and those around him/her. It is often the main
factor in occurrences of assault, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and
physical abuse in general. Date rape is often caused by aggressive
sexual behavior brought on by drug consumption. A complete list of
social problems exacerbated by drug use is too long to include in a
pamphlet of this length. Even if one has never been a perpetrator in a
drug-related incident, one is still responsible for such occurrences (to
some degree), through drug consumption or support thereof.
POLITICAL ISSUES
Unfortunately, while use of illegal drugs is combated,
consumption of alcohol and tobacco is promoted. Corporations
consistently deny that the products they sell are dangerous. Cigarette
manufacturers, for example, claim that cigarettes are neither a threat
to the consumerÕs health nor addictive,9 despite scientific proof to the
contrary. After a Philip Morris research team concluded that
nicotine is addictive in a 1983 report, the company forced a science
journal to withdraw the resulting article.10 The fact is that cigarettes
are at least as addictive as cocaine and heroin11 and their threat to
public health is undeniable: studies have shown cigarettes to contain
a horrifying array of substances, including acetone, carbon
monoxide, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, insecticides, and
benzene.12 In terms of public safety, the major tobacco corporations
have for years had the technology to safeguard against fires caused
by their products by making cigarettes that go out after a period of
non-use, but still they put additives in cigarettes that increase the rate
at which the product burns.13
The federal government is not doing much to stop the public
health threat caused by alcohol/cigarette consumption because
corporations have the United States Congress in shackles, which take
the form of gifts, contributions, and campaign funds.14 In the
American South, where tobacco is an important industry,
congressmen are forced to support the tobacco corporations or face
expulsion from office. For this reason, government subsidies exist for
tobacco growers that insure them a profit on their crops.15 The
corporations placate the would-be opposition in government with
money, which allows them to manufacture their products
unquestioned. Indeed it is only a minority of government officials
who have been fighting the tobacco industry.
The products and their health-hazards, however, are only
part of the picture. Almost all of the corporations that manufacture
alcohol and cigarettes turn over a significant portion of their profits
to special-interest groups that oppose civil-rights legislation and
social programs. The Coors corporation, for example, has opposed
the U.S. Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, the Equal Rights
Amendment, U.S. labor unions, and has been guilty of severe
environmental damage in Colorado. Perhaps most conspicuously they
are the founders and primary financial backers of the Colorado-
based Heritage Foundation: an anti-Semitic, racist, anti-civil rights,
right-wing think tank.16 Coors is not alone in its reactionary
pursuits. Henry WeinhardÕs brewery, for example, has used profits
from beer sales to fund Operation Rescue.
It is the people who live in the worst conditions, (and thus
have the greatest need to fight for social change), who most often
become drug addicts, attempting to escape the troubled conditions of
this world instead of working to change them. This serves the
interests of those who run the country: they face no threat of
rebellion as long as the disenfranchised are busily involved with
drugs, e.g. the rampant alcohol abuse in Native American
communities. In 1989, under President Bush, the government set up a
highly-selective ÒWar on DrugsÓ, which gave law enforcement
officials free reign to abuse their authority among societyÕs urban
underclass, while condoning the promotion of alcohol and other legal
drugs in the same sector of society.
Drug production is a waste of environmental resources.
Food-stuffs, which in sharp contrast are important to produce, could
be grown on the land used to grow and manufacture drugs. Coca
plants (used in cocaine production) litter vast tracts of land in
Central and South America, as do poppies (used for heroin
production) in various Asian countries. California marijuana
growers kill large numbers of deer, in some areas more than hunters,
in an effort to protect their expensive crops.17 Tobacco production
involves heavy use of wood, burned in order to Òflue cureÓ the
product. In Eastern Kenya, Pakistan, and heavily-forested Brazil, the
effects of logging for the purposes of this aspect of cigarette
production have already been felt. In fact, it is estimated that one tree
is felled per 300 cigarettes made.18 In addition, significant pollutants
are created with the production of cocaine, alcoholic beverages, and
heroin. The packaging involved for drugs is also wasteful, especially
that of cigarettes, which involves plastic products such as filters, 533
billion of which are disposed of in the U.S. each year.19
Problems in the non-industrialized world brought on by
legal drug corporations as well as illegal drug producers are another
disturbing consequence of the drug business. Tobacco and alcohol are
sold to poor people in developing nations often without any
warnings about negative health-effects, especially severe considering
that the cigarettes sold there generally contain twice as much tar (the
main carcinogen in cigarettes) as do those sold in developed
nations.20 With cigarette sales waning in the United States, the major
cigarette corporations have nearly doubled international sales.
Philip Morris, the largest player in the U.S. tobacco industry, has
increased its revenues abroad from $8.4 billion in 1989 to $15.7
billion in 1993.21 Instead of improving their dire conditions, people
in third world nations are encouraged to spend what little money
they have on products that will make them more like members of the
industrialized world. Cigarettes, for example, are promoted on
television and billboards as a symbol of progress.22 The reality is
that drug use only worsens living conditions in the non-
industrialized world, where the drain on financial resources caused
by a drug habit is magnified. Unfortunately, many of the targeted
consumers do not have the opportunity to make an informed decision
about the products that may eventually kill them.
Legal and illegal drug production in the developing world
affects not only consumers, but workers as well. They are abused by
employers, earning scant wages picking cash crops that they cannot
use for food. The employers, especially those who manufacture and
traffic illegal drugs, often resort to violent means of protecting their
industry. In some countries, most notably Columbia, the result is
chaos. With the money obtained from selling illegal drugs, those
involved in the trade have created a climate of corruption and
violence throughout the non-industrialized world, as they have in
many depressed areas of the developed world.
ALTERNATIVES
In the face of a corrupt industry, both in America and
abroad, people must challenge the idea that illegal drugs should be
treated separately from alcohol and tobacco, a distinction based
upon the assumption that only illegal drugs are truly ÒdrugsÓ. This
way of thinking demonizes illicit drugs and at the same time makes
licit drugs appear innocuousÑ hiding the fact that there is no real
difference between the two categories. A prominent proponent of the
legal/illegal mindset is ÒPartnership for a Drug-Free AmericaÓ,
which, in fact, is financed by the alcohol and tobacco industries. The
ideas promoted by this group through print and television ads bolster
the sales of the legal drug industryÕs products by helping them
maintain a good public image. They operate on the assumption that
the public is gullible enough to believe that Òdrugs canÕt be too bad if
they are legal.Ó Much too often, their strategy has worked.
A change in personal lifestyle can be a slow process, but
luckily there are many effective methods of ending oneÕs drug habit. If
you are addicted to drugs and want to quit, you can. Seek help or
counseling if you need it. By being drug free, one boycotts both the
various industries (legal and illegal) that produce drugs as well as
the concept of drug-taking. Awareness and a change in personal
lifestyle are both essential to effecting political change.
ENDNOTES
1 (White) pp. 56-69.
2 The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine, Dr. Charles
B. Clayman, Random House, 1989, pp. 991-992.
3 You Are What You Drink, Allan Luks & Joseph Barbato, 1989, p.69
4 Health and Wellness, Edlin Golanty, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Fourth
Edition, 1992, p. 292.
5 Personal Health Choices, Sandra Smith, Jones & Bartlett Pub., 1990, p. 399.
6 Clayman p. 665.
7 ibid, p. 665.
8 California Department of Public Health, 1994.
9 ÒBlowing Smoke at CongressÓ, New York Times, April 24 , 1994, Editorial.
10 ÒThe Butt Stops HereÓ, Time, April 18, 1994 , p. 59.
11 ÒShould Cigarettes be Banned?Ó, U.S. News & World Report,4/18/94, p. 36.
12 Golanty p. 304.
13 (Whelan) pp. 151 and 164.
14 (White) pp. 45-71.
15 (Whelan) p. 147.
16 (Bellant).
17 ÒPot Growers Killing CaliforniaÕs WildlifeÓ, International Wildlife, July/
August 1985, p. 32.
18 (Whelan) p. 172.
19 Golanty p. 304.
20 (Whelan) p. 170.
21 ÒSmoke, Flame and FireÓ, U.S. News & World Report, April 18, 1994, p. 47.
22 (Whelan) p. 169.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY/BOOKS TO READ
Booze Merchants: The Inebriating of America. M Jacobson, R. Atkins, G.
Hacker. CSPI Books, Washington D.C. 1983.
Coors Connection R.Bellant. Political Research Associates, Cambridge, MA
1990. (Bellant)
Merchants of Death: The American Tobacco Industry L.C. White. Beech
Tree Books, New York, NY 1988. (White)
Smoking Gun: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away With Murder E.M.
Whelan. George F. Stickley Co, Philadelphia, PA 1984. (Whelan)
Ask a local librarian for help borrowing these books or books on
quitting specific substances. Please photocopy and distribute this pamphlet.
For more information or if you want to help, send a self-addressed stamped
envelope to:
Ideal For Living
PO Box 4353
Berkeley, CA 94704-0353
e-mail: idealforliving@uclink.Berkeley.EDU
