I'M PROOF: THE WAR ON DRUGS IS WORKING

My Experience May Be The Most Typical One, But This Is Probably The Only
Place You'll Ever Read About It

In the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of the war on drugs, I've
never heard a politician, scientist, filmmaker or journalist tell my story.
That's odd, because I believe my experience with illegal drugs is by far
the most common. I'm a former casual drug user who thinks illegal drugs
should remain illegal.

I'm not exactly anybody's poster boy for the war on drugs. I've experienced
very little hardship because of drugs. I've never been to prison or a
12-step program. None of my friends died using drugs. I used illicit
hard-core drugs during half of my 20s and then quit before I hit rock
bottom. Why? The same reason most people do: because the stigma of
illegal-drug use is too great.

At the height of my drug use I was a 24-year-old advertising copywriter
living in Manhattan. I had friends who were artists, grad students, lawyers
and waitresses. If we didn't think we were too cool to do so, I'm sure we
would have compared ourselves to "Friends."

Together we'd spend what little disposable income we had to buy ecstasy and
coke and Special K and more. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it wasn't.
More than anything, we felt the invincibility you feel only when you're
young and looking forward to your future.

I can remember giggling for hours and dancing until dawn. I can remember
the rush of adrenaline when guys in down jackets would make eye contact and
say, "Hey, homeboy, what you need?" I can also remember a particular Monday
morning after a weekend of taking ecstasy and acid together. I was reading
a newspaper article about Rebecca Lobo's last game at U Conn. I started
crying. Crying! At the sports page! I knew the drugs were hurting me
mentally. I had to be more careful.

There is some logic to the argument that since drugs are easy to obtain,
making them legal will enable the government to focus on treating addicts.
But drugs aren't nearly as easy to buy as the media and lawmakers want you
to believe. Drugs are easy to get only if you're willing to do just about
anything to get them. If you're just doing it for fun, it's harder to
score. No one I knew was really willing to get arrested.

Sometimes my friends and I would sit for hours nursing drinks at a bar
while we got the courage to make a deal in some other bar or on the street.
Most nights we'd just go home a little drunk, our window of opportunity
closed for that evening. The next morning we'd wake up with a hangover and
still have money left for brunch and laundry.

There were a lot of nights when we actually did it. We'd buy from the first
dealer we saw. I'd say about a third of the time the drugs wouldn't work.
We didn't have the guts to ask for our money back. We certainly didn't have
another $30 each to try again. This was fun for us. It was part of the game.

The drug culture crept into my life in predictable ways. My ads started to
look a lot like the fliers I saw for raves. My circle of friends got
tighter and tighter until we excluded anyone who wasn't cool enough to
understand the thrill of losing one's mind. Instead of expanding my
horizons, drugs made them narrower and narrower. If I'd had a reliable
source, I'd have done drugs all the time. I considered them a lifestyle
choice, like identifying with a political party or driving a particular
brand of car. I wasn't an addict yet-but I was close.

And that's the thing: while addictive tendencies may very well be genetic,
becoming an actual drug addict happens over time. Quickly for some, slower
for others. The more barriers there are-be they the cops or the hassle or
the fear of dying-the less likely you are to get addicted.

A couple of times I almost got arrested trying to buy drugs on the street.
Or maybe I didn't. Was that bicycle cop really following me? Was the rumor
about undercover cops patrolling the East Village true? Drugs can make you
paranoid, so I suppose I'll never know. But I felt I was in danger of
getting arrested, and that was enough. I wouldn't make eye contact when I
walked by the drug dealers on my block. By the age of 27, I wasn't feeling
invincible anymore.

Around this time the whole drug thing had begun to wear off anyway. I
started dating a woman who didn't like drugs. One of my friends lost his
job; another got married. According to the anti-drug pamphlets I've read, I
went from being a "recreational" drug user to an "occasional" one. I
haven't had the occasion in years.

My experience lacks the drama of addiction. No one will ever win an Academy
Award telling it, or get elected trying to stop it, or make money treating
it. But it is much more common than you may like to believe. The road to
addiction was just bumpy enough that I chose not to go down it. In this
sense, we are winning the war on drugs just by fighting them.