MEDIA, LAWS GLAMORIZE DRUG USE

I'M sitting in Glendale court, waiting for the judge to call out my
client's name, relatively bored. To pass the time, I am reading the
June issue of a popular women's magazine. I pass an article purporting
to be an expos on drug use among celebrities. At first, I don't read
it.

As much as drug use is a part of my practice, and though it has been a
source of interest for me as long as I can remember, sometimes it gets
too much. But I've been waiting here so long I can't resist. Finally,
I read "Hollywood High," and find myself appalled.

The article describes scenes from celebrity raves - people openly
taking pills, crouched in corners taking heroin, packed into bathroom
stalls doing bumps of cocaine.

Now, I'm not in favor of the DARE approach to drug use. In fact, I
favor legalization of all drugs. However, this magazine, like so many,
is guilty of neglecting to even provide a glimpse of the downside of
these raucous nights where cocaine is depicted as innocuous as talcum
powder, where hard drugs are portrayed more like accessories than as
the destructive demons they can become.

No 18-year-olds are interviewed about what happened to them after
getting involved in heroin, for instance. There's no mention of the
effects of withdrawal. There's not one interview of someone who got
strung out on coke, not able to sleep, not able to get peace. While I
believe everyone has the right to choose their mind-altering
substances, these typical media accounts don't adequately address the
dangers or the dark side of drugs.

Why not interview former hard-drug users or prescription-pill addicts
and ask why they stopped? Ask them how it feels at the end of the
night when they don't have any more stimulants and they haven't
acquired a supply of "landing gear," like Xanax, Ambien or heroin.

Like many people my age, I love seeing the new edition of Allure on
the newsstand. I look forward to reading articles that distract me
from the grind of my intense work and schedule. That's why many of us
read "women's magazines" and tabloids. But I at least want to read
something provocative and truthful.

I'm not suggesting that the alternative to glamorizing drugs is the
approach taken by the government, the idiotic and self-defeating
rhetoric that all illegal drugs are bad and that they are all equally
bad. What I want to read are real stories by people who have done the
late-night drug scene and survived, some positive, some negative.

It makes sense that magazines somehow seem unable to get real
interviews of people who have lived to tell their stories. The problem
is the one that plagues our modern culture and society - the
condescension of drug use makes people loathe to admit their
participation in it and therefore leaves many blind and deaf to the
truth.

This problem emanates from the criminalization of drugs, and the
answer is legalization. I have long championed the view that it is our
inalienable right to alter our consciousness through whatever drug or
experience we choose. However, my support for legalization is not
simply a rights-based argument. Legalization is a social good, the
only answer to the plagues of drug abuse. People would more frequently
talk about their drug experiences and, in so doing, help others
without the social condemnation that clouds the whole issue of drug
use and abuse.

Legalization/decriminalization would destigmatize drugs and
simultaneously remove from that universe the forbidden aspect that
seems to entice the likes of not only the Lindsay Lohans, but hordes
of anonymous people engaging in the same behaviors all over this country.

Especially right here in L.A.

Reading about how cool it is to party late at night in Hollywood is
not stimulating or real. What happens after the party is, and that's
what we're not hearing about. Unfortunately, we'll never hear the
truth from drug users or the government until our attitude about drugs
and drug users changes.

Contrary to the rhetoric of the 1980s, zero-tolerance is impossible.
But reducing the harm that drugs cause to us is possible if we open
our minds and realize that stigmatization through criminalization does
nothing but further entrench us in the war on drugs, which is really a
war against humans who use drugs.