THE DARK AGES OF DRUG AWARENESS

The Partnership for a Drug Free America has recently published a study which
indicates that kids who see at least one anti-drug public service
announcement per day are less likely to do drugs than those who do not.

This should not be shocking in any way as the "repetition equals truth"
formula and idea of ignorant faith are often employed by legal/moral
authorities to indoctrinate.

Look at religions.

I'm still dumbfounded by the idea that a person is expected to make informed
decisions about personal drug use, despite the fact that almost all public
drug education consists entirely of gross exaggeration, continuous citing of
irresponsibly flawed studies, deliberate misinformation and outright lies.

The purpose of these anti-drug spots is to dissuade kids from doing drugs of
any sort, because a teen who experiments with marijuana is then more likely
to move on to "hard drugs" -- or so the current wisdom tells us.

But this "gateway drug" myth has absolutely no foundation in reality.

Whereas in 1994, 16 percent of younger American marijuana users had tried
cocaine, (a sharp decline from the 80s, when that figure peaked at 33
percent) the Dutch figure for that same demographic was only 1.8 percent.

This is a clear result of the Dutch government's decision to allow the sale
of marijuana in legal situations, separating it from so called "hard drugs."

The failure to establish any such distinction between drugs, or even classes
of drugs, is precisely the problem with the American system.

There is only the very rudimentary separation of legal from illegal, which
is completely useless as a gauge for a drug's dangers or merits.

Alcohol is legal, and its poisoning causes 4,000 deaths per year.

Marijuana is not, despite the fact that there has never been a single
published case of a fatal cannabis overdose.

Tylenol is legal, yet a single 6 gram dose has caused liver damage, and a
10-15 gram dose can cause liver failure and death.

LSD remains illegal, even though a person could swallow 500 times the
threshold dose and suffer no harm whatsoever.

What happens when a person tries to swallow 500 shots of bourbon?

This is not to say that all recreational drugs are safe, just that many of
them have been falsely vilified. More to the point --

it makes no sense to use the blanket term "drugs" while referring to
specific chemicals or compounds.

This is the main problem with current drug programs. Lumping all illicit
chemicals into one category as "unsafe" and all FDA approved chemicals into
the opposing category produces not only baseless fear in some illegal drugs,
but also false confidence in legal ones.

Example: on a scale of toxicity, Tylenol is closer to VX nerve gas than LSD.

There needs to be an evaluation of each drug individually, based on its own
properties. Proper and truthful education is the only way to provide people
with what they need to make informed choices.

Why this has not become clear to those in a position to implement change is
mystifying.

If schools were honest with kids about drugs, chances are that marijuana use
would increase along with Psilocybe mushrooms and LSD. But since these are
all less toxic and dangerous than most over the counter and prescription
medications, I can see no problem with that.

At the same time, it is likely that use would decrease among such drugs as
meth, crack, heroin, and dissociative anesthetics (which have been
implicated in possible permanent brain damage and include the quasi-legal
Nitrous oxide and DXM, as well as the more dangerous PCP and Ketamine) due
to their serious side effects and addiction potentials.

What prohibition teaches us, among other lessons, is that people will use
what is available, laws aside, to get high.

Inebriation is a natural impulse.

Even many animal species have found a way to alter consciousness -- be it by
eating fermented fruit or banging their heads against a wall.

Knowing this, how is it morally justifiable to keep accurate information out
of the hands of kids and even educators?

The deaths of countless young people could have been avoided had they simply
been educated about the substances they were using.

For example, DXM is an active ingredient in many over the counter cough
medicines, but it is also a powerful dissociative anesthetic -- which has
become popular recreationally.

Kids seeking to have a little fun hear from someone that cough syrup can get
them high. They go to the store and buy some bottles.

With limited knowledge, it's basically a crap shoot. Maybe they spend an
evening high, or maybe they suffer respiratory failure and die, as many
young people have.

I haven't the room to begin to go into any of these issues thoroughly, nor
the breadth of scope to even touch on the probable benefits of legalizing
some of the safer drugs, both in terms of public health and government
revenue.

Yet this is exactly why I chose this topic. This superficial article is much
more in-depth and truthful than any PSA or "drug awareness" program that
kids are exposed to as they grow.