CHEMICAL BIGOTRY

I'd like to introduce a new term into drug policy vernacular: chemical
bigotry. We've endured the War on Drugs for more than thirty years and
seen various threads of injustice weave through it. Until now, no
wording has existed to label this injustice.

Webster's Dictionary defines bigot as one who is "obstinately or
intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices."
Bigotry is a bigot in action.

What is chemical bigotry? It is the application of obstinate opinions,
prejudices, and intolerance to those whose chemical profile appears
one way versus those whose chemical profile appears another way.
Essentially, drug testing is this chemical profile made physical.

Consider the parallels of chemical bigotry with bigotry based on race,
sex, national origin, or sexual orientation. For example, great myths
arose around those of different races, these myths transforming into
stereotypes. These myths and stereotypes then influenced the passage
of Jim Crow laws and segregation.

In a similar vein, great myths grew up surrounding the users of some
drugs as if everyone would turn out like Cheech and Chong. Crack
babies are a proven myth. Through these myths came stereotypes and
from the stereotypes came bad policy. The roots of both racial
discrimination and chemical discrimination are the same: bigotry that
is born of stereotypes and myths.

Bigotry has a long and costly history. At its worst, bigotry produced
slavery and Nazis. Because of some outward factor, groups of people
became stigmatized and stereotyped resulting in disastrous social
policy that begot war and death. In a similar vein, chemical bigotry
as manifest through the War on Drugs has produced disastrous social
policy: bloated prisons, crime, police brutality, civil war, loss of
rights, and terrorism.

Some might say that chemical bigotry is different than other bigotry -
and thus justifiable - because people chose to use drugs and thus
alter their chemical profile. Remember, this same argument has been
applied time and again to religion and sexual orientation in order to
justify legal, social, and cultural sanctions.

Some might argue that a chemical-free human body is pure and virtuous,
something worth striving for. The problem here is that we are all by
our very nature a chemical composition. We can never be
chemically-free. When we look at ourselves as a chemical spectrum, we
can begin to see that we are making judgment calls of good or bad
based simply on what we add to our baseline body chemistry. Someone
who adds marijuana - bad. Someone who adds aspirin - good. It doesn't
matter that, in terms of death rate, aspirin is more dangerous than
marijuana. Chemical bigotry is at work.

Some might contend that chemical bigotry is justifiable because drugs
themselves cause death and destruction. This might have a slight ring
of truth if drug policies were evenly applied. But as a result of
chemical bigotry, a substance like marijuana that is comparatively
benign is banned while a substance like alcohol that is fairly
dangerous is aggressively advertised. Further, since a regulated
market approach to the distribution of what are now illegal drugs has
never been tried, perhaps much of the death and destruction
attributable to drugs actually finds its roots in drug prohibition.
Bigotry will always try to prevent the introduction of new social policies.

Some might insist that eliminating chemical bigotry would induce
social chaos. Everyone would be running around stoned conducting
mayhem. Fearmongers said much the same about freeing the slaves or
giving women the right to vote. Whether under the influence of drugs,
too little sleep, or manic depression, bad behavior is simply bad
behavior. Violence is still violence regardless of whether the
perpetrator is black, gay, or Irish. Truly bad behavior which hurts
others certainly deserves sanction. But, taking that extra leap to
suggest that ingesting certain chemicals and not others engenders
terrorism reveals the spirit of a bigot. Bigotry itself introduces far
more social chaos than does its elimination.

Lest one sit back and say chemical bigotry doesn't apply to me, at
some level this bigotry applies to all of us. All of us can become its
victim. Those who use cannabis for whatever reason know chemical
bigotry first hand. Likewise, patients who need more powerful pain
relievers feel the stigma of chemical bigotry, as do those trying to
kick opiates with methadone and hopes of heroin maintenance. Chemical
bigotry extends outward beyond what are now illegal drugs. It
demonizes the responsible social drinker and tobacco smoker. It
isolates the problem drug or alcohol user forcing them to hide their
problem and shun help. It compels users of legal drugs to reveal their
private medical history, endure debilitating side effects, and even
avoid helpful medications, lest chemical bigotry spotlight them. It
touches all these individuals and their families and communities as
well. Essentially, we are no longer defined by the content of our
character and what we accomplish in life, but by our chemical
composition at any particular time.

How do we fight chemical bigotry? Organizations like DrugSense/MAP
(http://www.mapinc.org), the Simon Wiesenthal Center
(http://www.weisenthal.com), or the Southern Poverty Law Center
(http://www.splcenter.org), for example, fight bigotry by shedding
light on it. DrugSense/MAP, in particular, does this by collecting
articles on drug policy, identifying incidences of chemical bigotry,
and promoting media activism to bring it out in the open. Essentially,
DrugSense/MAP and other organizations focused on drug policy reform
are to chemical bigotry what the Simon Wiesenthal Center is to
anti-Semitism or the Southern Poverty Law Center is to racism.

Those who have been scarred by chemical bigotry along with those who
believe that bigotry-based public policy is wrong form a vibrant and
growing drug policy reform community. This community needs to
understand that the great struggle in which it is engaged is not a war
on the War on Drugs, but an age-old fight against bigotry. In doing
so, better strategies and tactics can be developed to enable change.
Reformers may also find that they share much in common with others who
throughout history have fought in so many ways to remove bigotry's
shackles.