One of my favorite roommates of all time is a Scottish woman named Kiera, who coincidentally gave me my first line of mandy. Referred to as Molly in the states, methylenedioxymethamphetamine fills the user with euphoria, physical energy, and empathy. Sure makes sense that college students are taking it & as well as veterans since MDMA has also been used in treating treatment-resistant PTSD. A study at Imperial College London found that “When MDMA was used in a two-session psychotherapeutic treatment regime, almost all of the people who had previously treatment-resistant PTSD recovered“.
Months before trying MDMA, I smoked weed for the first time, which led to me eventually becoming a daily smoker. I liked the way it made things calmer, and slower. I focus better while I’m high. Ever since I’ve been in college I’ve gone to class high, because I know I will learn more, and be able to process the information being given to me better due to the way weed clears my mind and stops my anxiety. However, to an everyday onlooker in a world that uses weed to criminalize (mostly Black) people, which I am not, I know as a student and employee I seem lazy and unfocused rather than a person using weed to treat my mental illness and the daily pain from my chronic illness.
This is the opposite of how people view the use of prescription drugs such as Ritalin or Adderall for focusing. In a 2015 study conducted in Germany in which 30 people previously known to have ADHD switched from Ritalin or Adderall to using only weed to treat their ADHD, 22 out of the 30 chose to continue using weed to treat their ADHD. There are other negatives to these study drugs other than them not working as well as cannabis. Emergency room visits related to ADHD stimulants tripled between 2005 and 2010, from 5,212 visits to 15,585 visits. But in many of these cases, the hospital trips weren’t caused by using ADHD drugs as a study aid. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 90% of college who use ADHD drugs without a prescription almost admitted to binge drinking and that one-third reported taking these stimulants to stay awake to party.
This is also different than the way that the American Government views weed. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) decided in 2016 that weed will stay a class one substance, putting it in the same category as heroin, LSD, ecstasy, and magic mushrooms in the Controlled Substance Act. This act states that schedule one drugs are fit into the categories of having a “high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision”. The other 4 classes and drugs that fall under them are defined by the Food and Drug Administration as:
- Schedule II: cocaine, meth, oxycodone, Adderall, Ritalin, and Vicodin
( A ) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
( B ) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions.
( C ) Abuse of the drug or other substances may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.
- Schedule III: Tylenol with codeine, ketamine, anabolic steroids, and testosterone
( A ) The drug or other substance has a potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in schedules I and II.
( B ) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
( C ) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.
- Schedule IV: Xanax, Soma, Darvocet, Valium, and Ambien
( A ) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.
( B ) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
( C ) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.
- Schedule V: Robitussin AC, Lomotil, Motofen, Lyrica, and Parepectolin
( A ) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule IV.
( B ) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
( C ) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule IV.
These schedules are mostly based on whether or not the drug has medical value based on large-scale clinical trials, like most other prescription or over-the-counter medications. For this reason, it makes sense in a governmental stance that heroin is a schedule 1 drug. Heroin throughout history has been used as a pain reliever, however, there are risks of dangerous abuse, addiction, and overdose. When you compare this to weed, a plant that has helped not only me but many of my friends and millions of other people across the world with medical and psychological ailments as well as being nearly impossible to overdose on, the math just doesn’t add up. This is similar to LSD, which is non-addictive, similarly difficult to overdose on as weed, and has also helped me and loads of other people sort through things in their minds, or honestly just have a fun trippy time.
It doesn’t make sense that these drugs are on the same schedule, and in turn have the same legal repercussions. In Pennsylvania, a person who is found possessing a schedule one drug can face up to a year in jail (possibly for a felony), a fine of up to $5,000, and a driver's license suspension of 6 months for the first offense. Incarceration also brings with it issues in other areas of their life such as finding work or losing custody of children, as well as causing PTSD in many of those incarcerated. This does not make sense for drug users and is a truly dangerous way of combatting drug use in a country where police often racially profile people and can change or take a person’s entire life because they find them in possession of a substance.
When the war on drugs was initiated in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, it was based mostly on the morality of the country and the prejudices that exist against people who take drugs. It isn’t really rooted in how these drugs affect people, but rather how they affect the way that Americans see other Americans, and how America is seen. It was a way to fight against counterculture movements and the very way that people thought by escalating police presence on drug-related crimes and putting fear into the hearts of Americans that they would lock them away — and they will not be given access to treatment.
We need to decriminalize all drug use, once and for all. Turning drug users into criminals will never solve drug problems, only fill prisons with people who are often there for a victimless crime, or committed a crime in order to support their families, oftentimes by selling an herb that is legal in many states and countries. If we want to decrease drug use, we cannot continue to use the same outdated tactics. Attempting to destroy the drug trade, as the war on drugs sought to do, has only made drug prices go down. It is as simple as supply and demand. Once one drug cartel is defeated, another will fill its place. That is why drug laws should be based on treatment and treatment alone. For instance, take a recently incarcerated drug user in Philadelphia. The Center for American Promise states that “In the first two weeks after their release from prison, individuals are almost 13 times more likely to die than the general population. The leading cause of death among recently released individuals is an overdose. During that period, individuals are at a 129 percent greater risk of dying from an overdose than the general public”. This is dangerous because if they survive the withdrawal in prison (which many people do not, such as the veteran in the below video), when it is over they will be going right back to having nothing but heroin to fall back on.
If America devoted itself to decriminalizing drug use, this would be a different story. This person would not be going to prison, but rather to a safe and comfortable treatment center. Rather than spending $7.6 billion between 2002 and 2014 in Afghanistan in a failed attempt to crack down on poppy crops, America should be spending our money on safe injection sites such as one proposed in Kensington where users could use in a safe environment with new needles (stopping the transmission of blood-borne diseases such as HIV) as well as in the company of trained medical staff who can save their lives from overdose with the overdose reversal drug Naloxone. Ronda Goldfein, the vice president and co-founder of Safehouse agrees with me, stating that “If you find a place that accepts the fact that you’re going to be consuming drugs and still offers you services in a non-judgmental way, you’re going to start to trust them, and once there’s a trust relationship, you’re more inclined to accept the range of treatment they’re offering, which includes recovery”. Users that use these sites would be much better off there than taking these drugs on the streets where death is everywhere and recovery is unobtainable. The same kind of people that support the war on drugs are against this safe house, such as the Trump administration who sued the group attempting to open the safehouse, citing laws that make it illegal to own a property where drugs are used. If all drugs were decriminalized, this would not be an issue, and many fewer people would die. If police, who are often the first on the scene of an overdose were trained on how to use naloxone and were provided with the life-saving drug to use on overdosed people, many fewer people would die. As a country, we cannot continue to think that criminalizing drug use and users is helping anyone but those who are afraid of the very people their laws are killing.
Criminalizing drugs is not cheap. The amount of money the government spends trying to keep America drug-free is startling. 1.6 million people are arrested each year on a drug law violation. The war on drugs has cost America an estimated $1 trillion since its start. This includes $9.2 million every day spent incarcerating people charged with drug-related offenses, totaling $3.3 a year. Black people are six times more likely to be arrested for weed possession than white people, and make up 80% of people serving time for drug-related offences, which makes perfect sense when you look at the 13th amendment, which does not make slavery illegal but rather makes it legal to use prisoners and felons as slaves. This feeds the prison industrial complex, which uses slave labor to make goods to be sold inside and outside of America with huge profit margins.
One way in which America is stepping in the right direction on drug criminalization is the use of drug courts for people found breaking a drug based law. These court programs support offenders by offering them support services and treatment rather than incarceration. This has shown through long-term studies to be greatly successful, “A national evaluation of drug courts found that participants were 26 percent less likely to report substance use after completing the program than individuals processed through traditional judicial systems. 53 Drug court participants were also less likely than nonparticipants to report unmet educational, employment, and financial service needs”. Some issues exist with this program as well, such as low completion rates that are linked back to a lack of necessary support for offenders.
Although a good step, true decriminalization is what I believe we need in America to ensure drug users are treated fairly and to decrease drug use long-term. Some critics of decriminalization say that it would cause drug use to increase, however, this has been shown to be untrue. Portugal decriminalized all drug use in 2001 to combat large scale HIV/AIDS transmission. Glenn Greenwald, an attorney and author conducted a report in 2009 of the results of this decriminalization with the Cato Institute which showed the many successes of the decriminalization. Greenwood states in this report that “by freeing its citizens from the fear of prosecution and imprisonment for drug usage, Portugal has dramatically improved its ability to encourage drug addicts to avail themselves of treatment. The resources that were previously devoted to prosecuting and imprisoning drug addicts are now available to provide treatment programs to addicts”. The report also found a decrease in the use of many drugs, such as weed and heroin, as well as staggering 17% drop in HIV infection rates and a more than 50% drop in drug-related deaths. By putting people, public health, and healing first, this humanist approach has proven to save lives.
I chose to research this topic because I am an active drug user. It would be unfair for me to not speak on the ways that decriminalization would help me in my own personal use. As a college student who often uses weed, party drugs, and psychedelics, decriminalization would benefit me and other people like me who use drugs to treat medical and psychological illnesses or just enjoy using drugs for the experience. I believe that people should have ownership over their bodies, being free to use whatever substances that they wish to no matter the physical or social repercussions. What is important is that if a person does try a drug and becomes addicted or has other negative effects that they have access to treatment without the fear of persecution, in order to ensure that they are safe and can lead a healthy, productive life.
America has proven time and time again to not really be the home of the free. Historically, there have always been unfair and oppressive laws in every realm of American society, from redlining to the literal sale of human beings for unpaid labor. What I am asking isn’t for revolution (yet) but rather a revolutionary new way for our government to treat its citizens as human beings, with dignity, respect, and liberty for all.
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