Pubdate: Wed, 22 Dec 1999
Source: Ha'aretz (Israel) English Edition
Copyright: Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. 1999
Contact:  (c) Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. 1999
Fax: 03-5121156
Website: http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/
Author: Orna Coussin

WHY KEEP OFF THE GRASS, WHEN YOU CAN HAVE PROZAC INSTEAD?

Is There A Fundamental Difference - Morally, And In Terms Of The Harm They
Cause - Between Illegal Drugs And Legal Ones, Such As Alcohol, Nicotine And
Prozac? The Question Is Being Seriously Debated In The United States.

A biting article in the latest issue of the prestigious American Harper's
magazine asked its readers to note "How the war on drugs strangles your Bill
of Rights." The article, part of an ongoing debate in recent years in U.S.
publications, questions accepted concepts on drugs, pointing to several
absurd aspects in the distinction between legal and illegal substances. "The
'war on drugs' began as a rhetorical flourish used by Richard Nixon to
contrast his tough stand on crime with LBJ's 'war on poverty,'" write
Harper's Graham Boyd and Jack Hitt. "But as the Reagan, Bush and Clinton
administrations poured billions of dollars into fighting drugs, the slogan
slipped the reins of metaphor to become just a plain old war - with an army
(DEA), an enemy (profiled minorities, the poor, the cities), a budget ($17.8
billion), and a shibboleth (the children)." This is a blind war, argue the
writers, and like all wars has no real victors - other than war
industrialists.

The state of Israel also invests large sums in this war - NIS 250 million a
year, according to Shamai Golan, spokesperson for the Anti-Drug Authority -
and just like in the United States, it was at the height of this war, during
the 1990's, that an illegal drug culture has developed in Israel,
flourishing more than ever before. More and more Israelis roll joints at
home, take Ecstasy pills at clubs, and use cocaine or heroin at parties to
relax, to feel happy or to cut themselves off for a short while from harsh
realities. According to a survey conducted by the Anti-Drug Authority,
250,000 Israelis aged 12-40 use illegal drugs at varying degrees of
frequency, and their share in the population has been steadily rising in the
past decade.

But the critics note that side-by-side with this there is also a flourishing
legal drug culture, sanctioned by the state. These drugs are designed to
cause the exact same affects: To help one relax, feel happy or cut off for a
while from harsh realities. In just one year, from September 1998 to
September 1999, for example, the private sales turnover of anti-depressant
Prozac-style mediation in Israel (not including most of the sales, at the
HMOs) was over NIS 31.5 million (according to data processed by IMS Health,
a company that supplies information to the pharmaceutical industry, based on
a sample of 140 privately owned pharmacies across the country).

The Anti-Drug Authority, set up in 1989, states that it "strives to create a
social-political-public climate that will view the use of drugs as a mark of
shame and condemn those who use them." The authority's latest campaign,
which appealed to parents on billboards and TV screens, asking them: "How
will you know if it's your child?" recently ended and is to be replaced in
several months with a new campaign, against the thriving Ecstasy culture at
local clubs. Currently, an educational bus is driving between various youth
hang-outs trying to persuade youngsters not to use drugs.

The Anti-Drug Authority's intentions are undoubtedly good, and there is a
lot of work to be done. The organization's spokesperson says that drugs
prescribed by doctors - such as Prozac and Ritalin - are of course not part
of its battle, and alcohol is also off limits. Its struggles are focused
only against the use of illegal substances - such as marijuana and Ecstasy -
judged by the state to be worthy of condemnation.

But why is Prozac permitted and marijuana forbidden? Why are chemical
anti-depressants a medication, those taking them considered upright citizens
who are only alleviating their emotional pain, while natural drugs such as
marijuana are illegal substances, and those taking them are considered
dangerous criminals? What is the fundamental - moral - difference between
the two? And whom does this distinction between "good" and "bad" drugs
serve? These queries divert the debate from the question of whether or not
the war on drugs is effective, to the question of whether it is justified,
moral and necessary.

The following points are raised for consideration by the writers of these
articles: People have always - in different cultures and different periods -
sought to ease their daily burden by taking tranquillising substances and
substances that offer alternative perceptions of reality. Governments, too,
have been concerned by different substances at different times: 17th century
England was concerned over the effects of coffee, while Prohibition in the
United States forbade the consumption of alcohol in the early part of the
20th century. In all cultures there were also many not concerned at all with
the consumption of substances that influence the mind.

The substances forbidden today, argue the critics, are not necessarily more
addictive than the legal ones. Marijuana smokers do not become physically
addicted to it (this fact is not disputed even by the Anti-Drug Authority),
while heroin users, cigarette smokers, alcohol drinkers and those who take
anti-depressant medication and tranquillisers can become physically addicted
to these substances.

The distinction between legal and illegal drugs is also not based on the
degree of physical harm they cause: Excessive consumption of alcohol,
everyone agrees, is more harmful to the body than excessive consumption of
marijuana. In fact, excessive consumption of any drug - including Prozac and
Ritalin on the one hand, and cocaine, on the other hand, is harmful. People
have also, for example, died of using Viagra, and many have lost their
sexual desire due to taking Prozac.

The division between legal and illegal substances is also not directly
linked to the level of danger they themselves pose to public safety.
Alcoholic drunks are much more violent than marijuana smokers. The
newspapers have not carried any reports recently, for example, about youths
beating up a peer for no other reason than because they smoked a joint.

In all the above mentioned aspects - danger to society, harm to the health
of the consumers themselves and their ability to control the amounts they
consume - there is therefore no clear-cut distinction between those drugs
deemed legal and those categorized as illegal. But there are several points
that differentiate between the two groups. For example, the legal substances
produced by the pharmaceutical industry create seemingly docile people,
quiet students, obedient workers and disciplined citizens. The outlawed
substances - such as LSD and marijuana - are linked to a culture of social
criticism, creativity, and rejection of the bourgeois order and culture of
consumption.

And there is one more distinct difference: The legal drugs - including
alcohol, tobacco and medication such as Prozac and Ritalin - are produced by
western conglomerates. When states choose, for the good of their citizens,
to minimize the harm caused by the substances these conglomerates produce,
they at the very most limit their consumption to adults, or to restricted
areas, or levy fines on the corporations (in the tobacco industry) and
collect taxes from them (in the alcohol industry). But under no
circumstances do they outlaw them, even when the corporations use similar or
identical chemicals to those outlawed.

The writers of these articles also point out that all the information we
receive about the legal drugs comes from the pharmaceutical industry that
manufactures them, and is a clearly interested party. We therefore have no
way of judging how much harm these drugs really cause (the Israeli Health
Ministry and health maintainance organizations will not even give out
statistics on the scope of consumption of Prozac-type drugs in Israel).

The critics propose rethinking the entire field of drugs: Perceiving it as
an integral part of human culture; sifting out the really dangerous
substances and supervising their marketing, just as one supervises the
marketing of any other legal consumption product; making a clear distinction
between protecting minors and adults' free choice; denouncing the violent
and dangerous, whether they use drugs or not; helping those who have
difficulties functioning in society, whether their hardships manifest
themselves in drug use or not; warning against the dangers of excessive
consumption of various substances such as cigarettes, coffee, alcohol,
chocolate, heroin, marijuana, Prozac and Ecstasy - and then leaving people
to chose for themselves how to use this information for their own good.
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