Millions of people do enjoy cocaine occasionally. The trouble is, its illegal and expensive—which is to say, if it were legal and affordable, like cigarettes, it would hardly be a problem at all. Chemically and pharmacologically cocaine is a very close cousin of Ritalin,which we hand out to children by the bushel basket. There are also very close similarities between methamphetamine and tricyclic antidepressants, and between drugs like Vicodin and Heroin.
There is little rational foundation for the drugs we demonize and which we place on the side of the angels. Nicotine is one of the most carcinogenic and addictive substances known, causing over 435,000 deaths a year, while pot has yet to cause even one. The history of our drug laws is one of political opportunism, and the engineering of what sociologists call “moral panics.” Basically, its a form of witch hunting in which politicians and other “moral entrepreneurs” blame the ills of society on a presumed “moral decline” caused by a tiny minority of drug addicts. Drug addicts are then viewed as agents of moral corruption and contagion, and less than human.
Thus, catching and casting out the drug addict thus becomes an important social ritual in which the society symbolically purges its moral anxieties by laying them off on a sacrificial scapegoat. The fact is that tens of millions of people are thoroughly addicted to caffeine and tobacco, and yet they are by no means morally compromised. Nonetheless, we have turned our demonization of drugs into a $50 billion drug enforcement industry, not counting the propagandists and the psychologists who make their living off of generating and then treating people’s fears and anxieties over their addictions.
When you use an illegal drug like cocaine, you are likely to do so only on “special” occasions, at which time, you are likely to binge in an attempt pack as much pleasure as you can into the limited time available. This tends to define your relationship to the drug, so that if it should become more available later, or if you should develop some life problem where you begin using the drug daily, these binging habits tend to follow you. Its not the drug but how you use it that matters. During Prohibition people were no longer able to use beer and wine in moderate daily social use; they had to shift to hard liquor, consumed in furtive circumstances, where people drank to get drunk. Consequently, alcoholism soared during Prohibition and leveled off when Prohibition was repealed.
One of the reasons people do not become all strung out on Ritalin or Wellbutrin is that they tend to take moderate doses as directed; which is to say, in a form where the drug comes on very gradually. Cocaine and methamphetamine go directly to the pleasure centers of the brain, which by itself isn’t a problem. Tens of millions of people drank Coke when it contained cocaine without becoming addicted. Millions of women took amphetamines for weight control in the 1960s and 70s, while tens of millions of men on both sides took it during WW II, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. Very few became addicted because their dosages were low and low-impact, and their usage was situation-specific.
Coke and meth only tend to become problematic when you jackhammer your brain’s pleasure centers with high dosages, or a high-impact mode of delivery, such as snorting, smoking or mainlining. Slamming your brain’s pleasure centers inevitably begins to compete with other sources of pleasure until it subtly and inexorably begins to reorder your life’s priorities. So, if you don’t have much going for you in life, there is a very real danger of it displacing important relationships, work and hobbies. . . if you let it. The horror stories you hear about these two drugs consist almost entirely of binge users going on an extended binges and forgetting to eat, or going psychotic from lack of sleep.
The thing to remember is that you can quit any time you want. The problem is, you may not want to quit, especially if you haven’t got anything better to do. (Prison and other forms of “tough love” are not a “better thing” to do. And neither is compulsory rehab, which is one of the reasons why our drug policy is such an abject failure.) It isn’t difficult to always have something better to do—provided you use your drug of choice in moderation, don’t try to maximize your high every time you binge, and don’t make it the central focus of your day or week. When going through a “rough patch,” like a divorce or losing one’s job, the temptation will be to replace these lost pleasures—or cope with the grief and betrayal—with drugs. Whether you get these drugs from your doctor or on the street is largely a matter of convenience and taste. The thing to keep in mind is that, no matter how bad things get, you can always quit or cut back.
Drug addiction tends to exploit your character defects, but it is not itself a character defect or a moral failing. If you are a procrastinator or a problem-avoider by nature, these will tend to become a part of your drug-taking habits. Don’t’ blame it on the dope. You don’t have to become demoralized and “hit bottom”; you don’t have to totally abstain forever; you don’t have to admit that you are powerless over your addiction; and you don’t have to replace your addiction with a cult like AA or NA. In fact, it is better if you avoid such groups and consider your drug use a lifestyle choice, rather than an illness, a character defect, or a demoralizing condition over which you have no control.
Keep in mind that what most people—especially “reformed” addicts—bandy about as the received wisdom about drug addiction is self-serving, scientifically untested, moralistic bullshit. Addictions are easy to overcome; the hard part is getting to a place where you want to overcome them. This is not to say that there won’t be physical or psychological discomfort while one readjusts, but these are tolerable and doable. Millions of people quit cigarettes every year, and that is more difficult than kicking heroin; so if you can quit smoking, you can quit anything.
One of the best, most ethical, most realistic programs I know of is a “do it yourself” program called Rational Recovery. You might want to take a peek at this in any case, since Rational Recovery offers an eye-opening critique of the moralistic mythology that passes for addiction expertise.
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