First published February 23, 2005, in the Chicago Free
Press.
Here's a cure for all your troubles.
Here's an end to all distress.
It's the Old Dope Peddler
With his powdered hap-pi-ness.
- Tom Lehrer, "The Old Dope Peddler"
Those of us who do not do drugs, and we are the majority, are
getting pretty sick and tired of drugs - and more sick and tired of
drug users. Get a life, guys - a real life, not an
illusory one.
Drugs are not like food. They do not add any new nourishment or
capacities to the body. They produce nothing that was not already
there. Nor do they add any new or additional awareness or
perceptiveness, or sensitivity, or energy, or erotic desire. What
they do is generate the illusion of these things by inhibiting
cognitive functions that compete with or limit or regulate these
responses as they occur.
They do that by temporarily distorting body and brain chemistry,
primarily by reducing or forcing an excess of chemical signals the
brain and body use to monitor and maintain normal, effective
functioning, different chemicals depending on the drug, which is
why drugs have different effects.
Eventually the body calls a halt to the disruption, shuts down,
and struggles to repair itself and return to normal operation. That
is why for every high there is a crash, just as deep a down as the
high was high. And trying to stave off the crash by doing more
drugs makes the ultimate crash all the deeper.
Drugs do not create "addiction." That is to say, drugs cannot
force people to take more drugs. People take drugs because they
want to, often want to very much. Some people find the absence of a
drug unpleasant, even very painful, but it is they who make the
choice to take more drugs.
Similarly, drugs don't make people do stupid or dangerous
things. That is another evasion. What drugs do is enable
people to do stupid or dangerous or destructive or violent or even
murderous things. Enable, not make. Sometimes people say,
"It was drugs." No. It was the person.
To repeat: Drugs do not add anything to a person that was not
already there. They do not insert some foreign personality. All
they can do is take away some of what makes a person fully human by
inhibiting the higher brain functions people normally rely on for
self-control and good judgment.
We are evolved creatures. Our animal ancestors had simple and
immediate desires and responses - hunger, fear, anger, sexual
desire. Only gradually did our pre-human ancestors evolve a
cerebrum with cognitive capacities for thinking, judging,
self-awareness, and an ability to foresee consequences and choose
prudently among alternative behaviors. But those newer capacities
did not replace the earlier responses; they only limited and
channeled them.
When drugs distort or eliminate some of those cognitive controls
humans have developed over their immediate desires and emotional
reactions, people respond more readily to those primal emotions and
impulses - engaging in heedless, destructive (and self-destructive)
behavior.
The evidence is all around us.
I have seen intelligent men so high on drugs that they could
only grunt and point instead of talk, who could barely function
while their jobs went to hell. I have known drug users who, over
time, seemed to lose 30 I.Q. points and all mental acuity -
permanently.
I know of men high on coke or meth who have climbed into slings
at parties and let themselves be fucked by anyone who came along or
who pressed their greased butts against glory holes. A New York
meth user recently reported to have a fast-developing strain of HIV
acknowledged having some 300 sex partners in previous weeks. Just
as likely, drugs debilitated his immune response.
In Chicago, a gay man reported to have a crystal meth "problem"
was in a dispute with a cab driver over a small fare, proceeded to
run over the driver with his own cab, backed over him again, then
drove forward over him yet again, sped off, crashed into parked
cars, and jumped into another cab to escape. Some "problem"!
In short, drugs are dangerous: For many, they enable destructive
behavior. For others, drugs sap time, money, energy, and a sense of
purpose that could be put to productive, self-actualizing projects.
And drugs weaken our efforts to build an attractive, vibrant, and
responsible gay community by depriving us all of the contributions
those people could make. If I were a homophobic zealot, I would be
out on the streets selling drugs to gay men every night I
could.
Criminalizing drugs has wrought damage to our country and legal
system and has not even worked. But I have no sympathy for drug
users and no sympathy when they do destructive and self-destructive
things. They chose to do drugs; they chose to put themselves in
that condition. Drug use should never be an excuse: It should be
viewed as an aggravating circumstance and drug-enabled actions
should be judged all the more severely.
Drug users need to start acting like adult human beings. They
are not victims, they are perpetrators. And they are a drain on our
community.