You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (62 page)

It is unknown what threats or concessions were made but two days later Fox made the legislature change
his
bill so that it was “absolutely clear” that drug possession and consumption continue to be crimes in Mexico.
¹⁴³
(Mexico successfully decriminalized drug possession in 2009.)

Since September 11, 2001, a popular question asked by Americans is “Why do they hate us?” United States’ politicians claim foreigners hate America because they are jealous of our freedom, but perhaps they hate America because it denies them their freedom.
¹⁴⁴

The war has continued on all fronts. Plan Colombia is still in effect. In the United States over 850,000 people were arrested for marijuana offenses in 2010.
¹⁴⁵
Fourteen thousand people a year die from overdosing on illegal drugs.
¹⁴⁶
America leads the world in the percentage of its population it locks up,
¹⁴⁷
largely due to its ardent drug prosecution.

The popular artists who are often in the vanguard of eroding taboos still portray drugs, outside of marijuana, as evil. Just as almost all movies and books used to portray people having premarital sex as bad people doomed to destruction, the same is still true of “hard” drugs. Even the few movies that show hard drug users in a nonjudgmental manner still have them die.

Perhaps because the popular media have been such lackeys regarding hard drugs, the government has decided to focus its billion-dollar propaganda on marijuana.
¹⁴⁸
In recent years the following messages have been dramatically displayed in government television advertisements. According to this propaganda, marijuana will cause you to:

These advertisements are so idiotic that it is debatable whether their real target is kids, who can easily see through this crap, or the clueless parents who want their money to go toward the bureaucratic clowns that make these ads.

The deceitful government anti-drugs campaign has a target penetration that Fortune 500 companies dream about. In 2003 the campaign’s broadcast, print, and Internet ads reached about ninety percent of all teens at least four times per week.
¹⁴⁹
This campaign does not even begin to address the ubiquitous propaganda that is now self-propagating after almost a century of government-sponsored disinformation.

This “drugs are bad” mantra is spewed in school curricula and also pitched in “public service” announcements made by companies, community service groups, and celebrities seeking goodwill. A piquant example of this infiltration was when I used a urinal at a district court house in Pennsylvania in 2005 and looked down to discover the rubber splash-guard I was peeing on read “don’t do drugs.”

Despite all of this blather, the drug taboo appears to be weakening. The Internet is allowing more people access to the truth. And just as people’s real-life experiences with alcohol before prohibition made it difficult to sustain the myth of its peril, the same is now occurring with marijuana. Enough of the population has smoked marijuana themselves, or knows people who smoke marijuana, to realize
how comical its demonization is. Despite the federal government’s attempts to force the states into submission, marijuana legalization referendums are inching their way toward success in multiple states.

This trend should continue as the pre-baby-boomers are replaced by generations that have used marijuana. Current senior citizens came of age before its widespread use in the 1960s and therefore have little firsthand knowledge. They were also subject to the most blatantly alarmist propaganda and therefore only know of the drug as something used by Commie-loving hippies.

Unfortunately, the growing perspective on marijuana has not been reflected in so-called “hard” drugs. However, even with the taboo’s current chokehold on hard drugs, the truth is starting to trickle through. Respected economists and other commentators that would never advocate trying an illegal drug are supporting decriminalization and taking a public health approach.

Unlike the assault on the sexual taboo, which was led by artists and the young, it appears that the assault on this taboo may be led by fiscal conservatives and libertarians. If money stops flowing into the government’s anti-drug machine, which out-advertises every argument with poppycock and locks up every drug user that dares show her face, perhaps journalists and other media will start portraying every drug in an honest manner.

1.
        Ronald Siegel,
Intoxication
(2005), pp. 10, 42–44, 50–51, 61–64, 152, 154.

2.
        Ibid., p. 104, and Wairagala Wakabi, ‘“Drunk and Disorderly’ Chimps Attacking Ugandan Children,”
East African
, 9 Feb. 2004.

3.
        Despite four to five holly berries making a full meal, a single robin will eat as many as thirty. Siegel,
Intoxication
, pp. 56–59.

4.
        Wild boars dig up and eat iboga roots, which causes them to jump wildly and go into fits. This is thought to have led people to this African drug. Paul Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
(2001), p. 301.

5.
        Siegel,
Intoxication
, pp. 38, 168.

6.
        Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 6.

7.
        Antonio Escohotado,
Brief History of Drugs
(1999), p. 6.

8.
        Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 20.

9.
        Section on Greeks and Romans from David Hillman’s
The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization
(2008).

10.
      Ibid., p. 87.

11.
      Ibid., p. 221.

12.
      Other less popular modes of ingestion were suppositories (anal and vaginal), snorting, and smoking. Although they did not have cigarettes or pipes they would smoke by fumigation, for example, the ancient Scythians would throw marijuana onto hot rocks to enjoy its effects.

13.
      Jennifer Hecht,
Happiness Myth
(2007), pp. 80–81.

14.
      
Declaration of Independence
(1776).

15.
      Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 33.

16.
      Richard Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
(2002), p. 52.

17.
      Siegel,
Intoxication
, p. 255.

18.
      Ryan Grim,
This is Your Country on Drugs
(2009), p. 19

19.
      Commercial cigarettes now contain .5–2 percent nicotine. Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 192.

20.
      Paragraph from Siegel,
Intoxication
, pp. 254–255.

21.
      Paragraph from James Morone,
Hellfire Nation
(2003), pp. 283–284.

22.
      “When you and your family arrive, spend the money on food for a big celebration. Buy cattle, sheep, goats, wine, beer, and if there are any other kinds of food that you want, buy those too.’’ Deuteronomy 14:26 (CEV).

23.
      Jesus turned water into wine for a wedding celebration, advised his disciples to drink wine in remembrance of him, was criticized as a “winebibber,” and one disciple explicitly described him drinking wine. John 2:7–10, Mark 14:22–24, Matthew 11:19, and John 19:28–30.

24.
      Jim West, “A Sober Assessment of Reformational Drinking.”
Modern Reformation Magazine
, Mar./Apr. 2000, vol. 9.2.

25.
      John Barleycorn was slang for beer and whisky.

26.
      Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 285.

27.
      Nativists wish to protect their culture from immigrants.

28.
      Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 285.

29.
      Ibid., p. 312.

30.
      Ibid., p. 299.

31.
      Ibid., p. 325.

32.
      Ibid.

33.
      Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter,
Drug War Heresies
(2001), pp. 160–161.

34.
      The drinking decrease due to prohibition is debated. Some experts claim its effects were negligible. Ibid., p. 161.

35.
      Ibid., p. 157.

36.
      Richard Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
(2002), p. 239.

37.
      Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 327.

38.
      Remus was purportedly the basis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character, Jay Gatsby, in
The Great Gatsby
(1925).

39.
      Mike Gray,
Drug Crazy
(1998), p. 18.

40.
      Sect. from ibid., pp. 20, 64–67.

41.
      MacCoun,
Drug War Heresies
, p. 160.

42.
      Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 326.

43.
      Sect. largely from ibid., pp. 328–331.