Drug Addicts Are Human Beings, The Story of Our Billion Dollar Drug Racket! How We Created It and How We Can Wipe it Out by Henery Smith Williams, M.D., B.Sc., LL.D. was published in 1938. I encourage everyone to read it, it can be downloaded at no cost by following the link at the bottom of the page. It isn't an easy read, but it's worth it.
Dr. Williams quotes a U.S. Treasury Department censuses from 1918 which estimates "habitual users of narcotic drugs" to be over one million. What's striking is that 75% of the estimated million were "engaged in gainful industries of wide range and variety" in other word employed, and many of the remaining 25% were housewives, only a small percentage were what could be described as criminals other than the fact that they possessed narcotics that had been effectively outlawed 4 years earlier. Dr. Williams states that many opiate users had no idea they were addicted, since the drugs were cheap and easy to come by they played a very small role in the minds of the users. They would buy their grains of morphine for pennies at the drug store and go about their day.
In 1914 a million American citizens were transformed almost over night from productive and employed members of society to criminals. Dr. Williams calls the years from 1914 to 1938 "The American Inquisition" though he admits he might have been too kind. The scope of the barbaric and inhumane practices far surpassed anything dreamed of by the Spanish predecessors. His solution is a simple one. Since addiction is time consuming and expensive to treat, with no guarantee of success, far beyond the means of the average person and the drugs were cheap and easy to supply, simply let doctors supply enough of the drug to the affected to remain comfortable and have a normal life. It had worked before, it has worked since, it's working now in methadone clinics across the country but in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary the public and political outcry against these programs limits the good they do.
It is not enough it seems for an addict to be healthy and law abiding. It seems the addicts most unforgivable crime is to exist at all.
Johann Hari in his book Chasing the Scream marks 1914 as the beginning of the drug war, and while war accurately describes the policy started in the United States it is a one sided description. It tells the tale of the governments actions but not how those actions affected the people they were aimed to help. The government waged war, the addicted suffered and died.
1914 was the start of the Drug Holocaust. An estimated 1million people were denied a medication that kept them from becoming terribly ill. The drug was now expensive beyond their means, and difficult to find. Both cost and the time it took to get the drug made it impossible for many to function at a job. Families and communities that were simply low income before became destitute. Legitimate businesses could not be sustained in this environment. The addicts weren't working and what money they did have went to feed their habit. Or they were arrested and made no money at all. Restaurants and shops closed but one business thrived, black market narcotics. The underworld moved in and fought wars with each other,fought wars with the police. The underworld bosses became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, and the addicts suffered and died.
Soon there were no jobs in these communities. Some addicts sold drugs to support their habits. Since there was little taxable income in these communities, public service suffered, the schools declined, teaching the traumatized children of these areas was difficult, and few could do it, fewer still wanted to. Soon the black market nacotics draffted the children in these communities as soldiers and sales people. Law enforcement no longer wanted to police these areas. When they did come there arrival was quick and violent. Gun manufacturers became rich supplying all sides with weapons, and the children of addicts suffered and died.
This was already going on in 1938. Dr. Williams is one of the few voices to speak out against these disastrous policies and while the evidence that he was right was all around the U.S. government not only expanded these policies, they exported them to the world. These policies have destroyed individual addicts, their families, and their communities all over the world. When Michelle Leonhardt was asked for comment on 60,000 Mexican citizen who died in the war on drugs during her time as head of the US Drug Enforcement Agency she called the deaths "a sign of success." At what point do we say enough? At what point do we say that whatever harm drugs cause this supposed remedy is worse? If we stopped the Drug Holocaust today it may take generations to heal the damage that's been done. Yet somehow we still manage to blame the addicts.
There is hope that we will see an end to the Drug Holocaust in our lifetime. We have one thing that Dr. Williams didn't when he wrote that drug addicts were humans, deserving of compassion and care, Portugal. Portugal rejected U.S. Drug Holocaust practices 15 years ago, when following those practices brought the country to its knees. For 15 years Portugal has been treating their addicts rather than waging war on them, and it's worked. There is still drug use in Portugal, but all the problems associated with it, crime, disease, poverty, is down. Portugal has been healing for 15 years, and even the conservative elements in its government don't want to return to the old way of doing things. Recently Frontline did a two hour report on the heroin crisis an in it highlighted a groundbreaking new program for dealing with addicts. There is a growing consensus that we aren't going to shoot and arrest our way out of this problem. But in most of the United States, in much of the world, the old policies continue, and addicts, their families, and their communities suffer and die.
A link to a PDF of Addicts Are Human Beings
Watch Chasing Heroin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chasing-heroin/
More reading on the Drug Holocaust
https://www.thefix.com/content/repairing-damage-war-drugs-will-require-lot-more-legalization
https://www.thefix.com/kofi-annan-war-drugs-more-dangerous-drugs-themselves
http://chasingthescream.com
Oh Thank you, Ken!
ReplyDeleteThis makes so much sense.
I didn't know about Portugal.
I haven't read Chasing the Scream yet.
But I will!
xo
Wendy
Thank you for the kind words. Chasing the Scream comes with my highest possible recommendation. It opened my mind to just how much of what we "know" about addition and how to treat it is a product of the drug war/addict holocaust propaganda and not actually based on research. Many of my ideas for treatment reform were inspired by the book. I own it in digital format for me and I just bought a hard copy to lend to friends in the field.
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