Everything Americans Think They Know About Drugs
Is Wrong: A Scientist Explodes the Myths
Columbia University scientist Carl Hart combines
research and anecdotes from his life to explain
how false assumptions have created a disastrous drug policy.
June 13, 2013
What many Americans, including many scientists,
think they know about drugs is turning out to be
totally wrong. For decades, drug war propaganda
has brainwashed Americans into blaming drugs for
problems ranging from crime to economic
deprivation. In his new book High Price: A
Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That
Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and
Society, Carl Hart blows apart the most common
myths about drugs and their impact on society,
drawing in part on his personal experience
growing up in an impoverished Miami neighborhood.
Hart has used marijuana and cocaine, carried
guns, sold drugs, and participated in other petty
crime, like shoplifting. A combination of what he
calls choice and chance brought him to the Air
Force and college, and finally made him the first
black, tenured professor of sciences at Columbia University.
Intertwined with his story about the struggles of
families and communities stressed by lack of
capital and power over their surroundings is
striking new research on substance use. Hart uses
his life and work to reveal that drugs are not
nearly as harmful as many think. For example,
most people who use the most “addicting” drugs do
not develop a problem. Rather, Hart says, drugs
are scapegoated for problems related to poverty.
The policies that result from this misconception
are catastrophically misguided. AlterNet spoke
with Hart about his life and research.
Kristen Gynne: What are some of the false
conclusions about drugs you are challenging?
Carl Hart: There are multiple false conclusions.
There is a belief, for example, that crack
cocaine is so addictive it only took one hit to
get hooked, and that it is impossible to use
heroin without becoming addicted. There was
another belief that methamphetamine users are
cognitively impaired. All of these are myths that
have have been perpetuated primarily by law
enforcement, and law enforcement deals with a
limited, select group of peoplepeople who are,
in many cases, behaving badly. But to generalize
that to all drug users is not only shortsighted
and naive, it’s also irresponsible. The impact of
that irresponsible behavior has been borne
primarily by black communities. Nobody really
cares about black communities, and that's why
this irresponsible behavior has been allowed to continue.
It's also true that we've missed critical
opportunities to challenge our basic assumptions
about drugs. If drugs really were as damaging as
we are led to believe, a respectable society
should do something to address that problem. But
the thing is, the very assumptions driving our
drug policy are wrong, and must be questioned.
KG:How does the lack of people of color in
academia or research affect our understanding of drugs?
CH: I'd just like to be clear, I don't say people
of color, I say black people, because people of
color can mean a number of other [races]. I'm
talking about black people who, like me, when we
go back to our communities and we ask about
people who we grew up with, the response is,
"Well, they got caught up with a drug charge,
they're upstate. They're doing some time” or,
“Oh, he's doing better now that he got out of
jail. He can't really find a good job, but he's doing his best.”
It would be nice if we had black scientists, more
black people in science, to incorporate these
kinds of experiences as they think about the
questions they investigate. The problem is it’s
so homogenous that critical questions about our
community are ignored because they're not seen as being important.
KG:And the result is that they don't comprehend
environment, or the other variables that are
affecting someone's decisions or behavior, and miss the mark?
CH: That's exactly right. It's that if you don't
contextualize what is happening with drugs in the
country you might get the impression that drugs
are so bad they're causing all these people to go
to jail: “Let's find out how drugs are exerting
these awful effects.” Now, you have just
completely disregarded context in which all of
these things occur, and that is what has happened
in science. If you don't fully appreciate the
context, and you think that drug users are awful,
then you don't think about how a person takes
care of their kid, takes care of their family,
goes to work, but they also use drugs. If you
don't think about all of those contextual
factors, you limit the picture and that's what we've done.
It's not that science lies. Science doesn't lie.
But when you look at your research with a limited
view, you may erroneously draw conclusions about
drugs, when in fact other variables you might not
understand are what's really at play.
KG:You talk about how people are always blaming
problems on drugs, when those issues really
spring from the stress of poverty. What are some examples?
CH: I think crack cocaine is the easiest
example In the 1980s, as I was coming of age in
my teens and my early 20s, peopleblack people,
white folks, a number of people in the
countrysaid crack was so awful it was causing
women to give up their babies and neglect their
children such that grandmothers had to raise another generation of children.
Now, if you look at the history in poor
communitiesmy community, my familylong before
crack ever hit the scene, that sort of thing
happened in my house. We were raised by my
grandmother. My mother went away because she and
my father split up. She went away in search of
better jobs and left the state, but it wasn't
just her. This sort of thing, this pathology that
is attributed to drugs, happened to immigrant
communities like the Eastern European Jews when
they came to the Lower East SIde, but people
simply blamed crack in the 1980s and the 1990s.
Another example is that, since the crack era,
multiple studies have found that the effects of
crack cocaine use during pregnancy do not create
an epidemic of doomed black "crack babies."
Instead, crack-exposed children are growing up to
lead normal lives, and studies have repeatedly
found that the diferences between them and babies
who were not exposed cannot be isolated from the
health effects of growing up poor, without a
stable, safe environment or access to healthcare.
KG:What about the idea that drugs can turn people into criminals?
CH: The pharmalogical effects of drugs rarely
lead to crime, but the public conflates these
issues regardless. If we were going to look at
how pharmalogical drugs influence crime, we
should probably look at alcohol. We know
sometimes people get unruly when they drink, but
the vast majority of people don't. Certainly, we
have given thousands of doses of crack cocaine
and methamphetamine to people in our lab, and
never had any problems with violence or anything
like that. That tells you it's not the
pharmacology of the drug, but some interaction
with the environment or environmental conditions,
that would probably happen without the drug.
Sure, new markets of illegal activity are often
or sometimes associated with increased violence,
or some other illegal activity, but it is not
specific to drugs like people try to make it out to be.
Other than crime, you have myths that drugs cause
cognitive impairment, make people unable to be
productive members of society, or tear families
apart. If the vast majority of people are using
these drugs without problemsand a smaller
proportion of users do have problemswhat that
tells you if you're thinking critically is it
can't be only the drug, or mainly the drug. It
tells you it is something about the individual
situations, environmental conditions, a wide range of factors.
KG:What about addiction? Won't some people who
use drugs inevitably become dependent on drugs?
CH: Given the large percentage of people who are
not addicted and try these drugs, it's something
other than the pharmacology of the drugs that's
causing addiction. We find that 85% of the
people, for example, who use cocaine are not
addicted, even though they use the same
cosmetological substance as those who are.
Somebody could say there may be something
biologically predisposing people who get
addicted, but there is no evidence to support
that position. Certainly, that idea should be
investigated, but there is far more evidence to
support the view that there are other things
going in the lives of people who are predisposed
to addiction, that can predict their addiction as well as other problems.
KG:What kinds of environmental factors matter?
CH: Well, let's think about drug use. Drug
effects are predictable, and some drugs are
really good at increasing euphoria and feelings
of positive reinforcement. Now, if you don't have
anything competing with drugs for pleasure and
happiness, all you have is deprivation. Why wouldn't you get high?
If you have competing reinforcers or
alternatives, like the ability to earn income,
learn a skill, or receive some respect based on
your performance in some sort of way, those
things compete with potentially destructive
behavior. And so as a psychologist, you just want
to make sure people have a variety of potential
reinforcers. If you don't have that, you increase
the likelihood of people engaging in behaviors that society does not condone.
Skills that are employable or marketable,
education, having a stake or meaningful role in
society, not being marginalizedall of those
things are very important. Instead of ensuring
that all of our members have these things, our
society has blamed drugs, said drugs are the
reasons that people don't have a stake in society, and that's simply not true.
KG:So if drugs aren't the problem, why do we say they are?
CH: They’re just an easy scapegoat. You can
imagine if so few people have engaged in an
activity, you can make up some incredible stories
about that activity, and be believed. And that's
what's happened with drugs. Note that you can't
make up those incredible stories about marijuana
today, but there was a time when we could: the
1930s. That has passed because more people have
tried marijuana, but you can make up those
incredible stories about methamphetamine because
so few people have used methamphetamine.
Well, I should say so few people actually know
that they use methamphetamine. All those people
who use Adderall and those kinds of drugs, they
are using methamphetamine, basically. It is the
amphetamine, not the "D" [like Adderall] or
"meth" in front of it, that creates the effects.
KG:What is actually responsible for problems often linked to drugs?
CH: Poverty. And there are policies that have
played a role, too. Policies like placing a large
percentage of our law enforcment resources in
those communities, so that when people get
charged with some petty crime, they have a
blemish on their record that further decreases
their ability to join mainstream, get a job
that's meaningful, and that sort of thing.
The policy decisions that we make play a far
bigger role than the drugs themselves. When I
turned 14, for example, there was a federal
government program that, in order to keep kids
like me out of the streets, gave us jobs. Under
these federal government programs, we had money
for the summer, for clothingit was great. When
we cut these types of programs and kids have
nowhere to go what do you expect to happen? It
doesn't take rocket scientists to figure this out.
Now, I have an 18-year-old who, this summer,
won't have anything to do. I'm trying to find him
some sort of work. Having a federal government
program for underpriveleged children, that was
great. That let kids know that the society might
care about you. We teach them work skills, we
teach them something about responsibility, we
make sure they have money in their pockets. Now,
you take away all of this, and you miss the
chance to teach them about responsibility. You
miss the opportunity to help them put food on the
table, to put clothes on their backs.
KG:In your acknowledgements, you thank Aid to
Families with Dependent Children, which you call "welfare as we once knew it."
CH: All of my childhood, we were on welfare. My
mom received aid for families with dependent
childrenwelfare. Without that, we wouldn't have
had subsidized housing. Most of my childhood we
had a two-bedroom apartment, but eventually we
got into the projects, where we had four bedrooms. That was great.
We got food stamps that helped make sure we had
something to eat, even though it was little.
Without that program, I wouldn't have developed
physically. There would have been a lot more stress in the household.
Now, the interesting thing about it is that all
of my sibling were all on that program because of
my mom, and all of my siblings now have jobs and
they're responsible, taxpaying citizens. That's
the typical story on that program, but the
conservatives, under Reagan, they began to
perpetuate this narrative of the welfare queen,
when in fact, we know who the biggest welfare
kings are: the people on Wall Street. The federal
government gives far money to them than to poor
families, but welfare became so villified that we essentially got rid of it.
KG:How does institutional racism affect policy?
In your book, you talk about how crack, which is
pharmacologically almost identical to cocaine, is
punished with an 18-1 (and once 100-1) sentencing
disparity because of racially coded language
linking the "crack scourge" to bad behavior in
poor, black communities. There was also a recent
ACLU report, which found that blacks are an
average of four times more likely to be arrested for pot than whites.
CH: I often testify as an expert witness to help
women who have used marijuana while pregnant to
keep their children. Case after case is a black
woman. Security in the court is all black; the
judges are all white; and the lawyers are young
and white, building careers. It's just slavery all over again.
When you have a group that’s already identified
as an “other,” or a villified group that is a
minority, it's easier to associate a behavior
with them. But people don't see black people as
being fully human. That’s what happens in the US,
although people won't tell you that.
Because when we think about Trayvon Martin, when
we think about Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, these
black kids who were killed at the hands of some
security or law enforcement personthat almost
never happens with white kids. If it did, it
would be a national crises. But it's not a
national crises because we really don't value
black men and boys in the same way we value white
boys and men. We don't see them as being equal.
I look at how people behave, and it's clear. As
long as you view this group that way, you can
continue to put large percentage of law
enforcement resources in those communities, but
not so much to make them better. If you want to
make it better, you give people jobs. Instead, we
put police in those communities to pretend that
they care, to pretend that you're doing something. But that's not helping.
Whereas drug reactions are predictable,
interactions with police are not and too often
become deadly. As a parent of a black youth, I'd
much rather my kids interact with drugs than law
enforcement. White people don't need to think
about that. Police officers too often see young,
black boys as less than human. It creates a
mentality where black kids are supposed to "know
your place," and it affects your psyche.
Indignities become part of who you are.
KG:How is meth changing this conversation?
CH: Meth is the new crack. It is the same thing
as Adderall, but we are told it causes people's
faces and teeth to decay. There is no evidence to
suggest meth alone, versus poor hygiene, makes
people look ugly. At the same time, because most
people who use or arrested for meth are white
peoplepoor of course, people we don't likeit
creates an opportunity to say the drug war is not racist.
In Montana, they have invested in sentencing
alternatives, like a maximum one-year sentence
and treatment, for meth users. Could you imagine
that happening with crack cocaine? Hell no. It's
interesting because, with meth, we are doing our
job, trying to seek alternatives to help people.
Still, in some places, like Oklahoma, they're still locking white people up.
KG:In your book, it seems as though you feel some
guilt for being successful, as if you have
abandoned your community. How has your life changed?
CH: In terms of where I'm at now, I have money
and I don't have to worry about where my next
meal is coming from, so that's a really good
thing. Whereas, when I was an adolescent, it was
a good day if I ate two meals. Now, I expect to
eat three meals, and that sort of thing. But, on
the other hand, when I think about family,
friends andthat sort of thing, it was a lot
better where I was previously because you knew
where everyone stood, you knew everyone had your
back, you didn't have to worry about people
backstabbing you or trying to go after you for a
variety of reasons. Mainly, you were just being
who you arethat's one of the things I bring with me from the past.
Whether I am there or here, I have this sense of
community responsibility and I hope that will
always be with with me. When it's no longer with
me, perhaps it's time to die.
KG:How do you navigate two different cultures?
CH: That's very difficult, because I deal in
mainstream and my family, they don't as much. Not
only do I deal in mainstream society, I deal in
mainstream as a fucking professor at Columbia.
Now, when I take that mask off to go home, and it
takes me a few days to acclimate, to be like OK,
I'm no longer in the shark pit, I can relax, and
relax my vernacular. And then I have to leave again.
So, my family might see this Columbia
personality, and they may take it as a personal
affront. I feel like a fraud, oftentimes, at
home, but it has nothing to do with how I feel
about my family. It's just that I'm catching hell
in the mainstream. In the mainstream, I’m suspect
because I’m black, I have dreadlocks, I have a
goatee. I mean, I'm just suspect. In my classroom
and at Columbia, I'm not as suspect because it's
clear I know what I'm doing, but I am still
suspect. And people are curious; they don’t know
that I have the same dreams and aspirations as
they do. They think that I may be different somehow.
This sort of issue would be a fascinating topic
for research, particularly when we think about
physical health or mental health, and how it
manifests. But that will never be approved by
National Institute of Health, because it's not of
interest to white researchers. These are just
things that I have to live my life with.
KG:How does this book adress your experience in academia and black America?
CH: I speak the language of both. And as a
result, I think it speaks to both. And I’m hoping
in the process, maybe along the way, the people
who are back home, whose stories I'm trying to
share, will see themselves in my story. And the
people in my mainstreamI'm trying to help them see themselves in my story.
At some point, I just hope that it merges, that
they see we're not that different. We have the
same hopes and dreams and aspirations. The
expression of those hopes and dreams may be
slightly different but we are very similar. That's what I'm hoping.
KG:What would policy that reflects reality look like, and how do we get there?
CH: That is complex, but quite simple to start.
The first thing is we decriminalize all drugs.
More than 80% of people arrested for drugs are
arrested for simple possession. Wen you
decriminalize, now you have that huge number of
peoplewe're talking 1.5 million people arrested
every yearthat no longer have that blemish on
their record. That increases the likelihood that
they can get jobs, participate in the mainstream.
Number two is dramatically increase realistic
education about drugsnone of this "this is your
brain on drugs" stuff, but real education, which
looks like making sure people understand effects
of drugs they're using, particularly potentially
medical affects. Don't use heroin with another
sedative because it increases the likelihood of
respiratory depression. Realistic education,
telling people what to do, how to prevent
negative effects associated with drugs. We do it
with alcoholyou shouldn't binge drink, don't
drink on an empty stomachand could do it with other drugs.
Kristen Gwynne is an associate editor and drug
policy reporter at AlterNet. Follow her on
Twitter: <https://twitter.com/kristengwynne>@KristenGwynne
http://www.alternet.org/drugs-addiction?paging=off
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