Of Science, Social Policy and the War on Drugs

There is a saying I admit to using way too often:

Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts – I Know What I Think!

I used it as a title for a recent post on students and the belief that their writing abilities were disintegrating in the midst of the digital age. Today we take the statement to another level by taking a look at one of our nation’s most significant problems, our expensive war on drugs.

In our discussion we will forgo any debate on whether or not we are winning the war, or as others suggest, the war has already been lost. What we will discuss is the notion of science, the impact of drugs on society and our inability to utilize science to inform public policy.

Basing Policy on Hard Science

First you can count me among the initial Obama supporters. Once upon a time, I had strong hopes that he was going to be the antithesis of our prior leader.

Obama’s intellect, and yes campaign promises, had me believing we might actually begin to make our most important decisions on something other than political rhetoric. I even harbored hopes that the really critical decisions would be made using information gleaned from science.

It began well – there was the initial thrust related to stem cell research. Whether or not the idea should have been or could have been the poster child for the idea that science would rule, the very idea that Obama was stepping beyond this emotionally charged issue to deal with it on a factual level was news that I welcomed.

But alas, we have quickly fallen away from any ongoing intellectual plateau. To get a sense, we turn to Merton Bernstein, Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University, who had this to say about the former issue, stem cells, and the continued focal point of the Obama administration, the push for health care reform:

Science does not permit ideology to foreclose inquiry; it requires facing facts and following where they and logic lead. Hence many cheered when President Barack Obama announced that science is back, that predisposition will no longer be permitted to trump reality. Everyone knew he was talking about stem cell research.

Who could have guessed that the Obama administration and key congressional players would exclude single-payer/Medicare-for-all programs from consideration even though that means ignoring the cost savings of hundreds of billions of dollars in private plans’ nonbenefit costs? Further, administration health experts advertise their focus on avoiding incentives for unnecessary treatment, but pay no mind to the expensive distortions that follow from physicians’ ownership interests in high-cost equipment and services. Odd that the scientific method does not apply to medical care where science should govern.

With that in mind, let us return to the war on drugs notion.

Drugs and Science

It seems that British researchers have studied the harmfulness of twenty of the most popular drugs according to three respective criteria. The study, Development of a Rational Scale to Assess the Harms of Drugs of Potential Misuse, revealed researchers attempting “to arrive at a science-based assessment of the comparative harms of various substances, both licit and illicit.”

Using a scale of 0 to 3 for each area, the researchers assessed the 20 drugs according to physical harm, the risk of dependency, and the subsequent social costs of the drug.

Heroin stood at the top of the list, scoring a total of 8.32 out of a potential 9. Not too surprisingly, the three drugs that follow heroin in negative overall impact are cocaine (6.89), barbiturates (6.24) and street methadone (5.81). Given such data, one can easily begin to see some rationale for making these drugs illegal.

Then comes the kicker, the blow between one’s eyes that makes me refer to that statement, forget the facts, I know what I think. Item number five on the list just so happens to be alcohol. To get just a tad more perspective on the issue we find tobacco number nine on the list, directly after amphetamines.

So, we find that items five and nine on our list just so happen to be legal, while drugs six through eight (ketamine, benzodiazepines, and amphetamines continue to be illegal.

Then, to get a full perspective, we find cannabis at number 11 on the list with a rating of 4.00, LSD 14th with a total impact of 3.68 and anabolic steroids 16th, with a rating of 3.46. Just for our reader’s perspective, we note that numbers 18 through 20 happen to be ecstasy (3.27), alkyl nitrates (2.77) and khat (2.39).

Supporting Science Can Cost You Your Job

To get a sense as to how dangerous today’s political environment is, how as a globe we simply do not want to use science as a basis for decision-making, we turn to Mark Pothier’s recent discussion of the situation involving the U.K.’s top drug adviser.

Seems that folks simply “can’t handle the truth” when it comes to drug policies. Respected scientist, Dr. David Nutt, was recently terminated for his public criticism of the government’s drug laws.

Nutt had the audacity to reiterate the findings that we previously noted. Not only did he offer that alcohol was more hazardous than many substances deemed illegal, he also suggested that the United Kingdom might be “making a mistake in throwing marijuana smokers in jail.”

Pothier summarized the recent termination, noting how quickly we attach adjectives to those who postulate unpopular positions, even if they are based on science:

“The buzz over his sacking has yet to subside: Nutt has become the talk of pubs and Parliament, as well as the subject of tabloid headlines like: ‘Drug advisor on wacky baccy?’”

For his part, Pothier went on to note that Nutt “was fired for saying out loud” what science has already determined:

“Overall, alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. So is tobacco. Smoking pot is less harmful than drinking, and LSD is less damaging yet.”

Pothier also noted that Nutt “didn’t see himself as promoting drug use or trying to subvert the government” but was simply “pressing the point that a government policy, especially a health-related one like a drug law, should be grounded in factual information.”

The Implications for Policy

Of course, the data can be addressed in two distinctly different ways – a hue and cry to criminalize alcohol and tobacco given their destructiveness. Or the more sensible approach would be to rethink the current laws regarding other substances.

Today, collectively, our society tends to match that mindset, don’t confuse me with the facts, I know what I think. For drug laws, what we have is a policy that accepts those that are legal and categorizes those as illegal as dangerous.

Or as Pothier offers from Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA, thus: “the fact that a drug is against the law makes people overestimate its risks” while the legal status of alcohol and tobacco “causes them to underestimate dangers.”

Of course, our previous attempts to outlaw alcohol represented a great example of failed policy. Prohibition led to significant criminal behavior and was a period defined by enormous violence.

One might think we would have learned something from that experience, that we would take a hard look at that period and compare it with the issues being created by our current policy.

Most importantly, as we begin to realize that our resources are truly limited, science would indicate that some rethinking of our current practice just might be in order.

But just imagine what our political machines would do if someone had the audacity to suggest what Nutt recently postulated, that the U.K. policy regarding marijuana is “infantile and embarrassing.”

We certainly could do without the rhetoric Nutt himself offers – such colorful language has consistently undermined our political effort on several other key fronts: stem cell research, health care and global warming to name three.

Instead, we dare to think that one day we might be able to drop the adjectives and address the facts before us. We also dare to wonder aloud, at what point will we as a society begin to incorporate science into our social policy.

And even more to the point, we ask, will there ever come a time when our political leadership will actually move beyond that sad, ongoing statement:

Don’t confuse me with the facts – I know what I think.