Our Values and Drug Prohibition

by J. McRee Elrod

14 January 2001 Victoria
11 March 2001 Kelowna
2 April 2000 Whidbey Island
23 September 2001 South Fraser
13 January 2002 CUUC
2 June 2002 Olympic
29 September 2002 Moscow, Idaho
4 May 2003 Northshore Unitarian
21 June 2003 Don Heights

As Unitarians we are each committed to use our own reason and values in arriving at our positions on any topic. For a topic as controversial as the effect of the War on Drugs in American and Canadian societies, we are certain to have some differences of opinion. We will have an opportunity to explore those differences here as part of this service.

I do believe our values as Unitarians point us in a direction different from that now being pursued. We in North America have the largest proportion of our population in prison than any developed society, largely due to our policy toward those convicted of drug related crime. We have a high level of property crime, largely due to the artificially high price of drugs, created by the laws against them.

We see the drug black market created by the drug laws providing income for organized crime at home and terrorist groups abroad, such as that which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York before our very eyes. Why have we Unitarians as individuals been relatively silent about this problem? We were at the forefront of those struggling for abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, equal rights for Blacks, and an end to unjust war. From Thoreau’s imprisonment in opposition to the War in Mexico, to more recent opposition to the War in Vietnam, we have not been reticent. Are we so muted on the conflict between our values and present drug policy for fear of being seen as being in favour of the use of drugs?

Those of us opposed to the War on Drugs, like those who opposed the recent War in Iraq, are asked “are you in favour of drugs”, and “are you in favour of Saddam”? In each case it is difficult to express our opposition to the evil itself, while also being concerning about the collateral damage of these two wars, whether it be creating criminals for the use of a drug less harmful than their father’s nicotine, or bring about the destruction of artifacts reflecting a civilization thousands of years old.

An Alternatives of Drug Prohibition Social Responsibility Resolution advocating the use of the social and medical systems as opposed to the criminal justice one for the amelioration of drug related problems was adopted by the Canadian Unitarian Council in May 2003, but only the Vancouver congregation has had an impact on local drug policies. The Victoria congregation made a presentation to the Senate Committee, which seems to have influenced their findings.

But this subject has not caught our individual imaginations as some other causes have done. Do we not see the conflict between our values and our attitudes and opinions on this subject?

Often, I think, we fail to make a basic distinction between our more basic values and our more transitory opinions. Values are usually formed early in life, and usually remain fairly constant. Opinions evolve. If you have the same opinions as five years ago, and still hold the same ones five years hence, you are perhaps inactive from the ears up! It’s time for our attitudes on addressing the problems associated with drugs to change.

My values had to be formed, and articulated, by the time I was 19. I was almost expelled from university for supporting the application of a Black student for admission. I was in a room with the Dean of my College, the Minister of by Church, the Judge of the County Supreme Court, all telling me I was wrong. I knew I was right. (Probably the beginning of my pigheadedness.)

Let me attempt to state those values. You will notice some similarity to the Unitarian statement of principles, which gave me new ways of saying that to which I already adhered, and made me feel at home in this movement.

The ultimate value is the self aware human personality. That which damages it is evil; that which helps it is good. Human personalities are to be respected and their rights protected regardless of colour, religion, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation. This is particularly important at the moment as our fellow citizens who are Muslim or Arab, or even mistaken to be such, are under attack.

Human personalities develop best in at atmosphere of intellectual artistic, economic, and political freedom. They require a society which guarantees their basic material needs. While human personality is the supreme good, that personality exists in a society, and that society exists in a natural world. Humankind is part of the interwoven web of existence. Humankind should not wantonly cause unnecessary pain to any living creature, or wantonly destroy any species or part of nature.

In contrast to these values, my opinions evolve and change, often as the result of discussions and experience. Please allow me to give two examples. I was reared thinking that some relationships were too close for marriage (siblings, cousins). Similarly, I believed some relationships were too distant, such as members of another race. Explaing this to some counsins who objected to Blacks going to school with Whites because they would marry each otherf, I said “you go to school with your counsins but you don’t marry them do you”, I felt a swift kick under the breakfast table from my mother. These two *were* cousins who had married each other.

Loving my luminously beautiful adopted daughter, whose biological mother was white, and biological father was Black, has changed my mind. I was reared to believe that one did not cohabit before marriage. The experience of my daughters wanting to test drive their partners before accepting them as husbands and fathers of their children, and their success in doing so (I have two wonderful sons-in-law) has changed my mind.

Before attempting to relate the values I have outlined to the question of drugs (about which my opinions are, perhaps like yours, in flux) perhaps a statement of personal experience with them is in order. As any who know me are aware, I need no artificial assistance in lowering my level of inhibitions. In fact, a handy dandy drug which raised them a tad might be advantageous. So it is not moral strength but lack of need which explains the fact that I have never in my life smoked nicotine or pot, or used alcohol beyond wine or cider with a meal, or a Kahlua and cream after. My abhorrence of needles, if nothing else, would keep me away from injected drugs.

Do you remember the scene in “Days of Wine and Roses” in which the heroine Lee Remick is descending the elevator gobbling a chocolate bar? It was a harbinger of her susceptibility to becoming addicted. If that’s any indication, not to mention my ongoing affair with DQ milk shakes, it’s just as well I’ve not been tempted. Of my friends, more have suffered from muggings and robberies to pay for another’s habit, than have suffered from the ill effects of drug use themselves.

The question for me is, what approach to the ill effects of drugs would be most in accord with our Unitarian values? There is no question in my mind that the use of drugs is not good for the user in many instances, although there is little correlation between the harm and the legal status of the drug. More die from nicotine and alcohol than pot. Annual deaths per 100,009 of users is 650 for nicotine, 150 for alcohol, 80 for heroin, and 0 for cannabis. (Hoftstra Law Review 18:3 1990)

The harm created by moderate recreational use of recreational drugs is far less damaging than the legal consequences of being caught doing so. Some use of course should always justified: the terminally ill cancer patient among them.

While none of us wishes a slow, painful, death for ourselves, our society seems determined to force it on others by prolonging the dying process, denying sufficient pain treatment on the grounds that it might be addictive or hasten death, expending 40% of Canada’s health care resources in the process. Life should be measured by quality as well as quantity.

Misinformation abounds. Contrary to being a “gateway” drug, both hard drug use and alcohol consumption decline when cannabis use increases. “Decriminalization” in Australia rather than causing a spike in use, resulted in even more criminal charges against many who could not pay the fines which the police began giving out like confetti. This is one reason the CUC SRR called for “depenalization” rather than “decriminalization”.

Currently the success of authorities in intercepting hard drug shipments is actually measured in the resultant increase of street price, leading in turn to an increase in house break-ins, sometimes resulting in the violent death of elderly residents. Other societies, and ours in the 19th century, showed that drug addicts could be maintained in their habits while functioning in society. The 20th century change in our treatment of drugs some have attributed to racial prejudice: anti Chinese in the case of heroin, and anti Mexican in the case of pot.

My experiences. and these facts, lead me to favour the repeal of all criminal drug laws, and the treatment of drug addiction as a social and medical problem. This is not an advocacy of drug use, whether it be overindulgence in alcohol, any use of nicotine, some form of hemp, or the hard drugs. It is a judgment of what might be the most effective way of reducing drug addiction, and even more importantly, reducing the harm done to society by drug addicts. Drug use is a victimless crime, until that drug addict turns to violence to support the habit. That violence is a law created phenomenon.

We seemed to have learned nothing from the failure of Prohibition. I suspect there will always by a percentage among us who because of physical, chemical, psychological, or personality difficulties, will turn to drugs. Our task as a society should be to determine what methods will do most to minimize the damage to individuals and to society of drug use. In making that determination, we should not be doctrinaire.

We as Unitarians are more equipped to assist in that task than most. For us as citizens, I am suggesting that it is important that we individually be the grains of salt in society which season it with sanity, writing our members of representatives, and speaking up as individuals. Just as we participated in the challenge to conspicuous consumption in funerals, the recognition of our ecology as fragile, and the growing loss of social acceptability of racist and homophobic jokes, we can, despite our small numbers, make a difference in how drugs and perceived and handled. As Canadians, living in a less massive society that the one to the South, we have a greater chance of bringing sanity to bear on social issues, as we have done for medical care. We can expect misinformation to the South about whatever we may do, just as the American Medical Association spreads misinformation about our medical system.

We do have the opportunity to demonstrate a better way. We do have our First Nations tradition of restorative justice upon which to draw. We Unitarians believing as we do in the value and dignity of each human individual, should attempt to bring rational and value related discussion to this vexed question. I invite you to join me and other concerned Unitarians in reexamining our attitudes on this troubling issue, and to bring the results of our thinking to bear on our society. “Harm reduction” can mean more than reducing the harm to addicts. It can mean reducing harm to us all.