The last entry was intended to set NIDA up for criticism of its extreme bias in support of the drug war. As I was busy with its composition and editing, I had no way of knowing that NIDA Director, Nora Volkow, MD, was herself busy holding a press conference on the evils of “marijuana,” nor that it would be replete with a host of drug war misconceptions begging for rebuttal.
My work has not been publicized like that of Dr. Volkow, for whom propaganda is the most important part of the job at NIDA (she’s charged with overseeing drug war “science,” perhaps more accurately thought of as “anti-science” or Faux Science). Although the lack of unfavorable publicity long enjoyed by the drug war may be about to end, the policy’s most ardent defenders would hardly be the first to admit such a dire possibility.
For example, the idea that an increase in youthful marijuana initiation at all three grade levels surveyed by SAMHSA is “fueling” the use of other drugs may well be based on accurate data, but Volkow’s interpretation is almost certainly nonsense- a simple-minded extrapolation of the bogus “gateway” concept embraced so profitably by Robert Du Pont, Gerald Ford’s “drug adviser and NIDA’s first designated Director. DuPont’s predecessor, the first-ever Presidential “drug adviser” was Jerome Jaffe, then a young Jewish psychiatrist (remember how Nixon felt about them?) who was recruited by the Nixon White House staff because they feared (on the basis of secretly screening the urine of Vietnam returnees for opioids) that the nation was about to be inundated with GIs turned heroin junkies.
As it turned out, that didn’t happen, but Jaffe was able to sell a truncated and less-than-ideal-methadone maintenance program to the feds. That he is still active in “substance abuse,” but has switched his focus to alcohol suggests he probably agrees with Volkow that “marijuana” is a “drug of abuse” without either of them knowing that virtually all the long term marijuana users I’ve interviewed consistently consumed less alcohol once their use of pot had become repetitive. The reasons for that unexpected finding became clear from their aggregated histories: many had been self-medicating with both drugs for a while because both address symptoms of teen insecurity. However the two drugs do so very differently: alcohol diminishes judgment while enhancing aggression and cannabis does just the opposite. Whenever a pot initiate becomes “chronic,” alcohol consumption is reduced to safe levels
I would have been content to end there, but two recent news items have added weight to my indictment of Volkov’s intellectual honesty: she is the Mexican-born great granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; she was raised in Mexico and went to Medical school there before coming to the US for post gradate training in Psychiatry and Nuclear imaging. She succeeded the assertive Alan Leshner as NIDA Director in 2003. What troubles me is her faithful compliance with drug war dogma which takes no responsibility for the carnage created by the illegal markets it gives rise to. The Mexican Mafia is a US policy curse on the poor people of Mexico; why that simple fact is so blatantly ignored by Volkow (and a host of others) is a phenomenon I’m frankly unable to understand myself. However, I now see their refusal to address the issue, even when challenged, as as form of both denialand intellectual dishonesty.
The second item was related; a massive jailbreak just across the border in Nuevo Laredo does not auger well for either the immediate or intermediate future of both nations. It’s now four years since President Calderon began trying to comply with the abysmally stupid Bush-Cheney request that he attempt to “root out” drug dealers on the border. Just how long will it take both the US and Mexican governments to realize that drug prohibition has been even more deadly than our failed attempt to “control” alcohol? Another way of asking that question is just how stupid are we?