Drug Policy: Engaging with Reality

In Japan, there is a widespread benign ignorance about the effects of recreational drug use on the human body.  I know only one person here who has tried a hardcore drug (by which I mean it doesn't pass the lunchbreak test), and he happens to be an extremely unique, strongwilled, powerful, and privileged individual.  Drugs (besides of course alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, nitrous, and until recently, both marijuana and mushrooms) are not a part of Japanese culture, and so if Japanese people do not dispassionately understand the physiological effects of crystal meth, who cares?  

However in America, a country saturated with recreational drug use, we suffer from a malignant almost willful ignorance on the part of parents and authority figures.  Our drug laws and programs designed to combat youth drug use, personal experimentation, and addiction are universally poor and self-defeating.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the easily-debunkable urban legends and boogieman stories disseminated through networks of parents and school officials engaging in discussions of mutual ignorance.  Like priests and nuns lecturing Catholic school students about sex, bureaucrats, PTA officials, and politicians not named Hunter S. Thompson should not be formulating drug policy or setting curricula.  This job should be the proper province of neuroscientists who understand the physiology of addiction, and illegal drugs should be scientifically reviewed and assessed by the chemists and clinical researchers at the FDA.

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"Pelosi the Hammer", Hogberg, and the Savage Nation

Think the death panels will let Stephen Hawking live? Think again.Those to whom the title of this post refers sound like characters from Dungeons and Dragons, which resembles the fantasy world they are apparently living in.  Investors Business Daily, for a long time just a boring trade paper, made waves last summer when it claimed in an editorial against public healthcare that:

(Steven Hawking) wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless. 

Hawking himself took time out of his busy schedule figuring out which parallel universe the IBD editorial staff lives in to establish the fact that he is indeed British: Hawking was born in the U.K., works in the U.K., and receives healthcare from the NHS.

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Orchids and Dandelions

David Dobbs recently wrote an article for the Atlantic called "The Science of Success" about a "controversial" new theory suggesting short/short and short/long human serotonin-transporter genes, long held as increasing the risks of developmental disorders such as ADHD, depression, and anxiety, are also responsible for artistic genius, success at business or politics, and other desirable traits.  Individuals that have the short/short variant of this gene are called orchids, because, if not given proper care, they wilt and wither, but if raised in the right environments, they bloom spectacularly.  Individuals with the long/long variant are called dandelions: they are able to take root and survive almost anywhere.  Of course this is an oversimplification, but this new research could usher in a paradigm shift in how we think about child development or workplace dynamics, as well as providing the answer to the long-fought nature vs. nuture debate: it's both.

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The Slow Creep towards Weed Legalization

 Irv Rosenfeld is one of four U.S. citizens who get their medical marijuana from the federal governmentFederalism is so powerful that it can even bring progress in the intractible feild of drug reform.  This cover-story in Fortune about how medical marijuana combined with Obama's distinterest in prosecuting violators federally has led to a de facto legalization of marijuana in many states, and especially in California, is fascinating.  My favorite part is when Roger Parloff, the even handed writer and senior editor, is seduced by the lure of that sweet ganja:

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Drug Danger Visually

I can't read the article that accompanies this graph, but the graph alone is pretty interesting.  Unfortunately, without the methodology from the article, you can't see why amphetamines (which I assume includes meth) are rated as less dangerous than cocaine.  A more serious criticism would be that dependence is a lot less important than physical harm.  For example, a huge chunk of the population is dependent on caffeine, but there is so little physical harm that it has a net positive affect on society.  I suppose the counter point would be that without habitual use physical harm is minimized.