From: backpack@access.digex.com (Stuart Reges)
Subject: Re: marijuana, alcohol and driving
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 16:56:48 GMT

etheridg@duncan.cs.utk.edu (Jennifer Etheridge) writes:
>
>My husband was talking to his mother (a nurse) about marijuana
>last night. She told him that she didn't think marijuana should
>be legalized because "we don't need another drug that will cause
>auto accidents."

I won't repeat the good answers several people have already given to this
posting, but I'll try to expand a bit.  In the middle of the controversy I
generated last year at Stanford University, I had the opportunity to debate the
WoD with undergraduates at almost 30 different dorms.  I can verify that
Jennifer is correct that this is a common response from people who might
otherwise support legalization and I'm glad she brought it up.

At first I tried to approach this question with a straightforward rational
response.  That was a mistake.  As I've gotten older I've come to realize that
people often have deep-seated prejudices that are not based on rational
thought.  When you challenge these prejudices they are nevertheless likely to
come back with what sounds like a rational argument.  But addressing the
prejudice requires more than just rebutting their argument.  No matter how
cogent and convincing such a rebuttal might be, they are still likely to reject
it because their original sentiment was not really based on the rational
argument they gave.

In trying to understand my audience, I hit upon a useful rule of thumb.  I
translated any given statement I was trying to make about drugs into a
statement about nuclear bombs, and then I understood where my audience was
coming from.  For example, my audience said they were worried that legalizing
drugs might increase traffic deaths.  I translated this into: allowing private
citizens to purchase their own nuclear bombs might increase terrorist killings.
I can try to argue the libertarian viewpoint that government has no right to
limit contracts between private citizens, but that's not likely to convince
them.  I can argue that all of the people I know who want to buy nuclear bombs
are not terrorists, but that again is unlikely to win converts.  Even if I
present study after study indicating that the people who desire to and can
afford to purchase nuclear bombs are solid upstanding citizens and that there
is no evidence that legalizing nuclear bombs will increase terrorist activity,
my audience will be unswayed.  They're too afraid of nuclear bombs to take the
chance, no matter how convincing your arguments are.

The problem is the perception that drugs are like nuclar bombs.  I came up with
a useful thought experiment that I used with my audiences to try to explain to
them my point of view that drugs are more like cars.  When they said,
"Legalizing drugs will increase traffic deaths," I said, "Okay, let's outlaw
cars."  Several people would snicker at the absurdity of my suggestion.  "Why
outlaw cars," they would say, "when the drugs are the problem?"  Not really, I
pointed out.  The problem is not drugs or cars individuallly, but the
intersection of the two.  So if the government is going to outlaw one to avoid
the intersection, it might just as easily outlaw cars.  "But you can't do
that," someone would blurt out at this point, "Americans wouldn't stand for it.
You can't have the government telling people they can't own cars."  Exactly, I
would say.  Now you understand the anger we feel when the government tells us
we can't decide what chemicals to ingest.  "Anyway, it wouldn't be practical,"
someone else tends to say at this point, "because you could never get Americans
to give up their cars even if the government ordered it."  Right again, I would
say.  Now you understand our belief that the drug war is ultimately unwinnable
because stubborn Americans won't give up their drugs, and history is completely
on our side.

As another thought experiment, I suggested to people that it made a lot more
sense to increase the DRIVING age to 21 and to allow people to freely
experiment with alcohol and drugs from 18-21.  They wouldn't need their cars
anymore because they wouldn't have to drive to some obscure location to get
away from the police and their parents to engage in activity that should be
legal and that way they'd have 3 years experience with altered states of
consciousness before they got behind the wheel of a car.  The combination of
legalizing drugs for those 18 and over, lowering the drinking age to 18, and
raising the driving age to 21 might actually significantly DECREASE the number
of traffic deaths, so if that is our ultimate goal, it certainly must be worth
a try (I said this half toungue in cheek).  This was VERY controversial and
generated a rather interesting debate.

I'm sorry to say that I can't claim my thought experiments generated many
converts, although I believe it helped plant a useful seed of doubt.  I found
that the prejudices were just too strong.  When I'd ask someone whose only
knowledge of cocaine came from "drug education" to describe the drug they would
invariably say something like this: "It brings about loss of judgement, causing
you to make choices that you wouldn't normally, many of them unwise and unsafe
choices, and it impairs perception and coordination, making it difficult for
you to perform as well as you would normally."  The uninitiated believe this is
true of all drugs.  When I asked them how they thought this compared to
alcohol, they tended to say it was probably 2 or 3 times worse than being
drunk.  When I would then describe to them the actual effects of cocaine as I
experienced them, they didn't believe me.  And when I said that of all the
drugs I have used, the one that most fits the description they are giving is
alcohol, they again didn't believe me.  I tried to point out to them that they
make a false distinction between drugs, which they believe are dangerous and
harm the body, alcohol, which they feel needs to be used carefully but is
basically a source of fun, and medicine, which they believe are substances that
heal the body.  These are all drugs, I would say, but with little effect.

This is why I conclude that we are fighting irrational prejudice rather than
rational thought and have to find creative ways to combat it, particularly
since the most obvious avenue open to us (having them try the drugs themselves)
is rejected by most of these people and because any suggestion that we make
that people pursue that path is likely to be interpreted as "infecting" and
corrupting others and might even end up getting us fired.  :-)

+---------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
|  b	  p	| Stuart Reges (target uSeRs?)	backpack@access.digex.com |
|   a	   a	|							  |
|    c	    c	| You've gotta live, live, live!  Life is a banquet and   |
|     k	     k	| most poor suckers are starving to death.  --Auntie Mame |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs