80 to 90% of the people who use illegal drugs don't have a drug problem, according to decades of research from Dr. Carl Hart.
I first heard or Dr. Carl Hart through his TEDMED Talk which you can see here:
I was reminded of him again recently when I saw this interview with John Stossel:
Dr. Hart has an important perspective on drugs based on decades of research. Most people (myself included) got their education about drugs from the "this is your brain on drugs" commercials we grew up with. From what I've read and watched since then, it seems the problem with addiction is more about the individuals and their need to escape uncomfortable realities than it is about the actual chemical's influence over the body.
That said, Opiates do seem to be pretty destructive. See the history of Opium in China for more on that story. I was talking with a doctor friend of mine recently who works in a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and sees first-hand the destructiveness of opiates on mothers and their babies.
So where does that leave us? Should we put people in cages for altering their bodies with chemicals if there's a chance 10% or so of them won't handle it well? Should everyone be regulated by violent government force, even if 80 to 90% of the people who use these drugs can do so in a healthy way?
Where is the logic behind allowing some chemicals (coffee, alcohol, nicotine) but banning others, when some of the legal drugs are more harmful than the illegal ones? According to www.drugwarfacts.org, we have hundreds of thousands of humans currently living in cages, paid for by others, because they decided to put a chemical into their body.
Almost 50% (92,000 prisoners) of sentenced federal prisoners on September 30, 2015 (the most recent date for which federal offense data are available) were serving time for drug offenses
Sixteen percent of state prisoners were serving sentences for drug-related offenses (206,300 prisoners).
This does not make sense.
And I didn't even get into the history of Cannabis prohibition.
I'll let Adam Ruins Everything do that:
What do you think of illegal drugs and the war on drugs?
