SYNOPSIS:

    Unitarian values centred on respect for human wellbeing
are in sharp contrast to our society's current "War on Drugs".
The effects of legal sanctions on individuals
often exceed the ill effects of soft drug use.
The laws concerning alcohol, nicotine and pot
are not in keeping with their relative health effects.
The violence introduced into society
in order to support high priced hard drug addiction
(the high price caused by the illegal status of the drugs)
is the major effect of drug addiction on most of us.
A disproportional percentage of our population
is imprisoned for drug related offenses.
The experience of alcohol prohibition
would indicate that medical rather than criminal means
are the best suited to address the problem.

    We Unitarians should be at the forefront
of the drug law reform effort,
and not be hindered by being charged
as being in favour of drug use.

OUTLINE:

I.  INTRODUCTION: UNITARIAN COMMITMENT
TO SOCIAL BETTERMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

II. OUR BASIC VALUES: PUTTING PERSONS FIRST

III. THE EFFECTS OF DRUGS

IV. THE EFFECTS OF LAWS AGAINST DRUGS

I. INTRODUCTION: UNITARIAN COMMITMENT
TO SOCIAL BETTERMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

    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
on American and Canadian society,
we are certain to have differences of opinion.
But I do believe our values as Unitarians
point us in a direction different from that now being pursued.
We have the largest proportion of our population in prison
than any other 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.

    Why have Unitarians been relatively silent about this problem?
We were are the forefront of those struggling for
abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, 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 contrast
between our values and present drug policy
for fear of being seen as being if favour of the use of drugs?

    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.
While formed early, values may not be considered
or articulated until later, if ever.

    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!

    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 my 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.

II. OUR BASIC VALUES: PUTTING PERSONS FIRST

    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.

    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 to examples.
I was reared thinking that some relationships
were too close for marriage (siblings, first cousins)
although marrying second cousins
was a time honoured tradition in my family.
Similarly, I believed some relationships were too distant,
such as members of another race.
The experience of my luminously beautiful adopted mother,
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,
has changed my mind.

III. THE EFFECTS OF DRUGS

    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 those of you 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 in order.
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.
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 milkshakes,
it's just as well I've not been tempted.

    My son Mark would have had his 45th birthday March 26, 2000.
Instead of that, he died of a heart attack October 29th.
The doctor warned him after his warning heart attack
the February before, that the cause was his nicotine habit.
At age 19, his top of TV pot plant
from which he rolled a nightly toke was discovered,
resulting in a probation order.
He switched to more lethal, more addictive, nicotine.
Had he remained with his pot,
he might still be alive as is his suite mate of that time.

    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 the values outlined earlier?
There is no question in my mind that the use of drugs
is not good for the user in most instances,
although there is little correlation between the harm
and the legal status of the drug.
The harm created by moderate recreational use
is far less damaging than the legal consequences
of being caught doing so.
There are exceptions of course:
the terminally ill cancer patient among them.
My six children have suffered far more
from their use of nicotine and alcohol than their use of pot.
What methods, between the legality of nicotine and illegality of pot,
would best discourage their use,
and best reduce the accompanying damage to society?

    The argument that pot is a "gateway drug"
has no validity in my view.
Not only do must later coke users drink Coco-Cola first,
but the primary reason pot serves as a gateway drug
is that it does not have the ill effects predicted,
and users have already become accustomed
to disregarding and disbelieving the law.

    In terms of "sending the wrong message to youth" is concerned,
my son points out that his daughters
are quite capable of understanding why
they are only allowed a sip of wine,
while their parents may drink a glass.
He also points out that hard drugs
are easier for his children to obtain
in a school yard than nicotine or alcohol,
because the former is outside rational regulation.
The same can be said for availability in prisons.

IV. THE EFFECTS OF LAWS AGAINST DRUGS

    Currently the success of authorities
in intercepting hard drug shipments
is actually measured in the increase of street price,
and the resultant 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 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 addition,
and even more importantly,
reducing the harm done to society by drug addiction.
Drug use is a victimless crime,
until that drug addict turns to violence to support the habit.
That violence is a law created phenomenon.

    Half, I think it is now, of all prisoners
are there because of drug offenses.
Over half of the muggings, house break-ins,
and store hold-ups mentioned earlier
are to support expensive drug habits,
habits which are expensive because of the laws against them.
Over half the ill effects of drugs,
and most of their ill effects on society,
would be solved by decriminalizing them,
and treating their abuse as a social and medical problem.
We seemed to have learned nothing from the failure of prohibition,
which among other things
created the organized crime system in the United States.

    Among the strongest opponents of drug decriminalization
are the drug producers and dealers.
Their profit, and motive for hooking new users, would vanish.

    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, it seems to me,
is to determine what methods will do most
to minimize the damage to them and to society of drug use.

    Our task as Unitarians is to attempt
to bring rational and value related discussion to this vexed question.

AUTHOR:

    J. McRee Elrod is a cataloguer for special libraries
and a retired Unitarian minister in British Columbia, Canada.
He is also a volunteer staff member for the WWCC.
Learn more about him from his member profile:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/JE-WWCC.html

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.