In my family there are heavy drinkers. A couple are alcoholic. Others drink just as much but are not alcoholic, just solid party goers. There is a difference. Even when my alcoholic family members are on the wagon, there is something about them. Their dependence is still evident somehow. Depending on where you search and whose definition is found, it seems that between 5 and 12% of the population is alcoholic, addicted and dependent on alcohol. The same with other addictions such as gambling and it used to be the same with drugs but not now.
Somewhat over 100 years ago there were no such things as drug laws. Like the other addictions, recreational use of drugs was frowned upon, seen as antisocial when out of hand, but accepted as part of the continuum of human behaviour. Opium dens were no more common than gambling houses and pubs. Maybe less so. For example in 1908 in New York with a population of 4.5 million, only 0.1% were opium addicts, 6000 people. In the late 1800’s there emerged efforts to regulate them, initially through taxation.
It seems that governments everywhere are adept at extracting funds from activities that are addictive, perhaps ensuring ongoing revenue streams disguised as doing a public service. What will happen for instance when no one smokes cigarettes any more and the huge income from tobacco excise which in Australia was $12.7Bn in 2023 goes up in smoke? I’ve read that only around 18% of the Australian population still smokes.
Then in 1914 in the USA along comes sanctimonious anti narcotic crusader Dr Hamilton Wright who had been spurred along by even more ardent Canadian the Reverend Charles Brent. Their fervour resulted in the uptake by senator Francis Burton Harrison and the Harrison Act, the first piece of legislation designed to curb drug use. But like all abolition efforts, it did the opposite.
When something in demand is absent or limited through controls, the demand does not go away, and the means of access becomes increasingly dramatic. A black market ensues. When alcohol was banned in the USA during the 1920’s Prohibition, speakeasies thrived, the country’s worst crime emerged with the Al Capones and such. As early as 1925 it was recognised that Prohibition was not working, but the sanctimony persisted.
The Harrison Act regulated and taxed, there is that word again, the production, importation and distribution of opiates and cocaine. The New York Medical Journal wrote in 1915 that crime and violence had increased as a direct result as addicts tried to obtain drugs. The street market for heroin skyrocketed from $6.50 an ounce to $96.00, a clear attraction to criminals. The Marfia got into drug trafficking for the first time. There was no money in it previously.
The Harrison Act resulted in more addicts. Criminals realised that creating new addicts was the best way to increase profits and the victims were mostly teenagers through offering free samples. Interestingly it is McDonald’s using a similar marketing tactic to attract young customers, through playgrounds at their fast food outlets and such, making a customer for life.
The Harrison Act included nefarious sections that amplified the negative outcomes. It initiated the control by government over physicians, interfered with treatments. It enforced the controls to be adopted by America’s trading parties. And it created the war on drugs and inevitably the current drug and related crime epidemics. The USA illicit drug market is similar in size to the whole rest of the legal drug industry about $64Bn annually.
The issue of this kind of regulatory control is self propagating in the sense that state funded public health can be a lever to justify legislated behaviour …smoking is an impost on public health costs (same as all the other vices). I do have sympathy for doctors who have to triage their resources when over run by what is in effect self abuse in the case of addiction where it has a marked effect on an individual’s health. On the flip side many tonics in days of old contained addictive ingredients (vis coca-cola with a cocaine content as only one of many).
“The Temporance Society “ was pretty widespread in the early twentieth century iirc, and this probably/maybe partly explains the efforts to legislate behaviour. These things seem to feed off themselves and opportunism sees the black market respond. Addiction itself is probably the medical condition to treat. I believe some of the weight loss drugs may have a mechanism to help.
It’s a vexing subject matter that will cause displeasure one way or another simply because it’s about addressing a behaviour. Perhaps education is a way, although it has been tried. The fentanyl scourge ( along with other hard drugs) is sometimes perceived as not only a black market commodity but also a social anarchy mechanism.
Cheers,
RobK
Exactly Rob. A perplexing issue no matter what side you come down on. My first point was that the wrong sort of interference can make things worse. My second point was that certain “moralising” sectors ignore the evidence, favouring their own ideologies. My third but tacit point was that it is the banning of drugs that created the problem. Taxing is not banning, and helps prevent new-starts. As seen in the increasingly lower numbers of smokers in Australia. Banning not only created the crime but probably the desire for harder and harder and more dangerous drugs. For centuries there was no expansion from opiates and hashish when they were always just there.
Once the cycle built momentum from being banned, with the increase in number of addicts created by pressure from criminals, the effect on doctors appeared, probably not a serious matter previously. In fact soon after the Harrison Act, doctors complained it had complicated their treatment of addiction. Treatment of addiction along with education are some of your suggestions. I do believe the interference in what a doctor does by politicians is fraught with danger.
Nice comment.
I really like this sentence Allan:
“But like all abolition efforts, it did the opposite.”
I wonder if it would be better to tax exotic animal products and toxic chemicals?
As always Cheryl, you cut to the gist, to mix a metaphor. Two metaphors. You found the one sentence that captures the whole essay.
I do not have the answers. Exotic animals are, I think, collected by wealthy, I suspect not a huge market unlike a consumer market, so I am not sure taxation would limit the activity. Toxic chemicals, used mostly in production in factories I presume, maybe? I published a paper on the cost of rare earth metals showing that although they are essential and in huge demand for all technologies, they do not demand a high price. Those technologies are mostly in consumer products, which have a limited price. So if the cost goes too high for rare earth metals, alternatives are sought to meet the price range of the consumer product, even if the performance is less. It is what is called an elastic market. Like I said I do not have the answers. It is likely that the people with the actual answers are not put into the political positions of authority to deal with the problems.
On the fun side, news today in France that Cadbury Fingers have been deleted, and the price for a packet has jumped from £1.80 to £46 on Amazon. Enough ex pat Anglos must be addicted. I Kinda like chocolate to be honest.