Toward a Nuanced View of "Drugs"

This morning, Hsiu-Ying Tseng became the first doctor inhistory convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to a prison term forreckless opiate prescriptions. Apparently, she had been notified that three of her former patients died from opiate overdoses, and she kept prescribing them “to young patients who traveled long distances and paid cash for their prescriptions. She wrote them without performing meaningful medical exams and despite there being no medical necessity for the drugs. She ignored pleas from parents and loved ones concerned about the worsening addiction of sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters.” She was prosecuted for the deaths of three patients who died of opiate overdoses prescribed by her after she learned of the first three deaths.

Other doctors have been arrested and charged with other crimes relating to the overprescribing of opiate painkillers, and it is well-known that much heroin addiction begins with prescription painkiller abuse. Deaths and near-deaths from painkiller overdoses are common.

And yet, the DEA has painkillers classified as a schedule I drug, and marijuana classified as a schedule II drug.

Two days ago at a town hall appearance in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton said that she would change marijuana from a schedule I drug to a schedule II drug, and encourage research on the medical benefits. In the same breath, she spoke of the need to address the overdose problem. She then correctly noted that opiate addiction leading to heroin use is a primary culprit.

Nothing she said was untrue, but it was completely inappropriate to jump from a medical marijuana discussion to an indictment of drugs leading to overdose. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. There are conflicting stories about actions that marijuana users have taken that have been dangerous and/or fatal, but no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to find a story of someone who died simply from smoking, vaping, or ingesting too much weed.

I live in a small Colorado mountain town, where there are three marijuana dispensaries for a population of 2,200 and plenty of people are routinely stoned. Colorado is in its second year of legal weed, and the sky has not fallen. Other than a questionable ballot outcome in the last midterm election, our fair state is doing just fine, with so much of a boom in tax revenue from pot that we had to have a marijuana tax holiday last year.

And yet, so many – not just the puritanical – continue to wring their hands at the idea of legal weed. The stigma remains. Even in states where marijuana is legal and common, we hesitate to invite neighbors over for a bong the way we might invite them over for a cocktail.

Society’s attitude toward so-called drugs has to be more nuanced than “drugs are bad, mmmkay?” Now that more and more people understand that prescription opiates have a dangerous propensity to lead to serious addiction problems, and more and more people have the opinion that weed is no worse than alcohol, it’s an excellent time to reexamine all drug priorities and encourage the thoughtful, comprehensive reevaluation of federal drug laws. Non-enforcement is not enough; as long as marijuana remains illegal on the federal level, the tension between state and federal laws will continue to confuse, and to expose would-be entrepreneurs in a fledgling industry to unfair and unnecessary risk.

It’s great that attitudes toward marijuana are changing. It’s also great that attitudes toward more dangerous but more “legitimate” drugs are changing. Now is the time to put it all together and work toward comprehensive drug reform.