The war on drugs has undoubtedly affected nearly every individual in the United States and, in more recent years, the entire planet. Even though research continues to show that the war on drugs has very little positive impact, the leaders of this movement, namely the FDA and the DEA in the United States, seemed determined to ramp up their efforts to control and limit the sale and distribution of drugs.
Unfortunately, this approach is not only i,practical, but rather unhealthy. Making drugs illegal isn’t going to prevent people from wanting to use them. What this does is creates a black market environment in which people need to purchase drugs, largely untested, from sites that take on the role of filling in this niche market.
The War on Drugs Has Stalled Helpful Research
The war on drugs remains committed not to just making it hard to obtain classically criminalized drugs such as LSD and heroin. They also attempt to continually criminalize new substances that people develop in an effort to replace those that have been made illegal. The result of this is that chemists now must produce substances that provide similar effects but are not illegal.
As this game of cat and mouse continues, and more and more research chemicals are made illegal, the new chemicals developed to replace them become further and further away from the original chemicals that they were developed to replace. They also deviate further from the original safety profile of these drugs.
The Dangers of Criminalizing Drugs
Drugs are not always safe, and there’s no doubt about this. However, in most cases these drugs are studied enough and we know the limits at which they become dangerous less dangerous substances. Research chemicals, however, may present unknown dangers. In either case, the original substances that have been made illegal are also the most studied and best understood. Their safety profile is clear and both scientists, doctors, and most recreational users know how to stay safe when using the substances.
However, when chemists quickly moved to make a new chemical to replace one that has been made illegal, nobody can be certain of its safety profile. We can generally assume that chemicals sharing a similar molecular structure will be somewhat safe, or at least comparably safe to their original counterpart. Unfortunately, for long-term safety data to emerge, years and years of study are required.
These studies have already been performed on substances like LSD, MDMA, and so on. While the drugs may not be entirely safe when abused, that’s no different than anything else. at least we understand how to reduce any of their dangers so that people can use them relatively safely. Unfortunately, the risk of using these well-understood drugs could potentially be a jail sentence or a hefty fine.
Instead of risking this jail sentence or fine, people generally prefer to stay within the confines of the law. What this means for most recreational drug users – or even therapeutic drug users – is that they must purchase what are called research chemicals.
Research chemicals are called as such because they have not yet been fully understood in their action or effects. Though it’s generally assumed that these drugs will be comparably safe to the ones that are based on, this isn’t always the case and the only way to find out is for adventurous researchers to try these substances themselves. Obviously, there are significant risks associated with this.
During the rare times but these research chemicals do actually prove dangerous, users generally won’t find out until it’s too late. Because of the untested nature, may not know what sort of health issues to look for or to protect themselves against. This creates a situation in which users are faced with unpredictable and unprecedented dangers that they would not be faced with if they were to use some of the more traditional recreational services.
The Race to Keep Research Alive
As mentioned, the head honchos in charge of the war on drugs or just as dedicated to stopping the flow of researching new drugs as they are to arresting people distributing standard recreational substances.
Some countries have enacted laws that are rather extreme and arbitrary in an effort to undermine the production of research chemicals. For example, the United States’ Analog Act criminalized any drug that could be considered an analog of any illegal drug. This automatically prevents the release or distribution of new substances based on the chemical backbone of any popular recreational substance. Germany recently passed a law that made it illegal to possess any number of lysergic acid derivatives.
As chemists become increasingly clever in creating substances that are technically legal, law-enforcement agencies become increasingly aggressive in their attempt to undermine and reduce the impact of these new substances.
Popular Opinion, the War on Drugs, and Legalization.
Fortunately, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the vast therapeutic potential of many recreational substances. Trials on the use of drugs like LSD, MDMA, and ketamine have been underway for several years. These studies are proving that these drugs aren’t just recreational, but that they have vast therapeutic potential as well.
They have been shown to treat conditions like depression, anxiety, and even lifelong cases of conditions like PTSD. There have been many research drugs that have been developed in an attempt to replace these illegal substances, but they often pale in comparison to the benefits provided by the original substance.
Regardless, this seems to indicate some serious progress. More and more people, governments, and even people who were entirely opposed to the use of drugs whatsoever are beginning to recognize that they can be just as therapeutic as the prescription drugs that many of these anti-drug proponents use on a regular basis.
Ironically, many of the drugs that are already prescribed therapeutically are either based directly on illegal drugs or are simply synthetic versions made in a government-approved lab. In other words, we already know that most of these drugs have immense value when used properly. It’s not a matter of deciding whether or not these substances should be legal, it’s a matter of deciding how they should be regulated.
Harm Reduction and Research to Improve Health
People are beginning to come to the conclusion that the best approach to drug use is harm reduction. Harm reduction is a term that describes any number of practices, education, or services that encourage the healthy use of substances while reducing the potential negative impact.
Harm reduction has been a controversial aspect of drug culture for many years, and yet thousands upon thousands of people have found themselves helped by these many approaches. Online groups like Bluelight have been helping people with harm reduction for decades. These websites encourage people to use drugs safely while providing them with up-to-date practices on safety, proper usage, safe dosages, and so on.
The harm reduction approach is void a bit different than the current addiction recovery approach that we find in most rehabs that follow the 12 step program. These programs involve acknowledging that you were addicted to drugs and will remain an addict for the rest of your life. After agreeing to this, you must commit yourself to a life of complete abstinence. If you fail to do this, then you are said to have failed the program.
Rehabilitation programs that follow a treatment process like this have a low success rate that, in any other clinical practice, would be considered entirely unacceptable. Traditional drug rehab has a remission rate of over 90%. Nowadays, more and more rehab centres are beginning to take a look at harm reduction processes and reframing the way that we look at drug treatment. However, this can only be done with continued drug research.
New practices, services, and approaches have led to drastic changes in the world of recovery. Even the use of substances that were previously made illegal have been used for addiction recovery and led to sharp increases in the success rate of drug treatment programs. Take the iboga plant, for example, which contains ibogaine – a powerful medicine that contains a powerful psychedelic.
Through a very intense experience, ibogaine allows people to leave the trip finding that they have no desire to use habit-forming or addictive drugs afterward. There have been numerous cases of long-term heroin addicts who have used iboga a single time and found that after the experience, they have little to no withdrawal symptoms or cravings for the drug. This is a much more significant and beneficial result that has been seen from any traditional rehab center.
Continued Research and Changes in Regulation.
As law-enforcement agencies are continually faced with this evidence, it becomes increasingly clear that changes to legislation and drug treatment are necessary.
At the present moment, there are numerous areas in need of improvement.
One focus is on ensuring the continued research of new drugs. New technologies have been developed that allow researchers to predict the effects of certain substances before they are tested in human subjects. This is a massive discovery that could lead to large scale developments in a relatively short period of time.
And, while new substances often bring with them new promises, we have to remember that research chemical study would not be necessary if the original drugs had not been made illegal in the first place. As more and more scientific facilities are granted permission to work with these illegal substances and prove their therapeutic value, the public opinion continues to change.
Soon, it is almost certain that many of the drugs that we consider illegal today will be rebranded as either medicinal, prescription, or outright legal substances. The continued criminalization of drugs that have proven to have immense therapeutic value is foolhardy. There is no longer any doubt in the mind of any scientists who have studied these compounds about their therapeutic value.
Conclusion
At present, we already know that most drugs that can be therapeutic when used properly. Harm reduction is an approach that maximizes the therapeutic value of these substances while also helping to reduce any potential risks associated with their use.
At present, what we should do is redirect funding from the war on drugs, which currently causes more problems than it solves, into a more full-scale harm reduction approach that could be applied in rehab centers across the world. In this case, the research could then be redirected from the constant discovery of new, legal substances to replace the old ones, onto focussing on how to safely and therapeutically use the ones that we already have.
