www.iowastatedaily.com/media/storage/paper818/news/2007/03/28/Opinion/Oehlert.I.Want.A.New.Drug-2808240.shtml
Our nation is awash in drugs. We have drugs for almost every imaginable condition. When I have a headache, I have a wide array of pain relievers to choose from. When I have a cold, my medicine cabinet floweth over with remedies to relieve my symptoms. There are drugs to help me sleep, lower my cholesterol, ease my anxiety and help with a hundred other ills I may be plagued with. Unfortunately, when I want to party, the selection is comparatively sparse.
We have drugs for almost everything except recreation. Certain drugs come close - for instance, any given man is not going to die from impotence, but we still have a plethora of drugs to treat it. Unfortunately, the drugs legally sanctioned for recreational activities besides sex - alcohol and tobacco - are also two of most harmful drugs known to civilization.
Tobacco, for instance, is literally as addictive as heroin, and is the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the nation, resulting in almost 400,000 deaths per year in the United States. Alcohol causes about half as many deaths and is known to increase the incidence of assault and criminal activity in addition to being America's No. 1 date rape drug.
In 2006, the United Kingdom Science and Technology Select Committee listed alcohol and tobacco as more physically and socially harmful than cannabis, LSD and ecstasy. Additionally, a 1994 study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse rated the dependence generated by tobacco to be greater than that of heroin and rated the withdrawal symptoms of alcohol as worse than any of the drugs in the study, which included cocaine and heroin.
With these facts in mind, it stands to reason that we may have made a mistake in legalizing only the two most harmful drugs on the planet for recreational purposes. For this reason, the rationale for increasing the selection of recreational drugs available to us is as blindingly obvious as the midmorning sun as it forces open our bloodshot eyes when we wake up on a given weekend morning: Our recreational drugs suck.
In Aldous Huxley's novel, "Brave New World," the drug of choice was "soma," a nonaddictive, low-withdrawal remedy for the humdrum realities of modern life. In "Star Trek," people of the future use a substance called "synthehol" that has all of the benefits of alcohol with none of the adverse side effects. Interestingly enough, Professor David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at the University of Bristol, believes a substance much like the fictional synthehol is well within the realm of scientific possibility. It is time that society catch up with its popular entertainment and deliver us from our meager selection of recreational drugs.
Recreational drug use has been going on for as long as there have been humans. The use of such substances serves to temporarily relieve our stress, shaking loose the mental cobwebs of a monotonous existence, and has been argued by some, such as Dr. Terrence McKenna, to have been a vital component in the evolution of higher consciousness in our species. Yet, in spite of these facts, we strangely tell ourselves this is bad.
We must come to realize it is not the alteration of consciousness that is bad, but the effects of the presently available drugs that must be addressed. Were we to develop recreational drugs that were free of the negative side effects of those presently available to us, it could be easily argued that we could live more fulfilling lives with the occasional break from reality provided to us by recreational drugs.
Recreation is a vital component to our lives. Without it we become burnt out and dull. Just as a trip to a different location can do wonders for our spirits, so too can a trip within our own minds regenerate our soul and leave us feeling refreshed and invigorated from the experience, not to mention the financial benefit of not having to fly to Cancun.
Tobacco and alcohol, the only legally sanctioned recreational drugs, are more harmful than many illicit drugs on a number of scales. As such, we would do well to leave the paranoia, stigma and partisan politics that surround recreational drug use aside and concentrate on the true costs and benefits associated with the occasional, temporary chemical alteration of our experiences. In the end, we have nothing to lose but our hangovers and much more interesting lives to gain.
Jeremy Oehlert is a senior in psychology and genetics from Osceola.
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Edited by Bridgeburner (03/28/07 02:48 AM)
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