Making substances illegal won’t work to stop their use

By Lethbridge Herald on August 27, 2022.

Editor:

Concerning the opioid crisis, I have to disagree with people who make it a matter of crime or race. They are not. 

Let me begin with my problem: As I age, how to manage chronic pain has become a challenge. I had to resist the urge to take painkillers because I am conscious of the fact that many pain remedies contain opioids. 

However, we have to affirm that being able to manage problems like pain is a positive human attribute. Unlike animals, humans can refuse to accept fate and have freedom to fix problems. Human history is a story of humans overcoming aches and pains and other difficulties. We have succeeded in many ways. We should celebrate that. 

However remedies often have negative side effects. So they have to be controlled. That takes discipline. Pleasure and remedy are not evil, illegal, immoral, nor unethical. We term them as such from time to time because often agents of pleasure and remedy can be addictive and toxic when we lose control of ourselves.

My maternal grandfather was a veterinarian. He began his career as an army vet. He looked after horses in the cavalry in the war between Japan and Russia during the early 20th century. Japan won, but grandpa came home an opium addict. He saw too much blood and gore. Today it’s called PTSD. He took opium regularly until he died in his ripe old age of 80’s. 

 Opium products were not illegal in the early 20th century. He had easy access to it also. He had a productive life. I remember the smell of disinfectant every time I walked into his den. Opium taking was quite normal all over the world then. 

In England opium was taken for pleasure like alcohol, coffee and tobacco. Prominent personalities like Charles Dickens, Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Browning were well known for that. It still is used as a remedy for many symptoms.

Just look at the list of content of some of the painkillers. It was an important export commodity for the British Empire, so much so that Britain waged war with China twice (Opium Wars), because China wanted to stop opium import. Britain won the war and forced China to

 sign the 100-year lease of Hong Kong as the free trade zone. Hence opium trade continued. 

 That’s how heroin consumption became “Chinese,” leading to its racism-motivated illegal status. It is strange that much more potent toxic substances like alcohol and nicotine are not illegal. 

Today’s most potent killer opioid based drugs, oxycontin and fentanyl, were initially produced and marketed as prescription drugs by big drug companies. After they were found to be deadly addictive and made illegal, criminals began to manufacture them in the “basements and garages” and a much worse substance began to circulate in the illegal market. 

They are now the number one killer preying mainly on the poor and the social outcasts: a repeat of “whiskey trade” preying on the First Nations during the 19th century. Giant drug companies were taken to court in a class action, found guilty, and now have to pay billions of dollars for compensation.

History teaches us that making such substances illegal does not work to stop its use and harmful effect. 

I was brought up in a conservative evangelical home. Alcohol, dancing, movie, extra-marital sex and smoking were Satan’s tools to lead us to hell. Those rules never worked on me, and my buddies. In the U.S., prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century was a total failure. It created the golden age of Mafia gangsters. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was created. It made a Canadian distillery one of the richest families in the world. “War on drugs” repeated the same mistake with cocaine and marijuana. 

It made criminal cartels powerful without any significant reduction in cocaine and marijuana consumption despite decades of strict enforcement. Now Canada and many countries have decriminalized weed.

I am not saying that those substances are harmless. They can be deadly taken without discipline. However, history proves that treating those who take drugs as criminals does not work. It empowers criminals and divides the society into classes. Only the poor get caught and fill the prisons and flood the streets. They become criminals while the middle class and the rich get away. 

Alcohol is addictive and toxic. But it is not Satan’s tool. Most people take it for pleasure responsibly. It can be consumed safely. I am a diabetic so sugar can kill me. But I am still alive enjoying ice cream on a hot summer day. I am grateful for it. It is a precious gift of the Earth. No one must abuse or defile gifts.

Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui

Lethbridge