Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote; Old Enough to Vote, Old Enough to Drink (and Smoke)

REFERENCE:

Jonathan J. Cooper, AP, "Bill would make California 2nd state with smoking age of 21"

           <http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sns-bc-ca-xgr--california-tobacco-laws-20160303-story.html">

Editorial: "State should pass bill to increase smoking age to 21"

   
        
In spite of short-term public health benefits of raising the "smoking age" for tobacco to 21, the State of California should resist the temptation to do so and move instead to a thorough revamping of our drug and criminal laws to make them more rational and to make 18 a consistent and rigorously-enforced "age of majority" (legal adulthood).

            As many Americans argued during the 1960s, "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote," a principle enacted in 1971 in the 26^th Amendment to the US Constitution. I.e., if someone is responsible enough to decide whether or not to register for the military draft and, if called, whether or not to agree to conscription; if someone is mature enough to decide whether or not to put his (sic) life in danger for his country; if someone is capable of deciding whether or not to agree to kill for his country — then that person is responsible enough to vote and deserves the vote.

            Alternatively American society would have to say that what we want for the Army is pretty much cannon fodder who needn't think a lot; and/or acknowledge that in approving the 26^th Amendment we knew that not enough young people would vote as a bloc to matter much whether they're responsible citizens or not.

            And if someone is old enough to vote — again, unless we say voting isn't really important — that person is old enough to decide whether or not to use a drug like ethyl alcohol or nicotine.

            As long as it's set a decent interval after puberty, the age for legal adulthood is more or less arbitrary and should be part of rites of passage that make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are told they're adults, expected to act like adults, and are held accountable as adults a rite of passage can work its magic and children become adults. "Late adolescence" was invented during my lifetime, and treating young Americans as adults at 18 — including demanding adult behavior — could have them again young adults. As Mike A. Males has demonstrated in two major books and other writing, older American teens are pretty much a normal adult American population or frequently doing better than their elders. If a fair number of teens are irresponsible jerks, well, so are many of their elders, the older folk just having less energy to be noisy in our evil and experienced enough to be, usually, more discreet.

            Instead of the traditional grousing about them damn youngins and their bad habits, older Americans need to admit that main-stream adult America is a drug culture with a lot of immature, irresponsible and self-destructive behavior starting with pounding beers and popping pills. And then we need to take vigorous public health actions to help addicts, and public policy actions to significantly tone down the marketing of drugs of all sorts and reverse the message that relief from all manner of pain is at the bottom of a bottle.

            As long as it's illegal for an adult to give 20 grams of marijuana to a friend, it should be a felony to design a marketing campaign around "Bitter Beer Face" and push a gateway beer like Keystone Light to young people.

            Rather than passing laws so that "Parents that host / Lose the Most," we should encourage parents to teach their children that drinking is a choice, and if they choose to drink they can sip like ladies and gentlemen and use alcohol (and softer drugs) responsibly. It should not be too hard to return to the old idea that getting sloppy drunk and puking on a date isn't signaling sophisticated maturity.

            As for tobacco use, we need more to harness even more of those fiendishly brilliant pushers of beer and wine and stronger booze and get them working on ad campaigns that show nicotine use "Soooo 20^th-century!", fit only for old people and the terminally uncool (or whatever the cool word will be for "uncool").

            Making cigarettes a symbol of adulthood is not a good idea.

            Taking yet another step teaching 18-20-year olds that we think they're children and expect them to act that way: that is an invitation to even more arrested development among American youth and a very bad idea.

Marijuana (Yet Again): Drug Policy for American Drug Culture

            In a letter to the editor posted on line on Feb. 3 and later printed in the Ventura County Star, Al Knuth of Camarillo, CA, argues that marijuana is "Not a harmless drug" and notes that he has "personally witnessed the recreational use of marijuana destroy the lives of some relatives, friends and others [… through] divorce, loss of jobs, loss of friends, loss of ambition, criminal acts, etc." and adds, "the use of alcohol causes about 88,000 deaths and more than $224 billion in damages per year in the United States," finally asking rhetorically, "Do we really need to encourage and legalize yet another 'harmless' drug for our society?"

            A very close friend of mine had addiction problems leading to criminal acts, loss of job, divorce, and ultimately his death. His addictions started with beer and cigarettes and ended with beer and cigarettes, but I don't conclude from that personal experience, nor from the clear facts of the harm done by alcohol and tobacco, that we should make nicotine an illegal drug and return to alcohol prohibition.

            What I do conclude is that we need to recognize that mainstream America has drug problems, and we need a rational approach to dealing with them.

            A rational approach would classify drugs dispassionately and scientifically, do the math and public-health analysis, and attempt to limit harm; and a rational approach would get over our puritanical heritage enough to acknowledge that most people use psychoactive drugs because it gives them pleasure and to acknowledge pleasure as a good thing and to be placed in the equations along with harm.

            The US federal and local governments gave up on alcohol prohibition for complex reasons, but most justifiably because capital "P" Prohibition did far more harm than good. If you count jail time as often justified harm, but still harm; if you count sucking people into the US criminal justice system as punishment in itself, even when they're acquitted; if you count punishment disproportionate to crimes (and historically racist) as an outright evil — then marijuana prohibition currently does great harm.

            Better to treat psychoactive drugs as a group and regulate stringently drug pushing. For net harm reduction while allowing drug users to seek pleasure and drug addicts to avoid pain, it would be useful to legalize for those over 18 possession of any recreational drugs while limiting advertising and aggressive marketing. Like, it makes no sense to put people in jail for selling a few grams of marijuana while allowing brilliantly-executed alcohol ads on television and "happy-hour" at your local bar to ramp up the use and abuse of booze.

            We need tough-minded policies on drugs: on all and any drugs, of both underclass and mainstream American drug culture.

            If there are First Amendment issues with limiting advertising and marketing of alcohol as a recreational drug — and there are — well, we dealt with similar issues with tobacco.

            If people aren't doing their jobs because they're stoned fire them: not for using drugs but for not doing their jobs. If people are endangering others because they're driving while zonked, punish them for endangering others. If limiting the pushing of currently legal drugs will result in increased unemployment, then former bartenders and others of the deserving unemployed should be given generous support and aid finding other jobs, and ad agency flacks and marketing folk can be offered retraining for more honest work.

Opiates and Other Drugs, Endemic and Cyclical (18 February 2014)

Rate: 2 Flag

            Page one of my local newspaper for 16 Feb. 2014, above the fold: "Opiates plague east county," a variation on headlines you've probably seen in your newspaper since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that I've seen since the 1950s.

            So here's a repetition of an exercise for you. ("Reps" are crucial for social attitudes, as well as building muscles.)

            Start with the observation that "alcohol and drugs" is improper English because alcohol is a drug, and "alcohol and drugs" makes as much sense as "editors and humans." The phrase "alcohol and drugs" may be acceptable as common usage, but it's unethical because it sneaks in a lie.

            Nicotine is also a drug, and caffeine; and if sugar isn't exactly a drug it acts like one, and in terms of the drug/crime connection, the history of sugar is atrocious for its key role in the Atlantic slave trade, where deaths and stolen lives were in the tens of millions. (Tobacco, molasses, and rum were also crucial for the sordid history of American slavery, so that crime/drug connection is very old, very wide, and deep in the cultures of the Americas.)

            So if you drink an Irish Coffee now and then, you're using drugs. Don't feel guilty, not unless you're a drunk, or you're stereotyping the Irish; drug use is normal human behavior and boozing as older than civilization.

            Drug use is normal but a problem since some portion of any population will misuse any drug for pleasure, and if the drug kills pain, significant numbers will become addicted.

            Drugs and drug problems are going to be both endemic — always around — and cyclical: following the laws of economics and trends in politics and even fashion.

            The solution?

            Social problems aren't math problems to be solved; social problem can only be ameliorated, managed. "First, do no harm," and after that, do what harm-reduction you can.

            The local newspaper headline was under the label, "Crime/Courts": That's part of the problem. Drug problems as such, with no immediate harm to others involved, should be handled under "Public Health," not criminal law. Handling drug problems, as such, as crime, does do harm, and more harm than it prevents.