don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

"One time I stayed in a hotel, the pool was on the 23rd floor...I couldn't believe how deep it was."

"You never know what you have till it's gone...I wanted to know what I had so I got rid of everything."

~Steven Wright, "The Wright Stuff," Tampa Weekly Planet, 1/25-31/2006, p.4.

Comedian Steven Wright's clever setups have nothing whatsoever to do with this essay. However, they may amuse and put you in a good mood to begin reading it. Besides, the humor might have other effects I can't anticipate. That is, they might have unintended consequences.

Did you know that the expression "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry" is derived from Robert Burns' "To A Mouse" (1785). That's a fact. That line lives on over the centuries because it artfully expresses a truism about all plans—namely, they are unpredictable. Side effects are not limited to medications. When plans go awry, we refer to their "unintended consequences."

The "War on Drugs" has had many unintended consequences. A few weeks ago, a harmless old moonshiner killed himself rather than report to jail for resisting the efforts of local authorities who wanted him forced out of business. No need to be a patron of the product to appreciate that this sad outcome could easily have been avoided by less Draconian legal proceedings and attitudes toward a bit of unlicensed hooch.

Jon Carroll's (San Francisco Chronicle, 01/27/2006) first corollary to the law of unintended consequences ("There will always be unintended consequences") is "The more grandiose the action, the greater the unintended consequences will be." A war on drugs is extremely grandiose, an overreach by government into the liberties of adults to choose for themselves. Given the law of unintended consequences, we should not be surprised at the magnitude of unfortunate, dysfunctional and disturbing consequences associated with this so-called "War on Drugs."

Why do things go so awry? For an answer to that question, look to Carroll's second corollary to the law of unintended consequences: "It is impossible to figure all the angles because new angles are created all the time." When bureaucrats assume that side effects could be controlled, they are functioning contrary to the law of unintended consequences.

Examples of unintended consequences abound in the news of the day. Think of restrictions on the sale of cold medicines. This was done in many US states because some cold medicines had been used to make methamphetamine, a banned substance. In states with such laws, sales of certain cold medications have fallen, but the production of homemade, substitute chemicals of an ever-more lethal nature increased dramatically. Credit this unintended consequence to the fact that the drug bureaucrats did not figure out all the angles. Here's yet another unintended consequence of the drug war: a big market has been created for crystal meth ("ice") smuggled from Mexico by drug cartels. The Mexican product is purer and more addictive than home-cooked (powdered) meth ever was, which in itself was more conducive to overdoses than the banned cold medicines ever were.

As Carroll noted, more dead suburban teenagers is not exactly what the authors of these drug bills anticipated.

Carroll and others suggest that "drug laws are now so entirely governed by fear that no one stops to consider the reason for the laws." Yet, dying people are often denied pain medications ("Don't want these folks getting addicted in their last days now, do we?"). Carroll sounds like Steven Wright when he notes, dryly: "Who cares if the patient goes to the grave with a tiny opium habit? It's not as if you have to pee into a cup to get into heaven."

Think of the illogic of the current war on drugs by comparing illegal drugs with alcohol. The latter is culturally supported. Alcohol is omnipresent, particularly at sporting events (including ads for beer during the broadcasts), bars are glamorized and almost all social functions encourage alcohol consumption. It is cheap and available nearly everywhere, almost all the time. As Carroll notes, "alcohol is an old drug with a powerful corporate presence and deep roots in society." However, the unintended consequences of alcohol use are well recognized.

Carroll and others have pointed out that while heroin is demonized and criminalized in the drug war, we might be better off if it were cheap and legal. "Heroin is a much better pain-management drug than alcohol, it's much less hard on the body, and legal heroin would mean clean needles, which would be a huge public health benefit."

Alas, public policy in the form of the drug war is twisted by superstitions, self-styled moralists and authorities that Carroll calls "witch doctors.

Since most educated folks know that supply moves to meet demand, the drug trade should not have been an unintended consequence, but a factor taken into account before such a war were unleashed.

As an urban planning student way back in the sixties, I learned to think big, plan on a grand scale. We revered Daniel Burnham, a renowned architect of the early 1900s whose designs made Chicago an architectural wonder. Most of us well recall Burnham's mantra: "Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men's souls - and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans - aim higher in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical decision once reached will never die."

Well, that sure sounded great, but Daniel Burnham may have overlooked the law of unintended consequences and some of its corollaries, and he certainly never got to see the effects of such consequences associated with the dreadful war on drugs.

The good news is the times they are a changing! A partial truce has been reached in one major front in the unnecessary and unwinable war on drugs. Eric Holder, attorney general in the still new Obama Administration, announced that the Justice Department will no longer raid medical marijuana clubs in California legally established under state law. This is a huge shift from the drug policy of the previous administration. The pundits called this position "a high point for the movement to legalize medical marijuana." US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said it is "good news for people in California who are so ill that they have gotten a doctor's note in compliance with the law. If you have a doctor's note, you should be able to get whatever medicine you need."

The misguided, wasteful war on drugs is not over, but this partial truce is quite promising.

Be well. Always look on the bright side of life.

Note: This essay first appeared at this site on March 1, 2006, under the title: "The War on Drugs Meets the Law of Unintended Consequences."

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the PHYSICAL DOMAIN under the skill area of adaptations and challenges. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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