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Why LSD Should Be Legalized
E. J. Mishan
Chapter 5 of Pornography, Psychedelics & Technology, Essays on the Limits to Freedom by E. J. Mishan. London: George Allen & Unwin, ©1980 E.J. Mishan
[Note: The first section of this essay, "Psychedelic Drugs
and Their Properties", is somewhat outdated and contains
a few minor inaccuracies. More complete information on this topic
is available in other documents available in The Psychedelic Library.
It is included here for purposes of continuity with the more important
sections that follow.]
Psychedelic Drugs and Their Properties
I use the term 'psychedelic drugs' to classify those which have
the ability to produce alterations in perception and consciousness
without also producing disorientation. The most familiar of these
drugs are three well-known hallucinogenic drugs: LSD (lysergic
acid diethylamide), mescalin and psilocybin. No deaths from direct
toxicity of these drugs have been reported. They are believed
to be nonaddictive, and to that extent at least it is arguable
that a general case for their legalisation is stronger than a
case for such addictive drugs as heroin and other opium-based
drugs, cocaine or the more recently produced synthetic, methadone.
LSD was originally extracted from ergot (a fungus of rye or wheat)
and was first produced in Switzerland as a synthetic in 1938.
In its pure form it is a crystalline solid. Mescalin in its pure
form is the main psychoactive ingredient of the peyote 'button'the
dried crown of the spineless cactus peyote, found in Mexico and
western parts of North America.[1]
Like LSD, mescalin today can be manufactured synthetically, but
it is incomparably more costly to do so. Psilocybin is the effective
ingredient of psilocybic mushrooms, affectionately known as 'magic
mushrooms', of which there is a large variety growing wild in
many parts of the world.[2]
Mushroom gatherers are expected to be fairly knowledgeable about
local varieties, however, or to carry with them a reliable manual,
as many species are also poisonous.
A 'normal' dose of any of these drugs produces in the subject
an abnormal state of mind over a period of a few hoursa state
referred to by aficionados as 'a trip'. An LSD or mescalin
trip lasts for about six to ten hours, although in some circumstances
it can last for considerably longer. A psilocybic trip, reputed
to be more visual than the LSD or mescalin trip, is somewhat mellower
and usually lasts for about three to six hours. Provided that
they are taken orally, which is usual, each of these drugs takes
effect within about a half-hour to an hour. The intensity of the
reaction reaches a peak in about an hour or so from its taking
effect; it maintains its potency for a period of one to three
hours and gradually, very gradually, wears off.
Where these psychedelic drugs are taken in their natural form,
as they were originally and still are in many areas of the world,
there can be little cause for anxiety. Morning glory seeds contain
lysergic acid amidean alkaloid derivative, which is very similar
to, and about one-tenth as potent as, LSD. South American Indians
have long been aware of the morning glory's special powers, and
the seeds were used extensively by these civilisations several
hundred years ago. Peyote buttons were used as an hallucinogenic
sacrament by Mexican Indians long before Europeans arrived there.
During the time of the Spanish conquest, worship of the gods through
ritual consumption of this plant was widely practiced by the Aztecs
and other Indian communities, who also used it for healing purposes
and for foretelling the future. Similarly, psilocybic mushrooms
were also used by the Aztecs for centuries and in religious rites
3,000 years ago by a number of Central American Indian tribes.[3]
Anything from three to six buttons of the peyote plant is a normal
dose for an adult, although in their ceremonies American Indians
are said to eat up to thirty at a time. They are far from palatable,
however, and can induce nausea and vomiting, which fact makes
them safe to leave about in the presence of infants. As for psilocybic
mushrooms, an average dose ranges from 1 to 5 grams dry weight
or from 10 to 50 grams fresh, that is, anything between one and
twenty mushrooms, depending upon the variety and size. Like the
peyote buttons, the psilocybic mushrooms are simply chewed and
swallowed, preferably on an empty stomach, although it is also
common to make a brew out of them, which can then be sweetened
to combat their bitter and acrid taste.
The individual's reaction depends upon his age, weight and physical
and mental condition, also upon his personality, mood, expectations
and prior knowledge of the drug and upon the environment in which
it is taken. If, say, a manic depressive takes the drug, especially
in a tense or uncongenial situation, he is not likely to have
a pleasant trip. A healthy person taking the same drug in familiar
surroundings, initially perhaps with friends and, say, with soft
music playing, is very likely to have an enjoyable experience.[4]
However, if the normal dose is exceeded by a significant amount,
the sensations are more likely to become nightmarish, at least
for those with little experience of the drug in question. The
prevalent belief, however, is that there is no critical dose beyond
which any of these drugs, acting directly on the body, is fatal.[5]
The economics of their production makes LSD by far the most commonly
used of the hallucinogens. Of the 'mescalin' and 'psilocybin'
sold on the streets, only about one in fifty samples of the stuff
submitted to street drug laboratories turns out to be authentic.
Most of this ersatz mescalin and psilocybin is really LSD or a
mixture of LSD and PCP (phenocyclidine, an animal tranquilliser),[6]
although sometimes it is a mixture of LSD and amphetamine. Even
the magic mushrooms sold on the streets are far more likely to
be ordinary mushrooms topped with a dose of LSD, for, as measured
by psychoreactive effect, LSD is far and away the cheapest hallucinogen
that is producible.
LSD, which is today almost always synthetic, comes in a variety
of forms. When used in psychoanalytic treatment it is usually
diluted with water. In the forms made available by the black market
it is mixed with inert matter as a filler and occasionally adulterated
('cut') with other drugs. Because it is so cheap to produce, however,
the chances are that LSD sold on the street is wholly or almost
wholly LSD, although sometimes it turns out to be aspirin or some
other useless substance. Unless it is secured in a form that separates
the dosessuch as a strip of plastic-seeming material divided
into equal squares, or as a 'microdot' or 'polka-dot' on paper,
or as separate pieces of 'window pane' (small squares of gelatin
sheet) or 'blotter' (small squares of paper)it is easy to take
an overdose. After all, a normal adult dose of LSD averages between
50 and 200 micrograms (200 micrograms being one-five-thousandth
part of a gram), which is minuscule. Thus, a teaspoonful of LSD
is enough drug for between 50,000 strong trips and 200,000 weak
trips. It is obvious, then, that very many times a normal dose
can be put into a small cube of sugar. Since from time to time
accounts of the adverse psychological effects produced by accidental
overdoses of LSD are played up by the media,
[7]
it is unnecessary to expatiate on the possible dangers of misusing
the drug. It is, however, reasonable to maintain that it is the
act of illegalization itself that should be held responsible for
the 'bad trips' resulting from too high a dosage or for the occasional
ingestion of such poisonous or dangerous matter as PCP. Were these
drugs legalized, the consumer could both ascertain the purity
of the product and buy it in a more convenient form. LSD, for
instance, could be so diluted with water that a half-tumblerful
or more of liquid would have to be taken in order to consume 100
micrograms of it. In order to reduce further the risk of small
children's mistaking it for water, a bitter flavour could be imparted
to the mixture.
There are a number of pretty obvious reasons why the psychedelic
cult is less popular than that of cannabis ('pot'). Compared with
pot hallucinogens are less available, costlier and harder to identify
and generally carry far harsher penalties on discovery. No less
important is the fact that, compared with a pot trip, an hallucinogenic
trip can be quite exhausting, and it is certainly far more time
consuming. In addition, it is easier, especially for a beginner,
to have a bad trip by taking too large a dose of LSD than it is
to have a bad trip with pot. Finally, while the traffic in these
drugs remains illegal, it is virtually impossible for the layman
to assess the quality of the psychedelic drug and, in the case
of LSD, to determine the dosage without actually consuming it
in the form offered and taking his chance.
Whereas it is commonly conjectured that at least half of the US
population between the ages of 15 and 50 have at some time in
their lives taken pot, and whereas estimates of those smoking
regularly vary between 13 million and 30 million, the figures
for the consumers of psychedelic drugs, although uncertain, are
not likely to be more than a fraction of such numbers. The Sunday
Times[8] has quoted the
findings of a 1973 survey, which concluded that about 600,000
persons in Britain had taken LSD at least once. On this basis
a comparable figure for the United States would be about 3 million.
Since they do these things so much better in the United States
than in Britain, however, this 3 million figure should be regarded
as extremely conservative, and in any case it would apply to LSD
alone.
In the 1950s and 1960s LSD came into prominence as an aid in psychoanalysis
and in therapy for alcoholism, for drug addiction and for depression
in terminal cancer patientsindeed, for a range of mental disorders
also. Although it showed promise in some clinical applications,
research was curtailed by legislation when LSD became popular
(about the mid 1960s) as a recreational drug. Hence, the therapeutic
effects of LSD are still largely unknown. On the other hand, a
word or two about the possible ill effects of the drug would be
useful, if only to correct the popular misconceptions resulting
from the carefree extravagances of press reports. As observed
in the short monograph Chemical Survival put out by the
Institute of Chemical Survival, which is possibly the largest
research organization of this kind in the world: 'The amount of
misinformation on the illegal drugs is overwhelming.' With few
exceptions the popular press provides accounts calculated to scare
the public. We have all heard somewhere about the person who took
LSD, thought he had wings and jumped out of a window to his death.
It could have happened; but then, thousands each year fare no
better under the influence of other drugs, above all alcohol.
Of all drug overdoses, 50-60 per cent involve alcohol, and it
is responsible for about half of the fatalities in automobile
accidents.
The plain fact is that the statistical evidence of the long-term
effects of these three hallucinogens on body and mental health
is too slight to warrant generalization, and what there is does
not support the view that they are in any way adverse.
[9]
As distinct from narcotics, they are not addictive. No one has
alleged, either, that hallucinogens can be significantly associated
with physical defects.
Indeed, in the June 1973 issue of California Medicine the Californian
Medical Association listed eleven drugs in order of their deleterious
effects on human organs. The worst in this respect was alcohol,
which can boast 10 million addicts in the United States, followed
by tobacco, amphetamines, solvents, barbiturates, heroin and other
narcotics, cocaine, hallucinogens, hashish, marijuana and caffeine,
in that order.[10]
Despite the panic in the late 1960s about possible damage to chromosomes,
the fear that LSD can produce mutagenic effects has proved groundless.
[11]
In sum, there is apparently no hard evidence to bear out the view
that, when taken in moderate doses by people without severe personality
problems, it has any long-term ill effect on the mind or body.
[12]
True, so long as LSD remains illegal there is always the possible
danger of a beginner's unwittingly taking a large dose of it and
becoming terrified by the nightmare sensations, but it must not
be supposed that the effect of the drug increases in proportion
to the dose and that I gram of L SD has 10,000 times as intense
an effect as 100 micrograms, which is a light dose. No matter
how much LSD is taken, the body cannot apparently absorb more
than about 500 micrograms, which for some people is not too heavy
a dose.
The hallucinogenic experience can be clinically described as follows:
'Common initial reactions include muscular relaxation and dilation
of the pupils, and distortions of space and time perceptions may
occur. If the dose is large enough, effects can include visual
and auditory distortions and hallucinations.' Such descriptions
are sometimes amplified to include 'sensations of weightlessness,
depersonalization, unprovoked emotional discharges and introspective
experiences' .
However, such clinical descriptions fall far short of conveying
an impression of the psychedelic experience to a person who has
not taken any of the hallucinogens. For more personal and colourful
descriptions the reader can turn to a number of popular accounts,
among which the best known are those of Aldous Huxley and Timothy
Leary and, more recently and in more narrative didactive strain,
the volumes written by Carlos Castaneda.
[13]
Obviously, elements of interpretation and personal faith enter
heavily into such writings; but then, the personal details of
what is usually an intense experience are difficult to describe
objectively.
Generalizing, as I intend, from the impressions of a sample of
eleven Californians interviewed during the autumn of 1977 (of
which five were students, the remainder being professional men
and women)
[14]
supported by casual conversations with about a dozen students in Florida
during the spring of 1978, may be suspect. It can hardly be a
random sample, and the experiences related varied between these
people and, for the same person, between one trip and another.
Nevertheless, the informal account below accords broadly with
the more formal descriptions of the psychedelic experience found
in the professional journals. It will therefore serve to convey
to the uninitiated reader some idea of the range and nature of
the feelings that the interviewees experienced while under the
influence of these three hallucinogens. Some of their impressions
are summarised below; others that are particularly relevant to
the fourth section, 'The Character of Society', are reserved for
later.
First, I shall make a number of points in order to correct popular
misapprehensions:
(1) Although there is a sense of melting or dissolving when small
doses are taken, there is no smooth euphoric sensation. Indeed,
for normal or strong doses a person can have quite tense or 'gritty'
feelings, especially around the peak of the experience. (2) It
is possible to take small doses and trip 'lightly' for a few successive
days without getting tired. However, tolerance builds up quickly,
and after the third day or so the dose has to be increased to
obtain the same effect. (This tolerance disappears, however, soon
after the person stops taking the drug.) (3) The more philosophic
and mystical reflections tend to come well after the peak, when
the subject is in a calmer state of mind.
There was general agreement in the group that, in going into the
trip, the environment initially takes on an echoey quality and
that the world becomes more vivid and vibrant. If the dose is
large, space appears warped and perhaps wavy, as it may be seen
through moving water or through a prism, and the shape of quite
ordinary objects can be invested with the greatest curiosity and
anticipation. Sometimes time passes unnoticed or seems to be suspended.
There can be surges of primitive or bacchanalian feelings and
often, in the later phases, mystical feelings.
Some of the group spoke of an occasional pang of impatience as
their thoughts turned inwards and as they became aware of their
follies and rationalizations, and they were afflicted by a sorrowful
desire to strip off accumulated layers of self-deception in order
to feel clean and to lay bare some essential truth. This is not
surprising, for it is common knowledge among those who study the
drugs that subjects tend to feel that their minds have been opened
by the psychedelic experience to great truths, although by the
time the effects have worn off these great truths do not seem
quite so mind boggling as they did at the peak of the experience.
Although a few in the group asserted that in fact they never experienced
any actual hallucinationthat is to say, they did not have visions
or hear voicesthey agreed that their powers of imagery and
association were singularly enhanced. Sometimes long-forgotten
incidents, which could be deeply moving or seemingly inconsequential,
would come bubbling into consciousness.
The alleged 'mind-expanding' effect of these drugs is clearly
not intellectual or analytic. Under the drug a person can be borne
along by a tumultuous medley of associations and emotions and
may inadvertently surrender to impulses of overpowering sorrow,
yearning, fear, joy or love. On occasion a person might scribble
feverishly, in rather disjointed calligraphy, in an attempt to
record the ebullition of fantasy and emotion.
To the psychoanalyst administering the drug it appears as though
the portals of the unconscious are sliding open and the patient
in consequence acquires a depth of awareness and an agility of
association beyond his powers in the normal state. True, opinions
on the efficacy of the psychoanalytic method are still divided.
Yet, the claims made for its efficacy in helping some patients
to resolve their personality problems cannot be entirely discounted.
After my taking the liberty of interpreting the experience of
others it seems proper to offer the reader a brief but 'more structured'
account of the matter. I shall end this section, then, by quoting
from pages 7-8 of J. Axton's monograph A Conscientious Guide
to Hallucinogens, in which he follows Debold's scheme
[15]
in distinguishing five types of hallucinogenic experience:
A psychotic experience is described as being characterized by
panic, paranoid distrust, confusion, isolation and/or extreme
depression. The term is . . . usually reserved for trips that
get dangerously out of control.
In a psychodynamic experience, sub-conscious material is brought
to the surface. This is the type of experience usually sought
when hallucinogens are used in therapy.
A cognitive experience is characterized by what appears to be
astonishingly lucid thought. Subjectively, the mind seems able
to see things from new perspectives, and to see interrelationships
or many levels or dimensions of thought simultaneously. It is
questionable whether this insight is real or only seems so.
An aesthetic experience is described as one in which the sensory
aspects of the experience dominate. The psychedelic drugs' effects
on perception and sensation are perhaps the most publicized aspects
of their actions... Fascinating changes in perception and sensation
do often occur, but the degree of frequency of such changes may
be somewhat exaggerated.
A mystical experience is sometimes compared to the states sought
in Transcendental Meditation, Zen, and other religious disciplines,
although many people (especially practitioners of religious disciplines)
feel that the hallucinogenic experience is a poor substitute.
The experience is described principally as a 'loss of ego' or
a loss of sense of self, so that the concept of 'I' loses its
meaning a feeling of 'all is one'. This feeling is often accompanied
by overwhelming joy from what is felt to be deep, religious, often
irrational or paradoxical insight into the nature of the universe.
A psychedelic experience, of course, rarely fits neatly into any
of these categories. It is more likely to include aspects of all
five. Exactly which aspects depends again upon the dosage and
the individual user. A few effects, like intensified emotion,
some visual distortion, and a degree of depersonalization are
reported with most psychedelic experience. That the specific type
of experience often seems so clear-cut may be the result of the
drug's tendencies to produce a sort of mental tunnel visionall
types may result from bio-chemical actions, but whichever aspect
of the experience may attract or captivate the mind is the one
that predominates at any particular time.
Social and Economic Considerations
The most paternalistic bureaucrat would hesitate to interfere
with the customary use of hallucinogenic drugs wherever they have
a part to play within a traditional culture, as they do, for instance,
in the religious ceremonies of various Indian communities in the
Americas. In such a context the hallucinogenic drugs are organic
and are taken in the form of cactus buttons, or mushrooms or brews
made therefrom. Because the consumption of the drugs is part of
a collective ritual experience, the amounts taken, the age of
the participants and the ritual occasions are all subject to strict
regulations.
The situation is quite otherwise in a non-traditional society,
especially an increasingly permissive societyone in which,
moreover, though probably as a direct consequence of the legal
ban on their sale, hallucinogens are more commonly synthetic,
easier to adulterate and more difficult to identify and measure.
The questions to be examined are: (1) whether the commonly voiced
apprehensions about the use of these drugs are warranted; and
(2) how much weight should be attached to the risks involved in
their use in a social decision to control them. I shall consider
in turn the libertarian and conservative responses to the question.
The somewhat facile libertarian dictum that a man should be free
to act as he wishes, provided that his actions do not interfere
with the freedom of others, takes us at once to the heart of the
matter. As the libertarian sees it, the sort of personal freedom
that should be sanctioned by the dictum would include the individual's
choice of food, drink and clothing (provided that it does not
offend the accepted canons of decency). It would include his choice
of religious and political affiliation and his freedom to join
any group, club or association (provided that its aims are not
constitutionally subversive). It would also include the right
to travel where he pleases, to divert himself at any place of
entertainment, to undertake any lawful enterprise and to voice
any opinion (provided that his language is not libelous, blasphemous
or scurrilous).[16]
The consistent libertarian cannot, then, deny a man the right
to engage in any activity that may endanger his own health and,
as a corollary, therefore, to consume any drug that he pleases
entirely at his own risk.
The proviso about the effect of man's action upon others is, of
course, crucial, and it is not necessary to establish a direct
causal link at the individual level between the use of a good
by one person and the adverse effects on others in order to persuade
the good libertarian to qualify the individual's freedom to produce
it or use it. For instance, if there is clear evidence that the
production or consumption of the item entails a high likelihood
of harm to others, controls on its manufacture or use may have
to be contemplated.[17]
However, no one has seriously claimed that the consumption of
psychedelic drugs creates significant 'spillover effects', to
use the economic jargon. Certainly, the consumption of alcoholic
beverages is far more productive of violence towards others than
the consumption of any of the psychedelic drugs in question. What
is more, since the drinking of liquor is also a social activity,
frequently engaged in at other people's homes or at pubsin
contrast to the taking of hallucinogens, which in the main is
an intensely private experiencethe incidence of driving under
the influence of alcohol is likely to be incomparably higher than
that of driving under the influence of an hallucinogenic drug.
In general, however, the undeniable proposition that some people
might abuse a liberty by acting irresponsibly cannot of
itself constitute an exception to the libertarian presumption
in favour of individual freedom. For there is scarcely a human
activity that does not carry this sort of risk. The only deterrent
to the possibility of irresponsible action countenanced by the
libertarian is that sanctioned by the common law, under which
a man can be charged only with willful attempts to hurt others
or for attempts to do so under the influence of liquor or other
drugs he willfully chooses to consume.
[18]
The term 'victimless crime' is an apt one used by libertarians
to describe those activities which, giving satisfaction to one
or more persons without inflicting any hardship on third parties,
have nonetheless been made legal offences by the state for the
greater good of society. Until recently physical intimacies between
consenting adult homosexuals were such a crime. For that matter,
incest between consenting adults is still a victimless crime (if
we ignore the possible genetic consequences)a fact that serves
to remind us that not all seemingly victimless crimes are without
significant effects on society at largea subject we turn to
in the following section.
Confining ourselves to psychedelic drugs, the libertarian will
always concede the right of the citizen to have access to all
the available information. With the usual provision about safeguards
for minors, the decision whether or not to take his chances with
them should be left to his discretion alone. Although, to repeat,
legislation designed to promote or require the dilution of such
concentrated synthetics as LSD (so that, say, a tumblerful or
so would amount to about an average dose) and to list any other
ingredients would go far to make the occasional massive overdoseof
which so much is made by the pressvirtually impossible, any
group or agency, either private or public, should be free to engage
in research on the effects of hallucinogenic drugs and on improving
them in various ways and to disseminate its findings to the public.
And although some liberal thinkers might wish to intercede also
for the right to advertise these drugs, I myself would not favour
commercial advertising of drugs any more than I would favour commercial
advertising generally.[19]
Before moving on, however, there are three considerations that
the libertarian case for legalising hallucinogenic drugs cannot
evade. The first turns on pragmatic and economic factors; the
other two arise respectively from the existence of the family
and of the welfare state.
With respect to the first consideration, the libertarian, especially
in the United States, has voiced his opposition to the frequent
withdrawal by government agencies of drugs and food additives
from the market. He has affirmed his belief that, no matter how
suspect the drug might be or how dangerous to health it is believed
to be, there is no prima facie case for depriving people
of the choice of risk taking. There is a case, he says, only for
making information accessible, even when the information that
is currently available is slight and uncertain, since the individual
has a right to be treated as a responsible person. Admittedly,
not all adults can be counted upon to act responsibly all the
time, nor do they invariably know their own interests best. But,
so the argument goes, the manifest solicitude of the welfare state
to protect the citizen from his own follies ought to be strenuously
resisted. According to the libertarian, it is better to act on
the assumption that each person knows his own interest best than
to act on any other principle.
Nevertheless, living as we do during a period of rapid innovation,
when each year hundreds of new chemical drugs, additives, synthetics,
fertilizers, pesticides and accessories appear on the market,
the difficulty even for an alert and energetic public of obtaining
information about the short and long run consequences of each
of the many new items can hardly be exaggerated.
More often than not, by the time some of the longer run consequences
of a particular item have come to light and it is regarded by
some specialists as either suspect or pernicious, strong commercial
scientific and bureaucratic interests have come into being. Much
the same hapless pattern of events occurs with respect to a diversity
of modern production processes, projects or consumer gadgets;
by the time the scale of production or use has reached a stage
at which the adverse consequences are widespread and have become
a major nuisance, conflicts have already built up between, on
the one hand, the immediate interests of producers and consumers
and, on the other, the victims of the side effects of the items
in question. These repeated examples of social folly are, of course,
the unavoidable outcome of that presumption in favour of scientific
and industrial progressa heritage of the last 200 yearsoperating
in an age still intoxicated by the pace of change and blinded
by visions of goodies yet to come. This presumption is sustained
today by a faith that the dangers and damage resulting from the
applications of science will themselves be remedied by further
applications of sciencehopefully in time, and assuming that
the damage is not irreversible.
So long as this implicit presumption in favour of change continues
to guide our destinies, things get done that, had they been deliberated
and investigated at leisure prior to commitment, might with great
advantage have been left undone. If, for instance, the debate
on the future alternative sources of energy had taken place in
Britain prior to the building of nuclear reactors and prior, therefore,
to the virtual commitment of the Establishment, including that
of large numbers of top British scientists and engineers, such
a debate would have been more searching, more balanced and more
fruitful. However, pressing on, as we do, in feverish haste we
continue to create ever more social conflicts and ever greater
hazards, which. as I have indicated elsewhere,
[20]
entail increased government control and increased government power
over the citizen.
Under these improvident conditions the unyielding libertarian
might still insist that each person be allowed to buy any product
or service on the free market entirely at his own risk, guided
only by the existing informationwhich term would include the
possible absence of any dependable information and even the presence
of what transpired to be misleading information or misinformation.
However, if this policy were adopted for, say, food additives
and drugs, the consequences should give us pause. The sudden discovery
by a government agency or by an independent group that a food
additive or drug currently in common use carried a high carcinogenic
or mutagenic risk would call for an immediate decision by all
concerned. And it is by no means certain that a predominantly
libertarian public would disapprove of an immediate ban on the
sale of the item in question, at least for the time being. The
alternative course of disseminating this crucial information by
all available means could not be accomplished overnight. By the
time the news of this discovery had filtered down to all segments
of the population some additional and irreversible damage would
have been done that could have been avoided by imposing, instead,
an immediate ban on the sale of the item.
The familiar psychedelic drugs, however, do not fall within this
category of new chemicals or additives coming on to the market
each year. Although, in view of their illegality, they are not
as familiar in the West today as liquor and tobacco products,
information about them is readily available for the interested
layman.[21]
Moreover, not only has their ritual consumption been a feature
of other civilizations, but in addition they have been in use
throughout the modern world long enough for both the medical profession
and the interested public to appreciate that there are no clearly
discernible adverse affects on the health of normal personsprovided,
always that they are not taken in immoderate doses. Yet, even
if it were established beyond reasonable doubt that regular recourse
to hallucinogens could have effects on health that were as bad
as, or worse than, those of regular recourse to alcohol, there
would now be time enough, prior to permissive legislation, to
acquaint the public at large with everything knownand, of course,
everything not yet knownabout them, so enabling each person
to use his own discretion in the matter.
The other two considerations arise because of the penumbra of
uncertainty about the kind of effects on others that are to count
in the libertarian scheme of things. The first consideration,
which follows at once, bears on the nature and incidence of third-party
effects, whereas the second addresses itself to institutional
complexities.
Broadly speaking, these incidental third-party or 'spillover'
effects are of two kinds. On the one hand, there are those direct
and tangible effects of, say, person A on other people, such
as his disturbing the peace of a quiet village by shooting birds
in the surrounding woods. On the other, there are the indirect
or reactive effects of person A's actions on others, such
as the indignation of the village elders on learning that Mr.
A has taken to reading prurient novels. The libertarian regards
the incidence only of the former (the direct effects on others)
as pertinent in any case to be made against the unchecked liberty
of the action of the citizen, never the latter (the reactive effects
on others).
These direct effects themselves, however, can be split into four
categories, each of which could elicit a distinct response from
the libertarian:
(1) those arising from the use of items specifically designed
to injure others;
(2) those arising from the use of goods designed for peaceful
pursuits, the legitimate production or use of which nonetheless
inflicts tangible damage on the health or amenity of others damage
that it is costly for the victim to avoid;
(3) those arising from the use of items, such as drugs, that induce
an abnormal state of mind under which a person is more likely
to injure another than he would be in a normal state; and
(4) those arising from the use of items that neither affect the
health or amenity of others nor induce an abnormal state of mind
in the user, but can yet be put to mischief.
The libertarian position, as I interpret it, would be to impose
strict controls on the purchases of items in the first (1) category.
The second (2) category corresponds with the economist's definition
of 'spillovers' or side effects. And current notions of economic
efficiency tend to prescribe some reduction of the peccant activity,
always provided that information and administrative costs are
not too high. However, in so far as the libertarian would repudiate
the idea of extending opportunities for gain or pleasure to some
groups at the cost of suffering by innocent parties, the economist's
'optimal' solutions might also be repudiated. A case for controls
in the name of justice may have a stronger appeal than a case
in terms of economic efficiency alone.
The fourth (4) category of effects poses no problem for the libertarian.
If a grown man wishes to risk his neck climbing the Alps or swimming
in a stormy sea, this is his own business. Nor would the libertarian
agree to any controls on the sale of kitchen knives, chisels,
hammers, pokers or any of a large number of utensils that can
easily be and sometimes are used to maim or murder another person.
Everyday life would be intolerable, or perhaps impossible, if
the sale of every object or substance that could conceivably be
used, either accidentally or deliberately, to injure another were
to be banned or controlled. In connection with this fourth category,
then, it is not only the libertarian who would accept the principle
that adults should be treated as responsible beings, even though,
in the event, a number of them are sure to behave in an irresponsible
and sometimes criminal manner.
The interesting category is, of course, the third (3), which includes
drugs that induce abnormal states of mind under which a person
is more likely to injure others than he would in a normal state.
This is where the libertarian nails his colours to the mast. As
distinct from the paternalistic view, the mere fact that the consumer
of the drug incurs a risk to his own health does not of itself
constitute a reason for banning it or controlling its sale. Nor
does the fact alone that, in taking the drug, some risk to the
safety of others cannot be wholly avoided. After all, as just
indicated in connection with the fourth category, some risk of
danger to others is incurred in making available to the consumer
any number of quite innocent household goods.
Unavoidably, then, the critical determinant is the degree of incidence
or likelihood of injury to innocent parties. The libertarian distinguishes
himself in requiring that, in any allegation of high or intolerable
risk, the burden of proof be placed on those who favour controls.
Apparently, the incidence of injury to others resulting from the
sale of alcoholic drinks to the public is regarded by society
as a tolerable price to pay for the right of a person to buy them
freely on the market. There is, of course, no reason to suppose
that the existing degree of risk associated with the consumption
of alcohol is the critical norm. If the trend over the next few
years were to reveal some increase in violence while under the
influence of alcohol, it is doubtful whether its sale would be
made illegal. Be that as it may, my contention is that the incidence
of injury to others resulting from the legalized sale of hallucinogenic
drugs is likely to be far lower than that arising from the sale
of alcoholic drinks. But whether or not I can persuade my fellow
citizens of this contention of mine, no libertarian society should
contemplate banning the sale of these hallucinogens unless the
evidence had established, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the
incidence of injury to others resulting from their consumption
was significantly higher than that resulting from, say, the consumption
of alcohol.
We turn now to the second consideration: the obstacles to clear
thinking on this and related issues arising from the role of the
family and the rise of the welfare state respectively.
Should a man choose to drink so heartily of alcoholic beverages
as to become incapable of regular employment, the effect of his
drinking on third parties need not result in disorderly conduct
or violence. But it can drastically reduce the material well-being
of his immediate and dependent family. This is, of course, not
the only risk to which members of his immediate family are exposed
as a result of the freedom exercised by the chief provider. The
material comfort of his family is prone to a variety of risks,
some arising from the choices of his occupation or locality and
others from any of a number of sports or hobbies in which he chooses
to engage.
Yet, recognition of these risks has never been regarded as consideration
enough in the eyes of the libertarian to warrant any curbing of
a family man's liberty to drink or smoke or to choose his own
occupation, hobbies and sports, no matter how dangerous. Indeed,
accepting the family as the organic cell from which all civilisations
are built, the freedom to choose is more appropriately conferred
on the family as an internally organised social unit, leaving
the individual members of it to arrive in their own way at the
family decisionsand in doing so to prevail on one another and,
in the manner shaped by the existing culture, to display restraint
and take heed of the morrow.
The greater are such risks in any condition of society, the more
incumbent it is upon men and women, in conjunction with their
parents and relations, to exercise prudence in their choice of
marriage partners. And although the rise of affluence and the
spread of the welfare state have gone far to make modern marriages
the product more of impulses than of forethought, the offspring
of an improvident couple are not entirely helpless. For by the
same token the welfare state, stepping into the social breach
that it fostersa diminished sense of parental responsibility,
a reduction in the intervention of relations and friends and a
diminution in the pressure once exerted by the local church and
the local communityalso sets limits to the amount of deprivation
and abuse that children may suffer at the hands of their parents.
In general, the fact that young children are for years wholly
within the power of their parents and the fact also that child
abuses do sometimes occur have not yet altered the expedient presumption
in all civilisations that parents are more fitted to rear their
offspring than any other bodyat least until, in any particular
case, the contrary has been shown. It follows that the mere possibility
that the liberty vouchsafed to parents to spend as they please
may be used so unwisely as seriously to endanger the health or
welfare of their children has never been held by society to warrant
imposition, at the outset, of restraints on the pattern of family
expenditure.[22]
The incidental risk to minors from keeping hallucinogens in the
home is no different from the risks of storing alcoholic preparations
or, for that matter, scores of other drugs or substances which,
if swallowed by an infant, could prove fatal. Sensible parents
place such products well out of reach of infants.
[23]
For older children parents have to relyas with liquor and tobaccoto
a large extent upon good example, upon the atmosphere in the home
and upon the influence of the school and community environment.
Finally, in connection with the third consideration we have to
face the situation created by the growth of the welfare state.
The resident in Britain who chooses to drink heavily, to smoke
heavily or regularly to consume any unhealthy drugs, or alternatively
to indulge in any of a number of strenuous sports, not only risks
damaging his health; he subjects the British taxpayer also to
additional risks. Given the institution of the welfare state,
therefore, the decisions of a large number of people to do any
of the above-mentioned things, plus many others, undeniably increase
the tax burden on the remaining members of society.
However, these direct effects on the taxpayer do not fall within
the second (2) category of 'spillovers' mentioned earlier. They
are not 'externalities' as commonly understood by economists;
that is, they are not the incidental, although direct, physical
effects of one person's legitimate activity on the health or amenity
of others. Instead, the economist regards such additional tax
burdens as 'pecuniary' effects, in as much as income transfers
alone are involved. In other words, no necessary misallocation
of resources is implied by additional tax burdens that result
from such institutional arrangements; only a redistribution of
income as between risk-takers on the one hand and the remainder
of the community on the other.
[24]
It follows that, on economic grounds at least, control by the
welfare state on people's chosen activities is unwarranted.
Yet, this observation by the economist, pertinent though it is,
has reference only to economic efficiency. The argument looks
quite different when couched in terms of equity. Surely those
whose chosen activities tend to result in a greater tax burden
being borne by others ought to be made accountable in some way!
One response to this exclamation is to point out that heavy consumers
of tobacco and alcohol do in fact contribute more to the general
revenues than do others. There is in principle a calculable level
of excise tax on each of these products that would raise a sum
that was equal to that necessary to finance the additional medical
and other services required by smokers and drinkers. It is not
impossible, either, that the existing excise taxes exceed these
equitable levels, so that, on balance, the rest of the country
benefits from the vices of its minority. On the same argument,
of course, the calculable costs to society of any ill effects
suffered by consumers of psychedelic drugs can be wholly offset,
or more than offset, by an appropriate set of excise taxes.
Sensible though such tax solutions may appear to be on grounds
of equity alone, and capable though they are of meeting this sort
of objection, they must not be allowed to detract from the essential
issue. The outcome of people's liberty to indulge in their vices,
sports or hobbies upon the welfare of othersspecifically, that
of increasing the tax burden on the lattercannot be regarded
as the necessary consequence of the actions of the former. It
is no more than a result contrived by institutional arrangementswhich
arrangements are, of course, optional for society. Simply by extending
the area of 'socialism' or 'welfarism', so far as to make each
person in effect a ward of the state, the state is able to ensure
that his every action entails a possible financial liability to
society at large. This much accomplished, it then becomes true
to assert that practically every choice made by the citizen has
some effect, plus or minus, on the tax burden of all other citizensfrom
which proposition it may (improperly) be inferred that, in contradiction
to the libertarian dictum, there is in fact no longer any significant
area of activity in which a person ought to be free to act as
he pleases.
This alleged vulnerability of the libertarian position cannot
be taken seriously. Should a Western government committed to maintaining
or expanding the welfare services of the state explicitly adduce
the above argument as grounds for extending further the system
of constraints on individual choices, the response of the electorate
would almost certainly be a decisive repudiation of the welfare
state. Certainly no libertarian would ever agree to so constricting
a social contract.
In sum, therefore, if the citizen properly insists that any extension
of the welfare state be without prejudice to the freedom of individuals
to continue indulging in their chosen vices and recreations (including
such 'injurious' drugs as liquor and tobacco) he cannot, with
any pretence of consistency, invoke the tax-burden argument in
a bid to ban the introduction of psychedelic drugs.
Drug Illegalization and Crime
In as much as the scope for the exercise of personal freedom is
closely connected with respect for the law and proper acknowledgment
of legitimate authority, two other considerations bearing on the
legislation against the sale of psychedelic drugs impel our attention:
a minor one and a major one, in that order.
For the extreme paternalist, statistical evidence of the ill effects
on the health of cigarette smokers would be consideration enough
to justify banning the sale of cigarettes. He would deplore not
merely the fact that the welfare state legalizes their sale but
also, with more justification, the fact that it provides facilities
for the promotion of cigarette sales by permitting tobacco firms
to spend exorbitant sums on advertising campaigns. The libertarian,
who is nonetheless concerned not only with the health of smokers
but also with that of non-smokers, would continue to oppose any
proposed ban on tobacco sales, although he would be in favour
of expanding non-smoking areas in restaurants, theaters, cinemas
and other public places. And if, like me, he disapproved generally
of commercial advertising, on both economic and social grounds,
he might also view cigarette advertising as particularly distasteful.
To a large extent the appeal of tobacco advertisements as a whole
is not to those already addicted to the habit but to the young
and impressionable, who are encouraged to associate it with adult
status, with independence, suavity, sex appeal and self-possession.
Once the young succumb, the chances of their giving up the habit
are small. Unlike psychedelic drugs, the tobacco drug is notoriously
addictive. Smokers may switch brands, sometimes in response to
advertisements, but for the most part they remain customers for
life.
Although I should not expect all libertarians to go along with
a policy of banning all tobacco advertisements and, in addition,
with a policy of using equivalent sums to finance a prolonged
and intensive antismoking campaign directed particularly towards
the young, the opinion is worth entertaining that such policiesmore
fitting as they are to a self-acclaimed welfare statewould
all but eliminate the smoking habit within a generation. However,
be this as it may, it is certain that the existing legal position,
which permits the tobacco industry lavishly to advertise its products
(provided always that the advertisement carries beneath it the
standard smudge of government warning), appeals strongly to all
connoisseurs of forthright hypocrisy. No one doubts that, welfare
or no, the state would be reluctant to part with so lucrative
a source of revenue, even though the economist is prone to calculate
the real cost to society of effecting this transfer of revenue
to the government in terms also of additional deaths from cancer
and of bronchial disorders. Apparently, it is a real cost that
the welfare state is willing to incur each year in exchange for
the tribute exacted from the potential victimseven though it
needs no economic sophistication to recognise that, if the existing
part of the nation's resources currently engaged in producing
for tobacco imports and distributing their products were shifted
instead to producing and distributing other things, the same tax
revenue could be raised in any of a variety of ways.
A cynic might well suggest that I ought also to favour a government-supported
advertising campaign against the use of psychedelic drugs, even
though they are believed to be non-addictive, provided
that some ill effects on the health of the users could be established.
As it happens, I should not have the slightest objection to such
a proposal. Nor, indeed, could any thoughtful libertarian, provided
that the advertisements carried no statements that were irreconcilable
with the existing evidence. The libertarian stands for freedom
of choice, not for the promotion of any good that he happens to
favour. He cannot therefore object to the spread of information
based on the existing evidence in order to enable the citizen
to make a more prudent decision.
Howeverand this now brings us to the major considerationonce
legal prohibition takes over from persuasion in matters that,
according to libertarian doctrine, should remain within the area
of individual choice, the inevitable train of effects on society
at large can be of decisive importance.
The economics alone of illegalizing the sale of a good produces
far-reaching and undesirable reactions. Any effective rationing
of a good of which legal prohibition is the limiting caseinvariably
leads to the formation of a black market.
[25]
The extent of the resulting black market depends upon a number
of factors, of which only three need detain us here: the national
character, the attitude of the public in the particular circumstances,
and the specific conditions of demand and supply.
It is commonly believed, at least in Britain, that the British
are a law-abiding people and that black markets are therefore
less likely to flourish in Britain than (to make invidious comparisons)
in some Mediterranean countries. More important perhaps is the
second factor. Thus, over the period of food rationing in Britain,
black markets in foodstuffs were least active during the war years.
The fact that the bulk of the British population felt that during
the war it was wrong not to support the national government's
declared policy of equal sharing of the limited supplies of essential
foodstuffs acted as a check to the growth of black markets.
This particular wartime attitude towards rationing foodstuffs
cannot, however, prevail in quite different circumstances and
for quite different items, especially those loosely associated
with vice, such as liquor, drugs, prostitution and gambling facilities,
all of which have been or still are prohibited in different countries.
For such items the third factor mentioned, namely, the conditions
of demand and supply, warrants the closest attention. In general,
the more complex is the technology involved in the production
of the prohibited item, and the costlier it is to produce and
transport, even under lawful conditions, the less profitable it
becomes to organise a sizable black market.
Obviously, none of the prohibited items mentioned above present
these difficulties. Psychedelic drugs (in particular LSD), or
narcotic drugs for that matter,[26]
are in fact relatively easy and inexpensive to produce and to
transport in the absence of police harassment.
The prevailing black market price of any prohibited drug depends,
then, upon its existing demand schedule (which does not alter
very much from one year to the next), and upon the amounts coming
on to the market (which, in contrast, can vary substantially over
short periods). Over a longish period, however, the amounts coming
on to the market are determined by the efficiency and enterprise
of the black market organizers relative to those of the police.
According to economic analysis, the amounts forthcoming over the
long period tend to be such that the resultant black-market price
yields pecuniary returns to all concerned in the illegal activity
that are sufficient to compensate them for their effort, for their
invested capital and, above all, for the risks to which (net of
all police bribes) they are necessarily exposed. A strictly economic
criterion would therefore depict by far the greater part of such
effort, investment and enterprise as a complete waste of capital
and human resources, in as much as the illegal distribution to
ultimate consumers of a particular drug uses up incomparably more
of these resources than would be needed to distribute the same
amount legally.
In addition to this waste of capital and human resources there
are other wastes. These are involved in the expanding bureaucracies
created to administer the antidrug laws, in court litigation and
in lawyers' services. Again, a significant amount of police time
and effort has to be shifted from protecting the public from real
crime in the endeavour to deter these victimless crimes. Worse,
in attempts to further the success of these illegalized drug enterprises
many a brutal crime is committed. Thus, the immediate effect of
this sort of prohibitive legislation, which creates highly profitable
opportunities for criminal organisations, is to make an independent
and significant contribution to the total amount of real crime
in the community.
But the evil does not stop there. The extraordinary profits of
illegal trafficking in drugs, created by legislation, acts to
lure ordinary businessmen into forming connections with existing
crime rings. In so far as the opportunities created by drug illegalization
enriches criminal organizations, they extend the network of crime,
so generating a potential for further police corruption and expanding
the power of the underworld at the expense of the community. During
the period of liquor prohibition in the United States, to take
the classical instance, organised crime received from the American
government one of the handsomest perquisites in recorded historya
virtual monopoly of the liquor trade. Crime became the fastest-growing
industry in the United States. It may be conjectured that trafficking
in narcotics supports less crime today than did the prohibition
of liquor, although much more crime than is supported by the traffic
in hallucinogens. Whether they are true or not, however, such
conjectures do not weaken the case for legalising the sale of
psychedelic drugs.
Finally, perhaps most pernicious of all is the fact that recourse
to prohibition can have subversive effects on society that are
virtually irreversible. By investing an otherwise mutually satisfactory
transactionone having no necessary spillover effects on otherswith
the trappings of a crime, the state not only tempts citizens first
into the newly legislated victimless crime and from there, possibly,
into real criminal activity; the resulting legislation also creates
ripple effects that spread corruption throughout society. Legislation
that appears to many citizens as manifestly arbitrary, unfair
or absurd, or as being the expression of rooted prejudice or vested
interests, acts over time to bring the whole body of the law itself
into contempt, and in doing so to weaken the social order. For
such legislation commands no popular respect and is likely to
be ignored by many people.
[27]
And so, moving from one precedent to another, cynicism of the
law and of the institutions designed to uphold them spreads among
the public. A long-established tradition, that of giving the law
'the benefit of the doubt' wherever its rationale is not clearly
evident, and of heeding its provisions notwithstanding, gradually
begins to erode; indeed, to give way to the contrary presumptionthat
all social legislation (whether democratically enacted or otherwise)
reflects no more than some combination of highly organised interests
and as such constitutes unwarranted intervention. Certainly, among
the young it is already widely believed that much of the spate
of social legislation today is the product chiefly of contending
material interests[28]
and that very little of what today emerges from democratic assemblies
could withstand searching inquiry and debate to determine whether
it truly serves the broad interests of society and accords with
acceptable notions of fairness and propriety. Social decay sets
in as people increasingly reject the view that social legislation
is guided by norms of social justice and melioration, and this
social decay becomes irreversible once the spirit of suspicion
and rejection spreads towards the canons of the common law and,
from there, towards traditional ethical standards. For the result
of such corrosive scepticism is increasing recourse by the individual
to the dictates of his own conscience, which in these circumstances
tends to become dangerously resilient. He will be inclined to
favour his own perceived interests, irrespective of the existing
laws, whenever he calculates that he has a good chance of escaping
detection. According as this sort of 'permissiveness' grows and
continued legislation against victimless transactions can only
encourage its growththe need to maintain social order will
eventually countenance the surrender to internal security forces
of greater powers of surveillance and control, in consequence
of which personal freedoms will be further diminished.
If the validity of the foregoing arguments is conceded, a prima
facie case is established that illegalizing the sale of goodsat
least those in the third (3) category mentioned in the last sectionis
detrimental to the social interest. No liberal democratic government
should therefore be allowed to introduce or maintain any such
prohibiting legislation without presenting powerful arguments
in favour of its decision to do sopowerful enough, at all events,
to overcome the objections to such enactment advanced so far in
the above two sections.
The Character of Society
The more conservative doctrine that the individual should have
all freedom short of that which endangers society is suggestive
but too vague to commend itself to libertarians. Since such a
statement can always be given a paternalistic twist, the modern
libertarian obviously prefers that the excepting provision have
reference to the freedom or interests of other individuals, allowing
that these can be satisfactorily articulated. Yet, the interests
of society, conceived as a community or folk bound by common conventions,
values and beliefsas distinct, that is, from a group of freely
interacting individuals each in pursuit of his own aimscannot
be ignored in any assessment of the comprehensive effects of proposed
institutional rearrangements.
Indeed, a man would be a narrow and pathetic creature were he
to restrict his thoughts and energy simply to considerations bearing
directly upon his own material ambitions or pursuit of pleasures.
Unless he is a recluse or is uncommonly insensitive, his welfare
is affected by the natural and social environment in which he
is immersed. So far as the ordinary citizen is concerned, a change
in any feature of this social heritage exerts some influence on
his sense of well-being. Many of the so-called prejudices of the
public can be sensibly interpreted as a legitimate concern of
people about the kind of society in which they and their children
are to live. Such prejudices have their value as a counterweight
to the idealized vision of an 'open' or 'pluralist' societyone
in which each person treads his own path, does 'his own thing',
reconstructs his own conscience or joins freely with some others
for common gain or pleasure, with little or no concern for the
resulting character or the evolution of the community as a whole.
It may be inferred, then, that the conservative's concern with
such postwar developments as porno-permissiveness, homosexual
liberation and the trend towards unisex does not arise necessarily
from personal disapprobation of the pornographic or homosexual
indulgence of particular individuals or groups. Rather, it arises
from sober considerationespecially among those who believe
free societies to be fragile social organismsof the consequences
of the unchecked indulgence of such developments upon the kind
of society in which they and their children have to live.
Allowing, then, a concern for the character of society as a whole
to be a legitimate interest of the individual, the case for individual
freedom in any particular cannot rest on the observation alone
that the exercise of such freedom has no direct and apparent effect
on third parties. There has also to be a prior and a collective
decision about whether the activity in question is to be subject
only to the discretion of the individual. Clearly, such a collective
decision is least effective when it is the outcome of a highly
controversial debate and most effective when it has been writ
so long into the forms and conventions of society that the good
citizen has no desire to act in a way that would offend against
it.
However, once a consensus on manners and morals begins to fracture,
there is nothing for it but to translate a conscious and often
controversial collective decision into legislation, which decision
can be costly and troublesome to enforce in an increasingly divisive
society. Whether controversial or not, this sort of debate cannot
be avoided simply by adopting the libertarian dictum that each
person be free to choose, when, as seen by the conservative, the
essence of the debate is to determine whether or not it is to
the social advantage to relegate the choice in question to the
individual, allowing him to exercise it through the market mechanism.
In such a debate, moreover, it should be borne in mind that the
dynamic expansion of industry and commerce over the last two centuries
has been fostered by the general presumption in favour of change,
which, alas, is the reverse of the guiding principle to which
the true conservative has recourse. For such a person, institutions
and conventions that have survived within a viable, although admittedly
imperfect, society are not lightly to be abandoned. Also, bearing
in mind that radical changes in institutions, conventions or morals
may gather a momentum that is difficult to check and take a direction
that is impossible to reverse, it is but common prudence that
the burden of proof should rest heavily upon the proponents of
the innovation and that no time-hallowed institution should be
dismembered, or new institution introduced, without the most cogent
argument and convincing evidence.
Accepting the appeal of this conservative maxim, I have stated
elsewhere[29] that
a case in favour of porno-permissiveness (or of homosexual liberation)
has never been seriously argued by its advocates. They have built
their case entirely on libertarian premises, and even on these
limited premises their arguments have not been singularly successful.
[30]
In my 1972 Encounter article I have alleged that the character
of such 'liberationist' movements today is indeed to be interpreted
as a radical departure from our customary attitudes towards sexual
conventions, for, although erotic display and homosexual practices
can be traced back to antiquity, the quality, the scale and the
pace of diffusion today differ in such degree as to make these
intercivilisation comparisons invalid. Indeed, such postwar developments
in the affluent West as sexual permissiveness and homosexual liberation
and, come to that, the more militant forms of feminist liberation
also pose, for the first time in human history, a growing threat
to the institution of the family.
How does the proposal to legalise the sale of psychedelic drugs
fare by conservative principles? I shall not, as I might, dwell
on the fact that they have been extensively used in earlier societies
for religious and medicinal purposes. I am willing to grant that,
measured over a shortish period of recent history, their legislation
in Western countries may be regarded as something of an innovation,
the social advantages for which have then to be argued.
The facts in the casethe properties of the drugs, the psychedelic
experience, the effects on the health of the consumer and the
possible risk to third partieshave already been described,
in so far as I have been able to discover them. I now touch briefly,
first, on the likely extent of their usage before, secondly, appraising
their influence on the character of society, whichif the appraisal
is correctalso throws light on the antagonism of the Establishment
to the idea of legalising psychedelic drugs.
Bearing in mind that the normal psychedelic 'trip' takes up the
best part of a day or night, that it is not animating, euphoric
or soothing (in a simple physical way) and that it can be pretty
exhausting, it is doubtful whether the consumption of the psychedelic
drugs in question, if legally permitted, would ever achieve the
popularity of alcohol or even the current popularity of marijuana.
Few people can manage as many as two or three 'trips' a week for
any length of time. (Among the students to whom I spoke who had
ready access to LSD, the choice ranged between one and three trips
a month, and the higher figure obtained only during vacations
or when the pressure of study was slack.) Generally speaking,
such drugs are likely to continue to appeal more to the professional
and middle classes than to the working classes, more to intellectuals
and scientists than to practical men and engineers, and more to
introverts than to extroverts.
Even were their use to become as popular as alcoholic beverages,
however, they could hardly weaken society in any direct way. It
cannot be supposed, for instance, that the defence of the nation
against external aggression depends today upon the vigilance,
the competence and the willingness of the ordinary citizen to
take up arms at a moment's notice in defence of his country. External
defence has become a highly professional activity, the effectiveness
of which, moreover, has come to depend increasingly less upon
physical stamina and courage and increasingly more upon scientific
and technological research.
As for the question of their possible influence on the quality
of life and the character of society, reflection suggests that
at this particular phase in our postindustrial civilization it
can hardly be other than benign. As indicated earlier, the sensations
experienced, and the activities engaged in, under the influence
of psychedelic drugs vary as between one person and another and
between one occasion and another. Hours may be spent in contemplating
a beach or meadow, in listening to music, in strolling up a hill
or in swimming or surfing. Those having the inclination take inspiration,
sometimes joyous, sometimes fearsome, and work feverishlywriting,
sketching, painting or sculptingin the attempt to give form
to insistent but volatile images.
More important then these diverse reactions, however, is the experience
common to all aficionados. Those accustomed to any of these
three hallucinogens are agreed that the hallucinogenic world,
as it first takes shape, is also somewhat eerie and mystical.
They are apt to feel that they are in contact with a new dimension
of realityone richer in impulse and awareness. To the anthropologist
the experience would seem to have atavistic echoes. By the psychoanalyst
the experience is interpreted as a perceptual groping of the individual
within the recesses of his unconscious mind, which under the drug
tend to open up.
Be this as it may, one of the recurring feelings under the hallucinogenic
influence is of the paltriness of worldly thingsthe weary irrelevance
of material ambition. All aficionados testify to a sense,
during some phase of the psychedelic experience, of transmigration
into a mysterious pulsating universe and, at the same time, to
a feeling of closeness or 'oneness' with that universe. Indeed,
in contemplating the universe under the drug influence, the real
or 'normal' world often takes on an outlandish quality, in which
man in a machine age, spurred by sharp schedules, toils ever upwards,
in vain seeking a plateau. But there is no resting place; whether
success or failure meets his enterprise, it is sufficient excuse
for pushing on. In the real world a man may still believe that,
in the end, he is the master of the machine. In the hallucinogenic
world he feels certain that already he is its slave.
We need not resolve the question here. It is enough to recognise
that modem life can be felt and reinterpreted from a radically
different perspectivenot necessarily a false one. There are
other seeming advantages also. The ability simply to release repressed
and unsuspected emotions, to surrender impulsively to them and
to wonder at their potency is not only a worthwhile experience
in itself. It also acts as a counterweight to the trend towards
the increasing automation and impersonality of modern life which
constricts the direct flow of sympathy and feeling between people.
In a word, then, the psychedelic experience, although it may sometimes
be frightening, animates and agitates the deeper parts of our
being, reviving essential parts of our nature that have atrophied
under the heavy impress of our civilisation. True, the enduring
effect on each individual may not be strong. But the effect is
in the right direction and it can be strengthened by common recognition
and communication.
Why, therefore, is the Establishment reluctant to legalise the
sale of hallucinogens? It has been suggested that the liquor industry
is opposed to such legislation simply because it believes that
the sale of its products would suffer.[31]
Although it would not be easy to adduce convincing evidence for
this belief, I would not dismiss it as entirely fanciful. What
would be fanciful would be to regard it as the greater part of
the explanation.
The explanation that I advance, although difficult to substantiate
by statistical methods, is more comprehensive. I have suggested
elsewhere[32] that
the modern permissive society is to be conceived as providential
development by means of which an innovative economy, continuously
under institutional pressure to expand, may be kept going. After
all, a continuing expansion of industry as a whole depends for
its success upon a continuing enlargement of the consuming public's
appetiteelse the public would be unable to engorge the burgeoning
variety and volume of goods produced. A traditional society does
not serve, nor does a discriminating one. Promiscuity is the attribute
neededpromiscuity coupled with insatiability. And this ideal
buying public is, of course, that which is emerging. For a permissive
society in which 'anything goes' is ipso facto also a society
in which anything sells.[33]
Although I have suggested that, if their sale were legalized,
the popularity of these psychedelic drugs would be limited, their
widespread usewhich, I think, is fearedcould indeed prove
a threat to the continued expansion of modern industry. If new
opportunities were extended to individuals for strange and exhilarating
explorations into the mysterious universe and the mysterious self,
the markets for media entertainment, for package tourism and for
all the modern accessories of commercial hedonism would surely
diminish. And if the popularity of such psychedelic drugs were
to have any perceptible and enduring effects, they would certainly
involve the curtailing of economic growth. For they do tend to
shift the individual's interest from the search for ways of keeping
up with the machine toward the search for meaning and purpose.
It is awkward enough for modern governments and bureaucrats perpetually
under attack today for doing too little and interfering too muchto
cope with the conflicting pressures exerted by the unabashed self-seeking
of organised labour and organised management, by parvenu minorities
inventing new rights and by idealistic groups of preservationists,
ecologists and environmentalists. The prospect of having to endure,
in addition, a minority group of psychedelic devotees, articulating
their contempt for the ethos and insatiability of modern society
by which big business and big government rationalist their expanding
power, is not an attractive one.
In Summary
To sum up in a paragraph: although medical opinion is by no means
the decisive factor in any enlightened dialogue on the subject,
it would be impossible on the existing evidence for an honest
government to convince an informed public that regular recourse
to these nonaddictive hallucinogens would be as pernicious to
health as regular recourse to, say, alcohol or tobacco. However,
even if they were as pernicious, the power of the state may never
be arbitrarily extended, within a libertarian dispensation, to
proscribe those activities which the state pronounces to be injurious
to the health of the individual. Nor is it enough to point to
possible dangers to minors or to the likelihood of injury to third
parties. Hundreds of goods on the market today carry some likelihood
of injury to third parties. Thus, only if the degree of risk to
which third parties are exposed is exceptionally high and in the
case of psychedelic drugs it is (notwithstanding highly coloured
press reports) remarkably lowmay a case be made for state controls.
In all other cases the state can best serve the citizen by spreading
information and by legislation designed to maintain standards
of purity. As for the effects on modern society as a whole of
legalising the psychedelic drugs mentioned, the benefits would
include a substantial contribution toward the reduction of existing
crime, if only by releasing much-needed police resources currently
engaged in preventing victimless crimes for the better protection
of the public from real crime. Finally, in our technocratic civilisation,
in which adjustment to the machine entails becoming like the machine,
the hallucinogenic experience is one way of releasing, for a while,
the faltering human spirit trapped inside the machine.[34]
Notes and References
(1) The San Pedro cactus also contains mescalin. (back)
(2) Recent research suggests that psilocybin has first to be metabolized
to psilocin before it can enter the brain and generate hallucinogenic
effects. If true, this would make psilocin, not psilocybin, the
psychoactive ingredient. (back)
(3) Mushroom stones and icons excavated in the Mayan sites of
Guatemala are said to date back to 1,000 BC. It has been suggested
that mushrooms were the earliest hallucinogenic plant to be discovered.
The European mysteries are less fully explored than their Mexican
counterpart; but . . . the pre-Columbian Toadstool-god Tlaloc,
represented as a toad with a serpent head-dress, has for thousands
of years presided at the communal eating of the hallucinogenic
toadstool psilocybe a feast that gives visions of transcendental
beauty. Tlaloc's European counterpart, Dionysus, shares too many
of his mythical attributes for coincidence: they must be versions
of the same deity; though at what period cultural contact took
place between the Old World and the New is debatable .
In my foreword to a revised edition of The Greek Myths,
I suggest that a secret Dionysiac mushroom cult was borrowed from
the native Pelasgians by the Achaeans of Argos. Dionysus's Centaurs,
Satyrs and Maenads, it seems, ritually ate a spotted toadstool
called 'flycap' (Amanita muscaria), which gave them enormous
muscular strength, erotic power, delirious visions, and the gift
of prophecy. Partakers in the Eleusinian, Orphic and other mysteries
may also have known the Panaeolus papillionaceus, a small
dung-mushroom still used by Portuguese witches, and similar in
effect to mescalin. (Robert Graves, The White Goddess,
3rd edn, London: Faber, 1952, reprinted 1971, p. 45)
See also Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Vol. 1, rev. edn
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962). (back)
(4) Since these drugs tend to magnify the good or bad features
of a personality or situation, the unhappier symptoms associated
with their consumptionanxiety, panic, paranoiacan often
occur in persons with histories of mental disorder. (back)
(5) It is possible, however, that massive doses of LSD (in the
milligram range) can cause a blood-clotting disorder. (back)
(6) PCP, sometimes called 'angel dust', is commonly regarded as
dangerous to humans. (back)
(7) 'Mission Mind Control'a television programme that I happened
to watch in Texasrevealed some of the methods by which the
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Army sought to
advance techniques of extracting confessions and of controlling
the minds of others. LSD, among other things, was used upon unwitting
victims, among them prisoners and hospital patients, as a result
of which, it was alleged, a number of deaths occurred. This is
hardly surprising, as nearly all the victims shown on the programme
were either petty criminals leading a sick and fugitive life in
the shadows of the underworld, or mentally disturbed patients,
or prisoners held and manipulated within a hostile environment.
The doses given were unspecified but presumably large, and they
were given repeatedly, often in circumstances of great distress
to the victim, and sometimes accompanied by threats and ill-treatment.
Such a television programme is sure to arouse emotions of abhorrence,
fear and anger, which emotions are justified in so far as they
are directed against the perpetration of these abuses against
helpless persons. The obvious fault with the programmer however,
was that, in exploiting sound and visual effects to convey a nightmarish
sense of the hallucinogenic experiences suffered by the helpless
victims, the impressions of fear and repugnance became associated
with the hallucinogenic drug itself.
The issue was thus obscured. If, say, a quart of whisky could
be reduced to the mass of a milligram and unknowingly or forcibly
administered to people in the
circumstances described above, their reactions would hardly be
less terrifying. In general, there are thousands of chemicals,
both natural and synthetic, that are benign, useful or enjoyable
to man when taken within known dosage limits. Beyond such limits
they can be painful or toxic. This fact does not, however preclude
research and discussion about their proper use and about the safeguards
that are necessary to prevent accidents. (back)
(8) Issue of 5 March 1978. (back)
(9) The statement in the Sunday Times (5 March 1978) that
there is a high risk of acute mental disturbance and hallucination
during an LSD trip is equivocal and misleading. It purports to
be saying something that is significant, whereas it is in fact
saying something that is patently obvious. Clearly, a person cannot
be (by definition) in a normal state during a psychedelic trip,
but to describe the condition of a person under this sort of trip
as being one of 'acute mental disturbance' or as entailing 'a
high risk of acute mental disturbance' is a disingenuous use of
words to describe the psychedelic experience for which the LSD
drug is expressly taken. Such phrases ought, if they are relevant,
to be reserved only for the enduring effects on the mental condition
of the LSD subject. (back)
(10) In private correspondence with me, Dr. Bearman, director
of health services at San Diego State University, has stated:
There are few studies which indicate that consumption of LSD is
not without some risk. In about 1959 or 1960 Sidney Cohen studied
the effect of LSD on volunteers. This was prior to the major publicity
involving LSD and probably represented a fairly normal cross-section
of college-age youth. He found serious psychiatric problems of
0.2% of people in his experimental group. Another study in New
York in 1966-67 showed that over a 12-month period there were
73 admissions to Bellvue Hospital for LSD-induced psychosis. A
review of the 63 available charts revealed that all but 11 were
released within two days, another five were released after one
week, and six remained hospitalized for the entire year.
Estimates as to the total number of people who used LSD in New
York during that time period vary, however. Time magazine,
in reporting the above study, estimated 55,000. This would mean
an average of long-term psychosis in one out of every 7,000 users
of LSD.
Most of the other studies on LSD seem to wildly exaggerate problems.
The chromosome studies do not reveal any effects, and the gametes,
while there is some anecdote evidence of birth defects, there
is no hard evidence. However, it is advised with most drugs that
they be avoided in the first three months of pregnancy.
In my experiences, most people who have taken LSD have not been
deleteriously affected; however, there are some notable exceptions.
A few people who have taken 200 or 300 trips seem to me to have
some long-term 'disturbances' in their thought processes. On the
other hand, there is some evidence of usefulness for LSD in psycho-therapy,
treating alcoholics, and criminal rehabilitation. (30 November
1977) (back)
(11) In private correspondence with me David Smithmedical director
of Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, Californiahas
written: 'At present, there is no documented evidence that any
of the hallucinogenic drugs, including . . . LSD . . . produces
genetic damage. Most of the problems that occur with this drug
group relate to acute adverse drug reaction to a bad trip' (31
January 1978). (back)
(12) The occasional 'flashback'a recurrence of some aspects
of a psychedelic trip long after the effect of the drug has worn
offis probably a memory reproduction rather than a chemical
reaction. Incidentally, nearly all flashbacks reported have followed
a bad psychedelic experience. (back)
(13) Carlos Castaneda's four volumes (1968-75) all carry a mystical
interpretation, in as much as they purport to be an account of
events following his submission to the Yaqui shaman, don Juan.
(back)
An excellent appraisal of these writings by Kenneth Minogue, who
has viewed them as a manifestation of popular occultism, can be
found in Encounter (August 1976).
(14) Not all the eleven members interviewed (some singly, some
in groups of two or three) were equally articulate. I have therefore
taken the liberty here and there of trying to capture the spirit
of the impressions described to me in my own language. (back)
(15) R. C. Debold and R. C. Leaf (eds), LSD, Man, and Society
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1967). (back)
(16) It is hardly necessary to add, in passing, that these conditions
limiting the form in which the individual's freedom is exercised
were until very recently accepted as part of the common code of
conventions that facilitated communication. No liberal would have
held them to be onerous. (back)
(17) However, it is not necessary that the likelihood of damage
to others be high for the conscientious libertarian to
demur. If the damage envisaged, should it occur, were such as
to involve large numbers of innocent people, exception would be
taken. Thus, liberal economists might well agree on controls (including
a temporary or permanent ban) on the use of modern technologies
that carried a small risk of a catastrophe that, should it occur,
would affect a significant proportion of the population of society,
especially where such a catastrophe would produce irreversible
ecological damage, either locally or globally. (back)
Since the Second World War a growing number of innovations fall
within this category, of which the generation of nuclear energy
is among the most notorious.
(18) In contrast to this libertarian doctrine, Mr. Justice Parkin
rationalizing the severe sentences passed on Richard Kemp and
others in 'Operation Julie', which in 1978 broke an LSD ringsimply
conjectured that, in view of the scale of distribution, the LSD
tablets must have been sold to 'utterly irresponsible' buyers
who might drop a tablet into someone's glass of beer for a joke.
Since the judge clearly had no idea of the actuarial risk of this
occurrence, we need not speculate about it either. But he must
have been aware, surely, that there is no limit to the mischief
that people can and sometimes do get up to using the wide variety
of substances already available to them on the market.
As indicated earlier, moreover, if LSD were to be legalized, it
could be sold on the market so diluted with water that even these
'utterly irresponsible' people would find it all but impossible
to play such practical jokes. (back)
(19) For reasons given in my book 21 Popular Economic Fallacies
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), ch. 9. (back)
(20) For instance, in my article 'Road to repression and control',
Encounter (1976). (back)
(21) Recommended reading for the beginner includes: E. M. Brecher
(editor of Consumer Reports), Licit and Illicit Drugs (Boston,
Mass.: Little, Brown & Co.); Debold and Leaf, op. cit. (note
15); and Gamage and Zerkin, Hallucinogenic Drug Research: Impact
on Science and Society (Madison, Wisc.: STASH Press).
Apart from a large number of books on the chemistry, botany and
use of hallucinogenic drugs there are, of course, many articles
in the ordinary medical journals as well as those in the more
specialized sources, such as the Psychedelic Journal (devoted
to the systematic study of the effect on humans of psychedelic
and other drugs), Contemporary Drug Problems (dealing largely
with the legal aspects), International Journal of the Addictions
and Grass Roots.
High Times Press in New York publishes a glossy monthly, High
Times, with articles on taking pot and other drugs, along
with worldwide information on the qualities and prices of a variety
of drugs, although chiefly cannabis. This firm also produces a
number of monographs on the growing of marijuana and of psychedelic
drugs.
In addition there are national organisations in many Western countries
that provide information to the public about the drugs themselves
and the law of that country. In Britain, for instance, there are
Release and BIT Information Service both in London. In the United
States there are the Institution for Chemical Survival in Phoenix,
Arizona, and STASH (Student Association for the Study of Hallucinogens
), founded in 1967 as a non-profit-making drug-information centre
for both the general public and university students, in Madison,
Wisconsin. Finally, there is a large number of local voluntary
associations, scattered throughout the United States, that provide
aid and information to drug takers. (back)
(22) Some control on family expenditure is generally effective,
however, should the family become dependent on contributions from
private or state charity. Private charity is often given in kind,
in the form of, say, food, clothing or shelter. Assistance from
state agencies sometimes includes specific housing arrangements,
and in the United States a part of the benefits collected by the
'relatively deprived' may take the form of food coupons. (back)
(23) In the case of diluted LSD mixture, imparting to it a bitter
flavour would make the precaution doubly sure. (back)
(24) This statement is a simplification. The only tax that is
sure not to 'distort' allocation is a poll tax. Income taxes may
affect incentives to work. Excise taxes will affect the pattern
of outputs. Thus, taxes whose chief purpose is distributional
may also have incidental 'distortive' allocative effects. This
possibility is one of the nuisances that the purist in economic
theory has to bear with. Yet, recognizing the fact that the real
economy is continuously in a state of allocative 'distortion'
anyway, he cannot be sure whether these incidental allocative
effects add to, or reduce, the existing overall 'distortion',
that is, whether they move the economy further from, or closer
to, an overall optimal position. Although this is a minor complication,
it is not one that blurs the economic distinction mentioned in
the text, between an externality proper and a distributional effect.
(back)
(25) Attempts by a government to maintain the price of a good
below the demand price corresponding to the available quantity
also creates a black market, as borne out by the experience of
the Second World War. The only way a government can effectively
reduce the price of a good below the existing (equilibrium) price
is to induce an expansion of its supply by subsidizing the costs
of its production from tax revenuesa policy generally frowned
upon by economists in the absence of particular allocative arguments.
(back)
(26) Although I restrict myself in this essay to the three familiar
hallucinogens, there is a strong case also for legalising the
trade in narcotics. The belief that the lobby in the United States
for the continued illegalization of all drugs, including marijuana
(despite the fact that about half of the US population, at least,
has at one time or another smoked it), is strongly supported both
by criminal organizations and by corrupt segments of the police
is hardly surprising in view of the enormous profits created by
their illegalization. (back)
(27) It is yet harder to respect the law when it is overtly discriminating.
Thus, despite the introduction of several Bills over the years,
the Congress of the United States has never passed a law prohibiting
the use of peyote by American Indians. In addition, the Supreme
Court has struck down as unconstitutional several state laws that
sought to prohibit the sacramental use of peyote by the 250,000
members of the Native American Church. Whites, on the other hand,
have been continually denied rights to use psychedelic plants
for religious purposes. (back)
(28) Indeed, something close to this belief has been used as a
premise of political analysis by economists. For a simple account
of this approach to democratic politics, and for a short bibliography
of those economists who adopt as a basic hypothesis the idea of
politicians and bureaucrats seeking to maximize their own interests,
the reader is referred to Gordon Tullock's paperback The Vote
Machine (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1976). (back)
(29) In my article 'Making the world safe for pornography', Encounter
(March 1972). (back)
(30) See my article 'The economics of sex pollution', Harper's
Magazine (July 1 972). See also my article 'Violence and pornography:
much ado about something', New Universities Quarterly (Spring
1976). (back)
(31) Many youngsters who regularly take pot also believe that
the tobacco industry sees the marijuana cult as a threat to the
sale of its products, since the plant is relatively easy to grow.
If its sale were legalized, it would, in the absence of government
intervention, become a highly competitive industry. In these circumstances
it is possible that the tobacco companies would be unable to count
on large enough profits from the sale of their own marijuana to
compensate for the losses consequent upon their reduced sales
of tobacco products. (back)
One cannot but sympathize with the sort of conspiracy theory held
by many young marijuana smokers in the United States, bearing
in mind the findings of committees of investigation to look into
the problem. The team of scientists commissioned in 1938 by Major
La Guardia of New York found no evidence that marijuana smoking
leads to aggressive or antisocial behaviour or that it alters
the personality structure of the smoker. Neither could the La
Guardia Committee find any evidence of addictive tolerance or
withdrawal symptomsthe criteria for a drug's classification
as a narcotic. The later report of the National Commission on
Marijuana and Drug Abuse, prepared under a mandate from Congress
and released in 1972, largely coincided with the La Guardia report
and recommended the removal of criminal penalties for simple possession
for private use.
(32) In the final essay in this volume. (back)
(33) Yet, as I have argued in my book The Economic Growth Debate
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1978), the permissive society cannot
long endure. It is the precursor to the totalitarian state. (back)
(34) There are psychiatrists who would go further than this. In
his recent book, LSD Psychotherapy (California: Hunter
House, 1979), Stanislav Grof has expressed deep regret that psychiatry
lost a unique research tool and powerful therapeutic agent when
LSD was legally prohibited: 'Many observations from psychedelic
research are of such fundamental importance and so revolutionary
in nature that they should not be ignored by any serious scientist
interested in the human mind.'
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