Brent Harold / Journal

Drugs and alcohol are always in the news. These “substances,” as we call them, holding them at arm’s length, that we use and/or abuse — are ongoingly a troubling part of life. It’s hard to imagine a time when that won’t be true.
Right now a big story locally is the Truro police chief’s OUI trouble, which is only the latest of alcohol- related problems Cape cops have been having, only showing that when it comes to handling alcohol they are not immune to the problems of many in the general population.
I doubt there are many whose reaction to the Truro chief’s troubles is: If only we still had Prohibition, all this could have been avoided and the chief’s life wouldn’t be over, as he puts it. We understand it differently. Two distinguished TV productions, Ken Burns’ PBS documentary and ,HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” series, seem to agree that Prohibition (1919-1933) was a disaster. As rampant as was the alcoholism that had seemed to make it a logical response, the attempt to eliminate it now looks downright bizarre. What were they thinking?
Both these programs make it clear that by far the most dangerous thing about alcohol was the effort to outlaw it. And yet in our time we have never known anything but the legal prohibition of drugs such as Marijuana, cocaine, etc. The disaster of the War on Drugs drags on and on, the only war more useless and endless than the war in Afghanistan. What are we thinking?
Why don’t we apply the same logic that seemed and seems so clear with the repeal of the 18th amendment?
According to a “New Yorker” article, Portugal, after years of prosecuting its own futile, expensive war on drugs, simply switched their perspective on drugs from law enforcement to public health issue.
We could do that. Why don’t we? It’s hard to resist the conclusion that it comes down to a prejudice against drugs
According to “Lancet,” the prestigious medical journal, alcohol is the most dangerous drug of all, factoring in harm to self and to others, more dangerous than heroine, ecstasy, or cocaine. Alcohol is a potentially life-wrecking drug. But, to paraphrase Reagan on Latin American dictators, it’s our potentially life-wrecking drug. Somehow alcohol has installed itself amongst us like a dangerous but colorful member of the family, sort of macho (unless you drink—a lot–you can’t demonstrate that you can hold your liquor, or drink the other guy under the table).
Alcohol is an accepted way of softening the hard edges of life. As modeled in Hemingway and many other 20th century novels and movies–in “Mad Men”– “Boy, do I need a drink” was not an admission of weakness or dysfunction,(which is the way most people I know would hear it now) but rather a proud assertion that in your life and work you are fighting the good fight. [despite all the drunk driving and home-wrecking statistics.
My sense is that pot, on the other hand, is seen by many as sort of effeminate, and subversive of our whole way of life, like ‘sixties “counterculture” of which it was the drug of choice.
(Speaking of which, one drug story we don’t hear much about: the decriminilization three years ago of personal use marijuana. Other than the occasional complaint from police about how the new law makes their job harder, it seems that no attention is being paid to how the new law might be affecting life. How about it: Is the new law undermining life here on Cape Cod? How about some followup?)
The drug and alcohol issue is a slippery one involving such basic questions as What’s the proper ratio of fun to work? What is the meaning of life? Drugs and alcohol, like other big pleasures– Haagen-Dazs and sex spring to mind—are a perfectly natural part of life, brought to us by Mother Earth and it is perfectly possible to lead a terrible life because of them.
Ken Burns says we’re a much more sober nation than before or during Prohibition. It’s possible we’re slowly maturing as a society. In any case there is no legal substitute for us all as individuals learning, often by trial-and-error, how to handle these powerful and potentially dangerous parts of life and integrate them into a balanced life involving work, creativity, social usefulness. Some individuals may choose personal prohibition as a way of doing this, but it doesn’t seem to work for a society to do it.
You can’t legislate a meaningful life.