An Integral Approach to Drug Addiction?

Note: this post uses Spiral dynamics terminology; a good overview can be found here. This is a response I made to a thread at the Integral Naked website; the entire thread is available here.

Well, I'm a caffeine addict,so what do you think should be done about that? Perhaps some sort of intervention is in order. Seriously, I don't know many people who never do drugs. How many people do you know who never use any form of caffeine or alcohol, for example?

It seems to me that taking an integral approach to drug use could be quite valuable in minimizing the harm done. A good start would be to recognize, as do countries like Holland, that people use drugs of various sorts and will continue to do so, and that different approaches are required to deal with different drugs. I would also note that prohibiting a substance and making it a forbidden fruit is going to make a lot of people more likely to try it when they are going through adolescence. Also, talking about marijuana and meth as if they are equally problematic, and treating them the same legally, results in the government losing all credibility on the issue, especially with teenagers. As for the efficacy of prohibition, in the high school I attended, a lot of kids smoked pot in their teenage years because it was easier to get than alcohol; when they were of legal age to consume alcohol, many of them switched to booze.

Meth is an interesting case. It has apparently had various spikes of use since the 1960's. I've only read a little bit about it, but my understanding is that typically lots of people try it, enough people get seriously fucked up by it that a perception arises that it is a very BAD drug, and then use declines. Eventually everybody forgets about it and it's time for another round of widespread abuse. I would also note that it is much easier to make with commonly available materials than are many less harmful drugs, so in a prohibition context it is more likely to become a problem.

I'm not saying we should adopt an anything-goes green-meme approach, but I would suggest that we acknowledge that humans have an innate drive to alter consciousness and that we make allowances for that. My feeling is that by attempting to repress a normal human drive, society is instead causing it to manifest its worst, most unhealthy aspects. If it were up to me, we'd legalize all drugs in some form so that they could be regulated and so that we'd have a better idea what was going on. We'd regulate drugs based on their characteristics - some would be hard to get access to, others (e.g. marijuana and caffeine) would be much more available, and some would be restricted below a certain age, as is alcohol. Probably I'd set the age limit for marijuana as low as 16.

As for the blue meme approach, I see some value in using a shame-based approach in certain contexts; however I think outright prohibition and frequently misleading propaganda has created more harm than benefit.

I would also ask, which is more harmful in this context, the green meme with it's anything goes approach or the mean orange [rational/capitalist] meme finding ingenious ways to promote the use of addictive substances such as alcohol and tobacco among young people? At some point we might want to consider banning advertising of all addictive or problematic substances, or in some way removing the profit motive to undercut this kind of activity.