The drug prohibition church and the adventure of reformation
-
Upload
peter-cohen -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of The drug prohibition church and the adventure of reformation
Response
The drug prohibition church and the adventure of reformation
Peter Cohen *
Centre for Drug Research CEDRO, University of Amsterdam, Wibaustraat 4, Room 05.26, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Received 6 January 2003; received in revised form 10 January 2003; accepted 13 January 2003
In Memoriam Giancarlo Arnao (1927�/2000) who wrote ‘Proibito capire. Proibizionismo e politica di controllo sociale’ Torino 1990.
Whatever the origin of the UN Drug Treaties, and
whatever the official rhetoric about their functions, the
best way to look at them now is as religious texts. They
have acquired a patina of intrinsic and unquestioned
value and they have attracted a clique of true believers
and proselytes to promote them. They pursue a version
of Humankind for whom abstinence from certain drugs
is dogma in the same way as other religious texts might
prohibit certain foods or activities. The UN drug treaties
thus form the basis of the international Drug Prohibi-
tion Church. Belonging to that Church has become an
independent source of security, and fighting the
Church’s enemies has become an automatic source of
virtue.In the history of Western culture, we have known
many churches. The best known are the Roman
Catholic Church, with its Rome-based Central Office
of the Faith, but also the Church of Communism as
ultimately ruled by its once Moscow-based Central
Committee. All these churches know and worship
central texts that do not serve to promote scientific
understanding and social development, but rather to
promote the Church’s own dogma, faith, and the reign
of its Institutions. When, for reasons that no longer
count, the USA became inspired to write the first
versions of the first global drug treaties slightly more
than a century ago, no one could have foreseen the
results.
But then had anyone foreseen the ramifications of
setting up central texts and later central headquarters of
Christianity, or, indeed, of Communism?
Sociologically seen, the equation between the UN
Drug Treaties and Faith may not be immediately self-
evident. As I have written elsewhere, (Cohen, 2000) the
mid eighteenth century birth of individualism, with its
ensuing fights against dependence, colonialism and
slavery should be seen as the cradle of our modern
mythologies about drugs and addiction. The concept of
a drug and the concept of addiction were sincere
expressions of that new ideology, the religion so to
speak, of the ‘free individual’. In the cradle of individu-
alism new movements and cultures were born and
raised, trying to create ‘independence’ and ‘emancipa-
tion’ of both peoples and persons. The aim that would
define Humanity, acquiring God’s ‘grace’ for the soul,
was from the eighteenth century on replaced with
‘independence’ and later ‘health’ for the body. Here, I
will not discuss the specific interpretations of ‘indepen-
dence’ or ‘health’ that are chosen, because they do not
matter for this short paper.
The socialist ideologies, too, can be understood as
expressions of that new vision of individuality and
freedom, of which the best known and the best
researched was Marxism. We should understand that
The First Communist International and the First Global
Drug Treaty have the same secular philosophical
parents, begot similar institutional empires, and had
similarly destructive Inquisitions as their consequences.
In the Catholic Church, congregations of the Sacred
College of Cardinals or administrative departments
thereof, would decide on matters of saints, heretics
and secular strategies of the Papal Office. One of the
famous Congregations*/the Congregation of the In-
dex*/would decide on what books could be read by the
faithful, and for instance in one of their meetings, in
1616 (March 5) it was decided that reading Copernican
astronomy would be banned, as it was ‘false and
contrary to Holy Scripture’ (Sobell, 1999).
In the Prohibition Church we have several of these
Congregations, where the Cardinals of Prohibition
compare the sacred texts with policies the world over,
and decree if these policies are holy or not. It makes no
sense to try to show the Congregations where the anti* Tel.: �/31-20-525-4278; fax: �/31-20-525-4317.
E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Cohen).
International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 213�/215
www.elsevier.com/locate/drugpo
0955-3959/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Peter Cohen. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0955-3959(03)00012-4
drug version of emancipation has brought us, just as it
makes no sense to go to Rome to tell the congregations
of Cardinals there are more ways to lead a virtuous and
ethical life than through Christ or by strictly followingthe Bible.
The places where the Cardinals of Prohibition con-
vene do not matter. In Vienna, in Rome, in New York,
the scenes are identical. The Cardinals convening there
are chosen not to express problems surrounding the holy
texts, but to create faith, unanimity and possibly glory.
The bureaucracies that organise these meetings are
masters of the text, and masters of the rules that guidethe faith.
The Prohibition Church’s bureaucrats are not hired
because of their knowledge about sociology, pharma-
cology, drug use, or the problems drug prohibition
creates for hundreds of millions of people from Malaga
to Memphis to Moscow to around my corner. The anti-
drug bureaucrats are hired because of their religious
conformity and usefulness to the Church; and of coursetheir workplaces are often far away from the worlds of
drug users or the effects of drug policy.
What about drug policy reform? Reformation does
not happen during the Congregations nor should drug
policy reformers focus on that level. The UN Congrega-
tions are just as likely as the European Song Festival to
promote change in the drug policy field.
Since a Congregation of Prohibitionist Cardinals hasno army (unlike the old Popes or the former secretary
general of the Soviet Communist Party), its real powers
will be tested by time. The Prohibition Church itself has
only powers of faith, belief, intimidation and awe. How
long can the Church maintain those powers and prolong
its orthodoxy without looking or listening to the small
Reformations that are going on all over? The Reforma-
tions that are happening are the user rooms in Germany,the decriminalisation laws in Portugal, the coffee shops
in the Netherlands. They are the (almost secret) syringe
exchanges in New York, but also the fully open super-
market-syringe-availability in that Tuscan village where
you rented your villa.
Drug policy reform is local, and the little political
power that reformers should have not been wasted on
the Church or its Congregations.Drug policy reform is inextricably tied to local
cultures and politics. No two systems of harm reduction
can ever be identical. Therefore, drug policy reformation
first proceeds and then diversifies itself on local levels.
Only there can reform respond to the uncountable
unique sets of conditions and constraints. Even under
brutal drug prohibition regimes, at the local level drug
policy reformers can be the voices and agents of thepeople who need change. From neighbourhoods, com-
munities, towns, cities and regions, reformation can
eventually creep up to the national and international
capitals.
Our only chances are local because in the local arenas
we can be the specialists. At the level of the Congrega-
tions no one wants change. And there we are the anti-
specialists. Change and Reformation are enemies to theCardinals of all well-established Churches, including the
Prohibition Church. The Cardinals fear change and
forbid discussion about it. Even when the voices of
reformation speak out inside the sacred rooms where the
Cardinals convene, and even when the Cardinals are
forced to listen, the reformers’ words come out in
languages that the Cardinals cannot understand and
that they will not translate. For the Cardinals, merelyunderstanding the reformers’ words can be seen as
yielding to the forces of unbelief, unfaith, and heresy.
And like the work of the Congregation of the Catholic
Index, designating and seriously diagnosing heretical
voices or countries is the lifeblood of the Congregations
of the Prohibitionist Faith. (Books by Andrew Weil,
Norman Zinberg, and Lester Grinspoon have been
listed on drug warrior websites in the US as ‘dangerous’while ‘concerned’ citizens are encouraged to demand
their removal from local libraries.) The more detail in
which the heresies are spelled out, the more the security
of the Faith is established. This work, the work of the
Establishment, has to be repeated at least every few
years. It is a highly necessary ritual of Faith for the
Church of Prohibition.
To summarise, the real challenge to the legitimacy ofthe Drug Treaties will not consist of bringing initiatives
of change to the level of the Congregation. The real test
will be when countries or groups of countries realise that
the changes their cities need will always contravene some
phrase or some comma in the sacred texts. Or, as Fazey
remarks in this issue (Fazey, 2003) ‘Change will come
about by governments selectively ignoring parts of the
Conventions.’When European countries have introduced changes
that are contrary to the sacred texts, up till now they
have found that nothing happened! The countries find
that the Church cannot stop them from reforming their
own laws or at least their policies, and they find
(sometimes to their surprise) that the Church does not
even try to stop them. This has already occurred in
Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and manyother places.
However, countries sometimes discover*/as may be
the case in the near future with Canada*/that their own
local drug policy Reformation discussions have become
deeply threatening to the Prohibition Church and its
Cardinals. In such cases, the autonomy of a nation may
be challenged, not by the Prohibition Church itself, but
by national governments for which support for theProhibitionist Church is more important than their own
Constitution. This moves the Reformation far beyond
local drug policy. New coalitions between such heretical
countries will then have to be forged, and when these
P. Cohen / International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 213�/215214
coalitions are strong enough, drug policy reform might
be taken to the level of the Conventions (Bewley-Taylor,
2003). But drug policy Reformation will not wait so
long. The reformations that are already happening willeat the flesh out of the Conventions, just as Rome’s
holiness, pompous Congregations, and once fierce
armies could not prevent the Reformation from hap-
pening and ultimately European churches emptying,
divorce becoming commonplace, and abortion a human
right even in Spain, once the country of the Catholic
Kings.
The international drug treaties are among the holiesttexts of the Drug Prohibition Church. At the Church’s
meetings, wherever they are held, you will find people
kneeling in ridiculous postures before them, because for
them the texts contain the sacred words of the Divine. A
reformist perspective on the Treaties or a refusal to
kneel before the texts, are very dangerous actions now
for countries, as the growing hegemony of the US has
consequences that push towards extremism and ortho-doxy. The more the US Caesars exploit their hegemony,
the more the UN Drug Conventions symbolise their
desire to define and control Humankind, the same way
as their gulag state, armies and armada of aircraft
carriers are its material expression.
Acknowledgements
Thanking Harry Levine, Craig Reinarman, Peter
Webster and Dava Sobell for their help.
References
Arnao, G. (1990). Proibito capire. Proibizionismo e politica di controllo
sociale . Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Torino.
Bewley-Taylor, D. Challenging the UN Drug Control Conventions:
Problems and Possibilities. International Journal of Drug Policy 14,
171�/179.
Cohen, P. (2000). Is the addiction doctor the voodoo priest of western
man? Addiction Research 8 (6), 589�/598 (Special issue).
Fazey, C. (2003). The Commission of Narcotic Drugs and the United
Nations International Drug Control Programme: politics, policies
and prospect for change. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 ,
155�/169.
Sobell, D. (1999). Galileo’s daughter . Penguin Books: London.
P. Cohen / International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 213�/215 215