High Price

legalization of drugs. It’s just a fact. The near-exclusive focus on the negative effects of drugs has also contributed to a situation where there is an unwarranted and unrealistic goal of eliminating certain types of drug use at any cost. Too often marginalized groups absorb the bulk of the cost. It has been well documented that certain minority communities have been particularly affected by our zeal to get rid of certain drugs. The human cost of this misguided approach is incalculable, as hundreds of thousands of men and women, including my own family members, languish in prison as a result.
    In an effort to draw attention to the misinterpretations that plague the methamphetamine scientific literature, I wrote a critical review article that assessed more than fifty peer-reviewed research studies on the short- and long-term effects of the drug on brain and cognitive functioning. 19 I concluded that methamphetamine addicts were overwhelmingly within the normal range on both measures. But, despite this fact, there seems to be a propensity to interpret any cognitive and/or brain difference(s) as clinically significant abnormalities.
    Before any paper is published in a scientific journal, experts in the field must review it anonymously. These reviews are often brutal. They sometimes question your intellectual capacity to be employed as a scientist. So, when I received the reviews for my paper I was expecting harsh criticism because I was essentially calling into question an entire body of research. To my surprise, the reviewers’ comments were extremely laudatory: “This review is comprehensive and extremely well written. Dr. Hart and colleagues certainly challenge the status quo and should be applauded for writing a provocative paper and taking what will surely be characterized as an unpopular position. . . . The general message is somewhat of a wake-up call to the field. . . .” It’s too soon to know the exact impact the paper will have on the field, but shortly after its publication, Scientific American highlighted it in an article that questioned whether the methamphetamine hysteria is limiting the availability of effective medicines. 20
    This all got me thinking even more about the consequences of presenting biased, exaggerated, or misleading drug information to the public. As an educator, I worried that we would lose credibility with many young people, and that as a result they would reject other drug-related information from “official” sources, even when the information was accurate. Undoubtedly, this has contributed to numerous preventable drug-related accidents. I thought about the distorted claims made about crack cocaine and how this led to egregious racial discrimination. During the “crack era,” I didn’t know any better. I was ignorant. Ignorance could not be used as an excuse in the current case of methamphetamine. I knew better. I had published my research findings in some of the finest science journals and had coauthored one of the bestselling drug textbooks. And each semester, my Drugs and Behavior course was one of the most popular undergraduate classes at Columbia. Still, voices like mine were rarely included in national discussions on drug education or public policies about drugs. My voice was not included because I had serious trepidations about exposing myself in this way. I knew that some would say that I had an agenda, implying that I might be less than objective. This is one of the worst criticisms that can be leveled against a scientist. Others would attempt to label me as reckless by distorting my views as advocating for the complete legalization of drugs.

    Presenting my research findings at a scientific meeting.
    Ultimately, it became clear to me that I had to speak out beyond the walls of the academy. I started giving lectures in local community centers, at the YMCA, student-organized conferences, bars and cafés, at museums, or anywhere else I was asked to speak. I spoke with high school students and their parents about the real effects of drugs and ways to decrease associated harms. I lectured at other universities about the foolish way the country deals with drugs and the biases I was starting to see in the questions we asked about drugs in science.
    A frequent question from parents was “What about the children? Isn’t it better to exaggerate drug-related harms so we keep our children away from them?” Black people rarely asked this question; it almost always came