High Price

consistently demonstrated their unwillingness and/or inability to do so.
    I discovered, though, that DPA faced the same pressures and limitations that many other nonprofits face—the donors influence priorities. That is why, for the past several years, marijuana law reform has been the major focus of DPA, even while it has played a major role in bringing attention to racist stop-and-frisk laws in New York City. As it turns out, like ONDCP, the use of the term science in DPA’s slogan seems to be a matter of convenience rather than a commitment to truth that guides the organization’s positions and focus. Of course, this cunning use of language is more egregious when employed by ONDCP, because it’s a government agency and not an advocacy organization. These sad realizations contributed to me being more vocal on the board and writing this book in an effort to educate the public about drugs.

CHAPTER 16
    In Search of Salvation
    If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.
    — BARBARA JORDAN
    G od is offering Salvation, apply through Jesus Christ,” read a huge billboard on Sunrise Boulevard. Sitting in rush hour traffic, I reflected on where I’d just been. It left me demoralized and definitely in need of some salvation, even though I’m not particularly religious. As part of my research for this book, I was interviewing relatives and old friends in South Florida and had just spent the last hour with my cousin Louie. Growing up, he and I had shared a bed at Big Mama’s; he was the math whiz that I admired. Now he lived in a halfway house just off the Florida Turnpike in Fort Lauderdale, and it had been nearly thirty years since I saw him last.
    “What’s up man, you know who I am?” I asked the skinny man standing in front of me. He was wearing a wife-beater T-shirt and oversize blue jeans. The home care attendant had pointed out Louie, who was standing outside speaking with another resident. “Big Jun,” he responded. When we were boys Louie had always called me Lil’ Carl or Junior; now I was Big Jun. I was surprised that he’d even recognized me, because my appearance had changed so much over the past three decades. His had, too. He stood about six feet but weighed, at most, 110 pounds. His face was so emaciated that you could see nearly every bone. The few remaining teeth he had looked like they were on the way out. I was shocked, disturbed, and profoundly sad but showed only that I was happy to see him because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Over the years, I had become a master at masking my emotions, although this skill had been seriously tested in the course of writing this book.
    We slapped hands, did the bro-hug thing, and without interruption, Louie talked for the next hour. He talked about the various crimes he had committed over the years and the amounts of money he had stolen and stashed. I learned that the police had beaten him up on many occasions and that he believed his insides had been replaced with those from other people. He contemplated whether he had done the right thing by not becoming a police informant, “I didn’t tell nothing. Maybe I should’ve start telling. I did plea guilty and didn’t snitch on nobody. They wouldn’t let me go home since I didn’t give ’em no information. I should’ve turned state on ’em.”
    Louie’s thoughts were disjointed and difficult to follow. He jumped from one subject to another without a break or transition and paced around the small yard the entire time I was there. His involuntary, repetitive movements were a textbook case of tardive dyskinesia brought on by taking antipsychotic medications for more than two decades. Although the details aren’t clear, family lore has it that he was initially put on these medications in the ER after having a “bad reaction” to an unknown street drug. And when he was sent to prison, they kept him on them in order to keep him obedient and calm—a chemical straitjacket.
    In graduate school, I’d learned quite a bit about antipsychotics and what they were used for. These were the drugs used to treat schizophrenia and related illnesses. The simplistic idea is that psychotic behaviors such as those seen in schizophrenia are caused by overactivation of dopamine cells in the brain. Antipsychotic drugs block dopamine receptors and thereby prevent excessive dopamine activity. Behaviorally, these drugs quiet