Cohen, Peter (2003), The drug
prohibition church and the adventure of
reformation. International Journal
of Drug Policy, Volume 14, Issue 2,
April 2003, pp. 213-215. © Copyright
2003 Peter Cohen. All rights reserved.
The drug
prohibition church and the adventure of reformation
Peter
Cohen
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 Prohibition 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 individualism new movements and cultures were born and raised, trying to
create `independence' and `emancipation' 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 `independence' 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 Index--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 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 following the
Bible.
The places where the Cardinals of Prohibition convene 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 guide the faith.
The Prohibition Church's
bureaucrats are not hired because of their
knowledge about sociology,
pharmacology, 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
course their 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
Congregations are just as likely as the European Song Festival to promote
change in the drug policy field.
Since a Congregation of
Prohibitionist Cardinals has no 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
Reformations 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
have should not be 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 the people who
need change. From neighbourhoods,
communities, 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
Congregations no one wants change. And
there we are the anti-specialists.
Change and Reformation are enemies to
the Cardinals 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, merely understanding
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 of the
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 many other 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 the Prohibitionist 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 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 will eat the flesh out of the Conventions, just as Rome's
holiness, pompous Congregations, and once fierce armies could not prevent
the Reformation from happening 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 holiest texts 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 orthodoxy. 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, pp. 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, pp. 155-169.
Sobell,
D., 1999. Galileo's daughter, London, Penguin Books.