In the late ’00s I was friends with a cocaine dealer. Everyone I knew thought he was a great guy.
Since we were in the same social circle, I was also acquainted with dozens of his customers. Only one of them arguably had a cocaine problem, and he was not an out-of-control addict.* His friends merely thought he used cocaine too often and spent too much money on it. Cocaine’s interference with this customer’s job was minimal. It was certainly not any more of a hindrance than his periodic binge drinking.
I once asked the dealer about dealing with addicts. He said he refused to sell to them. Out-of-control users were a nuisance. They would come to his place at odd hours unannounced and could be obnoxious and loud. Dealing with these people was dangerous because he wanted to stay as covert as possible to avoid police attention.
The Myth
One of the countless myths underpinning the drug war is that drug dealers “push” drugs on people. This is an asinine stereotype for a couple reasons. First, due to criminalization demand almost always outweighs supply. There is no need for dealers to aggressively sell their product. As the comedian Chris Rock has said:
Drugs sell themselves. It’s crack. It’s not an encyclopedia. It’s not a fucking vacuum cleaner. You don’t really gotta try to sell crack, OK? I’ve never heard a crack dealer go, “Man, how am I going to get rid of all this crack? It’s just piled up in my house.” (6)
(For more of Chris Rock’s opinions on drug dealing go here.)
Second, drug dealing is an illegal activity. Dealers do not want to pester non-drug users for fear that they might report them to the police. Dealers are more wary of their clients than their clients are of them. This reluctance is particularly true for pushing drugs on children. Contrary to their demonic portrayal in the media, dealers are not evil and many of them do not think drugs are appropriate for kids. Also, it would be a stupid risk to take considering most children have guardians watching them and scant income.
When I worked as a public defender, I asked several of my colleagues with decades of experience if they had ever seen a drug dealer prosecuted for selling to a juvenile under the harsh school-zone mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines. None of them had ever heard of it happening. It was frequently police officers baiting dealers into selling to adults in a school zone or adult deals going down at the periphery of one. Because the zone extended over three football fields from any school land, one of my marijuana-dealing clients did not even know he was in a school zone. In another school-zone case an adult deal went down in a private apartment.
Researchers have long known that the drug pusher was largely a myth, but it was not until a 2000 survey that it was quantified. This survey of drug-treatment patients found that less than 1% of them had been introduced to drugs by a professional dealer. In contrast, 19% had been introduced to drugs by a family member. (5)
The Propaganda
Despite this finding, supposedly objective news outlets continue to refer to drug dealers as pushers. A recent New York Daily News article opened with the following sentence, “Fourteen suspected drug pushers were arrested Thursday morning for operating a narcotics ring in two Brooklyn bodegas ….” (2)
The popular media and the government are even worse. Here are some graphic examples from different eras:
A 1971 Green Lantern comic book:
(4)
An award-winning 1994 Partnership for a Drug-Free America public service announcement that bizarrely claimed young kids have to run past drug dealers or else they will be forced to do drugs. It ends with the narrator saying, “To Kevin Scott and all the other kids who take the long way home. We hear you. Don’t give up.”
* This dependence rate is not surprising as cocaine dependence rates are similar to alcohol’s. (1) In addition, the social group that the dealer and I shared had several characteristics that ameliorate addiction risk. They were older, had above-average intelligence, and were not impoverished. (3)
Sources
1. James Anthony, Lynn Warner, & Ronald Kessler, “Comparative Epidemiology of Dependence ….,” Exp. Clin. Psychopharmacol., 1994, 2(3), p. 251.
2. Sarah Armaghan, “Police Nab 14 in Drug Ring Operating Out of Brooklyn Bodegas,” NYDailyNews.com, 27 Apr. 2012. LINK
3. Robert Arthur, “Addictive Personality and the Non-Randomness of Addiction,” Narco Polo (blog), 5 Oct. 2011. LINK
4. Green Lantern, Vol. 2, #85, Aug. 1971. LINK
5. “One in Five Drug Abusers Needing Treatment Did Drugs with Parents,” PRNewswire, 24 Aug. 2000. LINK
6. Chris Rock, Bring the Pain (1996).
Yesterday, the White House drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowske, wrote an article that implies drugs cause crime. He based this on the fact that more than half of adult male arrestees test positive for at least one drug. This does not mean that drugs cause crime.* It means that drug use, like tattoos, correlates with criminal behavior. One of the reasons for this correlation is that criminalization and media propaganda can statistically link anything with crime – even bananas.
This Banana Effect can be demonstrated by a hypothetical scenario. In an imaginary United States bananas are made illegal and every media source begins spouting that eating bananas is irresponsible, dangerous, and horrible for one’s health. Responsible, law-abiding, health-conscious citizens would stop eating bananas. Surveys of banana eaters would start to show that they commit more crimes and are unhealthier than non-banana eaters. Bananas did not change. The population using them changed.
This is exactly what happened when drugs were criminalized at the beginning of the 20th century. An opiate authority at the time was Dr. Charles Terry. He wrote, “… a very large proportion of the users of opiate drugs were respectable hardworking individuals in all walks of life, and … only about 18% could in any way be considered as belonging to the underworld.” (1)
Numerous studies have discovered that drug-using criminals are usually criminals before their drug use begins. One study found that a heroin user’s first arrest typically occurs 18 months before heroin use starts. (3) The exorbitant costs of drugs caused by criminalization undoubtedly drive some addicts to crime, however, most addict-criminals were criminals first. The drugs and crime nexus is driven more by the population using the drugs than by the drugs themselves.
* Kerlikowske knew he did not have evidence of causation which is why he used the weasel word “link” instead of “cause.”
Note: I am presenting the Banana Effect in the next edition of You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, and assume that I am not the first person to have recognized it. If you know of someone who has already coined a term for self-selection bias due to the influence of the media and/or criminalization please contact me so that I can give proper credit.
World class athletes have been caught using recreational drugs for years but what makes the recent cases of Tim Lincecum, Michael Phelps, and Santonio Holmes remarkable is that they have been outed at the peak of their careers. In these three instances, law enforcement has helped obliterate the mainstream myth that marijuana smokers cannot be overachievers in amazing physical conditions.
They All Do It
Rob Dibble, an all-star pitcher who played in the late 1980s and early 1990s, estimated that teams he played for varied from 20-60% in marijuana usage rates. In the late 1990s a New York Times investigation estimated the marijuana usage rate of players in the NBA to be at 60-70%. (A figure Josh Howard reasserted in 2008, LINK.)
Of course, the New York Times piece portrayed this as a sign “the party life style associated with the game is spinning out of control.” It then interviewed NBA players like Derek Harper who said it was “scary” because you might be playing against a guy on drugs and not know it, and Karl Malone who thought fans had a right to know if the players used recreational drugs and that privacy concerns about testing were ridiculous because, “you have too many knuckleheads out there, too many guys doing crazy things without realizing the consequences.”
Those Consequences
There is a strong case that – just like with alcohol – the moderate use of marijuana and other recreational drugs in one’s free time has little or no effect on performance. Professional athletics is hyper-competitive. As soon as you lose a step to the countless competitors behind you, you are gone. If marijuana use impeded performance it is doubtful the usage rates would be so high with million dollar salaries at stake.
Mark Stepnoski (pictured) played 13 seasons in the NFL as a center winning two Super Bowls and going to five pro bowls. He smoked marijuana throughout his college and professional career saying, “To me it’s all about responsibility. There’s a time and a place for everything.”
Stepnoski, who is now a marijuana legalization activist, has also pointed out his Super Bowl coach, Jimmy Johnson, had a different theory than Karl Malone.
As long as you did your job for him and did it well, he wasn’t going to snoop into what you were doing the rest of the time. It wasn’t his responsibility to be your parent or your guardian or anything else.
Despite the New York Times dire warning in the late 1990s the NBA is still thriving.
Other Notable Outed Athletes
NFL
Randy Moss (WR) – In high school spent a week in solitary confinement for smoking marijuana. Was kicked out of Florida State for smoking marijuana. Caught with marijuana by law enforcement in 2001. Tested positive for marijuana in the NFL in 2002. Implied was still smoking marijuana in 2005. In 1998 broke rookie NFL record for touchdown catches in a season. In 2007 broke NFL record for touchdown catches in a season.
Others: Kevin Faulk (caught at a Lil Wayne concert with marijuana in 2008), Percy Harvin, Michael Irvin, Curtis Johnson, Marshawn Lynch, Mario Manningham, Amobi Okoye, Lawrence Taylor, Ricky Williams
Link to a dozen NFL players caught with possession since 2008.
NBA
Kareem Abdul Jabbar (C) – In his 20 year career he scored more points than anyone else in the history of the game. Won six MVP awards and six NBA championships. Has been caught with marijuana by law enforcement twice, in 1998 and 2000.
Others: Carmelo Anthony, Mookie Blaylock, Marcus Camby, Josh Howard, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Shawn Kemp, Vernon Maxwell, Lamar Odom, Robert Parish, Isaiah Rider, Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace, Chris Webber
MLB
Ferguson Jenkins (P) – Eighteen year veteran won the Cy Young Award in 1971. Was caught with cocaine and marijuana in 1980 and retired in 1983.
Joe Pepitone (OF) – Three time all-star and Gold Glove winner Pepitone wrote in his 1975 memoir that he once shared a joint with Mickey Mantle before a spring training game. Mantle had never had marijuana before. He struck out four times in that game and spent much of his time in the dugout giggling. He told Pepitone, “I don’t know what that shit is, but keep it away from me.”
Others: Dock Ellis, Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez (testified that in the early 1980s 40% of MLB players used cocaine), Steve Howe, Paul Molitor, Otis Nixon, Dave Parker, Tim Raines (confessed to sliding into bases head first to avoid breaking the vial of cocaine he kept in his back pocket), Darryl Strawberry, Willie Wilson
Note: Much of the baseball outing in the 1980s stemmed from the Pittsburgh drug trials in which the legendary Willie Stargell was accused of distributing amphetamines by two players on the stand.
Fastest Man In the World
Usain Bolt – In 2009 admitted to smoking marijuana as a kid. LINK
Links of Note:
In 1970 Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while on LSD. (Less than 300 have been thrown in Major League Baseball history since 1875.) Here is a great animated short set to him recounting the tale. (Thanks to Chip for tip.)
Hall of Fame baseball player Mike Schmidt discussing how amphetamines, “greenies,” were readily available in baseball clubhouses during his career (1972-1989) – LINK.
Sources:
1. “Outside the Lines: Marijuana in Sports,” ESPN, 24 Feb. 2003. LINK
2. Albert Theodore Powers, The Business of Baseball (2003).
3. Selena Roberts, “Marijuana and Pro Basketball,” New York Times, 26 Oct. 1997. LINK
My name is Rob Arthur. I am a former inner-city teacher and public defender. I wrote, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, which takes an anthropological look at how wrong and debilitating our beliefs are about sex, drugs, death, and more. It won the 2008 Montaigne Medal for most thought-provoking independent book. Feral House released the latest edition on January 8, 2013. My cartoons are regularly featured at Boing Boing and I have written articles for AlterNet.
E-mail: rob@suburra.com. Twitter: robarthur9.
What
The purpose of Narco Polo is to defend recreational drug use—and all other consensual adult activities—that the American government deems criminal. When media sensationalism and government propaganda are confronted with facts, it is apparent that the unintended consequences of these prohibitions have caused much greater suffering than the activities themselves.
(4)
Mark Stepnoski (pictured) played 13 seasons in the NFL as a center winning two Super Bowls and going to five pro bowls. He smoked marijuana throughout his college and professional career saying, “To me it’s all about responsibility. There’s a time and a place for everything.”
