Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: An old article on WOD
From: [an 40496] at [anon.penet.fi] (Holden Caulfield)
Date: Mon,  6 Dec 1993 15:00:26 UTC

>From _New Scientist_ 24 Feb 1990.  Reproduced without permission.
                       *             *             *
                 Canadians accuse US of `hysteria' over drugs

                          Leigh Dayton, Vancouver


	The addictive potential of cocaine may have been widely overstated,
according to a Canadian psychologist.  "The drug is no more addictive or 
medically risky than drinking alcohol or coffee, gambling, smoking tobacco
or marijuana, or making love to excess," says Bruce Alexander, a psychologist
at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
	Alexander believes misinformation about the actual dangers of the drug
has led to "cocaine hysteria" throughout North America.  The resultant "war on
drugs" in the US, particularly against cocaine, will be an expensive failure,
he predicts, because it fails to address the true causes of substance abuse,
such as poverty, societal decay, and psychological distress.
	Alexander bases his controversial conclusions on research conducted
with psychologist Patricia Erickson of Toronto's Addiction Research Foundation.
The scientists conducted a comprehensive review of the available animal, 
clinical, and epidemiological studies, as well as carrying out original research
in Canada.  Details of the research were reported in _Social Pharmacology_ 
(3(3), pp 249-270, 1989) and will be included in Alexander's book,
_Peaceful Measures: Canada's Alternatives to the War on Drugs_, to be 
published by the University of Toronto Press this summer.
	"The most direct data indicate that between 5 and 10 per cent of those
who ever try cocaine will eventually use it weekly or more often," Alexander
said.  "Of this minority of users, probably one-tenth to one-quarter become
addicted at some point in their cocaine using careers."
	Of those people who do become hooked and who seek treatment for a 
cocaine problem, most are "cross-addicted" to other substances as well, say 
the scientists.  They cite a study conducted in 1985 by the US National 
Institute on Drug Abuse.  It found that 70 per cent of cocaine abusers also
use alcohol and cannabis; up to 27 per cent use tranquillisers, 
amphetamines and heroine.  "Cocaine-only" patients are uncommon.
	Surprisingly, the majority of users who do become dependent on 
cocaine return to moderate use or abstinence without treatment, the Canadians
claim.  Long-term studies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Holland, for 
instance, reveal that "non-deviant" users - those who are neither in treatment
nor in prison - fluctuated between periods of heavy and controlled use.  
Heavy users tend to moderate their behaviour for several reasons:  limited 
availability of the drug, concern with physical risks, loss of interest, and
changes in lifestyle such as parenthood.
	Alexander and Erickson warn, however, that cocaine is not harmless.
As with any drug, it can be dangerous when overused and can occasionally 
produce harmful side-effects.  But Alexander argues that the crusade against 
cocaine "blinds us to the real causes of the misery and violence that corrupt 
human society".  He adds:  "This distortion of reality, not the behavioural
or medical effects of the drug, is the real danger of cocaine in our times".



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