Beyond Abstinence and Abuse

A Fresh Look at “The Drug Problem” ©1988 by W. Teed Rockwell

I wrote this “Fresh Look” in my early thirties, when my body was requiring me to wrestle with these issues, and it definitely shares the values and concerns of the 80s and 90s. I hope it might still be helpful to anyone trying to figure out their relationship to mind-altering substances.

All Use is Not Abuse

The term “drug abuse” necessarily implies that there is such a thing as drug use which is not abuse. Nevertheless, most of the people who say they are against drug abuse do not recognize this, and really mean that they are against drug use of any kind. Such people usually believe that the only solution to the drug problem is total abstinence; to “Just say No” totally and unconditionally. Their drug education programs consist mostly of getting drug abusers(preferably famous ones) to tell what a mess they made of their lives by means of drugs. The conclusion that we are supposed to reach from this is that if we do these drugs, our lives will necessarily be messed up in a similar manner.

There are undeniably drugs where use without abuse is so difficult as to be for all practical purposes impossible. I have never heard of anyone using heroin or crack without ruining their lives irreparably, and from my second-hand experience it seems highly unlikely that the benefits of using these drugs could ever be worth the risk. During the Eighties, The image of the drug user as the barefoot longhair holding a flower was…