If drugs and alcohol didn't exist

I know it would hardly be sporting to pick on an essay by a fifth grader, who won a competition at her school by writing about how much better the world would be if drugs and alcohol didn't exist. Instead, I merely wanted to point out that "Just Say No" still thrives, in case you'd forgotten, and honestly, this particular fifth grader isn't making bad points. Sure, the things she described - drunk driving, drug addiction, cigarettes causing cancer - would all go away without drugs and alcohol. Some of her other points - people would be happier, families would be closer - well, that's certainly debatable, and while this young girl won the essay competition, she's not on the debate team yet and her earnestness is pretty endearing regardless.

At any rate, no fifth grader is going to win an essay contest writing about how drugs are awesome, and frankly, the reason I wanted to point out this girl's essay is the lurking suspicion deep in my mind, usually buried but occasionally foregrounded for various reasons, that life would actually be a lot less complicated and a little more enjoyable without the temptation of recreational drug use. Before anyone jumps down my throat about that, let me point out that neither I, nor our fifth grade essay winner, is really talking about so-called "spiritual" use of any particular substance. But even there, I'm willing to blur the line by saying it's long, long been a policy of mine that I can't in good conscience "turn on" a person to LSD who's never taken it before, not anymore, regardless of whether that person seems likely to use it in a spiritual context or not. Of course, that's just a personal quirk, borne out of a belief that LSD is a unique Pandora's box, and I have no problem giving people advice once they've already made up their minds to take it.

But still, it's there in my mind - a tiny impulse to quietly suggest avoiding the slippery slope of recreational involvement with drugs. Maybe it's a by-product of the observation that, among many enthusiastic drug-taking subcultural units I've encountered, it's fairly easy for enthusiasm to be the prevalent philosophical mindset, as opposed to caution and restraint. You might argue that balance is really desired, and frankly, I don't feel like splitting hairs over it, because I'm more guilty than most of raw enthusiasm, despite the veneer of caution I've been forced to impose on myself in order to guarantee any chance of survival into old age. But still, when a fifth grader has enough wherewithal to posit that without the complications of drug addictions, families' lives might be closer and happier... well look, she's not pointing at something completely imaginary, even if we sit back on the couch and thank our lucky stars that she's not talking about us or our friends.

At any rate, I'm on my second double vodka tonic of the evening, so you can take me with the usual grain of salt. Unfortunately for our fifth grade essay winner and the elementary school that thoughtfully gave her its award, Pandora's box has long been opened and no one's ever going to close it. So while "Just Say No" may be a useful mantra for the young mind in certain respects, it's ill-considered from the perspective of being wholly unrealistic in terms of how humans react to temptation and seek escape - even if "Just Say Hang On While I Check The Safety Stats on Erowid" is also unrealistic. The core of the Erowid approach, though - make the information available, let the information itself inform choices - is something you could easily start teaching as early as fifth grade. After all, it's not simply a good approach to thinking about drugs - it's a good approach to thinking about life.