MAPS: Free lunch with Gen. McCaffrey

[RickMAPS@xxxxxxx]

Me and about 75 people had lunch with Gen. McCaffrey today at the Kennedy 
School. He gave a talk and took a few questions.  I was going to ask about 
federal obstruction of medical marijuana research but decided to focus on a  
larger topic- the way he equated all drug use with drug abuse.   I sort of 
felt like I was in a time warp, hearing about how well the Vietnam war was 
going, and couldn't stick to the little quibble I had intended to raise. This 
may have been a strategic mistake but I'm not sure.

I started by saying I shared his concern about drug abuse and applauded his 
effort to increase  funding for drug treatment. Then I told him his big idea 
that we should stop calling it a war on drugs but should think about the 
mission in terms of fighting cancer was flawed in that it assumed all drug 
use was abuse, said by targeting drugs and not drug abuse and calling all 
drug use drug abuse that we focused on too large of a target and wasted 
resources,  said that many people were able to use drugs and obtain more 
benefits than harms, and  finally asked what percentage of people he thought 
used marijuana without problems and what percentage used cocaine without 
problems. 

He gave a long answer that acknowledged that some percentage of people could 
use drugs without problems but he didn't say what percentage, said he knew 
that lots of politicians had used drugs when they were younger and that this 
shouldn't become a game of gotcha,  said that the most dangerous drug in 
America was a 12 year old on marijuana, said lots of other pro-drug war 
statements about the need to keep on with what we are doing, and said that I 
had asked a good question and it was a credit to our democracy that I could 
ask him those questions. I gave him a MAPS Bulletin and said it contained a 
science-based research -focused discussion of potential beneficial uses of 
Schedule 1 drugs and took about 10 copies of the National Strategy, 1999 
version ( a fair rate of exchange, I thought) 

Plus it was a delicious lunch.

The following matter is not about psychedelics but Gen. McCaffrey said that 
NIDA  has funded studies with rhesus monkeys in which male monkeys were given 
a choice of cocaine, food, water or female monkeys. They chose cocaine till 
they died. I thought that monkeys given the option of sex and companionship 
would not kill themselves with cocaine, that only isolated animals did this.  
Does anyone know if there is any truth to McCaffrey's story?

Rick Doblin


 

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