When it comes to judgment—moral and scientific—bad behavior is poorly represented in the court of public opinion.

As Dr. Carl Hart’s Drug Use for Grown Ups makes clear, here’s why we only hear bad things about recreational drugs: all the money and attention goes to elucidating its harmful effects.  (I discussed Dr Hart’s must read book here.) 

What’s the answer to problem of pleasure?  Manage the risk. 

The same can be said of morality.   If you are caught doing something deemed morally wrong, there is immediate, private and public judgment without a real opportunity to mount a defense.  For example, when Bob Kraft was caught up in Rub-and-Tug-Gate, I didn’t think he was treated fairly in the court of public opinion.  Was there a better defense for Bob Kraft?  Damn right there was!  

Both science and morality have it in for pleasure.  Neither like it.

Both science and morality have it in for pleasure.  Neither like it.

Folks take drugs because they are pleasurable. They drink, smoke, pop, snort and shoot drugs to put a smile on their chemistry.

A slice of chocolate cake, a line of cocaine, a hand job are gateways to pleasure.   And, in their defense, they deliver.  They put a smile on the face of the recipient.

Now here is “the root of all evil.”  What is pleasurable is habit-forming.  If you remember anything from this conversation, remember that pleasure is the root cause of mankind’s war on fun.

Sadly—but known to all—too much of a good and pleasurable thing can become problematic.   If you eat chocolate cake everyday, you ought to expect some bad health outcomes — like getting fat, loosing some toes and going blind because of diabetes.   

book

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear

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And don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for a war on chocolate cake.  It’s a free country.  Have at it. I am a live-free-and-maybe-die kind of guy.  But I think the signals are pretty clear: if you do too much of something, you’re risking life, liberty and property.   

The premise of this country is that we are responsible enough to govern ourselves.  That’s what self-government means.  Be you — and own the Darwinian consequences of being you.  Hold other folks responsible for the genuine harm they create.  Rob someone to support a drug habit and go to jail for robbing someone.  Bad outcomes are not excuses.  They’re the consequences of denying human agency over your behavior. 

Legalization needs to be tied to owning the consequences of one’s own actions.

We have allowed the few who over-indulge to ruin it for the rest of us.   Just saying this sounds wrong.  The screw-ups will always be with us.  The problem is that the “Just Say No to Drugs” goodie-goodies, use the screw-ups—those who take something pleasurable too far—to set the tone for the rest of us.

The best reason for flipping the script is that what we we are doing is not working.   Prohibition against pleasure does not work.   Don’t believe me; just watch Narcos Mexico.  The American people like cocaine.  And if there is a market for pleasure, folks will create the infrastructure to serve it. Unlike the cost of education or healthcare, the price of cocaine has remained stable even though our $100 bills are not what they were the ’80s.

I think we should stop our war on drugs and legalize the pursuit of pleasure with consequence.  Legalization needs to be tied to owning the consequences of one’s own actions.  Guy’s Shepherd answer for most problems is the failure by the purported “victim” to “manage expectations.”  Sounds right to me.   If you are an old friend, outside my parents’ house without shoes asking for cash,  you are not managing expectations.  You are a drug addict on his way way to jail, maybe AA, or sadly, a morgue.

I don’t know about you, but I can live with a “live free and maybe die” approach to the pursuit of happiness.

If you find yourself in jail, HR or marriage counseling, you were probably immoderate in the regulation of your appetite for pleasure.

Morality, properly understood and used, is a guide to a good life.  Virtues are habits of heart and mind attached to a proclivity in humans for a need of self-regulation.  For example, the virtue of courage is to address the reality of fear in the human animal.  We would not have got this far out of the monkey-mix, unless enough of us had the stones to run to the problems that most people instinctively run away from.

What is moderation?  Moderation is best understood in the negative.  If you find yourself in jail, HR or marriage counseling, you were probably immoderate in the regulation of your appetite for pleasure.

Based on my own experience and reading of the research on drug use and abuse, there are some folks whose chemistry, when it gets taste of something, are off to a dead-man’s-curve ending.  We need to show these folks some bespoke remediation.  But treating them like they are victims without human agency is a weak excuse that the weak are too weak to handle.  That’s the dead-end that legalization efforts need to avoid.  If cocaine or crack makes you wack—don’t do it.  Find something that you can handle.  Try chocolate cake.

In my world, you don’t go to jail for possession.  No judgement there.  You go to jail for what did while possessing.

The regulating virtue of pleasure is moderation. 

My advice: be “functional” in what you enjoy. If it affects your work,  your marriage, or your health, you have a problem that requires tightening up your behavior.  When we see a person who appears to be having “too much fun”—someone going against the thou shalt-not grain and getting more out of something, than it is getting out of him—the scorns call them “functional.”

Our present use of “functional” is bad moralism.  Functional ought to be the effectual goal of morality.  Forget perfectionism.  The world runs on and needs the functional.

“Yes, He drinks and has fun. Yet, he is never sloppy.  He is a good family man.  He loves and provides for his family.” 

If only we all could be so functional.

To reach Guy Shepherd contact: [email protected]

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