Robert Armstrong (“How America got high as a kite”, Opinion, Life & Arts, FT Weekend, November 18) rightly highlights the 140,000 alcohol-related US deaths as the price we pay to drink, but there is another price — that of escapism.
If drugs are an intriguing holiday from oneself, a daily drug user is someone who never wants to be who, what or where they really are. They’ll have their reasons for wanting their escape, but daily drug use is never a good omen for friendship, marriage, employment or any other marker of the good life.
The social and economic cost of drug use is hard to measure but becomes painfully clear when we see it in someone we love. Cannabis, in particular, seems to drain energy and ambition, especially from the young, robbing them of their two greatest advantages over the older generation. How might a young drug user appraise this price as worth paying?
Armstrong also reminds us that some laws stem from forgotten histories. He could include Prohibition, partly driven by the Temperance movement, composed of women and children tired of being beaten up by drunken husbands and fathers. The connection between domestic violence and chronic intoxication is clear yet seldom discussed in the context of drug liberalisation.
A final point on price: it turns out that government-approved weed can never be cheaper than its illegal counterpart, because your local dispensary has regulatory costs to face. This means illegal weed will always be with us. Is this the best of both worlds or the worst?
Ultimately, I don’t know which laws would be effective in a world where some seek escape and some don’t. But when I smell marijuana on a midday commuter train, I know it’s not always the aroma of freedom and wellbeing. It might be the scent of dependence and despair — a price still to be paid for drug liberalisation.
Jason Dunne
Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK
