Reality Check
The Future of Drugs
Marijuana has, by some accounts, become the number one US cash crop, cocaine has become crack, and LSD has celebrated its golden anniversary. Millennia after shamans began experiencing drug-induced trances, a war on drugs rages in most countries. While Steve Dnistrian, vice president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, thinks drugs will be decriminalized only "when we decide genocide is a good idea," many drug experts think a "just say know" attitude is better for developing a viable harm-reduction drug policy.
Wired asked five experts to predict when using drugs will no longer warrant free accommodations in prison and when the next wave of mind-altering methods may be available for experimentation.
David Pescovitz
Michael Timothy John Alexander Andrew Aldrich Leary Morgan Shulgin Weil ————————————————————————- Smart Drugs 2050 2000 1994 1994 2010 Prohibition of 2050 never never 1998 never Tobacco Dial-A-Mood 2040 1994 3094 2000 2000 Decriminalization 2050 1994 2014 1996 2000 of Drugs in US "Sober-Up" Drug 2050 1996 2009 2000 2050 Smart Drugs Certain "smart drugs," like Piracetam and Deprenyl, are used by some physicians to treat Parkinson's disease and memory disturbances, but the debate continues about their effectiveness on the average person. Most of those polled agreed that, although a "smart pill" may be just around the corner, the IQ test is an outdated gauge of intelligence. Morgan speculates that amphetamines may increase IQ scores. Shulgin thinks "the limitation is not developing such a smart drug, it is learning how to measure its effectiveness." Prohibition of Tobacco Even though the courtrooms are full of anti-smoking advocates during lawsuits against tobacco companies, don't plan on auctioning stale Marlboros to the highest-bidding addict anytime soon. Still, Aldrich, Leary, and Weil expect smoking bans to increase until extinguishing your butt in public won't be just the neighborly thing to do, it'll be the law. But private use, Leary and Weil agree, will never be illegal. Dial-A-Mood Morgan thinks the stimulation must be delivered from inside the brain's limbic system, where sensory integration occurs, so a nanosystem would have to be implanted in or delivered to the nucleus accumbens (inside the limbic system), where the pleasure center is thought to be located. Shulgin speculates, "Such a device will go the prohibition route of the Orgone box." Leary, however, notes that we already turn on TV, audio/visual tapes, radio, and light/sound devices for our electrical stimulation. Decriminalization of Drugs in the US Shulgin thinks that "the speed of the erosion of our rights and freedoms is such that if decriminalization does not occur in a couple of years, it cannot occur" until some form of revolution takes place. Aldrich feels that decriminalization of currently illegal drugs depends on what new drugs are developed and how well society accepts them. "Prohibition of drugs accepted by millions of users is impossible without totalitarian enforcement," he says. Leary comments that decriminalization has already begun and will proceed gradually. "Sober-Up" Drug According to Aldrich, "reversing (the effects of alcohol) could be as simple as discovering the neurochemistry of how alcohol produces its effects, or as complicated as parsing the variables of setting, genetics, chronic use, and dose-responses." Morgan agrees the problem is "finding the correct cells and the correct receptors or membranes that mediate intoxication." Leary says wistfully that Sunday morning wouldn't be too early for the invention of this drug. Reality Checkers: Michael Aldrich, PhD
Curator, Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library Timothy Leary, PhD
Philosopher John Morgan, MD
Professor of Pharmacology, City University of New York Medical School, member of the Advisory Board of the Drug Policy Foundation Alexander Shulgin, MD
Chemist/Pharmacologist, University of California at Berkeley; co-author of Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story Andrew Weil, MD
Author of From Chocolate to Morphine, and Natural Health, Natural Medicine.
