Aprohibitionism: A Possible Alternative

By dott. Andrea Michelazzi

Translation by Catherine Dry

Before explaining what I mean by Aprohibitionism, I would like to outline a few historical, social and economic trends concerning the phenomena of addiction in order to clarify the idea of Aprohibitionism.

To begin, it is important to note that since the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries drugs have played a progressively more important role in Western and Westernized society. During this same historical period, Western society changed from a mercantile-based system to a capitalistic one. Furthermore, the development of a capitalistic society was closely linked to the increase of the use and abuse of drugs. These drugs had different mind-altering effects, different potential levels of toxicity and different capacities for inducing addiction. Today, millions of people use, and are addicted to, various drugs including cannabis, tobacco, cocaine, alcohol, amphetamines and ecstasy. Other substances that are often not explicitly considered as drugs, such as psycho-pharmaceuticals and even food, often acquire the same addictive qualities as the aforementioned drugs. Furthermore, video-dependency, pornophilia and perhaps even some sexual habits are examples of other behaviors that share similarities with the characteristic behaviors of drug addiction. The progressive development of the phenomena of dependency and addiction, which I have briefly outlined here, cannot be merely chance

A closer look at the social context of the historical period helps to clarify these trends. The Enlightenment, the exaltation of Reason, the commodification of goods and the division and mechanization of work have clearly produced a society which, other than being dependent on money and consumption, is also more dependent in a general understanding of the word. This understanding of “dependent” includes the aforementioned kinds of dependencies. In a society dominated by Reason, there is always an expulsion of all things that are contrary to Reason. Foucault’s notion of Reason and unReason can be applied to this idea and may help to understand the presence of addiction and addictive behaviors in our society. This expulsion is followed by the inevitable, and subtly cunning, return into the social fabric of the values of unReason. Addiction and addictive behaviors can be the manifestation of the return into society of the values that are contrary to Reason. These values, therefore, can be also understood as a kind of consubstantiation because they become an integral part of the society that had explicitly excluded them before. The system of capitalism evolves and different kinds of abuse evolve with it. The political economy can no longer be understood according to classical terms; the referential value of goods (also understood as the worth of a commodity) no longer has a significant meaning in the system. Because the referential value of goods is stripped of any significant meaning, a confusion ensues and the structural value (the value of the commodity) becomes increasingly more exalted. Related to this “new economy,” drug abusers and addicts turn to stimulants that give a sense of “security.”

Just as the division of work evolves and becomes specialized with the development of mechanization, so the alienation of the worker due to his commodification becomes something similar to dispossession. Now the machine controls the function and pace of the worker or even displaces him entirely. At the same time, the understanding of goods as a fetish changes. A commodity becomes a fetish when its value is defined by analyzing the value of the process used to produce it. With this evolution of capitalism, the commodity is no longer a fetish but rather becomes the subject of fascination; the object is now transformed into the subject. This is what Jean Baudrillard would classify as “obscenity” and is the current, post-modern phase of capitalism.

With this evolution in mind, we can now return to the discussion of addiction and addictive behavior. Echoing Karl Marx’s famous dictum, “religion is the opium of the people,” paradoxically, opium, during the early development of capitalism, can be thought of as a kind of religion. Today, chemical ecstasy has replaced opium and can be considered also as a kind of new religion of the people. If psychiatric disease represented a heavy blow to production based on work division, today, hardship connected to drug dependence represents a heavy blow to reproduction based on work mechanization.

The criminalization and the too often violent methods of treatment and management of psychiatric patients can be compared to the punishment and treatment of drug addicts. In both cases, prison is used to solve the problem of the illegal nature of the patient or addict’s behavior. The therapeutic community is used to reeducate the patient or addict and health administrators help to treat them.

Even the underlying intention in the management and treatment of both kinds of patients is similar: managing and suppressing derangement because derangement cannot be seen as an integral part of the dominant values of society in a given historical moment. In the case of capitalistic society, every kind of set-back to or decline in work productivity was seen as “abnormal” and “ill”. The imposed way of understanding “illness” (also understood as the form given to that illness) and the “therapeutic instruments” used to treat illness were (and still are in part) used to preserve the dominant social and economic system. Lunatic asylums, shock treatments, malarial and insulin shocks, criminal lunatic asylums and the excessive use of psycho-pharmaceuticals are just a few examples of how the treatment of psychiatric patients was closely linked to the perpetuation of a certain kind of imposed understanding of the illness. This particular kind of understanding of illness was useful to the continued success of the dominant society.

However, the threat or setback to reproduction represented by drug dependence is configured differently. This kind of threat is linked to satisfaction gained outside of the goods of consumption and to the modification of a state of consciousness. It is not by chance that illegal drugs are those that can either create an altered state of consciousness or a different route to pleasure. It is precisely this altered state of consciousness, or alternate way to find pleasure, which the dominant society finds dangerous and subsequently determines to be illegal. The degree of dependency or toxicity of these illegal substances is not important. Tobacco and alcohol (when it is used as nourishment) are perfect examples of this.

The legal definition of social danger was once automatically correlated with mental illness in the legal code. The same kind of definition, although not legally codified, can still be recognized in relation to drug dependents. This definition conditions the language and structure of the so-called “politics of threat reduction.” This method of treatment merely proposes to reduce the dangerous effects implicit in a drug addict’s behavior by reducing the potential threat of an addict to himself or a “healthy” society. The prescribing of substitutive therapies, such as methadone for example, is not considered as a real therapy but rather as a tool to reduce the damage of the addict.

This idea is also found at the base of the ambiguous healthcare and welfare policy of the Jervolino-Vassalli law in Italy. Because of this policy, drug dependents are tossed between jail, communities and public service organizations which are often organized as a kind of “drug addict’s asylum.” It was only in 1994 with the Referendum Popolare that it was possible to have a slightly more differentiated system of medical care. However, there are already attempts to transform this policy.

It is clear that present day policies are not enough to solve the problem of how we should treat drug addiction. Drug abuse and deaths caused by drugs are on the rise. The prevalence of severe viral infections is increasing and jails are overflowing with drug addicts. The courts are jammed with criminal and civil drug cases and large scale drug selling has been only slightly diminished. Organized crime continues to become richer and more powerful and to finance other legal and illegal activities, such as arms trafficking. Drug trafficking continues to be prevalent and crimes connected to drug dealing are still a major problem. Although available public funding to begin to solve these problems is, in fact, considerable, positive results are very limited.

It is absolutely necessary to realize that there exist specific needs and specific questions related to the resolution of these problems. The mere repression of these needs and questions is not effective and never was effective. Therefore, I believe that it is a social duty to begin to consider alternative solutions.

I would like to make some analogies between Prohibitionism and Anti-prohibitionism that may help to better explain the Aprohibitionist point of view. On the political playing field, Prohibitionism and Anti-prohibitionism are found on opposite sides. Anti-prohibitionism is to Prohibitionism as, on the economic playing field, Free Trade politics is to Protectionism. Free enterprise (understood as the freedom to achieve profit) can be thought of as an equivalent in the Market to the freedom to take drugs. This is the extreme liberal Anti-prohibitionistic point of view.

Just as anarchy can be understood as a form of liberalism without a police state, so Anti-prohibitionism, brought to the extreme, brings us to the thinking that “everything is permitted.”

The degree of Protectionism on the Market is more or less parallel to the degree of Prohibitionism. This parallel development proceeds until an absolute conception of the ethical state is reached in which Protectionism and Prohibitionism reach their most powerful expression.

The Anti-prohibitionistic and Prohibitionistic parties are built based on the emphasis or importance given to the individual’s freedom to fulfill one’s needs, to satisfy one’s desires and to have an answer to one’s questions in order to allow civilization to prosper. The Prohibitionistic party believes that these needs and desires must be more or less strictly controlled. The Anti-prohibitionistic party believes in allowing the individual freedom to pursue these goals.

At this point we have reached an impasse. Enough antagonistic tension exists between these two perspectives that each position can invalidate or disavow the other through a number of equally legitimate arguments.

We have seen that in practice Prohibitionism has failed. Anti-prohibitionism presents itself as a possible alternative, although it is not the only or even the best alternative. In fact, it could be also a dangerous alternative. Putting on the market a type of goods that is freely sold means automatically placing that goods into a logic of profit, a logic of sale and of increasing demand. It could possibly also mean spreading the use of drugs and perhaps even displacing the profit from the clandestine seller to the authorized one.

But Anti-prohibitionism is not the only possible alternative to Prohibitionism. Anti-prohibitionism represents the necessary opposition to Prohibitionism, the polarized example of its opposite.

If we consider a dialectical perspective, a synthesis mediating the two approaches could be considered. However, I believe that not even this approach is the best solution, just as Critical Thought, which began with Hegel, by now is not enough to elaborate the present phase of our social evolution.

A quality jump is needed, one that goes beyond the antithesis, away from a synthesis and over the limits of both Prohibitionism and Anti-prohibitionism.

What I propose is a perspective that is specifically different from the above two positions, a point of view that distances itself from them and at the same time strips them of their reasons for being and of creating oppositions.

Therefore, I prefer to discuss APROHIBITIONISM, in which a distancing from the previously discussed ways of thinking is already evident in the meaning of the word itself.

In practice, Aprohibitionism means devising a different way of thinking that could be alternative to the Prohibitionistic and Anti-prohibitionistic logic. Aprohibitionism means thinking about a procedure that does not legalize goods in order to make them marketable. It means thinking about a procedure that makes it possible to manage needs beyond merely repressing them or forcing medical treatment but at the same time dealing with the possible increase in supply. Aprohibitionism means thinking about a potential use and therefore a worth for these goods that will not become part of a value-based market. It means stripping a commodity of its defining features, such as for example its value in order to gain profit. This is what I call a purification of the goods. And thus makes possible the legality of that which remains outside of the logic of production and reproduction, the worth of the goods, and tries to avoid the risk of the increase of the use of drugs.

Thus, I consider it absolutely necessary to differentiate these drugs based on their different levels of harmfulness. This differentiation should be determined by the degree of dependence that the substance induces, the direct toxicity of the substance and the degree to which one’s state of consciousness is altered while under the influence of the substance.

According to this model, cannabis would be a substance which, in my opinion, adults could freely grow for personal use. Along with this option or as an alternative cannabis could be controlled by some form of state monopoly. A controlled state monopoly would be accompanied by the distribution of information on the potential risks of cannabis and there would be no form of promotion of the substance. Cannabis could also be available for therapeutic use by medical prescription. The controlled administering of therapeutic heroin, however, would be more appropriate for heroin addicts and would only be for patients who were not able to undergo other therapies because they were unsuccessful. Obviously, it is first necessary to ensure the availability of other forms of therapies, such as, but not restricted to, substitutive therapies. Although the depenalization of the use of these substances is part of the Aprohibitionistic perspective, it would be necessary to devise strategies of controlled recreational distribution for substances that are very clearly harmful, such as alcohol, tobacco, ecstasy and cocaine. A distribution of this kind should be organized as a state monopoly (or clearly not for profit) and should be accompanied by adequate information on education and prevention.

In conclusion, I present these ideas as proposals in order to encourage further discussion. I hope that I have been able to communicate what I mean by Aprohibitionism and that, perhaps, it is an idea that may be applied not only to drugs.