I interview friends, colleagues, and experts, on harm reduction and its implications in Canadian society, from the theory to the practice, to the practical. I am a Member-at-Large for Outreach for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and writer for Karmik, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, and the Marijuana Party of Canada. Here I interview Daniel Greig, part 2.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Two main philosophies, as theory and practice, come into the conversation, typically. One is punitive or zero tolerance. The other is harm reduction. What is a preferable approach to you, and why?
Daniel Greig: Harm reduction, it makes the most sense. Drug use is a “victimless crime.” It doesn’t [intrinsically] hurt anybody or anything. It is only a crime by virtue by being criminal to begin with. There is no independent justification for this to continue being a crime and [for] ‘drug addicts’ to be criminals.
It is arbitrary how different substances are perceived. Addiction rates [are] not high enough to warrant criminalization. Just because somebody [has] a [controlled] substance on them, it doesn’t’ make sense to ruin their lives, put them in jail, and limit their travel at a later time.
There are [often] moral judgments used to talk about drugs and drug use. I don’t consider [this] a [relevant] reflection of people’s characters, [especially not one that could reasonably be used] to justify criminalization. On the other hand, a lot of the harms with drug use are because of them being illegal.
Jacobsen: We have a notion about legality and harmfulness of drugs. The pyramid is inverted. Cigarettes and alcohol are considered benign. Whereas, things like LSD, psilocybin, mushrooms, and marijuana, are less harmful to individuals and collectives, economically and for health.
Any thoughts on the source of this and its continued maintenance as a generalized mythology?
Greig: Largely, society is automatic. It is difficult to change automatic tendencies. It is something people are socialized into – these attitudes, even if they don’t make [rational] sense.
Some substances are talked about, but many are ‘hushed’ in a way. [Changing general attitudes about the relative harms and benefits of drugs that can be used recreationally] is going to be a longer process that will, hopefully, happen in the future. There is a lot of interesting research. There’s a research named Dr. David Nutt,
He was fired [as] one of the [UK] public health ministers by saying, “MDMA was less harmful than horseback riding.” That is, you were less likely to be harmed through horseback riding rather than taking MDMA. [Given that this is a statement made by a researcher based on comparisons of scientific research, it can only reflect an irrational attitude towards the issues of drug legislation that is going to take a little more than science itself to correct. But legislation can be where it starts!]
Jacobsen: Is that statement factually true?
Greig: There’s a small chance of injury in either case. Horseback riding [apparently] has a higher one than MDMA.
Jacobsen: Wow. If we take into account many of the partnerships and events thrown by CSSDP, what do you consider the utility of them to the general movement of non-partisan advocacy for harm reduction policies and youth mentorship regarding drug policy in Canada?
Greig: We do a lot of events. For [example] the conferences coming up, for 9/20, the International Day of Mushroom Awareness is good for networking people and having them in one place, especially those with similar ends.
They can collaborate, go into the world, and utilize these events. We have [more] proactive things like [the] cannabis roundtable for youth voices. It required producing an outcome document an presenting it [to the cannabis legalization task force].
We have a number of petitions. We have lots of different [avenues for creating] changes.
Jacobsen: The much older and the much younger face in different ways, but a rooted and similar problem, which is ageism. CSSDP is a youth run and oriented organization. It might come across that young based ageism. I suspect. Does this reflect personal experience for you – reaching out to other organizations, doing news media contacts, and so on?
Greig: Not too much personally, it might be the position for me. For cannabis, there have been people doing that for a much longer time. On that note, I haven’t gotten into the drug policy [too much, I’m more involved in the] the academic, stuff.
Jacobsen: The position, your status, will buffer it. For those that don’t, it won’t. And that’s a problem, but, maybe, not as heavy a problem as might be assumed (by me). Are there any recommended researchers by you?
Greig: Yes, definitely! Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris is doing the research out of the Imperial College, London. He is doing brain imaging or neuroimaging research. It has been acquiring a lot of press. His studies are interesting to read.
He works with Dr. Karl Friston. He writes about the free energy principle, which is a generalized theory of how the brain performs unconscious inference. It is a mathematical system of looking at the brain in a probabilistic way to see how it makes sense of the world. It is independently interesting if you have an interest in those areas.
Dr. Dan Merkur, he was a professor at the University of Toronto. He wrote books about psychedelics, Gnosticism, and so on. He is not talked about much in psychedelic circles.
His research seems extra relevant to me. I think it can facilitate ideas about the psychedelic state.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Daniel.
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Original publication on www.cssdp.org.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
