Jamie Johnson at Vanity Fair wrote a piece this week that begins with a joke he heard at a Christmas party:
I watched a close friend of mine re-enact a depraved but funny maneuver he had seen an elderly man perform earlier that evening. Using both his index and middle fingers, he pulled up the tip of his nose to give me a clear view of the base of his nostrils and said, “This is a furnace. It needs wood.” The gesture and the words, he explained, were a veteran cocaine user’s way of expressing his urgent need for some additional holiday cheer.
According to Johnson, the elderly elite—hoping to keep the ’70s alive, perhaps—is much closer to the picture of excess Hollywood has painted than most people realize. (Here’s to you, Jack Nicholson.)
The idea of older, more mature, much wiser men regularly using cocaine as much as Johnson claims is shocking. What complicates the matter is that it may not even be true: a study by the Office of National Drug Control Policy said only 0.5 percent of people who used cocaine in the past month were 35 or older.
But what bothers me is the way Johnson portrays this drug excess:
One thing is certain: the people still partying like John Belushi in Animal House late into their years must have remarkable constitutions. It’s a special creature who can Burn Wood in the Furnace all night and nevertheless manage to function at the office or take care of the grandchildren.
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With confidence like this, it’s almost hard to disagree. But should we be describing an addiction with phrases like “remarkable constitutions” or referring to these men as “special creatures,” placing them into an almost heroic light? Is the cocaine these men sneak in country-club restrooms really that remarkable?
Image Valerie Everett/Flickr
Sorry, didn’t close that quote
“There are no cool cokeheads.” Would you say there are no cool martini drinkers? No cool Cabernet drinkers? What about Chardonnay? Are you semi-cool if you drink Chardonnay? Why is a particular substance a problem? This is “thinking” with not a lot of reason involved. You’ll find a much more balanced approach to pleasure seeking behaviors in my column just published in the OC Register this week: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/word-283690-question-husband.html A quote: By Amy Alkon: “Of course, when there are problems, people love to blame the thing being used instead of the person doing the using. This thinking is fed by the… Read more »
There are no cool cokeheads. Drug use is not, and has never been, cool. I’m constantly baffled by how many Americans openly support illegal drug use, as if it is perfectly normal. I hope this attitude never spreads to my country.
Great comment Amy!
PS They have paid internships at reason magazine — suggest you apply for one. Great place to learn skepticism, among other things. (If you’re libertarian.)
Unfortunate that you seem to be promoting the notion that any drug use is excess. Suggest you read Jacob Sullum over at reason.com and addiction treatment specialist Stanton Peele. As far as “Cokehead Grandpas Aren’t Cool” goes, why aren’t they? Should older people lie down and die, take to their Barcaloungers to make you feel better? A noted gerontologist friend of mine (now dead from Lou Gehrig’s disease) used coke to stay up and write journal articles and when he went nightclubbing — in his 70s. He was cool as hell, and as able to stop at a measured amount… Read more »