Peter Cohen

Cocaine use in Amsterdam in non Deviant Subcultures

Cocaine use was studied in Amsterdam among experienced users not drawn from biased populations of treatment clients, prison inmates, or prostitutes, but from the much larger pool of community based cocaine users. Cocaine use was studied in two samples, 160 in 1987 and 108 in 1991, recruited using snowball sampling techniques. Sixty-four of the 1987 respondents were also reinterviewed in 1991. Data gathered in these three investigations primarily focus on the effects and consequences of cocaine use, circumstances of use, development of level of use, and rules applied to cocaine use in general. The largest single group of users (50%) never exceed a low use level (less than. 5 grams a week). About one in five progress to a high use level of 2.5 grams a week or more during their top period of use. Sustained high level use is rare. There are clear indications that experienced cocaine users tend to diminish their use over time, lace it with periods of abstention, and adjust it primarily to social functions. Neg...

Is the Addiction Doctor the Voodoo Priest of Western Man

In this essay on the concept of addiction, my efforts will not be directed at trying to explain the behaviour of the “addict”. Rather, I am interested in tracing the evolution of the social logic and history of the addiction concept, and its continuing functionality today. I want to approach the concept of addiction in a slightly different way than John Davies who speaks about addiction as a “myth”. Davies explains the creation of this myth through attribution theory.2 I share with him the conviction that “myth” is the right concept to use here. But my purpose is to try to understand where the need to create this “myth” comes from, and why the construct of addiction is so extraordinarily charged in our culture. I will first look at some conceptual and social origins of the concept of the “individual” in whom addiction is assumed to reside. Then I will argue that the concept of addiction is a necessary

Amphetamine users in Amsterdam: Patterns of use and modes of self-regulation

After identifying some omissions in existing literature on research on amphetamine use, this article sets forth to answer some questions with respect to (1) use patterns, (2) advantages and disadvantages of amphetamine use as experienced by users, (3) the formal and informal modes of control that users employ to reduce or negate negative side effects of amphetamine use, and (4) the role of context variables in fostering in facilitating these modes of control. The article draws on a sample of 109 experienced and recent amphetamine users in Amsterdam and a follow-up sample of 67 respondents of the original 109. Through a discussion of use patterns over long periods of time, a longitudinal perspective is provided. In a large majority of cases, respondents reduced their levels of use or stopped using amphetamine altogether after a relatively brief period of time. Data from our follow-up survey suggest that users tend to develop mechanisms of self-regulation, even those who at some point showed signs of ‘losing control’; respondents either quit or diminish their use or, in rare cases, accommodate high-level amphetamine use within their daily lives. We discuss the numerous explicit and implicit rules that regulate drug consumption and prevent escalation of problems related to amphetamine consumption. These results inform a discussion about policies toward the consumption of amphetamine.

The drug prohibition church and the adventure of reformation

Whatever the origin of the UN Drug Treaties, and whatever the official rhetoric about their functions, the best way to look at them now is as religious texts. They have acquired a patina of intrinsic and unquestioned value and they have attracted a clique of true believers and proselytes to promote them. They pursue a version of Humankind for whom abstinence from certain drugs is dogma in the same way as other religious texts might prohibit certain foods or activities. The UN drug treaties thus form the basis of the international Drug Prohibition Church. Belonging to that Church has become an independent source of security, and fighting the Church’s enemies has become an automatic source of virtue. In the history of Western culture, we have known many churches. The best known are the Roman Catholic Church, with its Rome-based Central Office of the Faith, but also the Church of Communism as ultimately ruled by its once Moscow-based Central Committee. All these churches know and worship central texts that do not serve to promote scientific understanding and social development, but rather to promote the Church’s own dogma, faith, and the reign of its Institutions. When, for reasons that no longer count, the USA became inspired to write the first versions of the first global drug treaties slightly more than a century ago, no one could have foreseen the results. But then had anyone foreseen the ramifications of setting up central texts and later central headquarters of Christianity, or, indeed, of Communism? Sociologically seen, the equation between the UN Drug Treaties and Faith may not be immediately selfevident. As I have written elsewhere, (Cohen, 2000) the mid eighteenth century birth of individualism, with its ensuing fights against dependence, colonialism and slavery should be seen as the cradle of our modern mythologies about drugs and addiction. The concept of a drug and the concept of addiction were sincere expressions of that new ideology, the religion so to speak, of the ‘free individual’. In the cradle of individualism new movements and cultures were born and raised, trying to create ‘independence’ and ‘emancipation’ of both peoples and persons. The aim that would define Humanity, acquiring God’s ‘grace’ for the soul, was from the eighteenth century on replaced with ‘independence’ and later ‘health’ for the body. Here, I will not discuss the specific interpretations of ‘independence’ or ‘health’ that are chosen, because they do not matter for this short paper. The socialist ideologies, too, can be understood as expressions of that new vision of individuality and freedom, of which the best known and the best researched was Marxism. We should understand that The First Communist International and the First Global Drug Treaty have the same secular philosophical parents, begot similar institutional empires, and had similarly destructive Inquisitions as their consequences. In the Catholic Church, congregations of the Sacred College of Cardinals or administrative departments thereof, would decide on matters of saints, heretics and secular strategies of the Papal Office. One of the famous Congregations*/the Congregation of the Index*/would decide on what books could be read by the faithful, and for instance in one of their meetings, in 1616 (March 5) it was decided that reading Copernican astronomy would be banned, as it was ‘false and contrary to Holy Scripture’ (Sobell, 1999). In the Prohibition Church we have several of these Congregations, where the Cardinals of Prohibition compare the sacred texts with policies the world over, and decree if these policies are holy or not. It makes no sense to try to show the Congregations where the anti * Tel.: /31-20-525-4278; fax: /31-20-525-4317. E-mail address: pcohen@cedro-uva.org (P. Cohen). International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 213 /215

Drug policy as freedom from rationality. The prosecution of the Rototom music festival in Italy

Purpose – The author aims to use the example of the Rototom Sunsplash Festival (a large European annual reggae festival held in Italy) to discuss his personal views on drug policy at such events and in general.Design/methodology/approach – The author presents his views of drug policy, comparing these with Voodoo religion.Findings – The views of different cultures and countries towards drugs and drug policies are discussed.Originality/value – This paper presents the authors strong views on the “drug war” and drug policies.

Less THC, more public health?

Purpose – This paper seeks to comment on legislative changes proposed in The Netherlands to make a legal distinction between low and high THC content cannabis.Design/methodology/approach – This paper carries out a policy assessment.Findings – The proposed distinction is not driven by public health interests, the arguments are flawed and not substantiated. It is a political decision with benefits for interest groups.Originality/value – The proposed legal changes in The Netherlands have not previously been discussed in English language drug journals.

The culture of the ban on cannabis: is it political laziness and lack of interest that keep this farcical blunder afloat?

From a paper given at the Tweelanden conferentie Cannabisteelt in de Lage Landen, at the University of Ghent, on 3‐4 December 2007, the author explores the culture of the ban on cannabis and defines its goals.