Zack Lynch is author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World (St. Martin's Press, July 2009).
The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics has released a new 50-page policy report, Pharmacotherapy and the Future of the Drug War that warns that the war on drugs may be about to enter a new era “that expands the drug war battlefield from the Colombian coca farms and the Middle Eastern poppy fields, to a new terrain directly inside the bodies and brains of drug users.” From CCLE:
The report is the first comprehensive and critical analysis of ‘pharmacotherapy,’ the use of new medications designed to block the effects of illegal drugs. While acknowledging that such pharmacological aids may well benefit people who voluntarily chose to use them, the CCLE report raises concerns about potential coercive use.
Compassionate Coercion--'Good Drugs' Fighting 'Bad Drugs'
In addition to waging a “war on drugs,” the federal government is now working to eradicate the “disease” of drug use. These metaphors, notes the CCLE report, play an important role in driving federal drug control policy because they frame the remedies available to the government.
For example, the 2003 National Drug Control Strategy casts users of illegal drugs as “vectors of contagion” who are “in denial” about their “disease” and who need treatment before “transmitting the disease to others.” Such language, says the CCLE report, lends itself to coercive treatment wherein the government feels justified in “medicating” drug users through policies of ‘compassionate coercion.’ “Coercion, whether ‘compassionate’ or otherwise, is still coercion,” cautions the CCLE report.
Bodily Integrity & Freedom of Thought
The CCLE report examines the pharmacotherapy drugs currently under development, and also highlights the legal rights that would be violated if a government were to require certain persons (such as prisoners, probationers or public assistance recipients) to take the anti-drug medications. The implicated legal rights include the right to bodily integrity, the right to privacy, the right to make one’s own informed and voluntary medical decisions, and the right to freedom of thought.
The report concludes with policy recommendations, which underscore the importance of restricting pharmacotherapy medications to voluntary use. “In the absence of “extraordinary circumstances,” notes the report, “the government should be barred from coercing a peaceful person to take a pharmacotherapy drug.”
The report ends with the following paragraph:
Sixty years ago the United States Supreme Court opined, "Freedom to think is absolute of it own nature; the most tyrannical government is powerless to control the inward workings of the mind." Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 548, 618 (1942). No Longer. Pharmacotherapy drugs now give the government that power. The question for the future is whether the introduction of these drugs into society will be done in such a way that preserves freedom of thought by upholding informed consent and rejecting compulsory treatment programs, or whether certain people will be coerced into using pharmacotherapy, thereby promoting governmental tyranny of thought processes.
This report is a "must read" for anyone concerned or interested in the future of liberty in an age of ever advancing neurotechnology. While it maintains a reasonably well-balanced discussion of the topic there are two areas I would like to see addressed in a future version. First, an analysis of how introducing these drugs might impact the overall societal costs associated with drug addiction. Secondly, and this would require substantial funding, a survey of people serving time in prison for drug offenses that would cover their attitudes, opinions and concerns regarding these technologies. It would be interesting to know how many would rather have a neurocop floating in their brain and serve less jail time or instead maintain their "freedom of thought" and stay in jail longer? I bet many would take the former.
Disclaimer: I am on CCLE's board of advisors.
Tracked on July 8, 2004 11:02 AM
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