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September 28, 2007
Dr. John Beresford Has Passed
Dr. John Beresford has died. Dr. John Beresford died on September 2, 2007 in a hospital in Canada. British-born John Beresford began his psychedelic research interests in 1961, when he resigned his post as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the New York Medical College and founded the Agora Scientific Trust, the world's first research organization devoted to investigating the effects of LSD. In contrast to Leary's invitation to "tune in, turn on and drop out," Beresford wanted to keep LSD in proper perspective as a tool of scientifically trained specialists.In 1999 I republished an article Dr. Beresford wrote comparing the Drug War to Nazi Policies. In his honor I'm republishing the article. The Nazi Comparison by Dr. John Beresford Drug War prisoners that I correspond with call themselves POWs. Some write "POW in America" in the corner of an envelope under the writer's name and prison number. "Political prisoner" and "gulag" are terms that enter conversation. Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle and The Gulag Archipelago are works sometimes referred to. America's vast network of prisons, boot camps, and jails invites comparison with the detention machinery of former totalitarian regimes. The certainty of conviction that an accusation of a drug law violation brings -- through confession ( 95 percent ) or trial and a finding of guilt ( the remaining 5 percent ) -- matches the idea of automatic conviction that goes with popular belief about the nazi and communist systems. "Nazi" is a term used by Drug War prisoners and non-prisoners alike, as though it were a given that the mentality behind Nazi behavior a half-century ago and the operation of today 's Drug War is no different. The comparison is an uncomfortable one, and one's first inclination is to reject it. A US judge has objected that nothing in the conduct of today's Drug War resembles the terror tactics in Nazi Germany where SS troops could storm into a person's home and no one saw or heard of that person again. The objection is understandable, but it rests on a false premise. The Nazis were not a bunch of crooks, operating outside the confines of the law. Everything they did had legal backing, and if on some occasion a law was needed they composed one. Flat out, it will be objected that a world of difference separates a prison from a death camp. Drug War prisoners are not intended for a holocaust. Ominously for our peace of mind, however, until the last minute neither were the people held in concentration camps. They were held there to protect the health of society. Moreover, with the obsession with death that gains ground daily, it is probable that death is in the cards for people accused of drug law violations in the future. A questionnaire is making the rounds in Congress that has Yes and No boxes for questions which include: "Do you favor the death penalty for drug trafficking?" Who in their right mind in Congress, I wonder, will check No to that question, "trafficking" being the loaded term for what most people call dealing? Someone will point to the absurdity of thinking that America would ever tolerate a "Fuhrer," a wild man with a funny mustache and a way of haranguing crowds burlesqued by Charlie Chaplin. The point, though, is that the Nazi comparison refers not so much to rhetoric, inevitably different in two quite different places and at different times, as to the dehumanization and trashing of large numbers of people for lifestyles and practices that violate the norms of mainstream society. For this we do not need a Hitler. We can do it the American way. Myself, I am sympathetic to the Nazi comparison. I was in Nazi Germany as a child. In the summer of 1938, when I was 14, my parents sent me on a two-week vacation with a family in a village in north-west Germany. There were Mr. and Mrs. Otting, their daughter Irmgard, and the youngest son Wolfgang, who wore his Hitler Jugend uniform at Wednesday night meetings. The two older sons I never saw. One was in the army. The other was doing two years of voluntary farm labor, which excused him from army service. Mr. and Mrs. Otting were old-time Christians, and had the family bible on display in the china cabinet in the dining room. On the shelf above the Holy Bible you saw the red and white dust jacket of Mein Kampf, Hitler's version of scripture. No one said anything about it, but there had to be a copy of Mein Kampf on display for two reasons. Every five or six houses or apartments had an informant who could sift through mail, collect gossip, and pay a visit to make sure the householder did not have suspicious material lying around. Also, schoolchildren were taught to report suspicious behavior to the police. There wasn't any TV, but there was plenty of entertainment -- parades, outdoor concerts, Hitler on the radio, sports. The economy was great. Everyone had a job. Germany was strong. Hitler wanted peace. New construction was going up everywhere. The trains ran on time. You didn't see beggars in the street, hanging around. Undesirables had been rounded up, got out of the way. The newspapers were full of praise for the Nazi system. A weekly periodical with pictures showed who the Untermenschen were, the underclass of people who had no place in decent society. In those days the underclass consisted of gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, the wrong sort of artists, trade unionists, and communists. They were described in terms we now call demonization and scapegoating. The universities had their share of academics who endorsed Nazi policy. Doctors, engineers, race specialists, and others spelled out theories which gave the Nazis a green light. At 14 I was barely aware of all this. Yet by the end of my two weeks with the Ottings I had a feeling that to this day remains hard to describe. I took this feeling home to England, where I promptly forgot it. It wasn't the sort of feeling you had there. I didn't have it during the war, which started the next year. I didn't have it when I studied medicine, emigrated to America, became an American citizen, and lived in New York for 20 years. I didn't have it in Canada, where I practiced psychiatry for 15 years. I didn't have it when I retired from practice and spent time in a Buddhist monastery. On and off, I would read about Nazi Germany, but the feeling that I had when I was briefly in Nazi Germany as a child had gone. In the fall of 1992 an ad appeared in the personal column of High Times Magazine, sent in by Brian Adams. Brian wrote that he was 18 years old, just out of high school, when he was arrested and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for passing out LSD to his friends. If a High Times reader was interested in LSD sentencing methods, the reader could write to Brian and learn something. I wrote to Brian, who introduced me to Tim Dean, who introduced me to other LSD prisoners and soon I was in the thick of a correspondence which has not stopped growing. In 1993 I began to visit Drug War prisoners in prison. I drove to the Canadian border, crossed into the United States, and talked with Pat Jordan in County Jail in Nashville, Tennessee. I drove to Michigan City to talk with Franklin Martz, sentenced to 40 years in the Indiana State Prison in that city. I drove to other prisons to speak with Drug War prisoners, paying attention to the information they provided. That started my Drug War education. One day something happened. I realized that every time I left the monastery and entered the United States I was struck with a weird feeling that left as soon as I re-entered Canada. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was as real as day. When the meaning of this realization dawned, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The feeling I had acquired in Nazi Germany and forgotten more than half a century before was back. My Drug War education had clicked in. The feeling told me everything. The exponent of democracy had fallen on hard times. America was treading the same path as Nazi Germany. The War on Drugs and Hitler's war on anyone he took exception to -- the symptoms in the two cases were identical. One thing I had to accept was that I could not stay on in the monastery. I could not sit back and watch disaster unfold. I had to get out in the world and become an activist, whatever becoming an activist entailed. Even if no one else saw the War on Drugs in the same light I did, I had to do what might lie in my power to stop it. I won't go into what has happened since, except to mention a friendship with Nora Callahan and a tie to the November Coalition. It is a relief to know that others share the perception that historically we are in big trouble, without their having once glimpsed life in Nazi Germany. Where it will end, no one can say. But there is reason for hope. In 1938 people in Germany did not know the price they would soon pay for subscribing to Nazi policy. We, looking back, do know. With the benefit of hindsight and with concerted effort we may still halt the juggernaut, free Drug War prisoners, reverse an unsalutary policy, and restore meaning to the words "liberty and justice for all." If we don't, we will have no one to blame for the disaster that lies just around the corner but ourselves. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 09.28.07 at 05:23 PM
Comments
still halt the juggernaut, free Drug War prisoners Oh for crying out loud what utter, selfserving, deluded, BULLSH*T. Too bad that "doc" has died... I'd spit in his face. Darleen · September 28, 2007 11:57 PM In sum: Punishing people for violating the law is just like exterminating Jews! Got it, thanks. I'll remember that when your house is robbed. Anonymous · September 29, 2007 08:53 AM Great post and interesting essay. Thanks. Eric Scheie · September 29, 2007 09:05 AM Darleen, I'm glad people like you are around to bloviate and hyperventilate about subjects they wot not what of. Why, without you we'd forget how nasty and controlling some people can be. I have something really nasty to tell you, you can't run people's lives for them. That's what the Mindless Flailing About on Drugs is all about really, controlling the lives of others. Between the authorities and the MSM carrying on like a toy poodle with an anxiety attack, reactionaries like you get this unsupportable idea that the world is coming to an end, and the threat must be dealt with with extreme prejudice. You have bought into the lie that the world is out of control, and that we must suppress the masses for their own good. You know what I see when I go out in the world? You remember the world? Well I go out in it, and I see normal people doing normal things in a normal setting. On occasion I'll see homeless people, but they are a small bunch. On occasion I'll see a deal go down. A straight forward sales transaction. I hear about dealers getting robbed, but I have yet to see such a thing. Just as I have yet to see a convenience store clerk being robbed for all the stories aired on the evening news. Man finds a dealer/goes to the liquor store. Purchases drugs/liquor. Goes home and snorts/smokes/pops/drinks his purchase or part of his purchase. He might be an addict, he might not be. He might operate heavy machinery or drive a car while impaired. He may injure or kill someone while impaired. Whether drugs were legal or not the scenario would play out. All the Great Botheration About Drugs does is divert resources that could otherwise be used in drug treatment programs, infrastructure maintenance and repair, mental health programs, investigating robberies etc., or used for education. Your need to run our lives is a waste of our time and our money. You can't make the world perfectly safe. In fact, you actually make it worse. The measures you insist we put into place actually make the world less secure as the authorities take harsher and ever more extreme steps to stop activities that on the face of it are no threat to society at all. Darleen, we can survive a small minority wrecking themselves because they are fools. What we can't survive is you and your ilk violating the social compact and criminalizing behavior you don't like just for a fraudulent feeling of security. A town toker aint gonna kill us. An armed mob engaged in legalized home invasion robberies in search of the stuff he uses to get wasted could. Even if it's only one person at a time. Get right down to it, it's cheaper to provide medical care, and drug treatment if he wants it, for an addict than to keep drugs out of his hands. Cheaper not just in monetary terms, but moral and social terms as well. Better to let a druggie be than to install a tyranny that will end the American Experiment and make life a misery for most in this country. An existence made tolerable only be the use of drugs. Is that what you want Darleen? A regime so oppressive the bulk of the population face lives of screeching desperation only drugs can get them through? All because you have to make people do what you think they should do? Well stop it. We're adults and we are capable of acting like adults. I resent your implying I have to be watched like a toddler. Cut it out. You be concerned with your own affairs, and leave me to handle mine. I need your help I'll ask for it. Alan Kellogg · September 29, 2007 10:13 AM Punishing people for violating the law is just like exterminating Jews! That was not the assertion. The assertion is that the demonization of people who choose to use drugs is similar to the demonization of the Jews. Some of the commenters here seem to have fallen for one of those demonizations. triticale · September 29, 2007 10:38 AM In 1999, Dr. Beresford was comparing the Nazi terror to the War on Drugs. Perhaps this was a stretch. But oh how much more applicable is it today to the "War on Terror". Of course, the current administration is not as concerned about the legalities as the Nazi's were. Afterall, they can't just declare something a law like the Nazi's could (executive orders?) As a Canadian, he is fortunate that he wasn't arrested and sent to a foreign country. The suspension of habeus corpus by the current administration (ruled illegal by the Supreme Court when it was last done by Abe Lincoln.) and other suspension and ignoring of our Constitution represent the greatest threat perhaps ever to our Nation. That may be redundant as our Nation is our Constitution. Dr. Beresford recognized when it was barely happening. I wonder what his thoughts were about the much larger threat that is happening today. TomND · September 29, 2007 11:21 AM so Alan Jews = tweakers? And far be it from me to disabuse you from your little context free rant about the position you think I occupy. Pay attention now, I'll try to use simple enough words and short phrases so maybe you'll understand. 1)You cannot legalize all drugs in a Welfare state.
You're not dealing with the consequences. Darleen · September 29, 2007 11:42 AM btw the link in my previous comment is a two-fer for Libertarians ... deals with both drug addiction and illegal aliens heh Darleen · September 29, 2007 11:46 AM triticale, To add to your point. It was against the law to be a Jew. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 12:48 PM Darleen, how about looking at the total impact of drug users on the economy? Bill Gates took LSD at Microsoft headquarters. If he had been locked up and the business shut down, would we be better off now? triticale · September 29, 2007 02:48 PM How about Kary Mullis who won a Nobel prize for the polymerase chain reaction and praised LSD. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 02:59 PM Darleen, You know zero about addiction. In fact your knowledge might actually be in negative space - i.e. misinformation. Addiction Is A Genetic Disease PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System BTW it appears that your real beef is with the welfare state and since you feel powerless against that you need to find a scapegoat. Drug users are very handy in that respect. However, if you are considering total impact how about this one - Prohibition finances criminals and terrorists. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 03:05 PM I like Darleen's position. Get well or wee will throw you in jail. I wonder if that would work with cancer. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 05:31 PM Simon You deliberately mischaracterize my position but you call me "misinformed" projection, sir? Certainly, drug addiction has an element of genetic predisposition. Also, a great deal has to do with brain chemistry AND there are medical procedures to break that chemical dependence (see Hythiam Corporation) And last I looked, a cancer patient didn't murder their children ... So first, tweakers are Jews lead off to Auschwitz, then tweakers are cancer patients. Can you be MORE insulting to Holocaust and cancer survivors?? I don't give a good god damn is someone wants to turn their brain into swiss cheese (literally, I've seen the PET scans, have you?)...but their "right" to addiction stops at when they start f**king up the lives of others. Bet you've never held a crack baby, or looked at autopsie photos of dead babies, or the apartments of welfare collecting tweakers where finally the cops and the CPS has to breakdown the doors to remove halfstarved children. No no....crocodile tears over the poor addict who has left victim's in his/her wake even as they have had innumerable opportunities to clean up. GEEZ, you sound like Mike Farrell trying to save Tookie Williams. Free Mumia! Darleen · September 29, 2007 09:20 PM So Darleen, I take it you know of a fool proof cure for PTSD? The miracle we have been waiting for. I follow such news pretty closely, however if I missed it I'm sure you will post a link. People take drugs chronically for chronic conditions. About 10% of all Americans are chronic drug users that would be 30 million. If 10% of those have children that would be 3 million. So are there 3 million murders of children a year? I must have missed it. Perhaps you could provide a link to the stats. I like to keep informed. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 09:30 PM Another question. Are people with PTSD more or less likely to commit murder? Did you ever consider that it may not be the drugs? Well we do know that about 2,000 children a year die in prohibition caused cross fires so maybe that is just a small price to pay for a policy that doesn't work. My brother, no child at the time, was killed in one of those cross fires. I'm sick to goddamn hell of this crap. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 09:34 PM Darleen, The polices you champion killed my brother. In my eyes that makes you an accessory. Don't worry about it none though, an awful lot of your fellow citizens are complicit. Perhaps you would care to round up a few fellow accessories and throw a party with them and dance on his grave. I can give you directions. M. Simon · September 29, 2007 10:02 PM Simon I do not believe that it is either prohibition or legalize all drugs. I also support states who wish to set their own drug laws (ie legalization of marijuana) I also do NOT pretend that ALL DRUGS ARE EQUAL And you are arguing in bad faith when you take such a position. Pharmacology, like anything else, can be for good or bad. And please do try and defend equating non-functioning drug addicts with Holocaust Jews. I've pointed it out the insult several times and you continue to dance around it. It's as insulting as PETA's position that 6 million chicken dinners is the moral equivalent of 6 million murder Jews. 2,000 children a year die in prohibition caused cross fires And again, look at the link I gave you about the baby murdered by an illegal alien meth addict.. you think he is/was the only one? ever? I'm sorry you lost your brother. I've come to a point in my life I've lost several friends and family members under a variety of circumstances and the hurt fades but never goes away completely. You're tired of the "crap"...I'm tired of cleaning up after it. Darleen · September 29, 2007 10:08 PM The polices you champion killed my brother. In my eyes that makes you an accessory Oh. So I should consider you an accessory in murder of little Samuel Reta? How precious. Darleen · September 29, 2007 10:12 PM Darleen, How is making war on the non-functioning one whit different from what Hitler did? It is you who have joined the ranks of mass murderers. May God have mercy on your soul. M. Simon · September 30, 2007 12:29 AM Yeah. The Germans were tired of cleaning up after the problem people. Fortunately they had a solution. Dr. Beresford was even more right than I was heretofore willing to admit. You have opened my eyes. And for that I thank you. M. Simon · September 30, 2007 12:32 AM Your eyes are wide shut, Simon. Please seek help. Darleen · September 30, 2007 01:09 AM Please seek help. Transference? Denial? A phrase too often heard when trying to reason with a loved one who herself needed help. Makes me suspicious each time I hear it in argument, even when not directed at me. linearthinker · September 30, 2007 02:53 AM The essence of the conundrum is how few people know that all such prohibitions, no matter how well intended, are immoral. Brett · September 30, 2007 10:07 AM Well, gee Darleen, no one is advocating repealing the laws against murder, assault, and theft. Think of how many of those crimes could be punished if our Law Enforcement wasn't blowing its our liberties and treasure on the Drug War. Brett · September 30, 2007 10:33 AM Post a comment
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"The War on Drugs", "The War on Terror", "The War on Poverty" all excuses for government excesses and encroachment on our civil rights. We are all prisioners of a war on the Constitution.