Drugs and desire | Ingrid Walker | TEDxTacoma

Ingrid Walker is Associate Professor of Arts, Media, and Culture at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Her research and teaching focus on the politics of contemporary US popular culture. She is writing a book about the use and perception of drugs in the United States.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but inde-pendently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Good evening.

I want to talk to you
about your drug use.

Well, not just yours.

Yours, mine, everyone's.

It's an awkward subject
in the United States

where we have very specific ideas

about drugs,

but we need to talk about it

because our thinking about drugs

is completely disconnected
from our behavior.

It's disconnected from our drug use.

Let's do a thought experiment:

Close your eyes and imagine a drug user.

OK, I want you to hold that image.

We'll come back to it.

So let's start at the beginning.

For over 40 years the United States
has waged a devastating drug war.

In that same period of time

we've experienced an unprecedented boom

in the pharmaceutical industry.

The result of these two trends

is that on the one hand
we've incarcerated millions of drug users

while becoming the most medicated people

in American history.

How did we get to this conflicted place

about drug use?

And is it where we want to be?

Let's say, for the sake of conversation,

"No, it's not where we want to be."

The thing is, we can change our behavior
and our approach to drugs

if we all change our thinking about drugs
and the desire to use them.

Let me define what I mean by drugs

because I'm sure by now
your mind is just skittering around.

When I say drugs,
I mean psychoactive drugs.

These are substances
that affect our thinking,

our affect, and our behavior.

They include amphetamines, cocaine,

hallucinogens, marijuana,

opiates, alcohol, caffeine,

nicotine, and psychotherapeutic drugs

like antidepressants and stimulants.

We rarely think about these drugs
as an entire category.

Instead, we tend to split them
into two different kinds of drugs.

We think of good drugs and bad drugs,

or we think of illegal drugs
and legal drugs.

Cultural historian, Nancy Campbell,
says that we tend to think of them

as problem-solving drugs

and problem-causing drugs.

You know what I mean.

(Laughter)

These are socially created
attitudes and categories.

They don't tell us very much
about the effects of these drugs,

but they tell us a great deal
about what we think about drugs.

So what are good drugs and bad drugs?

Well, let's start with our stories
about good drugs.

We tell ourselves the good drugs
are problem-solving drugs,

medically necessary
or harmlessly pleasant.

(Laughter)

They're readily available in two ways:

we either get access, openly available,

the caffeine you had this morning
or the beer you have at dinner,

or we have to seek them
through a prescription,

a physician's consent.

Ask your doctor, we do a lot.

It's common.

It turns out that even just
a tiny subset of good drugs,

the American Psychological Association

says that of the psychotherapeutic drugs,

use has risen 22% in the last decade.

That means that one out of five of you

are on at least one
of these substances right now.

Or across the country, 51 million people.

Another 7 million use them
without the consent of a physician.

Consider another good drug: alcohol.

A hundred years ago
it was a contested substance.

Now, cultural attitudes have changed

and we look back
on that period of alcohol prohibition

as a misguided attempt

to control the desire
of millions of Americans to drink.

In fact, we celebrate the use of alcohol.

We serve it at our social functions,

we give it as gifts to family
and complete strangers,

and we expect it to be
at most of our meals.

In other words,
alcohol is a psychoactive drug

whose use has become normative
for most Americans.

It's a good drug.

Bad drugs...

Well, the stories we tell ourselves
about bad drugs

are that they are problem causing.

They are criminal, dangerous, addictive.

They're not for medical use.

In fact, we use them to avoid reality
or to escape responsibility.

They are a one-way ticket
to self-destruction.

Our media is full of the horror stories

of the users of bad drugs.

Do you remember the frying egg? (Chuckles)

Well since then, we've had crack babies,

meth tweakers, coke heads, junkies.

Their ravaged faces have been plastered

all over public service announcements

in Hollywood and television programs

for decades.

We know what happens
to people who use bad drugs.

Or do we?

When I talk about drugs and desire,
people make two assumptions:

they assume I'm talking about
illicit substances

and they assume
that if you desire a substance

you can't control
your use of that substance.

For the majority of users
of psychoactive substances

in the United States,

it turns out that is wrong.

The National Institute of Health

does an annual survey
of alcohol and drug use.

And in that survey,
for just illicit drug users,

they note that 22.5 million users

use regularly,

and of them,

an average of 18% are addicted
to whatever substances they're using,

because it's a whole category
of illicit substances.

I say 18.5% is an average
because it ranges from 10% to 30%

depending on the exact drug.

Of the 131 million users of alcohol,

11% become addicted.

Hmm...

Addiction is a real issue

and many Americans struggle with it.

It is also a serious social concern

because of all psychoactive drugs
15 to 30% of users become addicted.

The exception is nicotine:

80% of nicotine users become addicted.

But I think it's important
to realize two things.

The first is:

when I talk about this subject
people often react right about now,

and the reason is that you probably know
somebody who struggles with addiction.

I do,

and I have compassion for that suffering.

On the other hand,
it's important to realize

that if 15-30% of the users
of psychoactive drugs become addicted

that means that 70-85% of the users don't.

That means that 70-85% of users
of psychoactive drugs

are controlled users.

It's almost hard to believe
because we never hear that.

Instead, we tend to focus
on the people who are addicted,

which is a very tiny subset
of a very tiny subset.

But like a researcher
in chemical dependence said to me -

his name is Robert Whitney -

"It's like the flu,

the virus is all around you
but not everybody gets it."

So on the spectrum of people who abstain
and the people who are addicted

are all the other users.

And what are they using?

Well,

of the psychoactive drugs
that we could possibly use

and the ones we hear
the most about are illicit drugs.

Under 9% of the users
of all psychoactive drugs

use those illegal drugs.

Another 15.7% use
pharmaceuticals, non-medically,

so recreational or repurposed
for other reasons.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

Another 20% use
pharmaceuticals as prescribed.

And then there are the majority of users,

over 50% who use alcohol
and over 68% who use nicotine.

The thing to notice

is the majority of these drugs
are socially approved.

And in fact, the majority of the users
of these drugs, of all of them,

use in a controlled fashion.

So I have to ask,

can millions of happy,
controlled drug users be wrong?

(Laughter)

We're all users.

Whether you run seven miles
to feel energized or to shake your stress.

Whether you smoke that bowl
before you go to a movie with your buddy.

Whether you drink that bottle,
or bottles of wine with your family.

Or you eat a handful of mushrooms
to go out on a hike.

Or maybe you just have to have

that first, second, and fifth cup
of coffee in the morning.

We're all users

and our practice reveals
how we want to live.

I want to talk about one substance
and three sets of users

to kind of illustrate
what I'm talking about.

Psychostimulants have become
a much more prescribed drug

over the last ten years.

They're typically prescribed
for psychological disorders,

or people who have something
like Attention Deficit Disorder.

And so a lot of teenagers
and college students use these drugs.

So do their friends

because everyone has figured out
these are "performance enhancing" drugs.

In other words,

they help you focus
for an extended period of time.

If you go to the library
in a college campus

within two minutes
you can have Ritalin or Adderall

and can sit down to study
for your exams or write a paper.

It's a common practice.

Well, the first set of users
I want to talk about

are elementary school children

because the parents
of those teenagers and college students

have figured out
they have an academic edge.

In fact, they now call
those drugs "smart drugs."

They're going to their pediatricians

and asking for their middle school
and elementary school children

to be put on these drugs.

Not because they evidence
the symptoms of ADD

but because they want
that performance enhancement.

So, I wonder if these parents know

that one of the most prescribed drugs
is an amphetamine.

These same parents would be horrified

if their children turn to methamphetamine.

But as the parent of one
elementary school child

who had a dramatic turnaround
after being put on this drug said,

"Well, she was miserable,
so she wasn't doing her school work,

and she was completely socially withdrawn.

Now she's happy,

she's excelling at her school work
and she's socially active.

Why not?"

Why not, indeed.

The second group of users
I'll talk about

are professional athletes.

If college students figured this out

you know that professional
athletes have figured out

that performance enhancement
is a good thing.

And some leagues have decided
to allow the use of this drug

with the prescription of a doctor.

Suddenly, across Major League Baseball,

every other player has ADD.

It's crazy.

The thing is, who can blame them?

If I had to play
over 180 games (Chuckling)

over the year, that went on
for hours and hours

and sometimes extra innings,

I would want a stimulant too.

(Laughter)

The third group of users
are writers and thinkers.

Historically, some of our most famous
philosophers and writers

have openly used amphetamines
and have extolled their purpose.

For the same reason
that the college kids,

the high school kids,
the professional athletes,

want to use them.

They help refine focus,

they help you focus
for extended periods of time.

So, writers like W.H. Auden
or Graham Greene,

or thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre,
are famous for their amphetamine use.

Lots of writers use them,
including this writer.

When people come and tell me

about the propaganda they've heard
about methamphetamine,

people who have clearly
never tried the drug,

I sometimes will say,

"I wrote my dissertation in nine months

with the occasional help
of methamphetamine.

It was a really functional drug,
it worked for me."

So here's my question:

Does it matter, if I'm a controlled user

does it matter if I use
to get my work done?

If I use to feel good?

Does it matter if you use
to avoid feeling bad?

Or your friend uses to have
an introspective spiritual experience?

Does it matter if we all use
because we want to be celebratory

and feel intoxicated?

Our practices reveal how we want to live.

The majority of users are controlled users

of all psychoactive substances.

All of them.

They are your teachers, your mentors,

your friends, your neighbors.

Cultural norms are learned.

We create them

and we can change them.

I'll drink to that.

(Applause)