TALKING SMACK
When New Zealanders narrowly voted last November against the legalisation of cannabis, it caused at least a temporary halt in the debate on liberalising drug laws. Given the closeness of the gap (just 2.3 percentage points), the issue is not going to go away. But it’s unlikely that there will be much appetite for legalising all drugs any time soon.
That, however, is what a leading expert in the field of recreational drug research is calling for. Carl Hart, the Dirk Ziff professor of psychology at Columbia University, New York, would like to see heroin, cocaine, MDMA and crystal meth treated in a similar manner to how we treat alcohol. Not only that, but in his new book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing liberty in the land of fear, Hart admits to using a number of those drugs himself.
“I am now entering my fifth year as a regular heroin user,” he writes, in what must be one of the most arresting sentences produced by an academic since Timothy Leary invited a generation to “turn on, tune in, drop out”. The difference is that Leary had left Harvard when he uttered those words – about LSD – whereas Hart is still employed by Columbia.
Was he worried, I ask on a Zoom call
