AN ONLINE PUBLICATION

Bruce K. Alexander, Ph.D. (1)

I think that future historians will classify the American anti-drug propaganda of the 19^th and 20^th centuries in the same category as the hyperbole of earlier witch-hunts and crusades. I think they will put the American-dominated scientific drug literature in the same category as the technically brilliant but hopelessly entangled medieval debates on the properties of angels. On the other hand, I think future historians may be impressed by the American common sense philosophers of these same centuries, including Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Clemens or "Mark Twain", Will Rogers, and, more recently, Wendell Berry (1992). These sages made illuminating observations on practically everything, including drugs. Their genius lay in stating complex arguments in plain language and with irresistible good humor. The analysis that follows is inspired by the writing of Mark Twain (1835-1910) (2).

Mark Twain’s writings on tobacco were complex, engaging, and wise, i.e., the antithesis of propaganda. Please note that, whereas I am using Mark Twain here to unmask the strident oversimplifications of anti-tobacco propaganda, I am not launching into an argument in favour of tobacco, but rather an argument against drug propaganda of all sorts. Speaking on the occasion of his 70^th birthday in 1905, Mark Twain, having survived a fair portion of the 19^th century, observed that it was common for people of his awesome longevity to preach about their personal habits, and for their listeners to emulate them in their own lives. He thought the first part of this was reasonable enough and proceeded to hold forth on the topic of his own habits, but he cautioned against any emulation. He put it this way:

"I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining old age. When we examine the programme of any of these garrulous old people we always find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us...I will offer here as a sound maxim...That we can’t reach old age by another man’s road." (Mark Twain 1905/1963, p. 471).

He then proceeded to describe his various personal habits, including his moderate consumption of alcohol, his practice of skipping lunch, and others. Of most importance here was his smoking. He smoked enough to induce apoplexy in today’s anti-smoking propagandists. In his words:

"I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father’s lifetime and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847, when I was a shade past eleven; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my [practice] never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake. It is a good [practice]. I mean, for me, but some of you know quite well that it wouldn’t answer for everybody that’s trying to get to be seventy. "I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke . . . I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was . . . to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn’t break my bonds. . . . To-day it is all of sixty years that I began to smoke the limit." (pp. 471-472).

Throughout his speech, Mark Twain re-iterated the point that nobody should emulate either his moderate consumption of alcohol, his immoderate consumption of tobacco, nor his total abstinence in the matter of lunch if it was bad for their own health, and that they themselves were the best judge of that. More surprising perhaps, it is clear from the speech as a whole that he was not merely saying that he had survived to a ripe old age in spite of his smoking, but rather that he had survived in part because of his smoking.

This requires a few moments for reflection, given the current propaganda and scientific claims surrounding drugs, including tobacco, and so I will return to Mark Twain after I have undertaken a bit of hatchet work on the scientific drug literature.

I feel comfortable attacking the American scientific drug literature because it has frequently given me attacks of outrage, causing occasional insomnia and not a few grey hairs over the years. Whatever harm my puny rhetoric might inflict on it could only go part way towards righting the balance. I characterize this literature as American, because American professional journals set the critical standards, American granting agencies fund most of it and thus determine its direction, and American researchers do most of the work.

I am not sure how this body of writing first came to be called a "literature" or why it is accepted as "scientific", since it has little in common with either literature or science as they are known in other contexts. It lacks any trace of literary style or charm and it has no core scientific paradigm. It is not even good bedtime reading — I find that rather than being soporific it induces tension and disquiet. When I first faced up to all this shocking truth, I naturally assumed that the fascinating articles that I had myself contributed to the scientific drug literature were exceptions. Then I met other people who shared my dismal view of the whole literature, with the exception of their contributions to it, but with the inclusion of mine. This wrecked my original analysis, which was a vain one, but I believe that I understand it better now. In this literature is found the work of a lot of good thinkers and researchers who are vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the champions of an outmoded but culturally powerful way of thinking. The culturally powerful way of thinking was laid out by the 19^th century temperance movement, in a number of countries, but most flamboyantly and persuasively in the United States (see Taylor, 1966; Kobler, 1973; Alexander, 1990). This way of thinking has become a part of American culture, and thereby world culture in the 20^th century. It has been propounded by the American government with particular intensity since the 1960s, although it began at the start of the 19^th century. Harry Levine (1992) has described the United States and a few other countries in the world, including Canada, as "temperance cultures". I will here refer to the way that temperance cultures think about drugs as a "temperance mentality".

Because the temperance mentality has enormous institutional support among those who fund drug research in the United States, the bulk of the research in the scientific drug literature conforms to its assumptions. Good researchers are of course constantly deviating in a variety of directions, seeking to develop new paradigms, but they can’t get anywhere. They get nowhere because whenever they produce research that contradicts the temperance mentality, the temperance champions, who comprise the large majority of researchers, will claim that they are incoherent and their arguments unfounded or, more likely, will ignore their existence. But since the premises of the temperance mentality grew from a moral ideology rather than scholarly inquiry, and since these premises have been in large part discredited empirically, the temperance mentality cannot qualify as a research paradigm either. Without a paradigm, no real scientific community can develop. Thus, the temperance mentality comprises a huge obstacle to the process by which science ideally develops. Naturally the emotional tone in such a frustrating and unproductive state is uncivil; ideas outside one’s familiar domain are treated with disdain or, more likely, ignored. Some people want to represent this unhappy condition as typical of science in general, but that is merely wishful thinking. The so-called scientific drug literature does not have anything remotely like the credible theoretical core of "normal science" as it exists in biology (Mayr, 1982), chemistry, or physics (Kuhn, 1970). Nor is it built around a civil vulnerability to falsification that is often taken as the defining characteristic of science (Popper, 1959).

What is this temperance mentality and what gives it such power? I will try to shed some light on these questions by summarizing some recent research by my colleagues and myself (Alexander & van de Wijngaart, 1997; Alexander et al., 1998).

From Benjamin Rush’s writings at the beginning of the 19^th century (Benjamin Rush, 1790; 1805/1947; 1819), until the prohibition era in the 1920s there was a remarkable uniformity in the temperance view of alcohol in the United States. Of course there were people who opposed this moralistic, abstemious view of alcohol—they were called "wets"—but there were more "drys" and the temperance mentality was the dominant vision for many decades. My colleagues and I have summarized the premises and themes from original temperance sources (Chenery, 1890; Chiniquy 1847; Kellogg, 1926; Rush, 1790; 1805/1847; 1819; Spence 1919; Wooley & Johnson 1903) and from historical accounts of the temperance movement (Aaron & Musto, 1981; Ajzenstadt, 1992; Blocker 1976, 1989; Clark 1976; Gusfield 1963; Hiebert 1963; Kobler, 1973; Levine, 1978; 1984; 1992; Noel 1987; Rumbarger, 1989; Smart & Ogborne, 1986).

Although the language of temperance writing was moralistic and accusatory, its claims were coherent. The two most fundamental temperance premises were:

1) alcohol use was the primary causes of society’s problems including sexual promiscuity, violence, family dissolution, labour and racial unrest, insanity, illness, child abuse, atheism, addiction, and, sometimes, the imminent downfall of civilization itself and, 2) universal abstinence would greatly reduce these problems and was achievable through certain temperance remedies.

Prohibition is the remedy that is now most often associated with the temperance movement, but temperance advocates had many other remedies in mind as well, which we could classify under contemporary headings of education, prevention, and treatment (e.g., Orford, 1985, ch. 14). Apart from these fundamental premises, there were other themes that consistently flowed in the temperance mainstream. For example, throughout two centuries of temperance, drugs could always be divided into two groups, "good" and "bad". The original bad drug was distilled spirits, but others were gradually added to the list beginning with beer and wine, opium, morphine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and so forth. The list of bad drugs eventually became immense but the basic claim about bad drugs never changed. They were individually and collectively responsible for all that was wrong in civilization and, between them, there was not a single redeeming virtue. Their worth could not be compared on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis, for they had no benefits whatsoever, for anybody, ever. For example, a great deal of Benjamin Rush’s writing was devoted to showing that alcohol had no value under any circumstances. To do this, he set about systematically contradicting centuries of folk knowledge (Benjamin Rush, 1790, 1805/1947, 1819). Another idea that became standard as the temperance movement progressed was that users of drugs were "out of control", as if possessed by a demon. Recreational or medicinal use of a bad drug was impossible.

As the 19^th century progressed, the temperance claims were extended from ardent spirits to other drugs. This has continued to the present. In the pronouncements of the recent American "Drug Czars" and dozens of other mainstream, hard-line anti-drug works, some peripheral details change but the fundamental temperance claims remain untouched (e.g., DuPont, 1998). However, examined critically, these recent sources offer no stronger evidence for these claims about a myriad of drugs than those proffered for the original temperance claims about alcohol.

Further, the pronouncements of the more liberal figures in current American drug debate comprise a softened form of the same temperance message. It takes a bit of demonstration to show this, because the liberal proponents of American drug policy generally think of themselves radically shifting the emphasis, for example, from "supply reduction" to "demand reduction", from a "justice model" to a "public health model", from "prohibition" to "harm reduction" and so forth. A little examination of the literature that supports these changes, however, uncovers the temperance mentality, largely intact (Alexander, unpublished). It is necessary to remember that the temperance movement was not only about prohibition, but had strong ideas about education, prevention, and treatment as well.

Although it is far from universal, the temperance mentality, with respect to both alcohol and illicit drugs, is still taken very seriously by a significant portion of the population of the United States. I know this from many heated discussions on drug issues that I have had with Americans. I hope to illustrate it quantitatively, using the responses of university students to a Temperance Mentality Questionnaire (TMQ) that my colleagues and I administered to nearly 2,000 students in the United States and six other countries.

The TMQ was designed to measure adherence to the ideas espoused by the temperance movement about alcohol, and adherence to those same ideas when applied to currently illicit drugs. The test includes 50 items that we derived from 19^th and early 20^th century North American Temperance literature and from historical accounts of that same era (sources cited above). Each item on the questionnaire can be documented with quotes from these historical sources (Burt and Nijdam, unpublished). The language of the TMQ was modernized somewhat, primarily by replacing archaic words and phrases like "ardent spirits" and "drunkard" with more modern equivalents like "liquor" or "alcoholic" and by changing some of the references from alcohol to currently illicit drugs.

Multivariate statistics show clearly that the students do not respond to the temperance items independently, but as if they formed a coherent whole. That is, each student tended to either agree with most items, disagree with most of them, or respond to them with a consistent neutrality (Alexander et al., 1998). The widespread acceptance of the temperance mentality in the United States, relative to other western countries, is illustrated by the student data in Table 1.

In this analysis, the students in each sample are classified according to their overall acceptance of the TMQ items, rejection of them, or neutrality towards them.

Table 1.

Does the widespread acceptance of the temperance mentality in the United States and elsewhere influence drug policy and, more important for present purposes, does it affect the scientific drug literature? It seems obvious to many social scientists that the temperance mentality does influence drug policy (e.g., Heath, 1996; DeGrandpre, 1996; Wagner, 1997). If a majority of people really believe that alcohol or the illicit drugs have the demonic qualities that the temperance mentality attributes to them, and have no benefits for any users, then abstemious policy is merely common sense. Only the staunchest libertarians would advocate anything other than abstinence for a substance that, even in small doses taken by normal people, causes incurable addiction, deforms babies, induces violence, causes fatal heart attacks, and threatens to annihilate western civilization. If the claims of the temperance mentality are true, it would make no more sense to tolerate the sale of drugs than to tolerate the sale of plutonium or the AIDS virus. Research seems to me no less influenceable than public policy. Governments, university boards, and research foundations established by large corporations powerfully influence research through grant money, ethics committees, hiring policies in universities, awards, subsidies for professional publications, and so forth (Danziger, 1990). Government and big business are, at this juncture foursquare behind the temperance mentality as applied to illicit drugs.

Researchers, of course, pride themselves on being irascible, independent-minded characters, but this does render them immune to the laws of reinforcement or natural selection. An illustration of the controlling influence of the temperance mentality on research comes from a study of articles submitted to a professional society on the topic of cocaine taken ´in utero´. This study was conducted by researchers in Toronto (Koren et al., 1989). It showed clearly that articles on the effects of ´in utero´ cocaine administration were likely to be accepted if they confirmed the temperance presupposition that drugs in any quantity are harmful to unborn children and that they were unlikely to be accepted if they did not. In many cases, articles with inferior methodology by normal research standards were selected over those with better methodology, but the wrong conclusions. I believe that all professional researchers can testify to the operation of influences of this sort.

Obviously, undue influence of the temperance mentality does not constitute proof that all temperance claims are false or that no drug problems exist. Again, Mark Twain is a good source of a balanced perspective. On the one hand, his 70^th birthday speech made it clear that he rejected some of the temperance claims totally. He was himself a moderate user of alcohol, and he allowed that other people might find heavier use than his to be a healthy practice in their lives. He maintained that his totally immoderate smoking had helped him to attain old age, although he acknowledged that it might have killed somebody else. Note how far he was from temperance doctrine at this point. Within the temperance mentality, it might be admitted that he lived beyond age 70 ´in spite of´ very heavy smoking. But Mark Twain said that he survived to old age ´because of´ his smoking.

This proposition runs far beyond the simplistic temperance assumption that all drugs can be divided into the universally good and the universally bad. It suggests that people can and do make complex informed decisions about using and not using drugs, and that everybody should not make the same decisions. It also suggests that the effect of tobacco on longevity might be strongly affected by some of its psychological effects which are more idiosyncratic than the physical harm that it does to the cardiovascular system. In other words, in his modest way, Mark Twain was providing the impetus for a complex analysis, whereas the temperance mentality only pushes science toward the justification (or sometimes repudiation) of its simplistic slogans. Cynthia Pomerleau (1997) and others have conducted research that suggests why smoking can be life sustaining for some people. However, as long as the temperance mentality exercises its hegemony in the scientific drug literature, such research remains marginalized. On the other hand, however, Mark Twain did not advocate a totally laissez-faire attitude towards drugs. This emerges clearly in an article entitled "The Temperance Crusade and Women’s Rights" (Mark Twain, 1873/1963). In this article, he comments on a new cultural phenomenon that was sweeping the United States in 1873. Tightly organized bands of women were gathering on the sidewalks outside of saloons and praying conspicuously, around the clock, until the saloon was forced out of business. Mark Twain noted that this activity was illegal and a nuisance. He also opined that the women were a bit credulous in attributing their success in closing bars to divine intervention. If God was shutting down the bars, he ventured, the ladies could just at well have done their praying at home.

However, Mark Twain thought, on balance, that this temperance activity was justified. He pointed out that the women involved were generally admirable, well-respected people. He also noted that many of them had husbands or sons who were squandering their time and money in the saloons to no good purpose. Finally, he noted that the women wouldn’t have to rely on divine intervention or obstructing traffic at all if they were allowed to vote for the kind of laws that would impose sensible limitations on the sale of booze. He ends his article, however, with some harsh words for the male ministers who were joining the women’s temperance efforts and building a grand metaphysical and institutional structure upon them. He suggested that such men would do better to stay in church and preach at people to obey the law.

Thus, although Mark Twain was not a temperance zealot, he was not libertarian either. In his complex analysis, the judgement about using drugs would be achieved by a kind of dynamic tension between people’s understandings of their own needs and the sentiments of their families and their close society. He appeared to draw a sharp distinction between the normal human impulse to press for temperate use of drugs among one’s close relatives and the "temperance" doctrine that meant to impose abstinence on the world.

It seems to me that Mark Twain was miles ahead of both the propagandistic and scientific components of today’s drug literature. I don’t mean to suggest that the rest of us drug researchers should give up. Rather, I think that Mark Twain’s keen, humane observations offer us a renewed inspiration for re-examining our directions. Should pharmacologists not be investigating the question of how the same drugs that kill some people might keep others alive, if this is truly so? Should sociologists not be exploring the possibility that local forms of social control might be helpful in dealing with drug problems even though national and international drug "wars" have clearly failed?

Finally, I hope that this article does not sound anti-American. I have reached a stage in my life at which I am weary of condemning the evils of the great and terrible country of my birth. I would prefer to celebrate its unique genius. Part of its genius lies in its common sense philosophers, and it might be in them that we find a wellspring that will refresh our inquiry now, when it is so intellectually parched. Perhaps Americans do not need to turn to the English or the Dutch for enlightened alternatives to their bankrupt drug policies, but to their own rich cultural history. On the largest scale, perhaps a Renaissance of good American common sense is not beyond contemplation.

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1. My perspective is doubtlessly colored by the fact that I am a Canadian who grew up in the United States. As a young adult, I could not reconcile myself to the American War in Vietnam. I left the United States permanently in 1970 and became a Canadian citizen in 1975. However, I have never forgotten the special warmth and color of American culture. In view of all this, I am perhaps unusually sensitive both to harmful American policies and to redeeming virtues.

2. A tip of the hat to Stanton Peele (1989, p. 39) for making me think about Mark Twain in the first place.

Bruce K. Alexander, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia. His e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .