> All of this leads to my final big point: “drug problems” are really “society problems.” Consider the current opiate crisis. Do you know when authorities in O

> All of this leads to my final big point: “drug problems” are really “society problems.” Consider the current opiate crisis. Do you know when authorities in Ohio, where I reside, became convinced that Ohio had an opiate problem? When opiate deaths began to approach, and then surpassed, the number of car crash deaths in a year. This raises an important question: why are we so tolerant of car-crash deaths, so much so that their frequency has become our baseline for unacceptable accidental death in America? Harry Levine back in the 70s encouraged us to consider a similar question when he asked if drunk driving was really a drinking problem, or if we might better think about it as a transportation problem. Given that we allow people to drive around in 4,000 pound heaps of steel equipped with maps that need to be programmed, and hookups so they can plug in their telephones, and so forth, this strikes me as a pretty good question. Our tolerance of car crash deaths tells us a lot about us: we are highly tolerant of those things that make our economy go, but many of those things create just the kind of conditions that make “bad” drug use outcomes more likely: stress, isolation, overwork, loneliness, endless change, dislocation, and insecurity. When stressed, isolated, lonely people are exposed to new, stronger drugs, you end up with a problem. Our current opiate crisis is a case in point. One thing about cars is a higher proportion of people are ramming phone charging cables into them and scrolling around gps maps and mashing and spinning knobs and buttons of radios or texting or eating mcdonalds or falling asleep or whatever non driving activity you can think of that clearly jeopardizes everyone else's well-being than are driving under the influence of some drug. So really I think the penalty isn't proportional necessary to the harm but instead to likelihood it's some risk you are taking. If you are taking that risk then you don't want the penalty to involve being smashed in the face with a book large enough to massive impair your ability to lead a reasonable life on the first or second offense.