I just saw a documentary on the Rolling Stones infamous free concert at Altamont, California, which took place in December 1969. In popular mythology, it was a drug-fueled orgy of violence that led to four deaths, in contrast to the peaceful concert earlier in the year at Woodstock. As with most myths, there’s a grain of truth and some exaggeration.
No one seems to have died of a drug overdose at Altamont, although some of the festival’s other problems were related to drugs (and beer.) Two died in a hit and run traffic accident, one person drowned when on drugs, and another was stabbed when he approached the stage brandishing a gun. Presumably, most fans had a good time. (BTW, there were also three births among the 300,000 fans at the concert.)
But that’s just an anecdote. Were the late 1960s as bad as portrayed in the media? Here’s a graph showing annual drug overdose deaths in the US:
And even this graph is out of date. By 2021, drug overdose deaths in American were running at an annual rate of over 100,000, which is more than ten times higher than during the late 1960s, even allowing for population growth. Compared to today, drugs at the time of the Stone’s Altamont concert were a fairly minor problem in America.
So what went wrong? There is some evidence that a combination of technological “progress” and misguided regulations created a sort of perfect storm, making drug use in America particularly dangerous.
During the 2000s, policymakers became increasing concerned with abuse of legal painkillers such as Oxycontin, which led to tighter restrictions on opioid prescriptions. (The Supreme Court is currently considering the issue of when doctors can be prosecuted for inappropriate opioid prescriptions.) As a result, addicts turned to illegal alternatives such as fentanyl. Because the potency of illegal drugs is highly unpredictable, overdose deaths skyrocketed after the crackdown on legal opioids:
Research shows that what’s driving the overdoses crisis today are illicit drugs contaminated with fentanyl — everything from MDMA, powder and crack cocaine, methamphetamine, counterfeit Xanax and other pills, and powder sold as heroin. That’s why harm reduction advocates say it’s so important for people who use unregulated drugs to have access to fentanyl test strips — an easy-to-use tool that can detect the opioid’s presence in drug samples. Originally manufactured to test for fentanyl in a person’s urine, they are largely distributed today for personal drug supply testing by harm reduction programs, local health departments, and some law enforcement agencies.
Unfortunately, in many states even those testing kits are illegal:
But an overview by the nonprofit Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association (LAPPA) shows that fentanyl test strips remain illegal to possess and distribute in much of the U.S. . . . because they qualify as “drug paraphernalia.” Possession is typically a misdemeanor, but in some states including Florida and Tennessee distribution is treated as a felony. But there’s an effort underway to get these state laws changed, and it’s already racked up some wins in the South.
Policymakers view any attempt at harm reduction as something that will only encourage more use of illegal drugs. Recall earlier opposition to providing clean needles to drug addicts as a way of reducing the transmission of AIDS.
I don’t doubt that any attempt to make drugs less dangerous will encourage a bit more drug use at the margin, but when I look at the soaring death toll from illegal narcotics, I have to wonder if the benefits to the war on drugs is worth the cost.
PS. I previously saw this film about 40 years ago, and it felt different on a second viewing. I can still recall that time period, but from the vantage point of 2022 it feels like ancient history. It’s funny how one can feel nostalgic even for bad times. I suppose nostalgia is never really about the past; it’s about being young.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Z
Mar 9 2022 at 6:57pm
Wasn’t it found that Narcan didn’t reduce overdose death because of the Peltzman Effect? Given that, it seems plausible that the same thing could happen with other ‘harm reduction’ approaches. The most effective form of ‘harm reduction’ would be to reduce regulation of pharmaceutical painkillers, which are much safer than street drugs. Instead, the strategy we’re moving toward seems to be to crack down hard on licit, factory-made opioids while making it easier to buy drugs synthesized in a basement in Mexico from a guy on a street corner you can’t sue. It would frankly be better if we did the opposite and cracked down on street drugs but let the pharmaceutical companies sell whatever they wanted (though if we completely legalized everything, I’m sure the pharma companies would outcompete street drugs anyway).
Matthias
Mar 11 2022 at 7:42am
Legalising relatively mild drugs like opium, marijuana and coca leaves might also help a bit.
bb
Mar 9 2022 at 7:38pm
Scott,
If there is one thing I always agree with you on, it’s the war on drugs. So many lives lost and destroyed.
And if people haven’t figured out that drug overdoses aren’t just an “urban” problem by now, they should be aware that taking MDMA is a fairly normal thing for kids from all walks of life to do in college or during adolescence in general. So people shouldn’t think that fentanyl is not a problem for them. It’s amazing to see all the things parents obsess about, but could care less about this issue.
Great post. I’ll have to rewatch that too.
Michael Rulle
Mar 10 2022 at 9:01am
Fentanyl is the massive killer. The DEA says Mexico is the primary manufacturer, who source much of the precursor chemicals from China. Don’t say what percent. Under the theory it’s best to not kill your customers, I don’t know why a manufacturing process cannot be developed to weaken it——its weakened somewhere down the line obviously.
NIH claims 92000 OD deaths in 2020 (versus 70000 in 2019, and 18000 in 1999). Worse, they claim 60K of deaths primarily were Fentanyl based. 93000 die from alcoholism——but that is a multi decade problem—-not a one night problem.
If we were to focus on one thing, it would be fentanyl. I am sure they do——and this is what we still get.
Jose Pablo
Mar 10 2022 at 9:27pm
“There is some evidence that a combination of technological “progress” and misguided regulations created a sort of perfect storm, making drug use in America particularly dangerous.”
But the graphic does not show that, does it? “Drug use” would be “particularly dangerous” if the number of deaths per quantity of drug sold would be increasing.
The absolute number of deaths shown in the graphic could be increasing, and the drugs could be less dangerous at the same time. For that to be the case you only need the amount of illegal drugs sold increasing more than the number of deaths in the graphic.
I have failed in a quick search for this data (evolution of the estimated consumption of illegal drugs in the US), but some findings suggest it has been a significant increase too: around 50% in the last 10 years.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2019-08-20/americans-spent-146-billion-on-illegal-drugs-in-2016-study-says
The “in America” part also would require more analysis. Since, after all, the Rolling Stones were British (at least in 1968), it could be interesting to note that in the UK the rate of growth in drug related deaths has been significant too.
While the numbers have only slightly increased since 2018 (4359 deaths v 4393), there has been a 52% increase in drug related deaths in the past 10 years.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3988
And Scotland has more than 30 annual drug overdoses deaths per 100,000 people, well above the 20.57 of the US.
The UK figures are very unlikely due to the US “misguided regulations”.
Jose Pablo
Mar 11 2022 at 8:59am
Could it be that growing richer means spending more on drugs and spending more on drugs means more drug related deaths?
The correlations are certainly there (GDP per capita vs drug consumption and drug consumption vs drug related deaths)
Scott Sumner
Mar 11 2022 at 11:21am
Surveys of drug use in America suggest that illegal drug use is not increasing anywhere nearly as rapidly as overdoses.
Matthias
Mar 11 2022 at 8:04am
I read about some people being charged just for possessing precise metric scales. Because obviously only users of illegal drugs would use the metric systems..
nobody.really
Mar 14 2022 at 4:04am
Thank you; this explains SO MUCH about foreigners….
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