Seattle Has Figured Out How to End the War on Drugs
SEATTLE — On gritty streets where heroin, fentanyl and meth stride like Death Eaters, where for decades both drugs and the war on drugs have wrecked lives, the city of Seattle is pioneering a bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America. Anyone caught here with a small amount of drugs — even heroin — isn’t typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help. This model is becoming the consensus preference among public health experts in the U.S. and abroad. Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally, so it takes courage and vision to adopt this approach: a partial retreat in the war on drugs coupled with a stepped-up campaign against addiction. The war on drugs has been one of America’s most grievous mistakes, resulting in as many citizens with arrest records as with college diplomas. At last count, an American was arrested for drug possession every 25 seconds, yet the mass incarceration this leads to has not turned the tide on narcotics. The number of opioid users has surged, and more Americans now die each year from overdoses than perished in the Vietnam, Afghan and Iraq wars combined. And that doesn’t account for the way drug addiction has ripped apart families and stunted children’s futures. More than two million children in America live with a parent suffering from an illicit-drug dependency. So Seattle is undertaking what feels like the beginning of a historic course correction, with other cities discussing how to follow. This could be far more consequential than the legalization of pot: By some estimates, nearly half of Americans have a family member or close friend enmeshed in addiction, and if the experiment in Seattle succeeds, we’ll have a chance to rescue America from our own failed policies. In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox. Decriminalization is unfolding here in part because of Dan Satterberg, the prosecuting attorney for King County, which includes Seattle. It’s also arguably underway because of what happened to his little sister, Shelley Kay Satterberg. At the age of 14, Shelley ran away from home because her parents wouldn’t let her go to a concert on a school night. It was a rebellion that proved devastating. She was away for several months, was gang-raped by two men, was introduced to hard drugs and began to self-medicate with those drugs to deal with the trauma of rape. As Dan Satterberg rose through the ranks of prosecutors, Shelley Satterberg wrestled with addiction. She was never arrested or jailed (middle-class drug users often avoid police attention, which focuses on marginalized people who use or sell in public). Dan told me that he was angry at Shelley — angry that she had made terrible choices, angry that she had hurt their parents. But over time he also concluded that his own approach of prosecuting drug users accomplished little, except that it isolated them from the family and friends who offered the best support system to escape addiction. In 2015, Dan took Shelley to Navos, a nonprofit that provides mental health and addiction services, and she was able to stop using street drugs and gradually put her life back in order. Dan saw that treatment made a huge difference in Shelley’s life and became a believer. Yet it wasn’t enough. Shelley died of a urinary tract infection last year at age 51, a consequence of previous drug and alcohol...
Read MoreWhy We Shop
I recently read an article about shopping (on Medscape.com) and the psychology of consumption that I think is very relevant to life in our modern world. The article was an interview with consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow, PhD., who talks about the neuropsychological influences of shopping. As the holiday season commences and shopping is a fact of life for many of us, I think the points she makes are important to keep in mind. Dr. Yarrow specializes in the study of consumers and the psychology behind shopping, and she has published her findings in a recent book entitled “Decoding the Consumer Mind”. (Available here on Barnes & Noble). One of the most important points Dr. Yarrow makes is this one: The motivation for almost everything we buy has something to do with connecting with other human beings. Even when it comes to practical purchases, the particular brand or product we choose relates to our connections with other human beings. She goes on to say that there has been a shift in our society towards loneliness, anxiety, societal anger and individualism… all emotions which are relieved in the shopping process. She says that as a society, we have more anxiety and less support from our community. This creates an environment of anxiety when we are shopping, and in that type of environment, we process information differently. People tend to start from a position of mistrust, and the vendor has to do more than ever before to win our loyalty and attention. Dr. Yarrow goes on to say that we tend to use shopping as a way to calm our anxiety and prepare for events. As we shop, we visualize our future with the product we are shopping for and this is almost like an athlete who is visualizing to enhance his or her performance. She says that shopping is also a way to express creativity. When we shop online, it’s a way to take a break from our everyday world as well. And then there is the hunt for bargains. Dr. Yarrow validates that there is a dopamine spike… a pleasurable experience… that comes from shopping and finding a bargain. That can account for the addictive quality that some people feel with shopping. When asked about the Black Friday shopping phenomenon, she says there are some people that see shopping almost as a competitive sport and go out looking for the fabulous bargain. But most people, she says, are either using shopping as a way to connect with family (it’s a tradition to go shopping together), or if they are alone, it’s a way to get out and connect with other people. Dr. Yarrow points out that in a Black Friday shopping situation, the stress and excitement put the shopper in a vulnerable position due to “the autonomic nervous system arousal that accompanies being in crowded, stressful places or experiencing a fear of missing out.” She always encourages people to wait 20 minutes before they buy something, allowing their brain to re-engage and their emotions to subside. Vendors are wise in the ways of attraction and how the brain works these days. They use odors, music and symbolic clues to attract the buyer and get them to make a purchase. They know that people are more likely to buy something if they can touch it, or that people tend to buy things in the center of a display. They have lots of information at their disposal about the way the human brain and emotions work. Consumers think they are immune to these tactics, but few people are. It is good to...
Read MoreNew Research on Teenage Development and Social Multi-Tasking
Teenage Development and the Modern Age of Multitasking In this modern age, we are all familiar with the way computers, television and mobile phones have invaded our lives. Here’s a short video from Stanford University that talks about the emotional and neurological development of teenage girls in this environment, though certainly this also applies to teenage boys. For parents of growing children who want them to grow into adults capable of strong and healthy relationships, this is important information. For more information on this subject from Stanford, you can go to the Stanford University’s video...
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