Counter-counterintuitive Thinking

Summary:

    I don't agree with Dr. Carl on some points he made in the lecture "Counterintuitive Thinking". Drug is harmful, in a way that is not related to health problem. Not everyone necessarily need to know truth that some drugs are actually not harmful to health.

This afternoon, I join the lecture "Counterintuitive Thinking" presented by Dr. Carl Hart from Columbia University. He took example of drug abuse, his main academic focus, to illustrate the term "counterintuitive thinking". Based on solid data, he pointed out that drugs like crack cocaine and methamphetamine are less harmful and less addictive to health then today's most politician and researchers proclaimed, and some other drugs like amphetamine that are actually more deleterious was left unstudied. He came to a conclusion that the reason why public has been misled by authority for so long is "It (research on drugs) helps law enforcement, treatment provider, scientists, politicians to increase budgets and to avoid dealing with real problems of the poor.", "We should inform the people we care about about the truth of drug."

He made a really strong argument on casting doubt on today's mainstream understanding in the harm of certain drugs, and logically found out who are the people to blame on. But I have to say that, during most of the time in lecture, I felt uncomfortable about what he said, and felt even more uncomfortable figuring out why I got this feeling of "counter-counterintuitive thinking". And now, after few hours of structuring, I would like to tell some of his points that I am not totally agree with. 

Drug is harmful. Let's forget about those lying politicians and scientists, and think about what the initial goal is. We want to help poor people, especially poor drug abusers. Those big-name street drugs, like Dr. Carl said, are not fatal to health at all, but they literally have the power to destroy the poor: assuming a drug is not addictive, it still takes time for them to take it - they have to spend time looking for the drug, and spend time getting high with it; they have to spend money buying the drug, usually in a high price. I believe that anything takes away your time and money takes away your life. In comparison to wise people that make money from knowledge, poor people that are usually not highly educated make money from their time. They have to do a lot of tiring and repetitive labor work to make a living. The way drug is harmful is that it does take the poor's life away by taking their money and their time to make money. 

Not everyone necessarily need to know truth about the drug uncovered by Dr. Carl. For me, a college students who have my value mostly shaped and have never used nor thought of using it, this kind of information is more like a truth-revealing social-scientific report that "WOW". I will just simply take these as source of my future reference, without a chance of me trying out drugs because I know that they are not harmful to health. However, for other groups of people that are younger, this would be another entirely different issue. According to statistics by National Institute on Drug Abuse, most people use drugs for the first time when they are teenagers. Half (52 %) were under 18. Teenagers have always been the hardest-hit group of drug abuse. They have lots of reasons to do drug beside addiction: mostly because doing drug is "cool" for some reason, or simply because one's friend is doing and encouraging him to give it a try. Teenagers are often down for trying new thing. In my opinion, it is better for them, along with other groups of people that are comparative less educated and are easily negatively influenced by the truth, to believe that drug is deadly harmful to their health.

Moreover, to some extent, politicians and scientists are doing well. I don't know much about American cultural background, but what I am sure is that, in my home country, there are lots of people that cannot think in a critical way. My father's brother, as an example, had been a heavy drug abuser for decades. He was gambling all the time in order to fulfill his thirst for drug, because of which he was nearly broke. Last year, his wife finally persuade him of the harm of drug abuse, and find him a job as a taxi driver just to keep him busy. Can you imagine what would happen to this family if this heavy smoker find out that those so-call poison are actually not harmful at all? He really never think in a critical way, neither by casting doubt on a finding nor by understanding his family's poor situation. He is more a desire-driven person who is trying to stop doing drug because fortunately he has a little bit care about his health. Telling him or people like him about the truth of drugs would definitely ruin him and his family. 

In reflecting to what I have learnt from Prof. Breyman, I find out that Dr. Carl holds a technocratic belief (scientific knowledge ... translate automatically into ... a better way of life, The Future of Technological Civilization). With careful analysis of data and persuasive findings in Biochemistry, he uncovered the truth about drugs; however, more aspects are needed to be taken into consideration before the truth being publicized, so that we can help the poor more accordingly.