A look inside the head of Nora Volkow, the new head of NIDA

You may not have heard the name Nora Volkow. She is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This is the very agency that funded all of these studies on the dangers of cannabis and other drugs and was used as the government arm to justify the ban on cannabis.

I’ve analyzed their studies and poked holes in their methods many times over the years, and in my eyes Volkow was a mad drug warrior trying to keep up the status quo. The problem with this assessment was that it was not based on any fact. I just projected what I thought she was and never took the time to really explore her drug use ideas.

She recently appeared on the podcast for Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann, where she discussed various different drug policies, including the effects of legalization and youth use.

I have to admit that after listening to her I was forced to change my view of her. Because of that I saw her in a completely different light. Here are some of the key points that got me thinking.

No increase in marijuana use among teenagers

Volkow’s first great revelation was her ability to admit when she was wrong. Proponents have said legalizing cannabis won’t increase teenage use, and there is evidence that it may discourage even young people’s use. While there were some peaks within some population groups, general consumption of youth consumption has remained constant. There is no significant evidence that legalization has any real impact on adolescent consumption – with the exception of “risk perception”.

As reported in Marijuana Moment:

Volkow said on Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann’s show that she “expected marijuana use among adolescents to increase” as states legalized cannabis, but admitted that “that is not the case overall” .

While I’m not a huge fan of NIDA’s views on cannabis in general, it was refreshing to hear the head of the organization admit when the data suggests a different narrative.

Some states have benefited from legalizing marijuana

Another refreshing perspective from Volkow was the fact that she could see the benefits in some states after legalization. However, she pointed out that there have been problematic cannabis use in other states, but does not attribute this to the plant, contrary to the guidelines on legalization.

Photo by MmeEmil / Getty Images

“It is crucial to understand what policy basically protects against negative effects and can actually lead to better results,” said Volkow, who has been in office since 2003. “And we finance it,” as reported in Marijuana Moment.

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I also think it’s important to define “negative impacts” before creating blanket measures that may be difficult to change later.

California is currently struggling to keep its cannabis market working and has so far produced far more cannabis than consumers can handle. This leads to illegal trade outside of the state, the closure of old farms, and the burden is placed on the consumer – paying excessive fees for their cannabis.

The criminalization of drug use

What surprised me about the interview were her views on the criminalization of drug use. You’d think that an agency that has opposed drug use in the past would not question current drug control guidelines, but Volkow said it has long been opposed to these ideas.

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“Hopefully science will serve to change policy and reduce stigma [around addiction] and basically change the notion of criminalizing people to treat and help people and keep them from relapsing. “

In other words, Volkow believes that drug use and addiction should be a public health issue, not a law enforcement issue. This is what cannabis activists have been saying for years – and there is strong evidence that addressing drug addiction as a public health issue can make a difference.

Photo by FatCamera / Getty Images

Admit that NIDA is a political tool

If the head of an agency tells you that his agency was a political tool, you know it’s true. Volkow did not say the word “tool” literally, but indicated it with the following comment.

“Operating (NIDA) in a political context in which punitive prohibition politics, mass arrests [and] the strongly racial prejudices that go with all of this were omnipresent. “

“From day one, I’ve been against criminalizing people because they have substance use disorders. I was very, very vocal. One of the reasons I took this position was so that we can develop science in a way that changes politics. “

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NIDA is ultimately under the authority of the federal government, and while the people working there may have different attitudes towards dealing with drug use and addiction, they are forced to play the political game.

In this case, conduct studies to justify the prohibition of drugs.

She fights the system in her own way

Volkow tried to change the system out of the system, but it is obvious that what they did is not enough. More importantly, this is an indication that “science” is not the dictating force in policymaking.

“There are structural systems that encourage certain behaviors, and there is insufficient science to change these policies.”

Anyone who has studied the war on drugs and the prohibition of drugs knows that science was never at the core of that policy.

She finds promise in psychedelics

Finally, Volkow opens up her views on other Category I and II drugs and how they can play an active role in helping people with mental disorders.

“We funded ongoing research – on ketamine for opiate treatment and also on ketamine for pain management. For PCP, if you look at the data, the evidence is actually strongest for the potential benefits of depression. “

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“We have to learn from what the evidence shows,” she continued. “If we can safely use ketamine to treat major depression, it will be an example of the real therapeutic use of drugs that we thought were dangerous.”

The evidence is clear – criminalizing drugs just doesn’t work. When we shift our priorities into trying to lock people up to help people who are prone to drug and substance abuse, we start to see real results.

diploma

I’m still not a fan of NIDA, but then again, I can understand that their main function is to deal with substance abuse, which is why they have historically been so negative about all drugs. It is their function.

There should be another agency studying the benefits of these drugs to paint a broad enough picture to see how we can create policies that allow individual freedoms while protecting the most vulnerable among us.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and was republished with permission.