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 Action NEW ON AMAZON!

Schoolchildren Are among the Most Helpless Victims of the Drug War

by Thomas S. Szasz These are the books that

kick-started the libertarian
movement after WWII.

I n my last column I showed that caffeine is the most widely used

mind-altering drug in America, that its use is endorsed by the
government, and that the public-school system, allied with the
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beverage industry, has become one of Americas major drug

delivery systems. In this column I will show that the popular
enthusiasm and political approval of caffeine conflict with the Featured Course
professional judgment of health experts regarding the physiological
effects of this drug and with their recommendations regarding its
use, especially in children.

Obviously, my critique of the intellectual corruptness of the public-

school systems policy on drugs is not intended as a call for more
government control over drugs or schools. Instead, it is intended as
a reminder that the fashionable rhetoric about protecting kids and
our self-congratulatory posturing as a child-oriented nation conceal a Economics in One Day
bitter truth: namely, that in the name of protecting children, Learn about scarcity, prosperity,
educators, mental health personnel, and politicians abuse and values, cooperation, character,
persecute children, mainly by systematically lying to them. markets, spontaneous order, and
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 Before the anti-drug craze, children were told that masturbating entrepreneurship. You'll see the
would cause them to go blind. Now they are told that taking certain profound effect of free markets on
our standard of living across the
drugs will make them go mad and become violent or commit suicide;
globe and over hundreds of years.
that certain other drugs will prevent and cure all these horrors; that
some drugs are not drugs; and that they must say no to drugs,
except Ritalin, which they must take or be expelled from school.
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Caffeine: The Experts Speak

Revealingly, in Goodman and Gilmans The Pharmacological Basis

of Therapeutics (ninth edition)which is the most widely used
textbook of pharmacology in American medical schoolsthe
material about caffeine is placed in a chapter titled Drug Addiction
and Drug Abuse, under the subheading Cocaine and Other Follow FEE on
Psychostimulants. This material is preceded by discussion of the Flipboard
effects of cocaine and amphetamines, and is followed by material on
cannabinoids (marijuana). Regarding Ritalin, discussed under the
heading of its chemical name, methylphenidate, we learn that Its Flipboard Articles
pharmacological properties are essentially the same as those of the
amphetamines. Methylphenidate also shares the abuse potential of
amphetamines.

Amphetamine is a controlled substance; its possession without a

prescription is a criminal offense. It would seem not too much to
expect that children compelled to attend classes in drug education as Follow FEE on Medium
well as those compelled to take Ritalin be given a photocopy of
those two sentences.

Popular books on child care also condemn the use of caffeine: Medium Articles
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 Dr. Spocks Baby and Child Care, the bible of American parents Advertisement
guide to child rearing: Coffee, tea, cola drinks, and chocolate are
not good drinks for children because they contain lots of sugar and
the stimulant caffeine.
Support
Feed Your Kids Well, by Fred Prescott, M.D.: The five top selling Foundation for
sodas are also loaded with caffeine. Caffeine is an addictive Economic Education.
substance, no less than nicotine. In addition, it is a neurostimulant, When you shop at smile.amazon.com,
meaning that it acts on the body like amphetamine: it can cause Amazon donates.
jitteriness, anxiety, weight loss, and insomnia, all of which can lead
to poor school performance.

The Family Nutrition Book, by William Sears, M.D., and Martha

Sears, R.N.: Many school age children get squirrelly following a jolt
of caffeine-containing cola.

Considered too young to drink coffee because of its caffeine

content, children are offered all the caffeine they wantin school.

Coca-Cola: Whats in a Name?

For children, the primary source of caffeine is soft drinks, and

among soft drinks, the most popular brand is Coca-Cola. The name
Coca-Cola was trademarked in 1886. For the next 20 years, until
the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, the drink so named
contained cocaine and was advertised as a therapeutic agent against
melancholy.

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 Why did cocaine in Coca-Cola pose no national or international
threat between 1886 and 1906? Because it was legal and was not a
scapegoat: its persecution yielded no political profits to demagogues,
and its distribution was not in the hands of drug lords.

Now it is illegal and a scapegoata dangerous drug, a stigma term

masquerading as a scientific designation. A drug is an inanimate
object and therefore cannot be dangerous. Only people who use or
misuse a drug can be dangerous, as can also people who neither use
or misuse drugs. (Hitler neither smoked nor drank; in fact, he was a
health fanatic.) Labeling a drug dangerous is a political act, inviting
and justifying political consequences, in exactly the same way as
labeling a person as dangerous is a political act.

Since the end of World War II and especially since the demise of
communism in the Soviet Union, cocaine has become Americas
favorite scapegoat. Like the Inquisition, the war against coca in
Colombia, sponsored and supported by the United States, is not a
metaphoric battle. Yet the best-known American trademark and the
worlds most popular soft drink contains the word coca. The word
commemorates the fact that but for the coca leaf there would never
have been a flourishing pre-European civilization in the Andes.

How does the Coca-Cola Company deal with these embarrassing

historical and pharmacological facts? About cocaine, the companys
Web site (www.Coca-Cola.com) is, understandably, silent.
Regarding caffeine, it informs the reader: While many soft drinks
are caffeine-free, some contain a small amount of caffeine as part of
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 the flavor profile . . . . The caffeine that is added to Coca-Cola
classic, diet Coke and the other products in which it is used is for
flavor purposes only. We use only the amount necessary to achieve
the appropriate optimum flavor profile for the particular product
sold (emphasis added). The truth is that caffeine is an odorless and
tasteless substance. The Coca-Cola Companys claim that caffeine is
added to the drink to enhance its flavor is a deliberate deception,
more serious than any of the deceptions of which the tobacco
companies were accused. I say this because the effects of smoking
on health have been recognized for centuries and there never were
any cigarette vending machines in schools, whereas the effects of
caffeine on the health of children are generally unacknowledged and
there are cola vending machines in schools.

Because medical and school personnel are now agents of the state,
and because children are more vulnerable than adults, it is not
surprising that they are among the most helpless victims of the war
against drugs as well as the war for drugs.

Thomas S. Szasz

D r. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was a

Psychiatrist, academic, and champion of
individual rights. He devoted much of his life to campaigning against
many aspects of conventional psychiatry, in particular involuntary
psychiatric treatment and commitment.

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