Columbia University professor of psychology Carl Hart visited Tulane University this Thursday to deliver a Murphy Institute Center for Ethics Public Lecture on recreational drug policy.
The event, entitled “Drug Use for Grown-ups: Where Liberty, Policy, and Science Collide,” filled the seats of Kendall Cram Lecture Hall. Faculty and students from Tulane’s departments of psychology, philosophy and political economy, among others, were many of the attendees.
The thesis Hart advances is not uncontroversial, as he has himself acknowledged. It is essentially that drugs — even so-called “hard drugs” like cocaine and heroin — should be decriminalized. According to Hart, the effects of these drugs are generally positive when used in an informed and responsible manner, and the number of drug-related deaths are “wildly exaggerated.”
“I used to think drugs were illegal because of their unique pharmacology. I no longer believe that from the evidence today,” Hart said in the lecture. “The main reason drugs are illegal is there is a lot of money in making drugs illegal.”
Hart’s academic research is on the neuropsychopharmacology of recreational drugs, but he is also a scholar of drug policy. Hart is the author of several widely read popular science books on the subject, including “High Price” and “Drug Use of Grown-Ups.”
He further penetrated the public consciousness through his tour of the podcast sphere, with several episodes on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Hart has spoken openly elsewhere about his own recreational drug use. In a 2021 feature in The Guardian, he admitted regularly using heroin, MDMA and cocaine, even during his university professorship.
In his words: “I pay my taxes, serve as a volunteer in my community on a regular basis and contribute to the global community as an informed and engaged citizen. I am better for my drug use.”
The first part of the talk focused on drug policy, in particular, the racialized enforcement of cocaine and methamphetamine use.
Hart drew attention to congressional acts, including the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts passed under the Reagan administration in the late 80s to demonstrate how crack and cocaine users were differentially sentenced along racial lines, despite the compounds being nearly chemically identical.
Hart also referenced his scientific work to debunk claims that meth has detrimental neurological effects, especially any effects that made it more dangerous than the related class of amphetamine drugs, which includes ADHD medications like Adderall that are widely perceived as innocuous.
He presented the results of a meta-analysis he performed, which were that the cognitive functioning of meth users was within a normal range, and brain imaging measures were largely similar across users and non-users.
In the last part of the talk, entitled “Liberty,” Hart provided in the philosophical grounds of his decriminalization argument in terms of foundational democratic ideals, such as privacy, the pursuit of happiness and bodily autonomy.
“People paid a price, people went to jail, people’s lives were destroyed as a result of these shenanigans [drug criminalization] in order to make sure we have funding for select members of our society,” Hart said. “In order to get that funding, you have to pair drug use with undesired groups, and then you can behave in the ways we do today, like blowing up ships in the Caribbean.”
The ensuing Q&A became emotionally charged at several points, as attendees shared their experiences with friends and family members who struggled with drug addiction.
Joseph Keegin, a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Tulane who attended the event, voiced objections to Hart’s perspective after the lecture.
“Every single thinker, not only of the American founders but also in the tradition of political philosophy that led to the Founders’ own thought said explicitly that liberty is not license,” Keegin said. “Liberty is for specific purpose, self-preservation, the living of a good life, the formation of legitimate governments that tend to human happiness … [Hart] doesn’t disambiguate liberty and license.”
Others were more receptive to Hart’s perspective, while still acknowledging it as radical.
“I’m actually happy that there’s a conversation that has started about it,” said Olivia Holland, a psychology student at the University of New Orleans, who attended the event.
Even though Holland considers herself “pretty progressive” on the issue on drug decriminalization, Hart’s lecture was the first time she heard such a radical idea proposed. For those that are less opened minded, Hart said the idea will be “really hard for them to swallow.”
Drug policy and policing are recurring themes of Center for Ethics Public Lectures. Previous lecturers include legal philosopher Douglas Husak on the persistence of drug prohibition in the United States and political scientist Beatriz Magaloni on the incidence of police brutality in combatting drug cartels in Central and South America.