The Daily Princetonian
page 4
Friday September 28, 2018
Hart: Drug education in America is primarily miseducation HART
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............. doses, according to Hart, are either often understood in the wrong context or fail to show the whole story. According to Hart, in 2016, heroin usage was linked to 15,000 deaths, and in the same year, 38,658 deaths were linked to guns and 37,000 deaths to automobile accidents. Hart pointed out that, although more deaths resulted from car accidents than from heroin usage, there are no bans on cars.
Hart added that suicide could also be an alternative cause of a drug-related death, but it is almost never considered. Furthermore, people rarely die from the overdose of a single opioid, explained Hart. He said that more than 75 percent of heroin-related deaths are due to combined usage with other sedatives, such as alcohol, benzodiazepines, nerve pain medications, or anticonvulsants. Most people who use opioids need “honest education,” explained Hart. “People are not dying be-
cause of opioids,” wrote Hart in his 2017 article for Scientific American. “They are dying because of ignorance.” Moreover, addiction to drugs is not as common as what the public believes. Hart stated that 75 to 90 percent of drug users do not become addicted. Instead, Hart characterized many drug users as “respectable people” who “pay taxes,” “care about their communities,” and contribute to society. He added that U.S. presidents Obama, Clinton, and George W. Bush all used illicit drugs in their youth.
ISABEL TING :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Members of the audience frequently laughed during Hart’s lecture.
According to Hart, another common misconception is that drug use is completely irrational. However, he pointed out that heroin, like alcohol, is used as a “social lubricant,” something that helps people feel more comfortable in social situations. Heroin can also be a pain reliever, induce euphoria, and improve sleep quality, said Hart. To target drug usage in the United States, Hart pointed to four practical solutions: education about the effects of specific drug combinations; the set-up of free, anonymous drug-purity testing services; supervised consumption facilities; and the legalization of certain drugs. Hart explained that Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria already offer drug purity testing services, which allow users to submit drug samples and receive a breakdown of the substance. The breakdown then allows users to understand what they are consuming and, thus, how much they should be consuming. According to Hart, supervised consumption facilities would provide users with clean needles and on-call nurses in cases of overdose. He also pointed to the possible success of legalization by referencing how Colorado’s legalization of marijuana in 2012 caused marijuana arrests to decrease dramatically. However, current solu-
tions are misguided because “[they] allow us to avoid dealing with the real problems of the poor,” such as unemployment, poor housing, homelessness, substandard education, and low income, Hart explained. “It’s a lot more simple to say, ‘I’m going to rid your community of heroin’ than it is to deal with the rest of these real issues,” said Hart. Hart added that current drug solutions “allow us to target people that we don’t like without explicitly saying so.” He explained that over 80 percent of those sentenced for usage of crack cocaine are black and that the opioid crisis “provides another opportunity to exert racism in drug law enforcement.” “The drug problem has little to do with drugs,” Hart added. “It has everything to do with economic and political opportunity, the subjugation of despised groups, apathy — even contempt — toward [the] less fortunate.” The lecture was a part of the Moffett Lecture Series, which aims to foster reflection about moral issues in public life. The series was made possible by a gift from the Whitehall Foundation in honor of James A. Moffett ’29. The lecture was held on Sept. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in McCormick 101. An interdisciplinary workshop on drugs and addiction will follow on Sept. 28.
Eng: LGBTQ+ Asian-American students face unconscious suffering ENG
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............. racial norms — as it relates to depression and suicide among model minorities. Still, in the years after his early work on racial melancholia, Eng started to notice different behaviors in the students of his Asian-American literature and culture classes. “More and more [of the students] started to come out, not as gay or lesbian, but as transnational adoptees,” Eng said. “But, the language that they used was language that was borrowed from queer studies.” Eng explained that the world has transitioned from “Generation X” to current undergraduates of “Generation Z.” During Generation X, the majority of Asian American college students were second-generation immigrants, while today many students are first-generation immigrants. According to Eng, many of these students are “parachute kids,” which are Asian students who attend inter-
national schools from a high school age or younger. In the final chapter of the book, Eng and Han focus specifically on gay parachute kids and the psychological stressors facing this group. “You think it’s competitive to get into Princeton University, but Beijing University’s acceptance rate is one-tenth of 1 percent,” Eng said. “It’s a competitive Asian system that’s just off the charts.” Children are sent away for a variety of reasons, not merely for academic reasons. “Some kids are sent away because they’re different, because they’re gay, or because they don’t conform,” Eng said. For instance, Eng read the case history of a student named Christopher, a gay college student in New York who was originally from Beijing. Christopher became one of Han’s patients after experiencing several severe panic attacks. “While there was a bounty of anxiety in Christopher’s life, there was a deficit of spontaneity,” Eng wrote in his book.
JULIA ILHARDT :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Eng and Han’s book, “Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation,” will be released in January 2019.
According to Eng, Christopher had not gone home in years, opting instead for internships in the financial sector. Although Christopher had a boyfriend and was not ashamed of his sexuality, the couple would strictly schedule romantic encounters and consciously repress sexual appetites.
“He was an automaton,” Eng said. “Christopher believed that every problem could be solved rationally and intellectually.” By analyzing Christopher’s case and parachute kids, Eng suggested that in a colorblind age, LGBTQ Asian-American students may face a form of unconscious suffering rather than
overt discrimination. He added that panic attacks and suppression are forms of “internal psychic assaults experienced by gay millenials as a form of self-discipline.” The lecture was titled “(Gay) Panic Attack: Coming Out in a Colorblind Age.” It took place in East Pyne Hall on Sept. 27 at 4:30 p.m.
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