Opinion: Did Puff, the magic dragon, ever slip into his cave?

While 12-Step Programs like Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous are growing in number in rapid response to the 21st-century opioid drug epidemic, their flawed science can only boast a 5-7% success-at-sobriety rate at best. Little Jackie Paper may have been able to get away, but rarely do Anonymous meetings have the same effect.

Baby Boomers and Millennials alike are all familiar with the classic tune titled “Puff, The Magic Dragon,” made popular by Peter, Paul, and Mary, a musical trio that hailed from Ithaca, New York. The town of Ithaca is home to Cornell University and Ithaca College; the latter happens to be my alma mater, and one can’t spell “Ithaca” without T, H, and C — just ask any student wearing a drug rug from Zumiez, they’re hard to miss.

While many of us have drifted off to sleep with the key of G lullabying us to a dreamland called Honnah Lee, an unfortunately large number of Americans have entered into a sleep from which there is no waking up — “chasing the dragon” is a full-time job that ultimately leads to addiction, overdose, and death. Though Puff’s majestic tale was written in 1963 and has become a culturally classic anthem on drug use — in particular, gateway drug use — and its negative effects on the body, mind, and soul, we still find modern “noble kings and princes” bowing to the weight of addiction. Simply put, Puff is still alive and well. A dragon rage of addiction may well live forever, but not so little boys. Little boys and little girls are dying of the disease of addiction, and the United States is at a loss for ways in which to save those in the throes of addiction from death.

The toll addiction takes on individuals, families, and communities can be overbearing. From 1999-2011, there was a 103% increase in deaths due to heroin overdoses. Alcohol-induced deaths in the United States are at a 35-year high with one million Americans losing their lives to booze in 2014 alone. Despite these devastating statistics, the American healthcare system only readily approves one method of treatment: “Anonymous” meetings. As Gabrielle Glaser points out in her essay The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous, these daily groups boast a roughly 75% recovery rate for addicts who regularly attend meetings and apply the Twelve Steps, the Gospel of all Anonymous groups, to their daily lives. After all, one of the main mantras of these 12-step groups is “Meeting-makers make it.” However, as Glaser points out, the actual success rate of 12-Step groups is between five and eight percent. Five and eight percent.

Why is it, then, that the Native American population has such higher rates of recovery from addiction than second-generation Americans when there are so many similarities in both cultural practices? The Twelfth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous states that

“Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all affairs,”

while the “Giving Back” to the community model in Native American cultures, described by Coyhis & Simonelli in their work The Native American Healing Experience, abides by the principle “In order to keep it, you have to give it away.” Are these two not the same?

At face value, these phrases may seem like synonyms, and rightly so. Native Americans, or First Generation Americans, have adopted their own version of the Twelve Steps that have been breaking them out of the throes of addiction tremendously: this practice, called “Wellbriety,” a blending of “Western” support groups and Native American spirituality, are working wonders at keeping individuals clean, sober, and living healthier lives. However, what if there was another step that could be taken, a step that would stop the desire to use altogether — before the problem of addiction sets in? Naloxone and naltrexone, opioid antagonists that are to be taken before engaging in drug use and/or during an overdose, prevent the release of feel-good chemicals, such as endorphins and dopamine, which completely block any high or buzz a person would reach after a few shots of tequila or a vein full of dope.

But wait! The Hazelden Center in Finland provides exactly this type of treatment with an effectiveness rate of 75%… yet it has only just been approved in the United States. One of our most promising treatments for this terrible epidemic is being stifled by the infantile American bureaucracy, and I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t surprise me much.

Let’s not even get started on using psychedelic drugs including MDMA (or “ecstasy”) to help recovering addicts, as the Federal Government has been adamant in its decision to ban them for all purposes, including those that are palliative, until very recently. As Tom Schoder, author of Can Psychedelic Trips Cure PTSD and Other Maladies? illustrates, when combined with talk therapy, MDMA is incredibly helpful in halting alcohol and opioid addiction in its tracks and helping patients lead healthier lives. But, of course, giving more drugs to an addict seems like the antithesis of the premise of rehabilitation therapy. Maybe we should suspend our judgements stemming from our dated mental schemas and begin to see the new, effective ways the healing of the mind and body is manifesting in our zeitgeist of overdoses and deaths.

I contend that a select blend of a variety of approaches may prove to be most beneficial in halting addiction and saving lives. Let’s face it — therapeutic drugs work. If naltrexone can block the reward centers of the brain and chemically un-train an addict to use; if attending a regular meeting in which an addict is surrounded by others who’ve made the same mistakes and are working together to build a better future; if a hit of ecstasy in a therapist’s office can help an addict get to the root of their problem; if a greater level of and connection to spirituality can lift a person out from the bottom of a bottle or the tip of a syringe, I say let’s give it a try.

Soon enough, maybe Puff, that mighty dragon, will cease his fearless roar. Until then, we as a society facing a public health crisis must find it in ourselves to come together to try something, anything else — the current “Anonymous” system simply isn’t effective enough, and as long as the federal government bars the advancement of the study of medicines that may prove to save lives, I severely doubt we’ll hear Puff go silent any time soon.