The Double Standards of Taking Risks

Yesterday morning, I opened my social media to the below video plastered across friends' timelines. 

Back in 2012, icy calm free soloist, Alex Honnold, was featured on 60 Minutes for his ropeless ascents of daunting climbs throughout the world. Despite the mellow and seemingly-sensible climber's repeated descriptions of his solos as high consequence, not high risk, he's been embraced largely for his steely nerves in the face of daring. And the general assumption for most of us, despite Honnold's claims otherwise, is that it's ultimately about adrenaline. Either way, he's lauded as though he's conquering fears for all of us. 

In May, world renowned risk-taker, Dean Potter, made national headlines when his final wing suit flight went wrong. He and fellow flyer, Graham Hunt, crashed into Yosemite's towering stone walls and two lives ceased. Potter was long respected in the climbing and extreme sports communities for his high-risk antics and rule-breaking lifestyle. Though both men inspired many (and doubtless troubled many others), it's Potter's deep and open conversations about death that we tend to remember. "I don't want to die, but I'm ok with putting it all out there, for the most beautiful expression of my life," he's once said. I guess that's one way to practice mindfulness. 

Clearly, extreme risk sports are capturing the imaginations of an increasingly mainstream audience. And this, by itself, seems fine. Culturally, I could expound on the varied reasons sociologists think people engage in adrenaline-inducing activities. It's called edgework and the theories are based in ideas of a sort of psychological disenfranchisement that results from the capitalist economic and work systems. So maybe we need this extreme inspiration. Maybe we're stirred by the perceived bravery or a need, like Potter's, to find that edge that makes life sparkle. I love asking these questions--after all, while I'd never solo, I'm a scared-of-heights climber who keeps trudging back to the cliffs.

But that's not what interests me right now. It's the parallels I keep seeing between participating in high-risk sport and drug use, and the contradictions in how these practices are treated by our laws and our society.

In June, three BASE jumpers were convicted of misdemeanor reckless endangerment for for leaping off the World Trade Center in 2013. The charges could have meant up to a year in jail, but the jumpers were ultimately sentenced to community service. I don't have a problem so much with the charges or sentences doled out to these men. Perhaps, I would even agree with critics that they're harsh, given the fact that they were skilled and worked actively to minimize risks to themselves and others. But as a former drug researcher and social justice advocate, I question why these BASE jumpers received less punishment for their act than they would have for injecting themselves with heroin. And there's no telling what the retribution would have been had they done so exuberantly, had they threatened to inject others, at the base of the WTC. Would drug users have been convicted of the top charge of burglary (dismissed in the BASE jumping case) if they had simply entered the building to use in private? I'm concerned by the double standard that this particular brand of risk-taking highlights. 

So, to start, how are extreme sports and drug use similar?

• Physical risk to self. That physical risk, however, is variable. It depends on specifics, on each individuals' efforts to recognize and minimize it. There are worthwhile distinctions between drug use and abuse and addiction, between injecting and snorting, between using one's own clean syringe and works each time and sharing with others. Sometimes these choices are true choices, other times shaped by social circumstances. Most often, though, the relative risks are acknowledged by the users. Similarly, extreme sports enthusiasts distinguish between free-climbing (using a rope) and soloing, or free-soloing (no rope), trail riding and jockeying racehorses. Some of these things, though related, just aren't so dangerous. Other are. There are degrees. 
• Potential to harm others, especially emotionally.
• While motivations for both drug use and extreme sports participation vary a great deal, pleasure-seeking and adrenaline-seeking apply to many in both groups. Potter's view, mentioned above, offers an inspiring way to view the world indeed. And that's the thing with the folks sociologists refer to as edgeworkers: The ways they play with risk, taunt death, inspires a lot of us. Their risk-taking tends to be laced with a desire to be as close to life in the present moment as possible. It's almost mindful. Whether or not similar motivations drive drug users is debatable, but after years of studying meth use and spending time around both recreational users and addicts throughout my life, I'd say yea, for many this is absolutely what's going on.
• The laws that make both illegal cause more harm than the practices themselves. This is well-documented when it comes to drug use, but was recently, and solidly, put forth regarding high-risk sports.

But the next piece of this puzzle is recognizing how the two are different, especially socially...

• The WTC jumpers were convicted of misdemeanor reckless endangerment. Under NY law, self-injection of a narcotic is a felony. Felonies, even the smaller ones, have a way of ruining lives that misdemeanors just don't.
• Extreme sports participants tend, disproportionately, to be white men. Actually, so do illegal drug users, but those who face the legal repercussions of their use tend not to be. In particular, in the US, it's far and away black men who are punished for using drugs.
• The knee-jerk responses differ considerably. The overdose is always, always deemed tragic, emphasis is on the family, the loss. The edgework death, however, is permitted more complexity. Potter's death saddened many and was scoffed at by some. But time and again, folks brushed the sadness, the accountability to loved ones, aside, to celebrate a man who lived his life "well," doing what he loved. Individuals who die because of drugs aren't afforded that degree of humanity. Their lives are viewed as tragic, their deaths as well. Regardless of how they would have interpreted it.

There's no clean way to wrap this up at this point. It's a thought, a process, with many limbs. But how, I wonder, could recognizing these similarities and disparities move us toward a more human, more humane, way of interacting with one another?  

Big Love and banning veils: On the (unintended?) consequences of criminalizing "(im)morality"

I recently decided to try Amazon Prime's instant video service and got into watching the HBO show, Big Love, a drama (at times a soap opera) featuring a polygamist Mormon family struggling to make their way in Utah's more mainstream, non-fundamentalist Mormon community. The show itself is interesting, and it has been both widely lauded and widely criticized. As one who is fairly uneducated in the specifics of Mormonism but who doesn't prescribe at all to any particular religious system, I found the portrayals of the religion itself to be fairly neutral. They did not come across to the uninitiated as any stranger or more extreme than any other religious believes, nor did their portrayal seem attributable to any deeper agenda. I was also able to think critically about the underlying or exacerbating contexts that shape the stereotypes as well as the experiences of the shows highly stigmatized focal group, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saimts (FLDS). 

What I found especially interesting were the social implications not of polygamy/plural marriage itself, not of the Mormon exclusion of the group that has re-defined itself as FLDS, but of the ways that the criminalization of polygamy may contribute to and perpetuate the very demonized aspects of these groups that were so prevalent in the show - incest, child sexual abuse, and a mafia-like mentality of control and dominance - and may in turn foster further criminality and place at increased risk those who are most vulnerable to begin with.

As a drugs researcher, I constantly think about the social impact of the criminalization of drugs in particular and morality in general. The perpetuation of stigma, the fear of arrest and incarceration, these things contribute to drug users' isolation from full participation in mainstream society (unless, of course, they are able to pass to a certain extent, which is another issue). In essence, criminalization pushes people into survival strategies that rely heavily upon insular communities in which social norms are not to be questioned and that foster the engagement of these communities and community members in illegal, often violent, activities. Furthermore, this isolation and involvement in an array of criminal activity positions communities and their members in close proximity to established criminal networks.

Fortunately, when it comes to drug use, there seems to be a growing conversation about the consequences of criminalization and the possibilities of legalization (though this latter part is largely limited to marijuana and perhaps my impression of a "movement" may simply be the result of a biased twitter feed). But I wonder if some of the lessons learned from the drug war vs. drug legalization debate may in fact be applied toward other legal prescriptions of individual morality.

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Anthropologists have long studied marriage and kinship patterns across cultures. In fact, these findings - that marriage norms (including who may be married to whom and how many people may enter into a marriage) differ considerably the world over and throughout history - have been at the core of anthropological challenges to the conservative claim that marriage is "between one man and one woman." And on this, the anthropologists are absolutely right. It is simply absurd to reify such a moral standard in ways that refuse to acknowledge the realities of the world in which we live - a world in which there is no single set standard for the ways (or reasons) that people commit to one another.

So what I have long thought about, not having a personal moral issue with polygamy itself, and what the show Big Love has really highlighted for me, is whether when we criminalize one behavior socially deemed "immoral" (typically victimless) are we actually putting people at increased risk and in fact cultivating an entire community of individuals whose daily lives are in turn based on and accepting of other, more dangerous or harmful behaviors (such as violence, rape, and child sexual abuse) in large part because of their isolation from (and consequent mistrust of) the mainstream society from which the very core of their lives - their primary relationships - must be kept secret.

For example, with several examples and multiple characters, Big Love highlights the many challenges faced by a career person torn between living openly in his/her marriages and maintaining not only respect of potential clients but also potential investors, employers, and even banking resources. To admit to living in a plural marriage was to limit one's opportunities in the mainstream business world; as such, engagement with other socially and economically marginalized groups (Native American tribes) or in fringe (certainly by mainstream Mormon standards) economies (gambling) was portrayed as one of few viable alternatives. These struggles were positioned beside the lives of those on the compound, where all were "out" but considerable violence and corruption were rampant and embeddedness in criminal networks was the norm. The show doesn't come out and argue that criminalization of polygamy may actually underlie many of the problem(s) we have seen over the years on these compounds, but it certainly sets the attentive audience up to ask the questions.

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In essence, the cases of illegal drugs and of plural marriage/polygamy/the FLDS in the United States suggest that when we decide, as a society, to use the legal system to restrict behaviors deemed immoral - not just behaviors that cause harm to others - we may create a system that a) isolates those who engage in these practices (many of whom may be vulnerable on multiple levels) from mainstream society and resources, placing them in increased danger and b) perpetuates underground and illegal economies that facilitate crimes against others, crimes of violence. In addition to drug use, similar arguments have been made with regard to the consequences of criminalizing sex work.

But the other day another policy was upheld, one that is perhaps about a different kind of morality but one that has the potential, it seems, to place those it ostensibly (and perhaps a bit condescendingly) claims to protect (through the preservation of France's moral values and cultural norms) at greater risk. In 2010, France banned the wearing of face-covering Muslim veils, such as the niqab or the burka, in public. French authorities have claimed the ban was put in place in large part to preserve French culture, which seems to be quite concerned with the notion that Muslim men are forcing their wives to wear such veils. Another concern relates more to issues of security and identifiability, though this is less discussed. The ban was recently upheld by a European court, which defended France's right to prioritize its own cultural values over "freedom of religion." (As an anthropologist living in the US during a time when corporations have been given religious imperative over the rights and health of women, I find all of this especially interesting, but that's all beyond the scope of the current post!)

Here's the thing...to some extent, I can actually understand both sides of the argument - the French have decided to prioritize an aspect of their culture that authorities and decision-makers and many citizens believe fosters gender equality in the face of a religion that many believe squelches it. Muslim women who believe wearing such veils are part of their religious expression, their relationship to God, and who are neither pressured nor coerced into wearing it, find such a ban to be a huge infringement upon their rights. It is an emotionally and politically loaded debate and one that is perhaps endlessly fascinating and lacking a straightforward, all-pleasing solution.

But ultimately, I must admit that this isn't my primary concern. My concern is for the few women who are coerced or manipulated or downright forced to wear a full veil, something that would suggest a relationship power differential that places them at increased risk for abuse among other things. Banning the veil places these women, who were likely isolated living in France anyway, at even greater risk than they would have been at previously. They will be further isolated if leaving their home is conditional upon wearing an article of clothing that is banned, leaving them three choices: a) go out in the banned garment and hazard getting caught, b) face the consequences of going out without the banned garment, against their husband's wishes, or c) don't go out. This may not only further limit their opportunities to establish their own relationships with women who have different experiences and perspectives, but perhaps more realistically and problematically could hinder their abilities to fulfill their roles in the family. Will these women's movements, as well as their networks, be further restricted? My concern is that the French have said, in essence: We believe that the niqab and the burka are signs of gender inequality and domestic violence (or risk for it). Therefore, we will pass a policy that will perpetuate the isolation of the women who wear it, whether or not they choose to do so. 

While I certainly argue that these examples point to a need to continually and critically evaluate the potential consequences of new and existing policies, this is by no means an attempt to turn a blind eye to the actual issues associated with many of these examples or to filter everything through rose colored lenses. Rather, is is a contemplation of the complexity of our actions, and of the need to consider how what we do as a society, how we build a legal system, what it looks like, what we choose to put in it and where, all of these things in turn impact not only the real yet often intangible or unimaginable social structure but also the daily experiences of real live human beings...often in ways we didn't anticipate and certainly don't desire. 

Drugs in the Media - What's up with the romance of heroin?

Last night, Mike and I went to see my awesome friend Chelsea in a production of Rent. This was great for a number of reasons, some of which hadn't occurred to me until I read the director's note in the program. First, it was great because I adore supporting friends' engagement in this kind of stuff - how can you not want to watch a friend thrive in a context totally separate from the one you typically see them in?! And this one was a special treat because Chelsea is talented. A friend from the barn, we usually see one another in a context of hay, sweat, slobber and dirt; but last night she danced in heels and revealed an enviable singing voice as well as a gift for performance overall. SOOOO much fun to watch! Ok, so in addition to that, this production of Rent was great because it was really well done, and because I will just always love the play, and I will always go home humming "There's only us, there's only this, . . .", and I will always cry because I am enough of a romantic that I will always root for the characters even when I know their fates. I want to mention one last (and unanticipated) awesomeness of this production, and that is the one pointed out by the director: the importance of showing this play in a community theater in Loveland, CO. Yes, it's great that Rent has been adopted by other countries and that it has shown on probably every major stage in the US, but that it can reach (even though it's almost 20 years after it first opened) these smaller sub-rural (is that even a term?) communities is just as important.

But all of this is beside the point because, as much as I love Rent, I apparently cannot quite remove my "I research drug use & addiction and its portrayal in the media" hat even for an evening. So, of course, I came home wondering, would the play's many current and former injection drug users be sympathetic, likable, even relatable if they were meth users?

This question came to me in part because, two summers ago, I spent the majority of my time watching, reading and analyzing popular entertainment media that featured methamphetamine and off-hand, I can't think of a single example of a meth user who was portrayed sympathetically, let alone romantically. Yet, back during my undergrad years in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I went through a phase of watching heroin movies. While heroin is not necessarily glamorized in popular entertainment media (think Requiem for a Dream), my not at all systematic observation suggests that addiction to this drug is often portrayed as something that a general audience can sympathize with if not relate to . . . think about the tragic romanticism of movies like High Art and Gia, for example. Even Basketball Diaries and Permanent Midnight (both of which are based on true-life stories) have characters you root for. Most meth users in popular media are horrible people, far too "folk-devilish" to drive a film in such a way. Rather, the meth users in these media tend to drive stories entirely through their scandalous antics with very little humanity (though there is a scene toward the end of Spun when Brittany Murphy and Jason Schwartzman share a spun out bonding session).

Now, I'm not saying that the romanticized portrayals of heroin addiction in the media are preferable to the portrayal of the scandalous meth addict. Rather, I'm curious what it is about the respective substances and their histories and patterns of use that makes them take on their respective roles in entertainment. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear them!

Part of me wonders - thanks in part to questions asked by many a research participant over the past couple of years - whether it could have something to do with the lack of visible dopesickness experienced by meth, cocaine, crack and other non-opiate drug users. Does the fact that heroin makes people go through well-known physical withdrawals make addiction to it something worthy of sympathy rather than scorn? The women I've interviewed in my own research are predominately meth users and several have told me that they feel judged even by other drug users. While popular entertainment media certainly does portray the heroin addicted person as scandalous at times, they also portray her as struggling with something that would clearly be difficult for anybody.

But romantic? What on earth is romantic about dopesickness? Or the drastic loss of libido experienced by so many long-term drug (especially heroin) addicts? I still just can't quite figure out what it is that makes heroin take this role but it certainly does in Rent. Of the characters we learn anything about, most have HIV and for some of them (Roger and Mimi in particular), it's strongly suggested that they got their disease from injecting heroin. But they are wonderfully drawn characters (especially for a musical) whose addictions (present and past) and daily struggles are still made relatable. And their tragic love story is only strengthened by Roger's barbs about Mimi's continued heroin use.

I think this is an issue I may need to explore academically at some point, systematically. I wonder if my impressions are simply the result of having spent so much time turning a critical lens on meth but not on heroin...all the same, a lay impression is important when thinking about the role of these types of media in constructing the meaning of drugs in our society, leading me to ask for future literature reviews if not studies, how do the meanings of meth and heroin diverge from one another and where do they overlap? And, of course, what do these meanings in context tell us about our society & culture?