Kevin Sabet: Hungary's Zero-Tolerance Policy on Drugs Is Exemplary

Hungary's drug policy is "an example because it's a very clear message and nobody can be confused about what the law says. I don't necessarily think people should be imprisoned for years for having a joint, but we need not be encouraging that behavior, which is what legalization or decriminalization can do," Dr. Kevin Sabet told Magyar Nemzet in an interview at the MCC conference Global Drug Epidemic in Budapest.

Drug policy scholar Dr. Kevin Sabet, visiting researcher at Yale University, speaks to Magyar Nemzet at the MCC conference Global Drug Epidemic on November 18 (Photo: MCC)

Kevin Sabet, often referred to as the prodigy of drug politics, who has served as a White House drug policy advisor under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford and is currently president of the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions. His latest book, One Nation Under the Influence, analyzes America’s addiction crisis and the unexpected negative consequences of legalization, while his earlier award-winning work (Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know) was adapted into a documentary film. Dr. Sabet, who is a visiting researcher at Yale University and a frequent commentator on drug policy issues in the pages of Newsweek, delivered a lecture at the MCC’s Budapest conference on the challenges of the global drug epidemic and the possibilities for effective, human-centered drug policy. The scholar warned that the legalization of marijuana and other psychoactive substances around the world is contributing to a surge in addiction among young people. Kevin Sabet gave an interview to Magyar Nemzet at the MCC conference Global Drug Epidemic held in Budapest.

Drug policy scholar Dr. Kevin Sabet, visiting researcher at Yale University, speaks to Magyar Nemzet at the MCC conference Global Drug Epidemic on November 18 (Photo: MCC)

Dr Sabet, you’re against legalization. You say it creates an industry that now resembles the tobacco industry, big pharma, or the alcohol industry – all driven by Wall Street and Silicon Valley. You say the big question is not whether legalization is right or wrong, it’s about the biggest takeover of public health by corporate interest since the advent of tobacco 100 years ago. Can you please expand on this?

Yeah, so we're in the midst of having a global discussion about legalization and what I worry about is that we are essentially legalizing addiction. And we're not only legalizing addiction, we're legalizing addiction for profit where people will be making money in the legal market off of other people's misery. That's usually a crime. We don't want to encourage people to do that, and when you legalize something, you're encouraging industry to sell a product that's known to be extremely harmful for the individual and society.

You know, tobacco has been used for thousands of years and it only started killing people when we invented the modern day cigarette, and that was invented by the industry. Today's marijuana industry is doing the same thing.

Marijuana has been used for a long time, but the kind of marijuana that they are selling does not resemble the marijuana that maybe a lot of people are familiar with. It's been genetically bred and altered to increase the length, the potency, and that's why we're seeing so many problems with it. I don't think that is an industry that should be encouraged and legalized.

You say the drug problem (the pot shops) is more prevalent in poor and vulnerable communities, because that’s where the big companies, which now operate legally, are able to target the folks who may more easily slide into heavy drug use. Is this a terminally vicious cycle?

Well, it's definitely vicious. It's because what's happening is the most vulnerable are the ones that are being targeted and the most affected. If you have more resources and you get into trouble, you're more likely to get out of that trouble than somebody with less resources, whatever that trouble is. That trouble could be sliding into addiction, that trouble could be lack of… whatever it is.

And so my worry is that just like we have with other sort of regressive kinds of industries that really hurt people: it's the people that are already hurt and left behind by society that are targeted. That is my big worry. We see that again in the United States with tobacco, with alcohol, with the lottery, with gambling. It's people that are vulnerable that are targeted the most by these industries versus those with more resources.

In 2013, you started SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana). Obviously there needs to be a middle ground between someone smoking a blunt being taken to jail, and Big Tobacco 2.0, as you said. You say the emphasis is on education and raising awareness. How much progress has your organization made?

I think we've made a lot of progress because when we were founded in 2013, people said that we were going to have federal, national legalized cannabis by 2016. Then they said by 2020. Now they're saying by 2030.

It keeps getting delayed because we have worked very hard against the marijuana industry to expose them, like the tobacco industry had been.

And you know, we're a very small group of people—young people mainly—with a lot of energy and a lot of passion. Many of the people who work for me are in recovery from marijuana themselves. They've seen the destructive tendency of THC and marijuana.

So I'm very excited about it, more optimistic than I've ever been. Just last week President Trump signed a law that we really urged—to ban a certain kind of marijuana that was being sold. It was a derivative of hemp that was intoxicating… it was a chemical derivative that was being sold in gas stations to 12-year-olds "legally," and that was a loophole in our law that was just closed. We're working very hard. We defeated legalization in many, many states in the last couple of years. So things are looking up.

Drug policy scholar Dr. Kevin Sabet speaks to Magyar Nemzet at the MCC conference on the global drug epidemic in Budapest on November 18 (Photo: MCC)

Hungary has a zero-tolerance policy. You get caught on the streets of Budapest smoking a blunt or possessing any quantity of cannabis — it's a criminal offense. But in the United States, you have the federal system and the state system and this weird clash: drugs are federally prohibited, but they are legal on state-level, in some states. Do you think Hungary's zero-tolerance policy is an example to follow?

Well, I think it is an example because it's a very clear message and nobody can be confused about what the law says.

Now, I don't necessarily think people should be imprisoned for years for having a joint—an adult having a joint on them—but we need not be encouraging that behavior, which is what legalization or decriminalization can do. I think of it like a speed limit. We have speed limits to discourage bad behavior, to discourage speeding, etc. Even though the majority of people who speed may not get into a nasty accident, we still want everyone not to speed because you increase your risk of hurting yourself and others. So even if somebody might be able to smoke a joint and be okay, that’s not an argument to legalize the drug.

In your book One Nation Under the Influence, you argue that healthy societies rely on strong institutions — family, faith, and community — to prevent addiction. In Hungary, the government explicitly promotes these values. Can this, the fabric of cultural conservatism, serve as a long-term shield against drug use?

Yeah, I don't know what I would call it, but

I think that family is a very important nucleus where good decisions and bad decisions can be made and started. The family and parents are actually the number one influencer for a young person's decision to start using drugs—more than any other influence, including their peer group, wealth, or demographic background.

It's their parents. And so it is really important that parents set a good example. We have a narrative in the United States where parents think marijuana is medicine. They're using marijuana in front of their children like it's a medicine, even though it's not. And the children are getting the example that this is fine, and they grow up thinking that's a normal part of growing up and that it should be encouraged. That's the bad side. On the good side, they can model good behavior. The family is really where all of this starts.

And lastly: are you optimistic?

I am optimistic. I think we know what works. It's not like we have to invent some sort of technology that's going to take us to Jupiter and allow us to start flying everywhere with wings. These are things we actually know about. We know so much more about addiction than we ever had. We know that it's a bio-behavioral condition with similarities to classical diseases, but also differences in incentives and behavioral aspects. We know that prevention works. We know that good treatment can work. Global cooperation is what's needed. So we have half the battle. I'm confident eventually we will succeed.

Cover photo: Drug policy scholar Dr. Kevin Sabet, visiting researcher at Yale University, speaks to Magyar Nemzet at the MCC conference Global Drug Epidemic on November 18 (Photo: MCC)