Author: Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute
Source: Washington Post, Sunday Outlook Section -- May 13, 1990
At one point in "Through the Looking Glass," Alice questions Humpty Dumpty about his self-serving use of the word "glory." Huffily, he responds that "glory" (or any other word) means "just what I choose it to mean—nothing more, nothing less."
And so it is with the language that underpins our so-called "war on drugs." Prevailing names and labels are so distorted, manipulated and lacking in truth that even the devious Dumpty would be impressed. In almost every instance, the language serves the purposes of the poison-for-profit crowd, rather than the needs of those trying to stop the flood of addictive narcotics to the people.
First of all, we are not yet fighting a "war" by any proper definition of that term. While thousands of Americans are being killed and maimed by the enemy, our modest response -- to use the language of two very real recent wars -- is still in the nature of a "police action."
Supported by a variety of "search-and-destroy" operations at the street level, there is yearly more blood-and-guts warfare between competing narcotics gangs than between these criminals and the police. And while a more serious effort is slowly getting underway, we hear increasing calls for legalization of outlawed poisons by those who think a head-to-head battle cannot be won. In short, we have the beginnings of a "limited engagement" but not yet a bona fide war.
Secondly, we find ourselves using the selfsame word -- "drugs" -- for curative medicines as we do for deadly, addictive poisons. It is not a war on drugs (most of which are good) that we need to wage but, rather, a war on the distributors and "pushers" of illegal narcotics, stimulants and hallucinogens (most of which are evil).
Call Them Narco-Toxins
Perhaps the shorthand term "narco-toxins" -- poisonous narcotics -- might be a useful addition to the language. The word "drugs" should be reserved for medicines that can legally be purchased in places we call "pharmacies."
Similarly, we use all variety of euphemisms for narco-toxin consumption and addiction. We have taken to saying that people "do drugs" or engage in "substance abuse." The term "do" would apply as well to "doing" aspirin or cough medicine. The term "abuse" could apply as well to eating too much sugar or drinking too much milk, both sugar and milk being "substances." Even beating someone on the head with a baseball bat would qualify -- the "abused substance" being the victim's head.
The phrase "chemical dependency" is only slightly more appropriate, because everything -- yes, literally everything! -- is chemical and the term is, therefore, all-inclusive. The food we eat, the fluids we drink and the air we breath -- all of it qualifies, ultimately, as one of many combinations of chemicals on which we are indisputably dependent.
Virtually gone from the language is the label "dope" -- a useful term that conjures up unpleasant additional images of slow-wittedness, racehorse injections and adulterated foods. The derisive labels "dope head" and "dope fiend," so common a few decades ago, are never heard. Also disappearing from the language are "junk" and "junkie," as well as the terms "dirty" and "clean" for those who are and are not hooked on some narco-toxin.
Instead, we speak almost acceptably of "casual drug users" and of "drug victims" and even of "recreational drugs." Thanks to such abuse of the language, narcotics users (particularly among the white-collar class) can dismiss their dangerous and criminal activity as some sort of innocent, benign, and socially acceptable pastime.
Instead, the language should excoriate such people (and help dissuade other potential addicts) by applying to them such pejorative labels as stupid, self-destructive, disloyal, antisocial, reckless, immoral, corrupt, ignorant, foolish, lawless, afflicted, lowbrow, illicit, deceitful, despicable and -- last but not least -- narcoholic.
Seductive Names Abound
Surveying the street names of major narco-toxins, we notice what positive, seductive sounds they have -- "ecstasy" (suggesting extreme pleasure), "speed" (as in cars, boats, aircraft, sports, etc.), "coke" (also the nickname of the world's most popular soft drink, Coca-Cola) and "angel dust" (the glitter of Heaven itself).
The various "designer drugs" now being concocted in narco-toxin laboratories will, no doubt, be given street names just as appealing as the enticing labels routinely given to "designer" clothing and jewelry.
Would it not be at least marginally helpful to rename these death-dealing chemicals with such appropriately repugnant labels as "chemkill," "suicide," and "deadman?" As a matter of truth-in-labeling, that is precisely what they do to people. So why not call them that? (One of the older, more appropriate labels -- "acid" -- is now heard less and less, probably because it discourages rather than encourages the usage of the hallucinogenic chemical LSD.)
And rather than referring to the immediate impact of these deadly poisons as a "high," we might do better to think and to speak of it as a "dive"-- momentarily exhilarating but ending in a horrendous and even deadly crash.
Other narco-poisons may not bear attractive labels but are favored, nonetheless, by neutral and value-free names -- "pot," "crack," "hash," "grass," "ice," etc. These, too, should be given titles more in keeping with their murderous consequences. Such alternative labels as "guillotine," "hangnoose" and "fishhook" come to mind.
The graphic image of an un-retractable fishhook, symbolizing the agony of addiction, might be a most useful label around which to build a serious deterrent. Among the environmentally conscious, the term "chemical self-pollution" might serve as a preventative.
We would do well, also, to re-label those damnable criminals who entice people into the use and abuse of deadly narco-toxins. At present, the most successful and most ruthless of these -- the so-called "drug lords" -- bear a name whose fist half is a synonym for medicines and whose second half is the same word we use for the exalted and even for the Deity.
Semantic Nonsense
Such semantic nonsense! These murderous profiteers from the sale of people poisons are not "lords" or "kingpins." In truth they are spiteful and deadly beasts -- narco-beasts, to be exact. Narco-beasts Ochoa, Gacha and Escobar of the Medellin cartel. Narco-beast Manuel Noriega, lately of Panama. Narco-monsters in our own country, cities and schools.
Lords and kings are meant to be lauded and honored and, in the case of the Lord God, to be worshiped. The narco-beasts -- like other dangerous, murderous, venomous animals -- should be hunted down and removed from society as deadly threats to mankind.
Their hirelings and distributors—the "drug pushers." "peddlers" and "traffickers" -- should become know as "narco-pimps," "narco-slime," and "narco-scum" -- just as the most violence prone among them are already called "narco-terrorists," one of the few adequate labels currently in use.
Finally, our grossly misnamed "drug czar," William Bennett (whose title should at the very least be "anti-drug czar"), would do well to appoint a task force of street-wise semanticists and public-relations experts to address this subject.
The panel's mission would be to design ways in which our language might gradually be made to work against, rather than in favor of, the narco-beasts who sink their poison-for-profit "fishhooks" into millions of Americans every minute of every day. The benefits might be particularly meaningful in educating young people not yet "hooked" on the euphemistic and seductive labels which now dominate the language.
Historical footnote: Those who regard the language and labeling aspects of the narco-scourge as unimportant should consider what Confucius said 24 centuries ago when asked what would be his first major undertaking if he were put in charge of the government of China. His response:
"It would certainly be to correct language. If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone. If this remains undone, then morals and acts deteriorate. If morals and acts deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters about everything."
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com