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Russ Smith and Ellen Willis

the breakfast table
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from: Ellen Willis

Drugs, Sex, and Biotechnology

Posted Thursday, Aug. 19, 1999, at 3:20 PM ET

The papers are still milking Bush and the drug thing because they're filling the vacuum that has arisen because you have to cover the GOP front-runner, but he isn't saying anything substantive, let alone controversial. The reason politicians won't be honest about their marijuana use is simple: If they admitted they had enjoyed pot and suffered no adverse effects, this would raise uncomfortable questions about why they don't come out against laws that put people in jail and confiscate their property for doing the same thing. And they're just too cowardly to take on the drug-war lobby. Even legalization advocates are for the most part scared to defend drug use as a legitimate pleasure or the right to alter your own consciousness as a civil liberty; they just talk about "harm reduction." There are three opinions you can't voice in America without being dismissed as a crackpot, if not worse: The '60s experiments in consciousness expansion were basically a good thing; organized religion is oppressive; children and teen-agers have a right to enjoy their sexuality.

And speaking of religion, the Wall Street Journal had a story on a coalition of practitioners of various religions who are suing the FDA to get the government to label genetically engineered food, on the grounds that food with genes from other organisms may violate religious dietary laws. I'm on their side on this one, as I think the bioengineers are mad scientists who don't know and don't care about the potential consequences of their bio-arrogance, and I want to boycott their products, just as I don't want to eat beef with antibiotics or milk with growth hormone. Of course, this is just what the industry is worried about, as an official at the Biotechnology Industry Organization admitted in the article. They argue that since such a boycott would be irrational and would ruin the industry, the information should be withheld. Now, here's an issue for defenders of the free market. How can I make a free choice of what to buy if the seller won't tell me what I'm buying (and I can't simply not buy food)? And don't I have the right to reject goods I don't want for whatever reason I please, rather than have biotech companies decide what's best for me? Where is the Cato Institute on this one?

I look forward to your take on the Voice. I haven't seen the new model--I would have to drive to Woodstock to get it, and anyway, I think they get issues a week late.

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Ellen Willis

Drugs, Sex, and Biotechnology

Posted Thursday, Aug. 19, 1999, at 3:20 PM ET
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Russ Smith is the editor in chief and owner of New York Press, the Manhattan weekly he founded in 1988. He writes the column "Mugger" for the paper. Ellen Willis directs the cultural journalism program at New York University. Her latest book, Don't Think, Smile! Notes on a Decade of Denial will be published this fall.
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