Several years ago, 2005 to be exact, there was a piece of legislation introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives that would have made it illegal to display “spinning hubcaps” on a moving vehicle. A subcommittee was convened to actually consider this bill. Yes, those hubcaps designed to spin when the car stops can be annoying. But they’re not as annoying as legislation that is introduced (and sometimes enacted) to deal with a fad.
Most legislation prohibiting the use, display, or possession of a fad is synonymous with clothing and drugs. In 1942, the War Production Board banned the manufacture of zoot suits. Supposedly, the suits required too much material, which could be used for other things, like parachutes. Off the record, Americans feared the Latinos and African-Americans who wore them. The Los Angeles City Council also banned the zoot suits after the Zoot Suit Riots in 1943.
It was fear that led to the prohibition of clothing, and it’s fear that becomes the heaviest factor in banning certain designer drugs. Toward the end of this past Iowa Legislative Session, the Senate agreed with the House to ban a few fad drugs, among them: salvia (salvia divinorum), K2 (Spice), and bath salts. Fawkes-Lee & Ryan opposed this legislation for several reasons, but the most important reason is the precedents of having the Legislature determine which drugs are to be prohibited and which drugs are safe to use. This is a function of the Board of Pharmacy and it should be delegated wholly to the BOP. It’s hard to believe that any legislator today can tell me what this means: 4-methylmethcathinone,(RS)-2-methylamino-l-(4-methylphenyl).
Changing a molecule in most of the designer drugs makes a different substance that may have the same effect as the one that was just banned. However, because a molecule has been altered, removed, or added, it’s not the same and therefore, most likely, legal. The Legislature cannot keep up with the task of determining what is harmful, what will go away quietly, and what is innocuous. Often, banning a product gives it the “forbidden fruit” label, which means that it must be good and worth the trouble of trying it.
“Banned in Boston” is an outdated slogan that encouraged people elsewhere throughout the country to check it out. The Puritanical roots of Boston weighed heavily on the local authorities power to prohibit the sale or possession of offensive materials, or the performance of plays that may have contained sexual innuendo or foul language. In that sense, banning a product often leads to its popularity.
It’s ironic that the recent effort to ban the designer drugs of today (Spice, salvia, etc.) also included removing benzylfentanyl and thenylfentanyl from the Schedule I drugs, meaning that they had no medical usefulness and were subject to potential abuse. The “DEA determined that these compounds were both essentially inactive, with no evidence of abuse potential. As such, these compounds are no longer schedule I controlled substances and all references to these compounds are being deleted from DEA regulations.”
Zoot Suit