The scientific case for decriminalization: neuroscientist Carl Hart on the fundamental ignorance that shapes our national conversation about drug policy.

• Position: Interview

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"We haven't had an adult conversation about drugs in America/' says neuroscientist Carl Hart. The Columbia University academic, known for his experiments tracking the brain activity of drug users, is trying to rectify that state of affairs with his new book, High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society (HarperCollins).

Hart, an associate professor of psychology, has both a personal and professional perspective on drugs. A former user and dealer, he's a featured character in Eugene Jarecki's anti-drug war documentary The House I Live In, which explores, among other things, Hart's relationship with his son Tobias, who recently served time on a drug charge. Hart's new book, which makes a case for decriminalization, is both a memoir and an exploration of the latest neuroscientific research on drug use.

Hart spoke at reason's Los Angeles office in June about meth, math, violence, and what science can tell us about drug policy. He also took questions from the audience. For video of the event, go to reason.com or scan the QR code on the previous page.

Carl Hart: This book is a hybrid of memoir, science book, and policy. What I'd like to talk about is the science that I've been doing and that other people have been doing with methamphetamine.

Back in 2005 I got a call from the Office of National Drug Control Policy asking me to participate in a roundtable of writers who were interested in writing stories about methamphetamine. They wanted their stories to be more realistic--they were writers for things like Law and Order, CSI, magazines, and so forth. At this roundtable the panelists were a U.S. assistant attorney, an undercover narcotics officer, an adult person who was addicted to methamphetamine, an adolescent who was addicted to methamphetamine, and myself. My role at the panel was to help participants understand where the science was at the time, what we knew from the empirical information.

Basically what I said was that we had tested relatively low oral doses in the laboratory, where we evaluated the effects of those doses of methamphetamine on cognitive performance, mood, heart rate, blood pressure, those sorts of things. My conclusions were that the drug was quite unremarkable. In fact, in people who are well-rested you didn't see much in terms of cognitive disruption, or you didn't see any. Those low doses produce some euphoria, but a moderate range of euphoria.

When I finished my presentation my fellow panelists were horrified. They were horrified because they had told stories about the horrors of methamphetamine that they saw in the natural ecology. They recounted stories of methamphetamine users developing superhuman strength. When someone was on methamphetamine, it was said, you had to increase the caliber of weapon; regular Tasers no longer worked with these individuals. Another story that was recounted was that methamphetamine was like no other drug that law enforcement had ever seen. This particular cop said he had more than twenty-something years experience on the force and had never seen anything like methamphetamine--and he had seen crack users and that sort of thing. This drug...