“How to Have Fun and Not Die” goes a little over the top
I attended Drug Week’s “How to Have Fun and Not Die” event to bring back the knowledge to teach you all how to have as much fun as possible with the least possible risk. But passing on advice from someone who started his lecture by admitting his “sniffle” was the result of the weekend’s drug-induced fun just feels irresponsible.
The event featured Eddie Einbinder, author of How to Have Fun and Not Die, who spoke to about 25 people in Norris on Tuesday. Einbinder’s speech, part of NU’s NORML-SSDP’s Drug Week, raised important questions about how we talk about drugs, and how and why people get drug related information the way they do.
“Don’t come away with a false sense of security, but a stronger sense of insecurity,” Einbinder said. “Every decision one makes regarding drugs is dangerous. This is why we need to be educated.”
That makes sense: teaching kids about the drugs they are going to take anyway can only lead to good things — fewer deaths, overdoses and addictions. But the specifics of his advice on what drugs are okay to take, what cocktails might kill you, when to make yourself puke and how to do drugs … these I don’t feel comfortable reporting.
Because Einbinder is not a chemist, biologist or an MD. He simply does not have the credentials to make him an expert. And while he claims that everything in the book is “double and triple checked” with doctors, none of these supposed MDs will attach their names to what he’s published. The book has no source list.
Perhaps this is the essence of the problem. Einbinder has to use anonymous sources because nobody wants to give advice to kids on how to take illegal drugs safely because, well, they’re illegal. And often dangerous.
But what about legal drugs, like Oxycontin, Adderall and Ritalin? Shouldn’t somebody be telling kids what will happen when they crush and snort their ADHD medicine? Prescription drug use is second in America only to marijuana. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that more than 20.3 percent of people older than 12 have used a psychotherapeutic for non-medical purposes at some point in their life.
Ignoring the problem is obviously not working. Somebody has to teach kids how to avoid death by drugs because frankly, just telling them not to do it is going to be as effective as preventing pregnancy with abstinence only sex education.
For tackling this task, I applaud Einbinder. But I’ll revoke my cheers for the parts of his talk that felt like the cool kids in high school irresponsibly laughing off the potential consequences of their actions. For a man who appears to take the dangers of drugs seriously, Einbinder was irritatingly irreverent when discussing the possibility of pot being laced with PCP, and the resulting feeling that one must “embrace potential death.”
And relaying advice on how to take heroin (a drug that can lead to respiratory failure, heart infection and liver disease in addition to addiction and increased risk of HIV contraction) “safely” — that I won’t do. Call me a prude if you must, but your kidneys will thank me.
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Shouldn’t this be labeled as “opinion?”
Olivia
April 22, 2009 at 1:58 am
It’s also a bad opinion.
Ditto
April 22, 2009 at 9:18 am
This article was horribly written.
c
April 22, 2009 at 9:32 am
First off, as a former journalist, I find it appalling that any editor would allow this article to be published. It’s opinionated, scattered, and contains more grammatical errors than I would expect of an eighth grade paper.
Secondly, I also attended “How to Have Fun and Not Die.” Judging by the questions you posed to Mr. Einbinder, it seems you already harbored negative feelings toward his book and his ultimate goal of harm reduction. You failed to quote Mr. Einbinder’s deflection to your question (which, I believe, was “How do you feel giving advice to people when you are not a medical doctor?”). He, very courteously, responded that (and I’m paraphrasing) doctors do not want to risk their reputation and source of income by affixing their names to books concerning drugs. Mr. Einbinder felt the need to educate people in lieu of this. Since doctors have failed to address harm reduction, Mr. Einbinder took it upon himself to publish a book that could potentially save those who wish to experiment with drugs. He clearly states he has no medical background, and that his book is merely to educate rather than shelter people from the subject of drugs.
Third of all, it seems you weren’t paying attention when the discussion turned to heroin use. Someone in the audience inquired about casual use of highly addictive drugs. Mr. Einbinder noted that this phenomenon is common, but forewarned that he hasn’t known these users to “last very long.” Another audience member relayed information about casual heroin use, and how it does not cause long-term health issues.
I have no idea how you gathered the key points of this article. Not only does your opinion permeate the article to an ineffective degree, but your summary of the event is flawed as well. I would suggest attending an event that suits your opinions next time.
China
April 22, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Although I did not attend the event and therefore can’t impugn the author’s coverage of it, what is striking to me about your argument is that –for our generation as well as our parents’– we really CAN’T trust authoritative opinions about drug use. For example, the anti-marijuana group Above the Influence’s Web site publishes a list of doctors with MDs or PhDs who support the group’s agenda. But anyone who has smoked enough weed understands the organization’s ads as a slicker, but no less ludicrous or unconvincing, version of “Reefer Madness.” To support our nation’s draconian drug laws, an entire official literature has been developed.
The fact of the matter is that drugs –even addictive drugs like cocaine– aren’t nearly as dangerous as we’ve been told, over and over. A lot of level-headed people can manage to experiment with most anything short of meth and live to tell about it. To this end, I’d expect the advice of someone who understands drug use from personal experience to more accurately reflect reality than the advice of a doctor who regards drug use abstractly and may be influenced by the party line.
my 2 cents
April 22, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Word to China and 2-Cents. The alternative to Mr. Einbinder is no knowledge whatsoever, and if people are going to be doing drugs regardless, we might as well try to make it as safe as possible for them. And, as has been noted already, I’d trust someone with actual experience over someone more “qualified” who is merely throwing out speculations.
Emily
April 22, 2009 at 10:59 pm
You say that Einbinder is not a chemist or a biologist and therefore lacks the “credentials” to make him an expert, but think about it this way: how do chemists or biologists or any scientists at all garner an understanding of the subject they study? Experimentation. It is through trial and error, practice, and observation that experts become experts. In this sense I think Einbinder is probably more qualified than most scientists to talk about drugs.
The most frustrating thing about this article for me is the contradiction between your recognition of ineffective drug education and your declarative refusal to “report” his specific advice. You reference abstinence only sex education–to me, this article felt like an acknowledgment “yes, there are ways to have safe sex…but why don’t you leave that to your conservation catholic school teachers to talk about.”
Darby
April 22, 2009 at 11:03 pm
You say you don’t feel comfortable reporting “the specifics of (Einbinder’s) advice.” By doing this, you are actively perpetuating the problem he is trying to address. What, is puking just too gross for you to write about, despite the fact that, as Einbinder explicitly stated, vomiting is often what will save your life when you’ve had too much of a substance? It seems to me like you judged Einbinder from the moment he admitted to partying a little too hard the weekend before, and thereafter refused to consider anything he said legitimate. This is completely backwards, because Einbinder’s lifestyle is exactly what makes him more credible than any crusty old doctor. I’d take the advice of an experienced partier over that of a “chemist, biologist or an MD” any day. Another thing Einbinder mentioned (did you even really listen to him at all?) is the fact that the effects of drugs are highly unpredictable–one person could die the first time they do cocaine, while their best friend could do 20 lines and be fine. The point is, even if he had included sourced facts from named doctors, those “facts” would by no means correspond with the actual experience of every single person who took them to heart. There is no definitive answer when it comes to how drugs affect people, which is why, as you quoted, Eddie advised us to come away with a “stronger sense of insecurity.”
Finally, as a fellow journalist, I will leave you with one piece of advice: No matter what your preconceived opinions are on the topic you’re reporting, try to conceal them a little better when asking questions. Your suspicion and skepticism came off as very unprofessional, and probably helped to inspire this rash of negative comments from others who attended the event.
Claire
April 22, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I agree that this article entirely misses the point by perpetuating the problem. Yes, vomiting is gross, but the use of the fact that doctors don’t want be named in the book is exactly the point you’re missing. No one wants to make it look like they advocate drug use by associating themselves with a book that involves drug experimentation. Knowledge is power, and how would we know how these things worked if no one did it and wrote it down? I’m not seeing too many clinical trials on the effects of Ecstasy and cocaine in conjunction. So, yeah. Bad article.
J
April 23, 2009 at 12:53 am
I don’t understand why this article is linked all over the NBN front page while an article defending Drug Week has had no publicity at all.
I was only able to read said article because it randomly surfaced on the “recent comments” section. The next day when I tried to go back to it in order to commend the author on how well-written it was, the article was nowhere to be found.
It’s not even on the “Northwestern” section of NBN. I don’t think that’s fair at all. And content aside, it was ten times more eloquent and grammatically correct than this crap.
Come on, NBN.
cme
April 23, 2009 at 1:24 am
http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2009/04/34264/in-defense-of-drug-week/
a fellow student
April 23, 2009 at 1:50 am
All of the major issues I have with this article have already been addressed in the other comments, so I’m really only writing to express further general disapproval of not only the unbearable bias with which the article was written, but also of the reporter’s abominable writing skills. The opening sentence alone should have been enough to warn me against reading further. I just hope this isn’t the work of a Medill student.
Also, you must not know anyone who has accidentally or unwittingly smoked PCP before. I don’t think the “embracing potential death” line was meant to be taken quite so literally; people don’t die very often from accidentally smoking dust, they just tend to think they’re dying when, after smoking some seemingly harmless “weed,” they suddenly can’t remember how to walk or see straight.
dmr
April 23, 2009 at 6:34 am
“For a man who appears to take the dangers of drugs seriously, Einbinder was irritatingly irreverent when discussing the possibility of pot being laced with PCP, and the resulting feeling that one must “embrace potential death.””
LSD is the answer, DMT is the solution. through death we are reborn.
W.A.S.T.E.
April 23, 2009 at 8:11 am
Although I’m clearly not the first person to address the obvious shortcomings of this article, I think it’s important to note that most of the problems come from ignorance and misunderstanding of the basic concept of Eddie’s book. People do drugs- it’s an inevitable truth of human existence, and maybe, instead of writing users off as delinquents and letting them find out about the true dangers of drugs on their own, educated people should provide them with basic information that could save their lives.
You don’t feel comfortable relaying Eddie’s simple advice, like not to take Tylenol and drink alcohol, which, considering that the most popular extracurricular activity at NU is blacking out, could potentially save students’ lives? umm, seriously?
You’re part of the problem.
ur dum
April 23, 2009 at 10:32 am
This article was poorly written, horribly opinionated, and much too judgmental. It completely undermines the entire purpose of the talk– to teach kids how to not die by doing drugs. All this article has done is suggest that there are prude, judgmental members in the Northwestern community who assume by writing a hypercritical article with very little reporting, that their opinion matters. I’m going to try heroin now. Hopefully I don’t die, but I might have to guess the correct way to do that because I was unable to attend the talk and your article, one meant to report back to those not present, was really unhelpful. Ok, sorry if that was a little rash–but this article sucked.
kate
April 23, 2009 at 11:13 am
For anyone interested in a non-opinionated article on how to have fun and not die (with actual, unbiased advice included):
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28832
Jenn
April 23, 2009 at 11:18 am
“The contents of the article [sic]“
Terrfeo
April 24, 2009 at 4:52 pm