Change just isn't the same anymore

Argues that the ideas of discontinuous change which have entered the physical sciences have yet to enter the social sciences. How quantum mechanics and chaos theory have changed our view of gradual evolution; The theory of punctuated equilibrium; The opinion that these ideas need to be considered in the areas of social planning; How this theory can be applied to a national drug policy; The legalization of marijuana.

By PT Staff, published on May 01, 1995

For most of us, change is a lot like evolution, a gradual process in whichlittle bits of change accumulate like grains of sand forming first an anthill, and eventually, a mountain.

But quantum mechanics and chaos theory suggest a radically different view--that real change is more often discontinuous. When discontinuous change strikes--the end of the Cold War is a classic case--anything can happen. Minor random events can get magnified, reacted to, and unexpectedly set off escalating processes of change in unpredicted directions.

Many biologists no longer regard species as having gradually developed over great expanses of time. A modified theory of evolution, punctuated equilibrium, holds that new species evolve rapidly--say in the wake of extinction of the dinosaurs--and then remain relatively stable.

Trouble is, the ideas of discontinuous change have yet to seep from the hard to the soft sciences. And that, says Jefferson Rsh, Ph.D., professor of psychology at St. John's University, hinders planning for needed social change-such as a workable, rational drug policy.

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The War on Drugs is an obvious failure, says Fish. It has filled prisons at great cost, on the one hand, and bolstered organized crime, on the other, while drug use rises. There is a constant, symmetrical escalation between drug Warriors and drug lords, and it's reaching the point where change is inevitable.

Drug reformers should be planning for a variety of small changes that could snowball. One might be to let the states be laboratories for drug policy, and then the federal government could adopt what works.

Another could be to legalize and tax marijuana while mounting more focused efforts against hard drugs. If drugs became legal, the resulting disarray in the black market for drugs "would offer an unprecedented opportunity for attacking organized crime and seizing billions of dollars in assets"--provided policymakers plan ways to prevent drug fortunes from escaping detection.

Reformers should be considering lots of policy options now--to be deployed as needed during a period of chaos. All because change just isn't what it used to be.