Carl Hart

Carl L. Hart (born October 30, 1966) is an American psychologist and neuroscientist who is the Mamie Phipps Clark Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University. Hart is known for his research on drug abuse and drug addiction, his advocacy for the legalization of recreational drugs, and his recreational drug use. Hart became the second tenured African-American professor of sciences at Columbia University. He is the author of two books for the general public, High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know about Drugs and Society and Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear (2021).

Early life and education Hart grew up in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens, a suburb of Miami considered one of the most dangerous in the U.S. As a youth, he engaged in petty crime and the use and sale of drugs, and at times carried a gun. He was also a proficient athlete involved in high school sports. He was raised by a single mother, who separated from an abusive father when Hart was six. After high school, he served in the United States Air Force from 1984 to 1988, which became his path to higher education.

Hart earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Maryland and a Master of Science (1994) and PhD (1996), both in psychology/neuroscience, from the University of Wyoming. When he received his doctorate, he was the only black PhD in neuroscience in the U.S.

Career and research Hart is the Mamie Phipps Clark Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry) and former chair of the psychology department at Columbia University. He arrived at Columbia in 1998; in 2009, he became the university's first tenured African-American professor of sciences.

In 1999, Hart began investigating the effects of crack cocaine on behavior. Hart has said that an absence of other outlets and activities is one reason people use drugs. He argues that drug laws intended to make society safer should be based on empirical evidence.

Hart is also a Research Fellow and former co-director at Columbia's Institute for Research in African-American Studies.

Books Hart has written two books for the general public, High Price and Drug Use for Grown-Ups. He and Charles Ksir co-authored recent editions of the introductory textbook Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior.

High Price

In 2013, Hart published High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, described as "combining memoir, popular science, and public policy." In it, he discusses misconceptions about illegal drugs, speaking from the combined perspectives of growing up in a poor, crime-ridden African-American neighborhood and his career as a research neuroscientist. He describes his upbringing, time in the military, years in college and grad school, and journey to a PhD and tenured professorship at Columbia. He discusses the challenge of learning white cultural norms and language as an aspect of succeeding in academia, and then returning to his family and feeling alienated and unable to connect. Using drug crime statistics and details from his lab research, he argues that drugs are a symptom, not a cause, of crime and poverty, and that they mask issues of lack of education, racism, unemployment, and despair.

Drug Use for Grown-Ups

In 2021, Hart published Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear. In it, he writes that, in his over 25-year research career, he has found that "most drug-use scenarios cause little or no harm and that some responsible drug-use scenarios are actually beneficial for human health and functioning." In the book and in interviews about it, Hart revealed that he is a recreational user of heroin and other drugs. He says he is not an addict, but uses drugs responsibly in "pursuit of happiness".

Public debate Hart argues that drug policy in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world "is based on assumption and anecdote, but rarely on scientific evidence". Now he recommends legalizing drugs. He discusses the criminalization of crack cocaine (typically associated with poor communities) and lack of similar criminalization of powder cocaine (traditionally associated with wealthier communities) as an example of how drug criminalization has been based on social problems rather than scientific fact, since both contain the same active chemical.

Hart has said that the poor, crime-ridden environment he grew up in influenced his world view, and that he once believed drugs caused poverty and crime in most neighborhoods. He testified before the United States Congress Committee On Oversight and Government Reform. He has testified, on the stand and in written submissions, in family courts in New York City, advocating for children to stay with parents who have tested positive for cannabis, arguing that there is no scientific evidence that cannabis use has a detrimental effect on parenting. In one case, a mother had tested positive while giving birth at a city hospital and been charged with negligence (the case was later dropped).

In a 2013 New York Times editorial, Hart commented on the toxicology report in the case of Trayvon Martin, where the indication of cannabis in Martin's blood was used as evidence that he might have been paranoid the night of his fatal shooting, causing him to attack his shooter. Hart said this argument relied on outdated notions of cannabis use, such as those in Reefer Madness, and failed to recognize the seven decades of research on cannabis that show the levels in Martin's blood were insufficient to cause paranoia, which is extremely uncommon in cannabis users.

At a 2017 drug policy conference at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Hart addressed misconceptions about methamphetamine in the Philippines during President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. Citing lab tests on animals, Hart refuted Duterte's claim that methamphetamine shrinks people's brains and makes them violent. After his speech, Hart began to receive online death threats that forced him to quickly leave the Philippines. Duterte said of Hart's claims, "That's all bullshit to me" and called Hart a "son of a bitch who has gone crazy". In an interview with Public Radio International, Hart called Duterte "a president making such ignorant comments about drugs like he's a pharmacologist" and added that Duterte was "out of his league when he talks about drugs". The Reason Foundation, and The Nobel Conference. He has been interviewed or otherwise featured on CNN, Stossel, "The Independents" on Fox Business, "All In with Chris Hayes" on MSNBC, Reason TV, "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, "Democracy Now!", and The Joe Rogan Experience. He spoke at TEDMED 2014, discussing his evidence-based view of drug addiction and how it should influence public policy. Hart appears in the 2012 documentary The House I Live In and in the 2021 Netflix documentary Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy, in which he discusses what was missing from the sensationalized portrayal of crack in the 1980s.

Personal life Hart is married to Robin Hart and has three children.

Awards and honors Columbia University: Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching (2008) Mothers Against Teen Violence: Humanitarian Award (2014) PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society (2014) City of Miami: Dr. Carl Hart Day (Feb 1, 2016)