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I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

m.nautil.us

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Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#251

Post by mod »

treeman79 wrote: post #110
sneak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opioids are insanely and instantly addictive. This is the kind of FUD that TFA is specifically addressing. Namely, that this is not always a true statement. Of course, for many people, it is, which is why people make such sweeping (and incorrect) statements. Your warning is valid, your claimed facts are not.

A gun is always loaded. Even if it has no bullets.

I think you're trying to argue GP's point, but you've only confirmed it, because you're misrepresenting both the facts and the traditional advice.

"Treat every gun as if it were loaded" is the traditional advice, and is a wonderful attitude to have about firearms. But if it's not loaded, it's not loaded, those are the facts.

Perhaps the same with opiods: treat them as if they are highly addictive, in a rapid manner. But if (for you) they aren't, they aren't.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#252

Post by anonAndOn »

ChrisRR wrote: post #226
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe we're getting a very different view of the US from the UK, but despite all of America's flaws and how weak the beer is [laughs in Belgian Trappiste at the English ales] Is beer in the US still as bad as it was 10 years ago? I understood it now has a huge craft-/micro brewery scene with some very drinkable APA/IPA's? Or is this just a tiny fraction of the market still?

The perception from the UK is despite what seems like a growing trend in microbreweries, Americans still don't venture out much further than IPAs Edit: And as a lover of belgian beers I can only agree. I wonder why people even drink so many IPAs when there's so many different and delicious varieties of beers around.

Because the easiest way to sell a crappy beer in the US is to dump a bunch of hops in it and call it an IPA? I jest there are 47 varieties of Pale Ale and 3 of something else at the supermarket these days, but it's not far from the truth.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#253

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

Grustaf wrote: post #204
nimbius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things t…

Well, how many people will see this headline and rush off to a back alley to buy a shot of heroin from some junkie?

Several years ago, I read about the significant nootropic effects of nicotine and spent time on forums that downplayed the potential negative impacts. I ended up trying it and became addicted for years.

Social contagion can have significant effects on social issues like this.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#254

Post by capableweb »

jboog wrote: post #233
coryrc wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Portugal shows, decriminalizing drugs reduces their use. The position you are mocking is actually consistent.

I'm not sure we can take the results of a single experiment in an incredibly homogenous tiny country in Europe to mean an outcome is replicable across the world.

Indeed. The "experiment" in Portugal is not proving it works everywhere, but shows it can work, which indicates we should study it further and possibly deploy it in more countries across the world, to see if it works elsewhere and if we could possibly make it even more effective.

While Portugal is probably the most famous example of decriminalizing working in humans favor, it's not the only example, it has been employed in other states too. Netherlands has de-facto decriminalized all drugs (in practice, not in law), Czech Republic has decriminalized all (most?) drugs as well.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#255

Post by 40four »

ChrisRR wrote: post #183
SamBam wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription drugs but I don't think any of them are addicts Actually, I'm not sure. 30% of alcohol drinkers being addicted might be roughly right (though surprising to me as well). In the US, 50% of…

I'll admit that is an insane amount that I wasn't expecting, but something about those numbers just feels off. Like 10 drinks a day? Many people don't even drink that much water Maybe we're getting a very different view of the US from the UK, but despite all of America's flaws and how weak the beer is, it seems so unexpected to me that 1/10 of people are opening a new drink every 90 minutes and somehow managing to ho…

"... how weak the beer is"

Funny, I've never heard someone take a jab at the strength of American beer. I'm curious what is the ABV of a normal beer you're used to in the UK? The 'commercial grade' American domestics tend to be about 5% maybe 4.5%. In the last decade though, 'craft'/ micro breweries have exploded so it's very easy to find stronger at any bar. In almost any convenience/ grocery store, there are plenty of 7%-9% IPAs and the like. I'll admit I like strong beer :) A lot of bars around my area will have some exotic options of 10% or more. I had one recently that was 13%! That's as much as a glass of wine. That being said, the large majority of folks are drinking beer that's 4-5%.

As far as alcohol addicts go, I learned from a friend who had to take some court ordered 'rehab' classes, that (at least in the USA) something like 90% of all alcohol is consumed by only 10% of the drinking population. That means the dirty little secret they don't want you to know is basically the entire alcohol industry is propped up by addicts.

Edit: I just clicked the WaPo story you guys were talking about, and that lines up with what I heard previously. Most people drink very moderately, but the top 10% are the cash cows for the industry.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#257

Post by jboog »

rflrob wrote: post #244
jboog wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem though. The issues is "drug decriminalization" people treating addictions like it's not a real problem for many people. Many of these folks want it to get to a point where you can quite easily buy heroin and suffer no legal consequences. I'm not saying our drug laws are just or can't be reformed but the fact that heroin is illegal prevents a LOT of people from using it. How many people will the…

> I'm not saying our drug laws are just or can't be reformed but the fact that heroin is illegal prevents a LOT of people from using it. How many people will then use, aided by these pronouncements that "Heroin isn't actually that addictive!" and ruin their lives? Do you know a lot of people who have expressed to you that they would use heroin recreationally if only it were legal? My gut is that the number isn’t larg…

You genuinely believe that there is no large group of people curious about trying a drug that supposedly offers the most euphoric feeling imaginable "better than sex" as many have claimed?

What if people tell them it's not addictive? And now it's not illegal?

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#258

Post by lisper »

jboog wrote: post #218
ChrisRR wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you ignore the price and how fast drinking once every half hour for 5 hours straight seems, that's 13.86 units of alcohol every day. So 10% of the population are in a state of being permanently hungover? It just seems odd that in the UK, binge drinking is considered to be an issue, and yet a significant percentage of the US population is drinking the equivalent of a night out on a daily basis.

When you're a high-functioning alcohol like we're talking you get to the point you can down a 12 pack of beer in a night and feel relatively fine the next morning. Maybe a slight headache or mild hangover but nothing like the bender hangovers non-alcoholics have where they are bedridden most of the day. I've since cut back a lot but in my worst post-college days I could drink the equivalent of 8-10 drinks in a night…

I was a teetotaler until my late 20s when I decided to try to develop a taste for wine for social reasons. Fast-forward 30 years and today my wife and I have a cocktail and a glass of wine most nights. That sounds like two drinks, but one day I started measuring how much alcohol I was actually putting in to the cocktails and they turned out to be triples. So technically we're having 4 drinks a day. We get a slight buzz, but never feel impaired, never drink before dinner time, and never have hangovers. When we travel we will often go a few days without drinking at all and it's no problem. A few years ago I bought a blood-alcohol meter and have never registered above the legal limit, even immediately when I feel buzzed. The highest I've ever registered is 0.04. And over the years I've used three difference BAC meters with consistent results.

I think the conclusion to draw here is not that having 4-5 drinks a day is no big deal, but that different people react to alcohol and other drugs differently. For some people, like me, it turns out to be no big deal. For others I'm pretty sure it would be a very big deal. A one-size-fits-all drug policy is never going to work.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#259

Post by umvi »

lostgame wrote: post #246
umvi wrote: post #111

> “My heroin use is as rational as my alcohol use” What an incredibly dangerous idea to promote. Do not mess with opioids. You think you are in control, until you are not.

Ugh. Come on. Be part of the solution, not the problem. We should be promoting safe use and harm reduction education , not these bullshit blanket statements such as 'do not mess with opioids'/'say no to drugs', and stop using them quick. Otherwise the people who inevitably will/do use, only hear and have only heard, 'don't do it to start' or get ostracized instead of getting the help they need or the education they n…

> We should be promoting safe use and harm reduction education

for existing users. We should not tempt people who would have otherwise never used them with false fantasies that they will be able to dabble and remain in control without getting addicted

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