381–390 of 692 posts
This is legitimately dangerous reporting. Heroin is ranked in the top 3 of addictive chemicals and all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug.
Stigma around drug use is dangerous. This is extremely evident from the state of treatment of heroin addiction in society today.
I don't really see how challenging this stigma is more dangerous than pandering to the status quo here.
Man, I read this as someone who tried to use opioids and I just couldn't chip. It spiraled into full blown physical dependence. I guess i'm the type with an underlying psychiatric illness which drove my usage and denial. That there exists people like this person who can chip (controlled use of opiates) always intrigues me -- as this drug was the ultimate pathway to euphoria and thus I became the mouse hitting the but…
As a teen I made opium from poppies around the neighbourhood. After smoking it once I threw the rest out. The intensity of how perfect it felt was alarming. I remember within minutes thinking I'll become addicted to it if I don't get rid of it. Despite that being a scary prospect, I kept feeling great the entire time. It really beats any bad feeling out of you. Incredibly creepy. I was a dumb teenager (I'm still not…
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The problem with that attitude is when the body count gets high enough, there is incredible pressure to 'do something' - because enough people are terrible at judging this (or don't have the right friend group, or whatever) that we end up with huge crime problems, destroyed lives, and other social ills. The libertarian 'you can do what you want and it's your own responsibility' is great until the people who obviously…
And it seems to have worked ( source : Dutch and old enough to remember what it seemed like in the 80ies ).
This is legitimately dangerous reporting. Heroin is ranked in the top 3 of addictive chemicals and all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug.
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…
No. The worst that can happen to him is that he is pulled over by a cop in the parking lot. Gets charged with possession of heroin. Goes to jail for a couple nights, then looses his job/pension/car/house/wife/kids (in whatever order) and winds up on the street. Regardless of the biological realities of heroin, the realworld criminal consequences of regular heroin possession can be worse.
And I have yet to meet any longterm drug user who hasn't on occasion sold some to a friend. Get caught "dealing" and you will face an entirely different legal regime.
This guy's whole viewpoint seems to be pinned on "it's not addiction if it's not negatively affecting the rest of your life" (yes, I know this is a major criteria for a lot of medical diagnosis, addiction included). The problem is that what it takes "negatively affect the rest of your life" depends a lot on what role you have in society. Short of pornography producer, fantasy fiction author, songwriter and other prof…
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I think you're missing the point of the article a bit. Everyone knows Heroin is dangerous and it's iterated on in the article as well. Only responsible and healthy individuals should self-use drugs, generally speaking. Then you can also argue that you might not have lost your friends only because of Heroin the substance, but also how people with heroin addiction is "treated" and frowned upon in society. I think what…
> Only responsible and healthy individuals should self-use drugs, generally speaking. The funny thing I've been reading the article and the tone of it reminded me of heroin addicts who was not hit by their addiction heavily yet. I mean, Carl Hart thinks he is a responsible user, that he have an ability to decide for himself. It doesn't seem so for me. It is hard to tell, having as a data only one interview with him.…
> If Carl Hart wanted to prove that he is not an addict, he should stop using heroin for a couple of years, and then try to state his freedom from an addiction with a straight face.
So by that logic... we should only believe that you're not an alcohol addict after you stop using alcohol for a couple of years?
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Not defending drug use at work, but if you're to be fired it should be for the performance related issues you mentioned caused by the drug, not because of the drug itself. Edit for more context: Depending on the drug, substances consumed outside of working hours would still show up in a drug test. Firing someone for something they do outside of work shouldn't be acceptable. If you can prove they consumed drugs that w…
Do you have the same attitude to other safety procedures? If an electrician routinely, consciously failed to check the mains had been turned off before working do you think he shouldn't be reprimanded until he electrocutes himself or someone else?
This is legitimately dangerous reporting. Heroin is ranked in the top 3 of addictive chemicals and all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug.
The dangers of the drug mostly come from its legal status and that it is being adulterated with various substances in the unregulated market. People also don't get a leaflet that they can consult on the strength or dosage so often they overdose. Medical grade heroin is not as dangerous as people supporting prohibition would like it to be. You can take clean heroin for decades and be perfectly fine. This would rather…
This seems to me to be a excessively myopic way of thinking about it. To the point of amounting to rationalization.
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> Who decides that someone is a responsible and healthy adult? You do. It's not up to someone to decide, you're responsible for your own body and your own decisions to improve/harm it. I don't think they are saying advising governments to setup some sort of screening process for this. It's more for the people who are interested in the drugs themselves. When I first started getting interested in drugs, many pushed the…
>> Who decides that someone is a responsible and healthy adult? > You do. It's not up to someone to decide, you're responsible for your own body and your own decisions to improve/harm it. That's obviously not that black and white. If it was, then breathalyzer interlocks wouldn't be a thing, for instance.
I was thinking in the context of "Should I be able to use drugs", which we normally leave up to the individual to decide, except for _those_ drugs that we don't leave up to the individual to peruse on their own.
The only bit I will agree with is that addiction is not caused by the drug itself, and is typically the result of childhood trauma. With that drug use is not a solution for dealing with that trauma, dealing with that trauma directly through therapy and mediation is a much better solution.