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How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

independent.co.uk

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Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#41

Post by roughly »

retSava wrote: post #32
el_nahual wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather: 1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs? 2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs leg…

1) safer for those stuck in consumption patterns, yes. And safer on a whole by reducing the number of new consumers. An endorsement and social acceptance via legality is the wrong way I think. Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side. 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of th…

Is there research on how the legalization of weed has affected the existing criminal sales & distribution networks?

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#42

Post by sn_master »

siftyy wrote: post #33
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.

Parent doesn't mention anything about the recovery rate, simply understanding what they're going through.

recovery rate is more applicable to rehab centers, and those publish their recovery rates as required by law. Most are pretty sad (50% or more relapse is typical).

NA/AA meetings aren't meant to offer help to any one individual, rather group support to help those who want to better themselves make the right decisions, or to simply vent in-person out to others who won't judge them.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#43

Post by Eric_WVGG »

cylon13 wrote: post #34
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.

Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.

When he said "evidence-based," he's referring to statistically recorded rates of recidivism.

You are correct, NA and AA are primarily social clubs, and there's no harm in that. But if the point is to recover from addiction, keep looking.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#44

Post by sn_master »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #43
cylon13 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.

When he said "evidence-based," he's referring to statistically recorded rates of recidivism. You are correct, NA and AA are primarily social clubs, and there's no harm in that. But if the point is to recover from addiction, keep looking.

recidivism rates are applicable to rehab centers which offer multi-week in-patient programs. they're all legally required to provide them, and most are pretty sad (50%+ is typical).

no one claims attending a meeting with a few random people and talking is a "recovery program" by any stretch of imagination. they're completely different things.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#45

Post by tremon »

el_nahual wrote: post #18
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction. Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?

Again, drugs exist and are available now . So you shouldn't think of the options as "drugs are legal and available vs drugs are illegal and unavailable". They are available in either case! Making drugs legal means that one can control the points and conditions of distribution. So one could require licensing, education, or even controlled application. Sure, you can take good, cheap, heroin, but you have to take it her…

To draw a parallel with filesharing:

"Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal movies, the more appealing illegal downloads become, so there's a profit-maximizing point somewhere along that integral."

We've all witnessed the war-on-piracy that the powers-that-be have been pursuing a few decades ago, and we've all seen it fail spectacularly. Similar to the drugs story, by going after the Napster-type filesharing systems, they created a much more lucrative black market where criminals made millions by being the first to crack protection schemes.

What reduced the problem to a manageable level? Apple Music/Spotify/Netflix. By making it legal to do entertainment in the confines of their own home, the harm to society at large was much reduced. And even better, because everything is legal now, production companies have much better insights into their market, and can better produce content that their users actually want.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#46

Post by wil421 »

tcj_phx wrote: post #19

Stimulants -- amphetamines, cocaine, etc -- have physiological effects sort-of similar to Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOI). MAOIs were sold as the first generation of anti-depressant drugs. These substances have mood-elevating benefits sort-of similar to cocaine and amphetamine, but without the euphoria and crash. Later generations of anti-depressants are less effective that the MAOIs, but MAOIs fell out use beca…

How’s does ADHD medication compare to Meth? Is it the higher dosage with Meth? When I took Aderall it said methamphetamine salt.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#48

Post by monocasa »

cylon13 wrote: post #34
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.

Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.

I mean, like half of the twelve steps are all 'stop thinking and give yourself over to God because you're broken and can't save yourself, only adherence to the program and god can'. At least in the south I've seen them push the cult aspect of it hard.

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10) Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Like, there's a few good things in there, but you can say that about most cults.

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#49

Post by [deleted] »

cylon13 wrote: post #34
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.

Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.

[deleted]

Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation

#50

Post by Synaesthesia »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #30

Lots of problems with modern Iraq can be blamed on the US invasion, and English-language media is inclined to connect issues with the war because that framing is accessible to their readership. But is there really so much of a connection here? Crystal meth epidemics have arisen among a number of peoples – white South Africans, Thais, in the US both poor Rust Belt inhabitants and some rather affluent gay subcultures,…

All of those places have something in common. They all fell from relative affluence or comfort. In South Africa, white people no longer had job guarantees. Iraq had a total collapse of it's society. And the USA has also had a decline or stagnation in middle class incomes.
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