H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction • Hacker News Board

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#41

Post by learc83 » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 6:45 AM UTC

papaver wrote: post #3

i think this quote really sums it up, "I try very hard not to use when I'm miserable, because that's what gets me into trouble." it all depends on your personality. if you can get high and be responsible you can probably cope with using in moderation. unfortunately, i imagine a majority of people are not like that. i know several friends that have very addictive personalities and getting into junk would have ruined t…

>i imagine a majority of people are not like that.

The studies cited in the article seem to challenge that assumption.

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#42

Post by slurgfest » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 6:55 AM UTC

pchivers wrote: post #11

>If heroin really is "so good," why does it have such a tiny share of the illegal drug market? Marijuana is more than 45 times as popular. One possible reason is that people are squeamish about needles and uncomfortable consuming drugs intravenously.

I am not a fan of marijuana (or any street drug) but it is incredibly hard to mess it up. It has a fantastic 'therapeutic index' - a big fat window between the dosages where it starts having useful effects and those where it starts potentially harming you.

(anecdotally I would wonder about impact on lifestyle, but killing yourself with pot would be pretty tough, and expensive)

This is a big contrast from serious downers which put the happy zone right next to the off switch, and build up tolerance...

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#43

Post by slurgfest » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 6:56 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #14

gee_totes wrote: post #4

According to this article[0] the street price of a dose of heroin is $10-$25 dollars. However, that street place is suffering 40-50 times inflation[1]. If heroin were relieved of price inflation, a dose would cost between 20 cents and 63 cents. Compare that to cigarettes. I once heard from a foreign cigarette manufacture that the cost of manufacture for a pack of cigarettes if 50 cents. A pack of cigarettes contains…

>These look like two industries that are ripe for disruption. Please go on— how would one disrupt these industries?

By competing with piles of incumbents. Who are already comfortable with illegal, armed action outside the free market...

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#44

Post by learc83 » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 6:58 AM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #28

ilaksh wrote: post #20

I can't see any good reason why someone would go to so much trouble to defend heroin, other than to assume that this is some kind of PR requested by establishment and/or intelligence groups which profit from heroin grown in places like Afghanistan (or, in the previous era, India).

Reason has an agenda they are trying to spread to you. They don't want to live in a world where something the government regulates, actually is dangerous. They want to have their cake and eat it to. "People should be able to destroy their bodies if they want. Oh yeah, and since that is not very convincing to you, here's some statistically insignificant reasons why heroin doesn't hurt you anyway, neener neener. Oh, an…

Libertarians believe that ending drug prohibition would reduce the harm to society--that the problems caused by drug use are exacerbated by prohibition.

You can argue with libertarians all you want about whether you think their proposed actions will help or hurt society, but stop acting like libertarians are monsters who don't care about the welfare of others.

>"I know this would destroy people's lives and society would decay but it is immoral for the government to do anything about anything."

You seem to have fallen for the reddit caricature of libertarians. Again you can argue with the methods, but stop acting like libertarians are heartless bastards. As a group they believe that reducing regulations and limiting government will help society.

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#45

Post by ZoFreX » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 6:58 AM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #39

blackhole wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, the exact same argument applies to alcohol and alcoholics. So, why take the risk of drinking and becoming an alcoholic? For some people who are genetically predisposed to alcoholism, this is exactly what prevents them from drinking, even though it's still legal. Yet, this small chance of being an alcoholic doesn't prevent anyone else from drinking alcohol, so why should it prevent people from doing drugs? It…

Of course everyone knows that alcoholism is garden variety addiction, and cigarettes are addictive as hell. Nobody is actually saying that being an alcoholic is any good at all; that's a straw man. But we do have some level of cultural accommodation to and regulation of alcohol. By now we have nearly the same level of facility in dealing with marijuana, which is also a drug of abuse which is not that hard to use safe…

> Of course everyone knows that alcoholism is garden variety addiction

Really? Try doing a straw poll of everyone over the age of 50 in a British pub at the weekend, see how many of them think alcohol is addictive. Then ask how many of them drink every day.

I think you are repeating the party line boogey man mantra regarding "hard drugs", alcohol does far more harm than any other drug, so how do you draw the line for "hard"? Not based on harm, clearly, not based on lethality, but instead based on... what?

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#46

Post by andrewfelix » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 7:02 AM UTC

lincolnq wrote: post #23

andrewfelix wrote: post #21

Had a good friend who was educated, healthy and ran his own business. He died from an heroin overdose shortly after selling off most of his business assets to pay for his addiction. Yes, this is one anecdote. But I bet you my anecdote is a fuck load more common than that of the successful New York business man cited in the article.

Selection and availability effects should account for this, though.

It might, but there are thousands of people with awful stories about Heroin. Negative effects extend far beyond the individual user, entire communities can be crushed by it's use.

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#47

Post by ZoFreX » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 7:02 AM UTC

andrewfelix wrote: post #21

Had a good friend who was educated, healthy and ran his own business. He died from an heroin overdose shortly after selling off most of his business assets to pay for his addiction. Yes, this is one anecdote. But I bet you my anecdote is a fuck load more common than that of the successful New York business man cited in the article.

How would you possibly know how many of your friends use heroin responsibly and in secret with no effect on their lives (a la NY business man in the article)?

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#48

Post by slurgfest » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 7:04 AM UTC

abruzzi wrote: post #19

Never tried heroin, but I had to come off oxycodone cold turkey (from about 40mg a day). My pain doctor was trying to slowly bring my down from a peak in the hospital of 150mg of Demerol every 4 hours. It was going too slowly for my patience, so (out of the hospital) I just stopped. The withdrawal sucked--about 4 days of sweats, shaking, tachycardia, and a real hard time sleeping. I ended up using pot to help get me…

40mg oxycodone is on a different level from 300mg of heroin; although the mechanism of action is pretty much the same, you are talking about radically different doses and time courses. As well as a prescribed, regularly taken drug vs. one taken ad lib for pleasure, building up a self-driven habit.

When drawing conclusions about why people have trouble getting off opiates, I'd suggest taking the same care comparing your experience to heroin addiction as you would take comparing your weird dreams to a schizophrenic's psychotic episodes.

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#49

Post by ZoFreX » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 7:04 AM UTC

shin_lao wrote: post #34

I wonder how this business man was doing with his teeth, pancreas and kidneys. I also wonder how his control of heroin would hold should he lose his job or his wife. Isn't the danger of such drugs in the things they whisper to your ears when you're beholding the abyss?

> I wonder how this business man was doing with his teeth, pancreas and kidneys.

Would uncut, correctly dosed heroin have an effect on those?

Re: H - The surprising truth about heroin and addiction

#50

Post by ngkabra » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 7:05 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #20

I can't see any good reason why someone would go to so much trouble to defend heroin, other than to assume that this is some kind of PR requested by establishment and/or intelligence groups which profit from heroin grown in places like Afghanistan (or, in the previous era, India).

The love of truth, maybe?