81–90 of 90 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wonder how this business man was doing with his teeth, pancreas and kidneys. Would uncut, correctly dosed heroin have an effect on those?
Where are you going to find uncut heroin? Are you going to join the Taliban?
Disregarding the pro/con heroin issue, this article also illuminates that anti-drug campaigns are having a "facts crisis". If you say "x drug is bad for you", you should also be able to say why and how. To memory-quote from a pregnancy leaflet we got a few years back: - You should avoid drinking alcohol during pregnancy, because it can cause harm to the child's nervous system in the early stages. - You should avoid s…
That's very likely because there are many serious studies about the effects of tobacco and alcohol on the fetus, but not that many for hashish.
But still, they should at least say that. "The effects of hashish on the fetus are not well studied, and doctors heavily recommend abstinence."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> killing yourself with pot would be pretty tough, and expensive As far as I know there's not a single death directly caused by the substance yet.
Other than those inconvenient people who have died as a direct result of the errors of drivers under the influence of the substance, of course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wo…
It is a convenient ploy to pretend all these things in the article or simply make counter-intuitive statements. I think a libertarian should be more like "Oh, so heroin actually makes you more productive and a better person? Well, I don't really care but the government should stay out of it."
A true libertarian view is that the government should just stay out of it, whether it harms or not. I am not making a judgment about that basic position. I think that people that proclaim to be libertarians don't want to state their true beliefs because they know they are going to be made fun or at least not taken seriously in practical society.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There are plenty of people who aren't libertarians at all who disagree with the War on Drugs. I don't think it's inherently immoral for the government to regulate hard drugs, but pragmatically I think as a policy it's a failure, with negative consequences for everybody..
I think addiction has less to do with the 'drug' and more to do with the person. Be it heroin, pain killers, sex, gambling, smoking, or alcohol segments of society are able to use these in a way that does not interfere with their own life or those of people around them. There are also people who use these as a means of escape or have limited coping resources. It is not that the cigarette is bad, or the pain killer is…
This experiment was not well-received in its day, but in recent years, the line of thought is becoming popular, as people who work in drug treatment realize that the paradigm is very helpful when treating people in recovery (ie, you have to identify the reason why people feel compelled to seek external relief, be it anorexia/bullemia/marijuana/alcohol/heroin, or else you're just patching over the symptoms).
As for your last point, I'd point out that what most people don't ever see are the people who use drugs responsibly and without any problem - there's a selection bias afoot which causes society to overestimate the harms associated with drugs (and underestimate the harms of the policies associated with them, since they also never see the people locked away).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So then the analysis becomes the calculus of whatever benefits there might be as a function of the odds of use 'without serious consequences' whilst considering the potential outliers of serious negative physical and psychological consequences, including death, all the while ignoring the consequences of the realities of the present legal environment, as though disagreeing with the moral rightness of what actually exi…
I'm not sure who you are arguing with. OP said this: "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." The article specifically refutes that. It cites studies that show the majority of heroin users are able to use heroin in moderation. Also you should edit your post to make it a bit easier to read. It's quite long…
i speak from experience and have seen the results of what happens to kids that mainline h. if you smoke or even ingest heroin its way way easier to do it in moderation because you don't reach the highs that shooting it produces.
most kids that shoot, try to get to a state of almost pure euphoria where your body is in pure ecstasy and you come in and out of lucid dreams. once you try that all other forms of consumption seem like a waste.
i don't believe its easy to shoot up in moderation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wo…
I haven't fallen for any Reddit caricature, I just actually know what libertarianism is. I'm not saying any libertarians are monsters. Apparently some just want their cake and eat it to. L) Actually, you're wrong, a pure libertarian view has no judgment about whether or not people do better on heroin than people normally think, or that heroin only has bad effects because of the big bad government. It's like libertari…
The closest thing you could get to a "pure" libertarian philosophy is that libertarians are against coercion.
Whether that coercion is public or private has no bearing. You seem to have distilled libertarians beliefs down to "government bad"--a clear caricature.
Many (in my experience most) libertarians support the existence of government to provide services they believe the private sector can't--some don't. And yes, Most libertarians want to limit government and supplement it with voluntary association, but only because they believe that is what's best for mankind, not because of some irrational hatred of government.
"Government bad" is not the central tenant of libertarian philosophy, that you think it is.
But you seem to know more about what libertarians think than libertarians themselves. Let's take a look at some of your wording.
>I just actually know what libertarianism is
> I think a libertarian should be...
>A true libertarian view is...
>I think that people that proclaim to be libertarians don't want to state their true beliefs...
The beliefs that fall under the term libertarianism are so varied that libertarians themselves can't agree on a definition--How can you possibly come here and decide what is and isn't a libertarian view? Libertarian beliefs range from anarcho-capitalists to libertarian socialists. Everyone from tea party protesters to Noam Chomsky call themselves libertarians.
Libertarians haven't been able to agree on these issues for decades, so it's very kind of you to come here and clear it up so nicely.
As someone in the medical field, this article does a very good up job of restoring the balance and correcting some preconceptions regarding substance dependence and addiction - ie. that not all substances are going to lead to lifelong dependence and addiction, and in fact it only occurs to a small percentage. This is established medical fact and is taught in all medical schools now. However I worry that it might make…
This is really good to hear from someone in the field, thank you. Those numbers for the methadone program could be purely from population growth, but then considering the state of the world its probably not entirely either. (Not that I'd know)