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Bobby Jindal signs into law bill increasing heroin penalties for dealers to 99 years

Well, I guess you're totally unfamiliar with Hart's work then, as he demonstrated what you're suggesting isn't the case. It's not saying there aren't people who wouldn't fall into such a pit, but the dangers aren't exactly what we've been led to believe is the norm. The lives of drug addicts are just as complicated as anyone else's. And just like you, they are anything but self evident.

Environment and choice, that's what shapes a life. And it is why it's way too complicated for the concept of "addict" to encompass.

The language you have been using in your posts is the language of prohibition and the war on drugs. And you have no idea what that even means. It's sickening, how insidious it is, the entire culture that prohibition and the war on drugs - and the people who have led it - has created. The sad thing is that it's been created to get inside you. Like I said, it's clear you have no or little idea what a lot of what you're saying even means, and that's sad. You're not an unloving or stupid person, that much is obvious. But intelligence, as we all know, has really nothing to do with it. At least in your posts here, you've been unknowingly enlisted in the cause of the war on drugs, and I'm guessing you probably don't even know it.

Hence why I stopped posting, and why I'm going to take another possibly permanent hiatus from this thread. While just like any addict you're responsible for your actions and what you post, but I do understand. Internalizing cultural aspects - especially language/syntax/mythologies - that promote the war on drugs happens to nearly all of us, at least at one time or another. I get it.

Understand: I'm not attacking you as a person, just the at times childishly, thoughtless content of your posts. And at times like now I have little tolerance for it, even if I can at least begin to understand it.

And really enough with this friend stuff. For every friend or person you've known who begin or continue to struggled with addiction, there are at least as many others you don't know who've been able to "somehow" moved on from what you understand as addiction. You go out and get addicted to crack and spend ever last cent of your grocery money on it if you want to prove this could happen to you. Who knows, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would. I don't think any of us would encourage it though - just as most crack users probably wouldn't.

You don't know enough about everyone else to make judgements on them like boiling down their entire selves to some narrow, bigoted addict mythos.
 
toothpastedog said:
And really enough with this friend stuff. For every friend or person you've known who begin or continue to struggled with addiction, there are at least as many others you don't know who've been able to "somehow" moved on from what you understand as addiction. You go out and get addicted to crack and spend ever last cent of your grocery money on it if you want to prove this could happen to you. Who knows, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would. I don't think any of us would encourage it though - just as most crack users probably wouldn't.

You don't know enough about everyone else to make judgements on them like boiling down their entire selves to some narrow, bigoted addict mythos.
Click to expand...

I never said everyone is like that, but many people i have known couldn't handle drug legalization. Some of my addict friends even admitted that their lives would be even worse if drugs were to become legal.
And as drugs become legal that opens up every other recreational drug besides nicotine and alcohol to a whole new demographic- People who think if it is legal it must be OK.
I don't think alcohol is a good drug, but neither is heroin. Is the solution to alcohol really to bring in MORE dangerous drugs into acceptance?
Karl Marx' statement referencing "opiate of the masses" was actually pretty smart- how are we as a society to advance in the future if everyone is going to get high constantly and legally? Look what opium did to China during British colonization- that is why China's modern drug policy is as harsh as it is (chinese drug laws are way harsher than american ones). they learned that the hard way.

Please cite the work of Hart that you are referring to, i would love to read it.
Addiction is a disorder that arises in part to recreational drugs' effect on the mesolimbic reward pathway, there has been much study behind this. and because virtually every euphoriant in existence affects the MRP somewhere along the line, this makes it easier to study.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/278/5335/45.abstract
I'm not decided on the issue of drug legalization, but there are definite risks to accept should it ever occur. It will definitely have its drawbacks.
Not a fairy-tale world.
 
God why do I do this to myself... You're posts are so out there it's embarrassing to answer them in public sometimes. Read Chasing the Scream if you want to actually learn something about drug use and the war on drugs that isn't a fabrication resting on some tiny at times unrelated kernel of truth. I'm sure you're more than capable of finding that book yourself (I am not being sarcastic).

Your posts did imply that addicts couldn't handle themselves or what you refer to as legalization. The ironic thing is that legalization/medicalization would, as it has been shown to in many cases where it has been implemented, actually do the most for addict by providing stability in their lives and increasing their standards of living (which is the opposite of prohibition and the war on drugs, in case you haven't noticed yet).

It wasn't a subtle implication - it is obvious and glaring. That on top of inaccuracy. For instance, people generally do not simply think, "Hey, it's legal, it must be safe and I'm going to do it!" There has never been a point in modern history (think when heroin and every other drugs was legal for example) that, because they could, everyone that could and society crumbled. Never happened. The reasons for that still apply today. Your statements couldn't be further from reality.

Legality has little to do with social acceptance. Do you know what really bring DANGEROUS DRUGS (think like toxic substances on the level of anthrax and eating lead) in acceptance? Prohibition. Alcohol is a great example! Look to alcohol prohibition and see the shit that happened when people were able to get away with selling anything that would have effects remotely resembling alcohol, and that's on top of impurities with poor quality alcohol that was being made clandestinely.

Likewise, there are too many assumptions in your posts for me to begin to dissect for you. Maybe someone else might be so generous, but I wouldn't hold your breath. You asked and so I'll do you the curtsy of providing you with a bit more direction on Hart, but for christ sake use a search engine. A search with "carl hart columbia cocaine" = http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/s...ces-of-crack-addicts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 With that you should be able to find any of his research. Note that article is two years old, and the NYT doesn't have such a wonderful track record for covering this stuff (like pretty much any major publication).

Everything in life has risks involved. You continue to promote the war on drugs, probably the single most destructive national and international policy that has ever existed. And you talk about Britain controlling China with Opium? You realize the US has done the same shit with the war on drugs? The US pushed, manipulated and coerced other nations to implement the US's war on drugs. Which has more risk involved? Prohibition? The war on drugs? Legalization? These are far from simple questions, but the distinctions have become obvious after 100 years of living the war on drugs.

Through your "research" I hope you come to see for yourself that neuroscience (science more broadly) has yet (and likely is simply unable) to show the cause or what's going on in the so-called "addicted brain." The idea of an addicted brain alone is the child of '80 drug war propaganda, but of course we've all picked it up and think of it as self-evidence common sense truth these days thanks to the normalization of the war on drugs. Even institutional medicine (that one actually makes a lot of sense, so it shouldn't be a surprise, however unfortunate it might be).

---------------------------------------------

You're absolutely right. It's not a fairy tale world. So open your eyes. If you would like to reply please send me a pm because I can't imagine how our back and forths add anything to this thread. I will answer at least two PM's from you (unless they're a personal attack of entirely childish), but I'm done reply here unless you or someone else has anything constructive to add. All this is doing here is sidetracking a dying thread.
 
toothpastedog said:
Everything in life has risks involved. You continue to promote the war on drugs, probably the single most destructive national and international policy that has ever existed. And you talk about Britain controlling China with Opium? You realize the US has done the same shit with the war on drugs? The US pushed, manipulated and coerced other nations to implement the US's war on drugs. Which has more risk involved? Prohibition? The war on drugs? Legalization? These are far from simple questions, but the distinctions have become obvious after 100 years of living the war on drugs.
Click to expand...
Um, you do realize that the US war on drugs in the exact opposite of what Britain was doing in China right? Britain legalized opium to decrease motivation for social change in China, and it worked. Karl Marx saw how they did that and referenced it in his famous quote. Karl Marx was strongly against all drugs because he saw what opium addiction did to Chinese prosperity.
smh...
 
In fact until the early '19 authorities did not have the power to dictate what you could you could not eat, use, drink, etc.

Heroin was used as a coughing syrup!
Prohibition at that time had to do with Chinese opium neighborhoods / smoking houses.
 
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