This kind of talk is precisely where the problem lies.
No other class of drugs has been so overly romanticized and at the same time so overly demonized as the opiates.
It's something that amounts to a mythology. They're paradise and they're the devil. They'll offer you unparalleled happiness and then they'll drag your life into the dirt.
And heavy users who feel trapped in their habit will re-in force this mythology amongst themselves. 'Treatment' facilities will routinely re-in force these ideas in the people they're supposed to help, with predictably disastrous consequences.
As a researcher AND one - time 'junkie' I believe my opinion is valid on this matter.
And I'd like to just throw out one specific statistic and ask everyone who reads this to think LOGICALLY about the facts :
In any given year, the mean rate of addiction to pharmaceutical morphine is a paltry 2 %, while the equivalent rate of addiction to street heroin is around a whopping 71%.
Given that THESE ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME DRUG, and that if anything medical - grade morphine packs a stronger punch than adulterated illicit heroin, being a much purer substance (I had some in the hospital recently and that shit knocked me sideways ; loved it btw), exactly HOW are you going to explain this glaring discrepancy by reference to the pharmacology of the drug alone -?
Same goes for the much higher rate of addictive behaviour in relation to crack vs. powder cocaine YET IT'S THE SAME DRUG.
The only way to account for this observable phenomenon is that what we call addiction isn't a simplistic function of the chemistry of a drug, it's a function of the motivation of the user.
Medical patients are not looking to morphine for a high. They're merely looking for physical pain relief, and in the vast majority of cases that's all they will experience. Indeed in a controlled laboratory experiment, well over 90 % of opiate - naive subjects administered an injection of morphine did not find the effects to be in any way pleasurable, and did NOT opt for a repeat administration of the drug even though this was offered.
Users of illegal heroin meanwhile see themselves as junkies and the only thing they look for is the high, which becomes the whole focus of their lives.
That's the only real difference between those two populations.
I'm not saying here that people don't get addicted to drugs. I'm saying the drugs aren't doing the addicting.
'A person ATTACHES THEMSELVES to a drug, by virtue of being enamoured with its effects, by looking to it as a solution.'
# deep breath #
... and here is where I'm about to bare more of myself than I ever intended to; but if this can help anyone think straight it'll be worth it:
I did BOTH those things during my addicted days.
I used to be totally convinced that A) heroin was legit the best thing on the planet and provided this incomparable joy nothing else that the world had to offer could ever conceivably come close to; and B) that it was this magical elixir that could take away all my pain, an absolute existential necessity without which I couldn't cope with life for a day etc etc.
It was my 'forbidden love' (MAJOR CRINGE). It was my only comfort. It was my lifeblood. It was my EVERYTHING.
.. These days I see it for what it is ; a mere chemical that can produce pleasurable physical effects which I still enjoy, and nothing more.
Yet another fact I'd like to point out for everyone's consideration is that historically, those human societies who held no cultural belief that intoxicants could 'take you over' or make you 'lose control', exhibited little to no such corresponding behaviours. Food for thought maybe -?
We need to stop mythologizing substances and making them out to have near - supernatural powers to offer either some ultimate salvation or destruction. They can get you high.
That's literally IT. Depending on whether it's a sedative, stimulant or hallucinogenic, pharmacologically ALL that they do is either slow your functions down, speed your functions up, or alter your perceptions. That is the factual limit of their chemistry.
Whatever else you feel you experience under their influence is already not a primary pharmacological function of the drug, but a secondary function of your brain's interpretation of its effects.
Ask any chemist which exact compound or molecule of any given drug PHYSICALLY contains 'addictiveness' , or compulsion or temptation, the way an orange contains vitamin C. He won't be able to answer that BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE.
No drug is either objectively in - and - of - itself good or bad.
It's HOW you use them and WHY you use them that matters.
