Worst addiction?

[FordPrefect]

No, it definately isn't. This is an old, boring arguement. You are wrong.

 

[FordPrefect]

These aren;t my words:
Cocaine
This is something many people will go to great lengths to get at great expense.
Persons who have ready access, and allow consumption to get started, will consume
it compulsively. This most people label addictiveness, though I argue for restoring
the strict definition of addiction from classical pharmacology, which excludes it from the addictive substances. I will gladly go a few rounds on this topic, with one and all who may argue for the looser politicised definition as used in current parlance.
Undeniably its use produces a strong craving for repeated administration, but the
dosage level for the same effect does not change, so tolerance does not appear.
Likewise, withdrawal fails to occur, for no physical illness is found when its
administration is stopped. I won't allow any pharmacological meaning for the
nonsense term "psychological addiction", which is an open ended category and must
be defined politically.
A unique effect of cocaine is its failure to stimulate the satiation response. When you are waiting to feel like you've had enough, that feeling will not ever arrive. This is one way cocaine use can lead to the social/economic downfall of the user, who
will make irrational purchase decisions to continue cocaine use, at the cost of other
necessities. This does not seem to bee a hidden subconscious drive, but the user
seems fully aware at all times that fateful errors are being made. As far as I can
perceive, the decision process is in the conscious mind. I conclude that reasoning is
used, to set aside other priorities in favor of continuing cocaine ingestion to the
utter limit of conversible resourses. Note how this differs from the subtleties and
sneakiness by which other destructive habits (or behaviors) establish their destructive course. With some things, the user's perception of incipient ruin is
blocked by denial. Cocaine users may exhibit a willing intent to proceed directly to
catastrophe.
I stick to my guns. Cocaine is not a physiologically addictive substance. There are a large class of natural and synthetic substances which can bee categorized by the classical four properties of craving, dependence, tolerance and withdrawal. Cocaine is not among them. Marijuana is not among them. Heroin is addictive. Barbituates are addictive. Alcohol is addictive. Caffeine is addictive. Tobacco is addictive. To keep
pharmacology a science of rules based on observation of natural phenomona, it must
not allow value judgments based on politically convenient interpretation of the data, to supplant observations which conflict with it. This is what has occurred in
pharmacology, which allowed the strict and precise definition of addiction to be
subverted from a direct observation of a natural phenomonon, into a legal term more
in line with the predominant political agenda of drug prohibition. So "addiction" has
been permitted to become a buzzword, for repetitive behaviors the ruling class
deems undesirable.
As far as science is able to determine, cocaine consumption is repeated because the
user likes the pleasure produced by the substance and decides consciously, eyes wide open, to do it again, every time. This is a mechanism totally different from the
physiological paths which underlie the body's subversion of the personality, which is
witnessed for habituating drugs in the addicting category. It is possible to be
addicted to something you do not like to do. But the ruling political program finds it
inconvenient to allow distinguishing scientific facts on so fine a grain, for the devil theory of uncontrollable behavior by addicts enslaved to their habits has been
adopted by policy as the official truth to determine medical policy.
You may feel like I am trying to draw too fine a distinction, that the social effects of cocaine consumption are as evil and destructive as if it were the same as the
addicting substances; that the effects on behavior of an overriding desire to consume a particular substance, is the same as the effects of physiological addiction, and so trying to maintain a fine distinction is only splitting hairs with the terminology. But these arguments are from a social perspective, in other words they
are decisions politically motivated, and I feel they set an unfortunate precedent of
replacing actual data with social theory, silently renamed as data. What has happened is that a natural phenomonon has vanished as a subject for scientific study. We are no longer able to learn the hows and whys of its existence in the world, for the term is removed from the factual realm by being defined in terms of value judgments, to be used as an instrument of social control. My point is that the contrary cases of marijuana and cocaine dispel any validity in the broadened sense of the term addiction, showing it no longer pertains to any scientific basis, but is totally transformed into a perjorative in the interests of draining decision-making
power from individuals, in favor of control by institutions. Drug treatment centers
may now, with perfect consistency, apply the same methodology to a physiological
disorder, physically induced drug habituation, as to political dissent against the bases of the social structure, expressed in smoking pot.
The term addiction, now divorced from its original meaning developed within the
science of pharmacology, may now be conveniently applied to any consecutive
behavior pattern not approved by government. You can be addicted to gambling, addicted to love, addicted to any kind of thing, because you repeat a behavior
which gives you gratification. There is no substantiation of any kind, to the presumption that repeating behavior is pathological of itself, except a priori as such behavior is socially or officially cast into an undesirable light. Thus such terms as
"psychological addiction" need have no factual basis whatsoever, for they are the
projected political opinion of those within the power structure, that you keep doing
something they don't approve.
Why does cocaine make you want it so bad? Nobody knows, and under the current
conditions of repression nobody can find out. Officially, of course, the matter is
settled, for it is legally classified as an addictive drug. Physiologically, that's wrong, because it isn't. There are many millions of people who believe, to the point of certainty, that they are addicted to cocaine. Every one of them is wrong about
that, except insofar as it is a self-fulfilling prophesy, whereby they condition themselves to behave as though they are addicted. Certainly the very specific desire for cocaine, especially the smoke, can be overwhelming, yet no biochemical pathway
to produce such desire is evident, for it is definitely not the pathway of an addicting
drug creating a craving. Lower animals are affected the same way as humans, or I
might otherwise expect it could be an entirely mental construct. Such subject animal species can also become addicted to drugs, but in them as in us, cocaine is
different.
[This message has been edited by FordPrefect (edited 17 November 2001).]

 

[djtonedeaf]

FP,
can you cite a reference for that post please?

 

[JosephTHeSequel]

Yeah coke is definitley a mental addiction. Learned it in rehab.

 

[FordPrefect]

It was written by a person named Halfapint who posts at a different board.

 

[AbraMontague]

FordPerfect,
The American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine disagree with your ridiculous essay and whoever you plagarized it from.
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/addiction/addiction_definitions1.pdf
"Addiction is a primary, chronic, neurobiologic disease, with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. It is characterized by behaviors that include one or more of the following: impaired control over drug use, compulsive use, continued use despite harm, and craving."
Cocaine can easily fulfill each of these 4 criteria. Notice that nowhere does it say that physical dependence is requisite for addiction. In fact, cancer and other chronic pain patients will often develop a physical dependence on their pain medication but are NOT considered addicts unless the above behaviors are seen (and usually they aren't).
"Tolerance is a state of adaptation in which exposure to a drug induces changes that result in a diminution of one or more of the drugs effects over time."
So what you are saying is that I can snort key bumps of cocaine all night long, 15-30 minutes apart and each bump will give me the same buzz as the first one?
I would pick the rest of that stupid essay apart but it kind of speaks for itself.

 

[FordPrefect]

The American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, and the American
Society of Addiction Medicine disagree with your ridiculous essay and whoever you
plagarized it from.

I didnt plagarize anything. I stated at the top of the post that it was written by someone else and two posts down I cited the source. wtf?!?
We already know cocaine can be psychologically addictive. Your post says nothing about physical addiction...cause there is none. it does say:

nowhere does it say that physical dependence is requisite for addiction.

That's an admission right there that cocaine is not physically addictive.
[This message has been edited by FordPrefect (edited 17 November 2001).]

 

[trench]

heroin

 

[mIKeXTC]

e

 

[Sonny]

i believe heroin...and mental craving when u kicked the physical addiction is anything but short.