Addiction and Recovery

[Slarti the White]

This thread is a home for the threadjack about addiction in the trump spawn thread -- I think this topic is certainly worthy of its own discussion. The entire threadjack is below.

I have both snorted and smoked cocaine in my wayward youth, and it had a different effect on me. Never once did it turn me into a raging stupid right-wing crybaby asshole. I think we may be treating cocaine unfairly. I wonder if there could be some other, additional reasons he thinks and talks and behaves like that. Obviously the money has bought him a great deal of wisdom, maturity, and inner peace, you can see that I hope.

Speaking of which:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/ ... se-cocaine

I have both snorted and smoked cocaine in my wayward youth, and it had a different effect on me. Never once did it turn me into a raging stupid right-wing crybaby asshole. I think we may be treating cocaine unfairly. I wonder if there could be some other, additional reasons he thinks and talks and behaves like that. Obviously the money has bought him a great deal of wisdom, maturity, and inner peace, you can see that I hope.

You didn't start as a raging stupid right-wing crybaby asshole. The blow just sped him up, like playing you records that were 33 and 1/3 @ 78.

I don't really have an opinion on cocaine, but I do strongly believe that heroin should not only be legalized, but it should be distributed freely to addicts as required.

That is the ONLY way to remove the incentive for the drug barons to push the shit onto the market. Safe, measured doses will keep people alive and reduce crime. If it is free to the addict, then importers no longer have the incentive to increase their 'market'. If they can't make any money off it then they'll stop sending it over.

Busting middleman and street dealers does nothing but fill up the jails. Busting shipments on the dock does nothing but push up the street price. Addicts will sell their grandmothers teeth to buy dope, and the higher the price the more incentive the importers have. Pushing up the price just makes it more profitable for the importer who doesn't give a damn about the middlemen or the street dealers - there are always more to take their place.

Nothing about prohibition does anything to suppress demand or incentive to 'manufacture' more addicts.

And, yes, I do understand that this couldn't be done overnight with a snap of the fingers.

While I certainly understand your intent here (and even agree in principle), I think the situation on the ground is much more complicated. As someone in recovery (who interacts regularly with people who, shall we say, have had a lot of experience in this area), I don't think that legalizing a single drug like heroin would have much difference. I was at a retreat and someone made a comment regarding not understanding why dealers cut their drugs with fentanyl -- after all, the point was to get repeat customers, right? Someone else explained that when people on the street hear that someone ODed because whatever they were using was cut with fentanyl, they wanted to get some for themselves -- because that was the "good stuff". Drugs become more dangerous as they are refined into forms that are more powerful and have quicker effect. My drug of choice was marijuana (which was legal in my state). It didn't become a real problem until I had access to dabs and concentrate -- in other words, until I could get as high as I ever got in a few hits off a vape pen (which I would do every morning immediately after I got up).

You're right that nothing about prohibition does anything to suppress demand, but the 'manufacture' of addicts has nothing to do with any particular drug nor is it limited to drugs. One of the definitions of addiction that I like is that an addiction is anything you need to lie about (and remember, the first lie is always to yourself). In any case, nothing can really help an addict until they admit they have a problem and find a recovery program that works for them. It's like a diet -- any diet that puts you in calorie deficit will cause you to lose weight, but it doesn't matter how good your diet plan is if you cannot follow it. And if you think that talking about diets is out of place in a discussion about drug addiction, I would argue that the most dangerous and costly and prevalent addiction in our culture is sugar. Obesity has a far greater societal cost than heroin or oxycontin or fentanyl or alcohol or any other recognized drug -- probably than all of them combined.

We need to attack this problem from a number of different angles -- reducing harm (your suggestion falls under this category), destigmatizing all kinds of addiction, and ensuring that anyone who wants recovery can find the help they need to build and maintain a program that works for them. Because anything that focuses on whatever addicts are abusing rather that the psychological and physiological condition of addiction can never be more than a temporary and cosmetic solution at best.

I think we are in violent agreement.

My angle is to remove the profit motive and provide the recovery program that works for the addict.

If the drug manufacturers cannot make money they will stop shipping it. If the addicts can get it for free they won't have to keep commiting crimes to pay for it. If that supply is clean and consistent, they might live to survive the rehab program. If there are no customers and no supply, middlemen will have no reason to 'grow the market'.

And, I repeat, I do understand this isn't easy or one size fits all. A step-wise process is required. Step one: decriminalization: for example see Wikipedia: Drug Policy of Portugal. I expect that the main objectors to this step would be the operators of the for-profit jails.

When I was in Oz, parents set up safe places for their children to shoot up heroin. Clean needles, people to help them, prevent overdoses, provide food & a safe place to be. Once the users had a safe place, some of them had a less chaotic and safer life and lower amounts of the drug. Instead of criminalizing them, they were accepted as having a health problem.

I don't know what came of it. I recall that some users reduced use to the point that they could a job. Others went into rehab after their lives became less chaotic.

Well I certainly seem to have started another extended threadjack, for which I apologize.

But let's get back to the Trump spawn, por favor.

[Reddog]

I read this nearly 50 years ago. Very informative
“ Licit and Illicit Drugs: The Consumers Union Report on Narcotics, Stimulants, Depressants, Inhalants, Hallucinogens, and Marijuana–including Caffeine, Nicotine and Alcohol”