Sociology has been miserable failure on this topic, IMHO. Addiction is proving to have a rock-solid and powerful biological basis. It is a disease.
And BTW, since when do you get to separate the lifestyle impacts of drugs from the drug itself? That's exactly the same as what the NRA says about guns.
Ordinary people know all this, and the left should stop pretending its all just a bummer laid on us heads by the Man. Drugs are fucking people up in this world, and we should be providing solutions, not excuses.
> On Behalf Of snitsnat
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 2:47 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] opium deaths?
>
> There are some great sociology of drugs texts out there that explain how
> so
> much of our popular assumptions about illicit drugs simply don't hold up
> in
> the literature. The best stuff I read was by Erich Goode. He pokes holes
> in
> the very definition of a drug itself.
>
> Even claims about addiction mix up physical and psychological addiction,
> with many people unaware that what appears to be a physical addiction is
> really a psychological one. Also, according to a few studies, even users'
> claim about lack of appetite and poor nutrition don't hold up when addicts
> are in environments where the drug and food is free. I could be wrong
> about
> this, since the research I read was from the early 90s...