Wojtek said he's an ex-junkie. And, beyond that, I would say that the "opium is entirely benign" argument is junkie propaganda, whether you are one or not. No serious medical doctor would agree with it, for instance. And since when is being called a junkie such a slur, if opium has merely had its rep trashed?
> I see, so anyone who disagrees with you is a junkie or they don't hold
> humanist/democratic views?
As to views, do you think drug abuse is a neutral thing, from our view of the world, in which all human lives are equal, and in which democracy is the best, most fitting way of running things? I'm not saying anybody here disbelieves this. I'm merely suggesting that some people have not connected the dots.
> >But there is a biological basis for addiction! It's well-documented
> >physiological science. Read around outside sociology.
>
> I read the article when it came out last spring. My response to it then
> and
> now is: Duh? We also know that the brain changes in response to social
> stimuli -- big article about it back in 1992 or '3. Can't recall exactly,
> but it was in graduate school and I happened to be taking care of my MIL
> who had multi-infarct dementia -- what people often label Alzheimer's.
>
> What you missed is that I DID NOT disagree with what it said. What it
> said
> didn't undermine anything I wrote. AKA: a red herring.
So you claim that the sociology is perfectly fine, adequate to reality, and not in need of major improvement? We disagree.
> You claim there's rock solid evidence for a biological predisposition to
> addiction. Please be so kind as to back up the claim. And why is it that
> you can't be bothered to offer it to begin with? I'd say something nasty
> about slacking during grad school.... :)
>
> Even if you cough up some evidence for this rock solid basis, it doesn't
> really undermine what sociologists have said. When David Rudy wrote
> _Becoming Alcholic_, for instance, the disease model used by AA was one
> that likened the disease to an allergy. AA uses screening questions--like
> the one about blackouts--that have no basis in the literature for
> identifying an alcholic. And, of course, he never said that there's no
> biology involved in the process by which an individuals becomes addicted
> to
> alchol. He was addressing the most influential disease model at the time,
> Jellinek's Phase Model.
>
> Rudy showed that Jellinek's model (prealcholic, prodromal, crucial and
> chronic phases) was so dominant that people were reluctant to "challenge
> or
> modify some of his basic contributions, even in the face of contrary
> evidence" -- a claim made in 1973 and yet Jellinke's model was still
> dominant a decade later.
So what? That's quibbling over words and pointing out that a grassroots group started in 1935 uses some slippery metaphors. Meanwhile, the upshot of the Rudy argument is that alcoholism is a story, not a biological syndrome. That's embarrassingly false and misleading, in my opinion. And, while we're on the topic, do you think blackout drinking is a poor predictor of alcohol dependence? I'd wager it's quite robust, far more robust than almost anything sociologists have said about drug use.
> As for def. of a drug, no Goode wasn't saying drugs don't exist or
> whatever
> hairball you pulled out of your butt. At the time Goode was writing, the
> def of a drug was "any substance that alters the way the body or mind
> functions." Well, that could be a bullet, he points out. Because of
> discussions like that, they've changed the official def, to say that it's
> "any substance, other than food, which _is taken to_ change the way the
> body or the mind functions." The point was an entree into a broader
> discussion of the moralizing judgements that go on in scientific analysis.
> For instance, in the article you forwarded, they say this: "In addition to
> addiction's obvious physical and psychological damage, the condition is a
> leading cause of medical illness.
> Question: is the author saying that there's damage and then there's
> disease? Sounds like it to me. Maybe you could volunteer to write a note
> to
> Sciam and ask?
Chemical dependence is a disease, a bodily condition that creates systematic health problems so long as it persists. Why would that be controversial? What is it in your view -- a mere preference, like whether or not you like to wear suits?
> They go on: "Alcoholics are prone to cirrhosis of the liver, smokers are
> susceptible to lung cancer, and heroin addicts spread HIV when they share
> needles."
>
> Acoholics and cirrhosis, check.
>
> Smokers and lung cancer. Nicotine doesn't cause cancer. And they know
> this.
> But they do no one a favor by not making it clear that the cancer is the
> result of other substances in tobacco products. Like lead. This
> misinformation isn't benign: It means that people think that using a
> nicotine patch might incrase their risk of cancer.
That's just off base on both sides. Nobody who smokes avoids patches because they fear cancer! Puh-lease! And no smoker is going to accept nicotine pills instead of cigarettes. You know as well as I and the tobacco corps do that smoking tobacco is what nicotine is all about. Get rid of cigarettes and nobody ever uses the drug again.
> Heroin addicts spread HIV.... Well, heroin sure as shit doesn't cause HIV.
> So, why place it in the same category as alcohol and cirrhosis.
Opium addicts get desperate to obtain more opium, which leads them to participate in other unhealthy activities. What's the rate of this risk manifesting itself among the using population? I don't know, but I'd wager it's the same or higher as booze and cigs. The initial population of users is much, much lower, because most people fear the huge behavioral and socio-economic impacts of opium usage. But the smaller user population doesn't mean the junk gets credit for being healthy. Crap, what would you feeli like if your son became a junkie?
> And yes, I think we should legalize. And so do a lot of other people here.
> I'd venture a guess that 50% of us do. Snit poll time! [1]
I favor legalization, too. Two wrongs don't make a right. But legalization should not be an excuse for dishonesty about drugs. Being a smoker, an alcoholic, or a drug addict of another type are personal disasters for virtually everybody who gets or goes there.
> >The NRA wants to talk about guns as if they are a neutral
> >technology. Handguns are people killers, and their availability
> immensely
> >increases the murder rate in any society over what it would be otherwise.
> >In direct analogy, the junkies on this board want to say that opium has
> no
> >inherent problems.
>
> First of all, this isn't what they saying.
You've never heard the NRA say that guns are no problem? You and I are obviously listening to different NRAs.
Second of all, and once again,
> that their argument may sound like the NRA's means nothing so you should
> simply leave out any ref to the NRA. It doesn't improve your argument. It
> is an attempt to smear people with whom you are having an argument.
It is not. I'm not calling anybody here an NRA member. I'm saying that the "opium is benign" claim is no different logically than "guns don't kill people; people kill people" excuse.
> Kelley
>
>
> [1] (which would have to be a complicated poll b/c, while I agree with
> legalization in principle, my objection is that most legalization schemes
> don't account for the fact that legalization will seriously disrupt the
> underground economy and may well lead to the kind of problem that occured
> when prohibition was repealed and when they made gambling legal in the
> cities. We could deal humanely with those changes, I just don't expect
> that
> legalization schemes will bother to do so. (Not that they have a hope in
> hell of passing anyway.)
Legalization won't happen in this society much, if any, before socialism. And it wouldn't work, unless we reduced the social (capitalist) spurs to drug abuse. So it's a long distance run. But why let disproven hippie BS taint something so important?