> > I'll let you know it was not brought up as a provocative
> > statement.
>
> Well, unintended consequences then? :-)
Very unintended. Maybe I was naïve to think the statement wouldn't elicit such a response but the idea never crossed my mind when I asked Wojtek that question. I know doctors toss around the term opiod toxicity but they don't really mean it. It's just a lazy or perhaps more correctly a convenient way to express what they really mean. Toxicity is classified in three ways.
1) pharmologically - meaning CNS injury
2) pathologically - meaning tissue damage (impaired hepatic function being an example)
3) genotoxic - meaning creation of benign or malignant neoplams or tumors
Back in the early 1980's there was an attempt to link opium use in the Middle East with eosophageal cancer and bladder cancer. Both failed to show any causality with opium use. Opium is non-toxic and therefore a benign substance. I never claimed its use in our society was benign, only the substance itself. The connection to the guns and bullets comparison has me stumped though. I don't see the analogy as holding water as it were.
John Thornton