>> 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
>
> Even if opium is nontoxic to tissue, what effect does it have on human
> abilities and behaviors? Water is nontoxic and has very little
> impact on abilities and behaviors. Is opium just like water?
>
> What I'm trying to get you to admit is that there is one very specific
> biological impact of opioids -- their very strong tendency to
> activite or create dependency circuits in the brain, with a whole
> train of strong consequences that cannot logically be separated from
> the substance itself and the brain reactions it engenders.
I think it's the other way around, the activated dependency is prone to developing opiate use circuits in the brain(psychologically, if not neurologically). [heh]
If you ever want to meet a social culture of co-dependent people, hang out with opiate or barbituate users. Even the "economically maintained" ones have a codependency streak a mile wide.
Funny thing, I meet a lot of hard-core junkies that claim to be Marxists, until I start pinning them down on what they've done to help the cause. Highly intelligent, well read on the issues, and absolutely unreliable and inactive, junkie Marxists make hedonistic pot smokers(me) look like full time activists in comparison.
Leigh =====