I read this a few hours ago and didn't decide to comment then. But I just have to.
I just lost my brother-in-law to heroin overdose. He overdosed because he went into rehab, came out, and then used far more than his body could tolerate. This is unfortunately common. Not because he mixed it with alcohol or antihistamines or whatever.
Overall, his entire life has been extremely tragic. He was a good guy at heart. He was a hard worker and did good work in general.
However, he did did A LOT of crazy things. He was the poster child for "your emotional development stops at the point you got addicted to heroin". He basically acted like a troubled 13 yr old in a 40 yr old's body. This craziness has caused a LOT of problems over the years, especially for his daughters.
I get that the popular notions of drug use are wrong, but when is that not true of anything? Drug use does itself cause a lot of problems. While some people may be able to use them without any issues, many cannot.
The way a lot of this is phrased, it makes it sound like drugs are fine and there is a conspiracy to demonize them. While the popular notion of them isn't perfectly balanced, it is not the case that they are just fine for people to use.
This article is way out on facts.
This guy should better read some science based books like the of Gabor Mate, 'in the realm of hungry ghosts'. Inside this books it is well explained in detail, if drugs create addictions, why humans take drugs, what happens to the brain on drugs, what happens in long term usage and what somehow all users share in common, from their emotional journey. Its about getting love, feeling seen, feeling rewarded, ..from friends, next one's and society itself or more often, in the search for rest from trauma and depression....
Damn nautilus this article was reputation hurting.
I'm sorry to hear about your brother-in-law. I've met many people who have had similar issues with alcohol. And yet, myself and many people are also able to use it in balance, in a way that contributes positively to our well-being.
More lives have been destroyed by alcohol than have ever even tried heroin. What you are describing sounds no different than an alcoholic. The whole point of this article, and Dr. Hart's research in general, is that it's not ok to demonize some drugs over others just because they are culturally accepted. Addiction is addiction, and there's zero evidence to support the fact that heroin is any more addictive
or dangerous than alcohol.
I can feel your pain.
I flagged the parent post because I think that it’s extremely dangerous and I have no idea how it’s still on the top of the front page given the mountain of falsehood written by what is clearly a disillusioned, high functioning, heroin addict that can’t accept his condition.
You, guys, are literally killing people every minute that this shit is up, believe me.
This is legitimately dangerous reporting. Heroin is ranked in the top 3 of addictive chemicals and all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug.
Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job.
I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things they'll never retain and at the end of the month they will lose a finger or toe or suffer a massive back injury and get fired. The back injury usually turns the casual heroin into constant endless heroin.
Drug tests exist in my field for a really valid reason and it has nothing to do with having a problem but becoming one.
I think you're missing the point of the article a bit. Everyone knows Heroin is dangerous and it's iterated on in the article as well. Only responsible and healthy individuals should self-use drugs, generally speaking.
Then you can also argue that you might not have lost your friends only because of Heroin the substance, but also how people with heroin addiction is "treated" and frowned upon in society.
I think what the article is trying to say is that harm reduction is a much more human and possibly effective approach to fighting real addition. Compared to other ways, which some of them include "there is no such thing as responsible drug use, it's all addiction" and treating people as such.
>all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug
The experiences of your friends is anecdotal. This article discusses the mechanisms of the drug, both the physical and personal cause of addiction, the common factors that lead to death, and the rate of users that end up addicted.
The dangers of the drug mostly come from its legal status and that it is being adulterated with various substances in the unregulated market. People also don't get a leaflet that they can consult on the strength or dosage so often they overdose.
Medical grade heroin is not as dangerous as people supporting prohibition would like it to be. You can take clean heroin for decades and be perfectly fine. This would rather not apply to alcohol or other legal drugs.
It’s not anecdotal, and he’s not just talking about heroin. He’s been involved in pharmacology studies for over 20 years.
I wish people didn’t dismiss Carl Hart immediately out of hand. Prohibition has never been a successful strategy. People are going to buy drugs no matter what. The biggest problem we have with drugs in the US is that people are uninformed about safe drug use and they are unable to easily verify the purity of the drugs they buy.
Is it just a matter of degrees though? Lots of people have ruined lives (sometimes ended lives) due to alcohol as well. We expect people to use alcohol responsibly, and there is social stigma and other consequences when it's not used responsibly. But we accept that people are free to choose to use alcohol if they want to. Why don't we have the same attitude towards other drugs?
Hard agree. I've lost some loved ones to meth, and it tears up whole communities. When I was young I was lax about drugs, but after seeing the same story over and over...drug addiction is real and it hurts.
Yes, let’s have your anecdotal experience be the basis for curbing speech.
I’ve lost dozens of friends and family to alcoholism and drunk driving.
I can’t really get behind the cherry picking; society is being damaged in other real ways to a much greater extent than heroin, yet we find the ennui to overlook them; freedom of choice, speech, too expensive to bother, political authority...
Portugal has the model we should adopt and let this be as solved a problem it can be.
Sorry, I call BS. First, ranked by whom? Besides internet listicles, I mean. Second, those rankings, valid or not, are always a mix of legal and illegal drugs, with legal ones like alcohol, nicotine, and benzodiazepines sitting above heroin, morphine, and opium. Not to mention caffeine, which we begin feeding to children at extremely young ages alongside the amphetamines we pump them full of if they have trouble paying attention when locked in a classroom all day.
Third, as someone else says below, stories about your friends are also anecdotes. (I'm sorry, genuinely, that they died.) You don't know "the reality" of heroin because there are a litany of such realities - and here's a scientist telling you about his. The thousands (more?) who use heroin like my aunt uses a snifter of brandy at Christmas don't appear on anyone's radar because they're not dying and they're not rocking the boat. I could go on and on about the lives lost or ruined by alcohol in my family tree alone, let alone just "people I know", but I'm not terrified and calling to ban alcohol.
Finally, that so many people on a web forum whose userbase is wealthier, whiter, and way more privileged than the population at large rushing breathlessly into a post to call a black man (from the ghetto of Miami FL, no less) who uses small amounts of opiates "dangerous" is, excuse me, pretty effing rich. I thought tech-libertarians were supposed to be less reactionary.
The fascinating thing about this stuff is that you can have outlier people. For instance, tobacco is supposed to be highly addictive.
Well, I picked up smoking from a girlfriend in college and we used to smoke all the time. Like ten cigs a day for a year and a half. Real bad, right?
Well, one day, I decided "Meh. I'll just stop" and I did. Not because of any reason. I just chose not to.
Now cigarettes are way addictive but I just chose to stop. More addictive than Benzos and shit and I just stopped cold turkey without any other reason.
Many of my friends struggled with quitting but eventually did. But I did it way easy. It's unlikely that I'm some super outlier, but clearly I'm some near the right edge of the bell curve in ease of exiting cigarette dependence.
That makes me think there are other outliers. This guy must be a heroin outlier. And considering the dependence inducing strength of that drug, he must be a far outlier.
In the science of addiction what people have found is that if you change your environment you can literally get rid of any addiction. The studies from this are from Vietnam.
Experts were expecting an unprecedented heroin epidemic from veterans returning from the Vietnam war as drug use among soldiers was rampant. Turned out these soldiers came back and were no longer addicted. Scientists are guessing the causal factor for the loss of addiction was a "change in environment." It is literally the same thing that happened to the European person who replied to your post. Your brain hard wires dependencies to certain drugs but when you change your environment it may trigger something in your brain to actually unconsciously eliminate these dependencies. This makes evolutionary sense.
No doubt about it, people think that the above description means that the addiction is some sort of conscious decision. It is not the case. Addition is real, but the tricks to get out of addiction may be simpler then most people think.
So the question to ask is, when you quit tobacco, were you in the process of moving? Were there big changes going on in your life that would change the environment around you?
I don't know why you'd assume you're the outlier. Never mind the differences between physical and psychological dependence and problem use (which can happen without dependence, and one can be dependent but not using problematically), you personally experienced underwhelming withdrawal effects on multiple drugs that don't all affect the same parts of your brain, and some more physically addictive than others (benzos on top of that list). As for your friends, you know about their struggles because they had struggles in the first place. Just as the news doesn't report things when nothing bad happens, it's unlikely that, with the potential of stigmatization and jailtime, most people would volunteer something that caused them no issues but can only cause issues if they let it be known. If I were in your shoes I'd not assume that you and this guy happens to be the outliers, but rather, selection bias, the well-documented history of our drug laws being based on racial panics (Chinese for opiates, cocaine for African-Americans, marijuana for Mexicans, the crack sentencing disparity, et cetera) that happens to fund a lot of the economy via the prison-industrial complex, it's not much of a leap to think that a great deal of the harm linked to drug use is linked really to the various behavior undertaken to hide from detection and not necessarily from the drugs themselves, most of which - diamorphine included - are classified as having some medical use somewhere, although for whatever reason MDMA and marijuana are classified as having none. I think it's not hard to buy into the idea that problematic use is not the outlier because that's been taught to us for decades. But if your personal experience doesn't indicate that, why jump directly to thinking that you're the odd man out?
I used to smoke a cigarette or three a year. Get drunk on NYE, smoke a couple cigs. Wake up the next day with a hangover and have zero impulse to ever touch a cigarette again for another year.
I outright abused alcohol early in 2020 because shit got a bit cray-cray. Then just stopped because alcohol got boring. Done that a lot with alcohol.
Had an experience with Xanax several years ago though and I'm not touching that stuff again ever unless I'm terminal (then, yes, please). Still managed to identify the onset of addiction and stop it before it really got going, but I'm not touching that chemical again.
Addiction is an incredibly fascinating endless hole to get into, including these outlier folks.
My wife for example has struggled to quit smoking for at least 10 years. As in very hardcore struggle.
When I was young my father managed to quit from a 3 pack a day habit to nothing cold turkey. But it was obviously pretty tough on him during the process and took a couple of years to really break out of.
My brother has a pretty bad pot addiction, a relatively harmless drug with almost no known chemical mechanism for addiction. Yet he can't shake it and it's haunted him his entire life.
I'm a bit like you w/r to tobacco. I occasionally smoke cigars and have played around with cigarettes from time to time. Once I lose interest I just stop and it's over. No urge or desire or anything else.
On the other hand, I have a bad day at work and all I want to do is shove shit food in my mouth.
Man, I read this as someone who tried to use opioids and I just couldn't chip. It spiraled into full blown physical dependence. I guess i'm the type with an underlying psychiatric illness which drove my usage and denial.
That there exists people like this person who can chip (controlled use of opiates) always intrigues me -- as this drug was the ultimate pathway to euphoria and thus I became the mouse hitting the button for more more more. If you're on the chipping path I hope you can find peace just for today.
I am pro-legalization of all drugs with some FDA oversight on quality.
Opioids are insanely and ~~instantly~~ quickly addictive. I accidentally became addicted after knee surgery.
When the pain subsided, I stopped taking them, and within a day I found myself curled up in a ball and wanting to rip my own skin off. It's really true when addicts describe it as "being uncomfortable in your own skin".
The moment I realized I was experiencing withdrawal, I flushed the meds down the toilet and just suffered through it for a couple days.
Never ever touch heroin. Stay away from prescription opioids unless it's really really needed, and make sure it's short term only.
As a teen I made opium from poppies around the neighbourhood. After smoking it once I threw the rest out. The intensity of how perfect it felt was alarming. I remember within minutes thinking I'll become addicted to it if I don't get rid of it. Despite that being a scary prospect, I kept feeling great the entire time. It really beats any bad feeling out of you. Incredibly creepy.
I was a dumb teenager (I'm still not very smart) but I'm grateful I had the intuition to realize how dangerous it was. The only way I can describe it was that I felt the pleasure overwhelming my ability to reason, and that felt very disabling.
Because it’s not the ultimate pathway to euphoria for everyone.
Some of us don’t like the “sinking into oblivion” feeling of that class of drugs. I don’t want to feel like my IQ has been sliced in half. Really hate it actually.
The dragon to chase is of the functional businessman’s variety- cocaine. I’d rather take something that enhances my life experience, turns conversation in liquid gold oozing from mouth. Opiates and barbiturates temporarily hide your problems under a blanket of haze, confusion, and constipation. No thanks.
I've been given opioid prescriptions a few times in my life, and I've never found myself wanting to take them for their own sake or suffering from withdrawal afterward.
It's probably some variable physiological response - hopefully one day we'll have a good way of profiling a priori which people may have difficulty with using opioids in a controlled fashion so people don't have to suffer to find out they're among the unlucky ones. (Or maybe we'll come up with either a new class of drugs to replace opioids entirely, or a cocktail to block the adverse effects...)
My wife can have a cigarette once and a while when she drinks and it's no big deal, last time I did that (6 months after I had quit) it took me 6 or 7 years to quit again.
My dad used to say the exact same thing, until he lost his job his family, and his life. He used to pretend that he was "functioning", and that his drug use wasn't a problem. This is a classic example of someone who we will read about losing their job and life in 10 years or less.
The only bit I will agree with is that addiction is not caused by the drug itself, and is typically the result of childhood trauma. With that drug use is not a solution for dealing with that trauma, dealing with that trauma directly through therapy and mediation is a much better solution.
This sounds like dangerous clickbait. It's entirely expected that someone whose job it is to study the effect of drugs would have a much better understanding of how to not become addicted
His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription drugs but I don't think any of them are addicts
Which means that the other less common drugs must be a lot more addictive to bring the number down to 70%
I get the point the article is trying to make, but its headline and opening paragraphs frame it more as a "decriminalise all drugs" article
Just like everyone may need a bank loan (which is totally socially acceptable), sometime you may need a happiness/energy/relief/whatever loan.
The thing is, just like a money loan, you should be ready to pay your debt after. The day you think you can run away without paying, it's where the trouble begin.
This is true even with alcohol: Go to a party, drink a few glasses. One or two more. Have fun. The day after you pay it with a little (or even big) hangover. Just drink a lot of water and you will be ok.
Obviously this is more difficult with some drugs. They are dangerous because they are more subtle, somehow you think you're still in charge, until it's too late and your debt is out of control.
Now, I'm aware that this is quite complex, but still I wonder how many people there are out there who can self-control themself and diligently keep their debt in order.
I guess, compared to "meth-heads" and other rock bottom abusers, they just don't make the news. Plus they may want to avoid a lot of social rejection.
> Hart strives to “present a more realistic image of the typical drug user: a responsible professional who happens to use drugs in his pursuit of happiness.”
I think this is likely wrong. I guess it partly depends on the definition of a "drug user" (like, does it include alcohol drinkers) but I would be very surprised if most heroin users are responsible professionals - how can you do anything when you're high on heroin? I'd go so far as to say that saying people that are addicted are "typically responsible professionals" is a little disrespectful and downplays the reality of those that are actually afflicted with addiction, as it feels like it's just pushing the "burden" onto the drug user, which reinforces negative stereotypes and makes it harder to get people on the side of treating addiction as a health issue and not a moral failing.
I've done heroin a handful of times and enjoyed it. The last time I did it was laced with fentanyl and I nearly died. I don't agree with everything in this article but I've lost so many friends to laced heroin, and they were addicted and I really believe they would have somewhat normal lives after their addiction. The demonization and misinformation surrounding the drug is staggering, I wish we treated it more like alcoholism, for a lot of people it's not instant addiction, but for some one sip or snort and they're on an isolating and destructive path that could kill them. People don't have a way of knowing the equivalent of one shot of alcohol in heroin because it's illegal. There is no way for most people to consistently and rationally use it and most people have no interest in doing so. But for the minority who are going to throw caution to the wind (which at one point in my life included me) I strongly believe we should remove as much risk as possible
Whilst I'm sure there are many functional `users` of heroin, there are many more who think they are functional and yet they are not and just don't see it themselves. I've lived near many heroin `users` and I will say that the biggest issue is that if they can lie about their habits to themselves, then others are a given. Equally, whilst they may not see their usage of as a problem, they neglect to see the impact upon others - be that antisocial noise, keeping odd hours so again, noise or shady dealer meetings in the streets that scare the parents across the road to not allow their kids to play out in the park near there. That's just the good part of the spectrum. Then you have those who buy on-line and feel like their not supporting criminal activities, well until heroin comes with a fair trade logo, or you know the farmer, producer and workers personally - it's easy to say you don't have a problem and yet create problems for others when you look at the bigger picture.
As for knowing any functional, well I've seen many have functional phases would be the best I could attest to that from experience and out of about 30 heroin addicts I've endured in the past 2 decades, I'd say only 2 would be close to being classed as functional.
Really gets down to if somebody who is using drugs can just stop and take a break every now and then, then in that clean period - still hold the same mentalities towards their usage and if they can come to the same conclusion - bravo as that is what I would call somebody with their head working well for them.
What really is the issue for many drug users is the point in which the drugs use them - that's the turning point of addiction I'd say.
Yet all that said, you can't help but accept that the brain is driven by chemical stimulus and there lays the hard barrier of having the will power to quite.
I've personally never done heroin, no desire too as like a fine wine, I might like it and it is easier to miss what you never had and one step I've become very mindful never to take having learned from others, many who's lifestyle choices I had thrust upon me and I will say, not best neibours to have from my numerous experiences.
There is a subreddit called /r/MuseumOfReddit that is "dedicated to cataloguing the posts and comments that will go down in reddit history."
One of the more chilling posts on there[1] is the account of a user who randomly tried Heroin one day, got addicted within 2 weeks, overdosed and was clinically dead within a month, got revived and admitted, came clean, then posted an update to his story 7 years later.
I would personally suggest trying meditation first before trying opioids to alter consciousness and feel euphoric.
This guy's whole viewpoint seems to be pinned on "it's not addiction if it's not negatively affecting the rest of your life" (yes, I know this is a major criteria for a lot of medical diagnosis, addiction included).
The problem is that what it takes "negatively affect the rest of your life" depends a lot on what role you have in society.
Short of pornography producer, fantasy fiction author, songwriter and other professions where copious drug use fit one's "brand image" or potentially enhance one's work, a tenured college professor gets about about as much leeway from the rest of society as a white collar professional can get. He can be "eccentric" and nobody blinks twice. But for other professions the standards of behavior are different (and generally get more permissive as you go down the economic ladder).
Defining the difference between acceptable use and addiction, and by proxy who's problems are bad enough to be considered problems and therefore in need of solving in a way that is relative to one's place in society is very dangerous. If you're blind in one eye you're still blind in one eye even if it doesn't negatively affect you. Addiction (and a multitude of other conditions) are the same.
I’ve listened to Hart a few times on JRE podcast. His heart might be in a good place – trying to destigmatize/humanize drug users, but the flip side is he is making actually addictive substances seem like no big deal. Irresponsible.
> One of the major reasons people can’t overcome it is because we’re not very good at treating addiction in this country.
I am often wondering about how addiction "feels". I don't consider myself being addicted to anything, and always wonder how an addiction actually manifests itself. Is it a pain? Is it comparable to being extremely hungry or thirsty?
Slightly related: a few years ago, I overheard a conversation between a fairly large woman and a child. The child said that it was hungry. The woman said: "Oh yes, that hurts". That struck me as odd, because even after eating nothing for 1-2 days, I never actually felt pain when I was hungry. It was surprising to me that some people seem to do, and it would have certainly explained why the woman was so heavy: I, too, would of course eat much more if being hungry was painful.
I remember the early days of the Silk Road market. The members posted thoughtful reviews of their orders, sometimes containing lab-tests results of the drugs they'd ordered.
It was a small community whose members looked more like the Hacker News crowds than the meth heads you'd see in the news.
Even this comment section alone demonstrates that this is a very loaded topic and that's one of the main reasons purely logical argumentation won't help drive the discussion far. If someone has a person close to them that's had (or has) issues with drug abuse, it won't be easy to have a neutral discussion on the matter. What I find contrasting though, is that this doesn't seem to be the case with alcohol abuse. This probably stems from a number of reasons, normalization of alcohol being one of the largest, but I would also argue that lack of education is probably one of the highest contributing factors. Without delving into the subject of whether regular heroin use is or isn't healthy, as I simply don't know enough about the matter, I think it's good to educate people on the topic. Educated people make better choices, regardless of what they choose to do in the end.
> Despite the current false narrative, the addiction rate among people prescribed opioids for pain in the United States, for example, ranges from less than 1 percent to 8 percent.
What's the threshold where it's a problem? 1% of prescription drug users getting addicted sounds like a terrible situation to me. Let alone 8%. Especially if they're already in a situation where finding a way to escape is tempting.
All the luck to him. I have seen enough of heroin use second hand to know that this is how it starts and is rationalized for many. Some people spiral immediately, others after a few years, others after a decade. Eventually, if you keep using, it will catch up to you and you risk losing everything.
> Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don't buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free.
... except in this case the message is don't do drugs kids, but "grown ups" should (as defined as a state of maturity where you know how the drugs behave, know your limits and can balance your experimentation with fulfilling your societal obligations)
I see this as a bit like speeding. The government sets fairly arbitrary speed limits for different types of road. They do it based on what they think the majority of people can cope with, versus the likelihood of risks, vs the need to get from A to B in a reasonable amount of time. The government hasn't been amazingly scientific about the speed limits, and don't take into account time of day, traffic, weather conditions etc. A healthy, fully-alert person can probably go at 150% of the speed limit on an ambient clear day on an empty road - and do so perfectly safely. But that isn't the message they give people, because it would be impossible to assess person-by-person, minute-by-minute.
And yet, some would consider the above information to be recklessly given, because some people will on read "go at 150% of the speed limit... perfectly safely" and take that as my advice.
So the question is, should it be legal to travel at any speed, provided you feel like you're doing a good job of it? In both cases, misjudgement can be disastrous for yourself and the people around you (and innocent bystanders too)
And when you are talking about something that can alter your perceptions, you would surely need a non-drug-taking associate with you at all times who could give you an honest blow-by-blow assessment of where you are dropping the ball as a "normal" human being, and where your drug-fuelled failings are happening?
When the potential downsides so vastly outweigh the benefits, I can understand why laws take the side they do. That said, I absolutely do think that there are massive downsides to making drugs illegal when taken responsibly. Countries should be realistic about what they can and can't do. If they can't eradicate drug use - and most countries can't - they need to put effort into safeguarding above incarceration.
But I think that's the consensus anyway on most social issues. And it seems to be a lesson that governments globally are very slow to learn.
[+] [-] JoelMcCracken|5 years ago|reply
I just lost my brother-in-law to heroin overdose. He overdosed because he went into rehab, came out, and then used far more than his body could tolerate. This is unfortunately common. Not because he mixed it with alcohol or antihistamines or whatever.
Overall, his entire life has been extremely tragic. He was a good guy at heart. He was a hard worker and did good work in general.
However, he did did A LOT of crazy things. He was the poster child for "your emotional development stops at the point you got addicted to heroin". He basically acted like a troubled 13 yr old in a 40 yr old's body. This craziness has caused a LOT of problems over the years, especially for his daughters.
I get that the popular notions of drug use are wrong, but when is that not true of anything? Drug use does itself cause a lot of problems. While some people may be able to use them without any issues, many cannot.
The way a lot of this is phrased, it makes it sound like drugs are fine and there is a conspiracy to demonize them. While the popular notion of them isn't perfectly balanced, it is not the case that they are just fine for people to use.
[+] [-] ewokone|5 years ago|reply
This article is way out on facts. This guy should better read some science based books like the of Gabor Mate, 'in the realm of hungry ghosts'. Inside this books it is well explained in detail, if drugs create addictions, why humans take drugs, what happens to the brain on drugs, what happens in long term usage and what somehow all users share in common, from their emotional journey. Its about getting love, feeling seen, feeling rewarded, ..from friends, next one's and society itself or more often, in the search for rest from trauma and depression....
Damn nautilus this article was reputation hurting.
[+] [-] gonehome|5 years ago|reply
We'll see how things turn out in the end (maybe I'm wrong), but I'm pretty skeptical of a positive outcome.
[+] [-] pcthrowaway|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moreranchplease|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] happy-go-lucky|5 years ago|reply
> The way a lot of this is phrased, it makes it sound like drugs are fine and there is a conspiracy to demonize them.
Those who cry foul at the imagined conspiracies may already be deep in the throes of an addiction.
[+] [-] aphextron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tigershark|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joemazerino|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nimbius|5 years ago|reply
Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job.
I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things they'll never retain and at the end of the month they will lose a finger or toe or suffer a massive back injury and get fired. The back injury usually turns the casual heroin into constant endless heroin.
Drug tests exist in my field for a really valid reason and it has nothing to do with having a problem but becoming one.
[+] [-] capableweb|5 years ago|reply
Then you can also argue that you might not have lost your friends only because of Heroin the substance, but also how people with heroin addiction is "treated" and frowned upon in society.
I think what the article is trying to say is that harm reduction is a much more human and possibly effective approach to fighting real addition. Compared to other ways, which some of them include "there is no such thing as responsible drug use, it's all addiction" and treating people as such.
[+] [-] boomboomsubban|5 years ago|reply
The experiences of your friends is anecdotal. This article discusses the mechanisms of the drug, both the physical and personal cause of addiction, the common factors that lead to death, and the rate of users that end up addicted.
[+] [-] ajkdhcb2|5 years ago|reply
Responsible drug users are invisible to society and to judgemental people like you. You have no data to discredit it.
[+] [-] varispeed|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frakkingcylons|5 years ago|reply
I wish people didn’t dismiss Carl Hart immediately out of hand. Prohibition has never been a successful strategy. People are going to buy drugs no matter what. The biggest problem we have with drugs in the US is that people are uninformed about safe drug use and they are unable to easily verify the purity of the drugs they buy.
[+] [-] lucideer|5 years ago|reply
Stigma around drug use is dangerous. This is extremely evident from the state of treatment of heroin addiction in society today.
I don't really see how challenging this stigma is more dangerous than pandering to the status quo here.
[+] [-] yibg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SubiculumCode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4eor0|5 years ago|reply
I’ve lost dozens of friends and family to alcoholism and drunk driving.
I can’t really get behind the cherry picking; society is being damaged in other real ways to a much greater extent than heroin, yet we find the ennui to overlook them; freedom of choice, speech, too expensive to bother, political authority...
Portugal has the model we should adopt and let this be as solved a problem it can be.
[+] [-] maybelsyrup|5 years ago|reply
Third, as someone else says below, stories about your friends are also anecdotes. (I'm sorry, genuinely, that they died.) You don't know "the reality" of heroin because there are a litany of such realities - and here's a scientist telling you about his. The thousands (more?) who use heroin like my aunt uses a snifter of brandy at Christmas don't appear on anyone's radar because they're not dying and they're not rocking the boat. I could go on and on about the lives lost or ruined by alcohol in my family tree alone, let alone just "people I know", but I'm not terrified and calling to ban alcohol.
Finally, that so many people on a web forum whose userbase is wealthier, whiter, and way more privileged than the population at large rushing breathlessly into a post to call a black man (from the ghetto of Miami FL, no less) who uses small amounts of opiates "dangerous" is, excuse me, pretty effing rich. I thought tech-libertarians were supposed to be less reactionary.
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
Well, I picked up smoking from a girlfriend in college and we used to smoke all the time. Like ten cigs a day for a year and a half. Real bad, right?
Well, one day, I decided "Meh. I'll just stop" and I did. Not because of any reason. I just chose not to.
Now cigarettes are way addictive but I just chose to stop. More addictive than Benzos and shit and I just stopped cold turkey without any other reason.
Many of my friends struggled with quitting but eventually did. But I did it way easy. It's unlikely that I'm some super outlier, but clearly I'm some near the right edge of the bell curve in ease of exiting cigarette dependence.
That makes me think there are other outliers. This guy must be a heroin outlier. And considering the dependence inducing strength of that drug, he must be a far outlier.
[+] [-] neonological|5 years ago|reply
Experts were expecting an unprecedented heroin epidemic from veterans returning from the Vietnam war as drug use among soldiers was rampant. Turned out these soldiers came back and were no longer addicted. Scientists are guessing the causal factor for the loss of addiction was a "change in environment." It is literally the same thing that happened to the European person who replied to your post. Your brain hard wires dependencies to certain drugs but when you change your environment it may trigger something in your brain to actually unconsciously eliminate these dependencies. This makes evolutionary sense.
No doubt about it, people think that the above description means that the addiction is some sort of conscious decision. It is not the case. Addition is real, but the tricks to get out of addiction may be simpler then most people think.
So the question to ask is, when you quit tobacco, were you in the process of moving? Were there big changes going on in your life that would change the environment around you?
[+] [-] jimz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lamontcg|5 years ago|reply
I outright abused alcohol early in 2020 because shit got a bit cray-cray. Then just stopped because alcohol got boring. Done that a lot with alcohol.
Had an experience with Xanax several years ago though and I'm not touching that stuff again ever unless I'm terminal (then, yes, please). Still managed to identify the onset of addiction and stop it before it really got going, but I'm not touching that chemical again.
[+] [-] bane|5 years ago|reply
My wife for example has struggled to quit smoking for at least 10 years. As in very hardcore struggle.
When I was young my father managed to quit from a 3 pack a day habit to nothing cold turkey. But it was obviously pretty tough on him during the process and took a couple of years to really break out of.
My brother has a pretty bad pot addiction, a relatively harmless drug with almost no known chemical mechanism for addiction. Yet he can't shake it and it's haunted him his entire life.
I'm a bit like you w/r to tobacco. I occasionally smoke cigars and have played around with cigarettes from time to time. Once I lose interest I just stop and it's over. No urge or desire or anything else.
On the other hand, I have a bad day at work and all I want to do is shove shit food in my mouth.
[+] [-] rmac|5 years ago|reply
That there exists people like this person who can chip (controlled use of opiates) always intrigues me -- as this drug was the ultimate pathway to euphoria and thus I became the mouse hitting the button for more more more. If you're on the chipping path I hope you can find peace just for today.
I am pro-legalization of all drugs with some FDA oversight on quality.
[+] [-] koheripbal|5 years ago|reply
When the pain subsided, I stopped taking them, and within a day I found myself curled up in a ball and wanting to rip my own skin off. It's really true when addicts describe it as "being uncomfortable in your own skin".
The moment I realized I was experiencing withdrawal, I flushed the meds down the toilet and just suffered through it for a couple days.
Never ever touch heroin. Stay away from prescription opioids unless it's really really needed, and make sure it's short term only.
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|5 years ago|reply
I was a dumb teenager (I'm still not very smart) but I'm grateful I had the intuition to realize how dangerous it was. The only way I can describe it was that I felt the pleasure overwhelming my ability to reason, and that felt very disabling.
[+] [-] fingerlocks|5 years ago|reply
Some of us don’t like the “sinking into oblivion” feeling of that class of drugs. I don’t want to feel like my IQ has been sliced in half. Really hate it actually.
The dragon to chase is of the functional businessman’s variety- cocaine. I’d rather take something that enhances my life experience, turns conversation in liquid gold oozing from mouth. Opiates and barbiturates temporarily hide your problems under a blanket of haze, confusion, and constipation. No thanks.
[+] [-] mabbo|5 years ago|reply
Heroin terrifies me.
[+] [-] rincebrain|5 years ago|reply
It's probably some variable physiological response - hopefully one day we'll have a good way of profiling a priori which people may have difficulty with using opioids in a controlled fashion so people don't have to suffer to find out they're among the unlucky ones. (Or maybe we'll come up with either a new class of drugs to replace opioids entirely, or a cocktail to block the adverse effects...)
[+] [-] cwmma|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmchale|5 years ago|reply
I think substances can be addictive on their own, which gets occluded by many on the "pro-drugs" side.
[+] [-] thezoginator|5 years ago|reply
The only bit I will agree with is that addiction is not caused by the drug itself, and is typically the result of childhood trauma. With that drug use is not a solution for dealing with that trauma, dealing with that trauma directly through therapy and mediation is a much better solution.
[+] [-] ChrisRR|5 years ago|reply
His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription drugs but I don't think any of them are addicts
Which means that the other less common drugs must be a lot more addictive to bring the number down to 70%
I get the point the article is trying to make, but its headline and opening paragraphs frame it more as a "decriminalise all drugs" article
[+] [-] achairapart|5 years ago|reply
Just like everyone may need a bank loan (which is totally socially acceptable), sometime you may need a happiness/energy/relief/whatever loan.
The thing is, just like a money loan, you should be ready to pay your debt after. The day you think you can run away without paying, it's where the trouble begin.
This is true even with alcohol: Go to a party, drink a few glasses. One or two more. Have fun. The day after you pay it with a little (or even big) hangover. Just drink a lot of water and you will be ok.
Obviously this is more difficult with some drugs. They are dangerous because they are more subtle, somehow you think you're still in charge, until it's too late and your debt is out of control.
Now, I'm aware that this is quite complex, but still I wonder how many people there are out there who can self-control themself and diligently keep their debt in order.
I guess, compared to "meth-heads" and other rock bottom abusers, they just don't make the news. Plus they may want to avoid a lot of social rejection.
[+] [-] yladiz|5 years ago|reply
I think this is likely wrong. I guess it partly depends on the definition of a "drug user" (like, does it include alcohol drinkers) but I would be very surprised if most heroin users are responsible professionals - how can you do anything when you're high on heroin? I'd go so far as to say that saying people that are addicted are "typically responsible professionals" is a little disrespectful and downplays the reality of those that are actually afflicted with addiction, as it feels like it's just pushing the "burden" onto the drug user, which reinforces negative stereotypes and makes it harder to get people on the side of treating addiction as a health issue and not a moral failing.
[+] [-] werber|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|5 years ago|reply
As for knowing any functional, well I've seen many have functional phases would be the best I could attest to that from experience and out of about 30 heroin addicts I've endured in the past 2 decades, I'd say only 2 would be close to being classed as functional.
Really gets down to if somebody who is using drugs can just stop and take a break every now and then, then in that clean period - still hold the same mentalities towards their usage and if they can come to the same conclusion - bravo as that is what I would call somebody with their head working well for them.
What really is the issue for many drug users is the point in which the drugs use them - that's the turning point of addiction I'd say.
Yet all that said, you can't help but accept that the brain is driven by chemical stimulus and there lays the hard barrier of having the will power to quite.
I've personally never done heroin, no desire too as like a fine wine, I might like it and it is easier to miss what you never had and one step I've become very mindful never to take having learned from others, many who's lifestyle choices I had thrust upon me and I will say, not best neibours to have from my numerous experiences.
[+] [-] mmlkrx|5 years ago|reply
One of the more chilling posts on there[1] is the account of a user who randomly tried Heroin one day, got addicted within 2 weeks, overdosed and was clinically dead within a month, got revived and admitted, came clean, then posted an update to his story 7 years later.
I would personally suggest trying meditation first before trying opioids to alter consciousness and feel euphoric.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/68srty/spon...
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|5 years ago|reply
The problem is that what it takes "negatively affect the rest of your life" depends a lot on what role you have in society.
Short of pornography producer, fantasy fiction author, songwriter and other professions where copious drug use fit one's "brand image" or potentially enhance one's work, a tenured college professor gets about about as much leeway from the rest of society as a white collar professional can get. He can be "eccentric" and nobody blinks twice. But for other professions the standards of behavior are different (and generally get more permissive as you go down the economic ladder).
Defining the difference between acceptable use and addiction, and by proxy who's problems are bad enough to be considered problems and therefore in need of solving in a way that is relative to one's place in society is very dangerous. If you're blind in one eye you're still blind in one eye even if it doesn't negatively affect you. Addiction (and a multitude of other conditions) are the same.
[+] [-] originalvichy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umvi|5 years ago|reply
What an incredibly dangerous idea to promote. Do not mess with opioids. You think you are in control, until you are not.
[+] [-] lqet|5 years ago|reply
I am often wondering about how addiction "feels". I don't consider myself being addicted to anything, and always wonder how an addiction actually manifests itself. Is it a pain? Is it comparable to being extremely hungry or thirsty?
Slightly related: a few years ago, I overheard a conversation between a fairly large woman and a child. The child said that it was hungry. The woman said: "Oh yes, that hurts". That struck me as odd, because even after eating nothing for 1-2 days, I never actually felt pain when I was hungry. It was surprising to me that some people seem to do, and it would have certainly explained why the woman was so heavy: I, too, would of course eat much more if being hungry was painful.
[+] [-] aminozuur|5 years ago|reply
It was a small community whose members looked more like the Hacker News crowds than the meth heads you'd see in the news.
[+] [-] Etheryte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viraptor|5 years ago|reply
> Despite the current false narrative, the addiction rate among people prescribed opioids for pain in the United States, for example, ranges from less than 1 percent to 8 percent.
What's the threshold where it's a problem? 1% of prescription drug users getting addicted sounds like a terrible situation to me. Let alone 8%. Especially if they're already in a situation where finding a way to escape is tempting.
[+] [-] etempleton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] undecisive|5 years ago|reply
> Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don't buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free.
... except in this case the message is don't do drugs kids, but "grown ups" should (as defined as a state of maturity where you know how the drugs behave, know your limits and can balance your experimentation with fulfilling your societal obligations)
I see this as a bit like speeding. The government sets fairly arbitrary speed limits for different types of road. They do it based on what they think the majority of people can cope with, versus the likelihood of risks, vs the need to get from A to B in a reasonable amount of time. The government hasn't been amazingly scientific about the speed limits, and don't take into account time of day, traffic, weather conditions etc. A healthy, fully-alert person can probably go at 150% of the speed limit on an ambient clear day on an empty road - and do so perfectly safely. But that isn't the message they give people, because it would be impossible to assess person-by-person, minute-by-minute.
And yet, some would consider the above information to be recklessly given, because some people will on read "go at 150% of the speed limit... perfectly safely" and take that as my advice.
So the question is, should it be legal to travel at any speed, provided you feel like you're doing a good job of it? In both cases, misjudgement can be disastrous for yourself and the people around you (and innocent bystanders too)
And when you are talking about something that can alter your perceptions, you would surely need a non-drug-taking associate with you at all times who could give you an honest blow-by-blow assessment of where you are dropping the ball as a "normal" human being, and where your drug-fuelled failings are happening?
When the potential downsides so vastly outweigh the benefits, I can understand why laws take the side they do. That said, I absolutely do think that there are massive downsides to making drugs illegal when taken responsibly. Countries should be realistic about what they can and can't do. If they can't eradicate drug use - and most countries can't - they need to put effort into safeguarding above incarceration.
But I think that's the consensus anyway on most social issues. And it seems to be a lesson that governments globally are very slow to learn.