addiction is a medical problem

Don Quixote

Don Quixote

cancer survivor
Contributor
people are really down on addicts, but the medical profession says that addiction is a disease

we know that alcohol and tobacco addictions are major problems but so are addictions to various 'recreational' drugs

would you advocate putting people with the flu or diabetes in jail

an article today -

WASHINGTON (April 2) - Scientists say they have pinpointed a genetic link that makes people more likely to get hooked on tobacco, causing them to smoke more cigarettes, making it harder to quit, and leading more often to deadly lung cancer.


what other genetic problems lead to addiction and how long before they are discovered


i had a bout of walking pneumonia a few years ago and it added pleurisy to the problems the day i was admitted to the hospital

if you have never had pleurisy, trust me it feels like you are being cut in half

they gave me a strong pain medication and i could feel the medication moving through my system eliminating the pain - that was the day that i truly understood addiction - it scared me more than anything else in my life

i knew that if i was in enough pain that i would do anything to stop it

there is emotional, mental and physical pain - what would you do to ease severe pain
 
The human mind sets itself up for addiction. It underestimates the difficulty of breaking it almost all the time. People who condemn others as weak for having addiction fall to it just as easily. There's no elitism to be had here, it's a human problem. Jail isn't the answer, and in any case, it's more expensive than treatment.
 
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Diuretic said:
Just hanging around, waiting for one of the "personal responsibility" nutters to start spraying.
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Doesn't an addiction to a drug require that one be stupid enough to first try it in the first place? I don't want to lock anyone up, but I don't want to have to spend any money on willfully ignorant people either.
 
Threedee said:
Doesn't an addiction to a drug require that one be stupid enough to first try it in the first place? I don't want to lock anyone up, but I don't want to have to spend any money on willfully ignorant people either.
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This statement is stupid. It doesn't require stupidity for someone to try drugs, but it does require idiocy for someone to think so.

Idiot.
 
Threedee said:
Doesn't an addiction to a drug require that one be stupid enough to first try it in the first place? I don't want to lock anyone up, but I don't want to have to spend any money on willfully ignorant people either.
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That's true, but you'd have to hope that a strong education message would help people make decisions about what substances they use and how they use them. And perhaps - I admit this is a long shot - they could be educated about reliance on substances and how addiction happens.
 
Diuretic said:
That's true, but you'd have to hope that a strong education message would help people make decisions about what substances they use and how they use them. And perhaps - I admit this is a long shot - they could be educated about reliance on substances and how addiction happens.
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Doesn't work at all. I am a graduate of the DARE program, and have even contributed money to it, but its been a total failure except in certain settings...
 
Beefy said:
This statement is stupid. It doesn't require stupidity for someone to try drugs, but it does require idiocy for someone to think so.

Idiot.
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To use illicit drugs is comepletely stupid, and willfully so, which is inexcusable. I consider myself stupid, but I didn't choose to be inferior. I have always envied people with natural tallent who piss it away, like those math geniouses who skip class and flunk out. If drugs were legal, we'd see the true toll on the idiots who use them. And we could save money by not fighting to "protect them from themselves."
 
Threedee said:
To use illicit drugs is comepletely stupid, and willfully so, which is inexcusable. I consider myself stupid, but I didn't choose to be inferior. I have always envied people with natural tallent who piss it away, like those math geniouses who skip class and flunk out. If drugs were legal, we'd see the true toll on the idiots who use them. And we could save money by not fighting to "protect them from themselves."
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To use consciousness-altering substances is entirely human. We do that stuff.

It's not going to go away because someone says make it go away.

It's not going to go away because someone says, "don't".

Now, having got that out of the way, what should we do?
 
Threedee said:
To use illicit drugs is comepletely stupid, and willfully so, which is inexcusable. I consider myself stupid, but I didn't choose to be inferior. I have always envied people with natural tallent who piss it away, like those math geniouses who skip class and flunk out. If drugs were legal, we'd see the true toll on the idiots who use them. And we could save money by not fighting to "protect them from themselves."
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You're not stupid, you wouldn't bother with this forum if you were.
 
Threedee said:
Doesn't an addiction to a drug require that one be stupid enough to first try it in the first place? I don't want to lock anyone up, but I don't want to have to spend any money on willfully ignorant people either.
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3d

what about people that are prescribed pain killers and get addicted?

what about people that try a drug and discover that suddenly they cannot do without it (without help that is)

aside from all of the above, we have a problem that is not going to go away by itself and is maiming and killing people daily
 
Threedee said:
To use illicit drugs is comepletely stupid, and willfully so, which is inexcusable. I consider myself stupid, but I didn't choose to be inferior. I have always envied people with natural tallent who piss it away, like those math geniouses who skip class and flunk out. If drugs were legal, we'd see the true toll on the idiots who use them. And we could save money by not fighting to "protect them from themselves."
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The only correct statement you've made is that you're stupid.
 
Threedee said:
To use illicit drugs is comepletely stupid, and willfully so, which is inexcusable. I consider myself stupid, but I didn't choose to be inferior. I have always envied people with natural tallent who piss it away, like those math geniouses who skip class and flunk out. If drugs were legal, we'd see the true toll on the idiots who use them. And we could save money by not fighting to "protect them from themselves."
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3d

meet mr. pointy
 
Watermark said:
The only correct statement you've made is that you're stupid.
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I try to get a few things right now and again. Just trying to be honest with myself. Its annoying being a history major, because everyone around me thinks I'm some kind of genious, just because I will have a degree in one month in one of the few areas they know little/nothing about...
 
Diuretic said:
To use consciousness-altering substances is entirely human. We do that stuff.

It's not going to go away because someone says make it go away.

It's not going to go away because someone says, "don't".

Now, having got that out of the way, what should we do?
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We should do nothing, unless they are hooked on meds. Then its kind of our responsibility to help them get off the meds... If there are people and communities, even states, that want to provide clinics, then good for 'em. But my general attitide is ef 'em.
 
Threedee said:
We should do nothing, unless they are hooked on meds. Then its kind of our responsibility to help them get off the meds... If there are people and communities, even states, that want to provide clinics, then good for 'em. But my general attitide is ef 'em.
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I see it a bit differently, if someone wants to get off whatever they're addicted to then it's a public health issue. If they recover then the general wellbeing of the populus just went up, if only a little.
 
Diuretic said:
Just hanging around, waiting for one of the "personal responsibility" nutters to start spraying.
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Okay, it's not a disease. It's a chosen behavior. And I don't believe it is truly a medical problem so much as a psychological one. Certainly jail is not the answer. But neither is telling the addict that they are a powerless victim.
 
Threedee said:
We should do nothing, unless they are hooked on meds. Then its kind of our responsibility to help them get off the meds... If there are people and communities, even states, that want to provide clinics, then good for 'em. But my general attitide is ef 'em.
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Huh? Why should we help someone get off meds but not illicit drugs?

I think some help is needed from society, does not need to come from the state, though. We need to get off these 12 step cults that the state has backed and find things that actually work.
 
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