Addiction and drug legalization/decriminalization (split from First World Problems)

[steve_bank]

I have thought of myself as not prone to addiction, having had zero trouble stopping consumption of every intoxicant I ever tried (I’ve tried most of them).
But right now I am suffering cravings for the pot plant I planted very late last year. Due to being late, it only yielded an ounce or two and it’s all gone. But it was great. Can’t wait to try it again, but it’s gonna be cold turkey until October. I have a whole big tub of good, strong buds but I will be throwing it all away … it doesn’t pique my craving. I figure to start this year’s crop in a week or two… and am excited just anticipating it.
Am I addicted?
If so, so what?
If not, what else could cause recurrent thoughts about it? Maybe it’s more of an infatuation than craving?

I used pot and the drugs that were around in the 70sl.

By the mid 70s it just faded away for me. coincident with starting to do something productive for a living.

I have never felt any need or desire to use pot or drugs since then. To me it was a waste of time. I did not need it to feelgood.


Today same with alcohol. I feel no need. When I walk through a grocery store it does not occur to me to buy alcohol.


Whether you are clinically addicted I assume would be a professional diagnosis.

Search on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. or DSM, and addiction.
From what I have read before there is a kind of checklist of symptoms and degrees of severity, there is no clear boundary.
Is pot addictive? I'd say absolutely. I have seen it often enough.

There is monting reportingon hamful effects of pot, it is not a 'safe' drug. Teens are having pot induced pschotc episodes. A term is Canabis Induced schitophrenia.

There is now reasonable evidence from longitudinal studies that regular cannabis use predicts an increased risk of schizophrenia and of reporting psychotic symptoms. These relationships have persisted after controlling for confounding variables such as personal characteristics and other drug use.

 

[Elixir]

There is monting reportingon hamful effects of pot, it is not a 'safe' drug.

No drug is “safe”. As they say in toxicology TDMTP.
Mounting reports (and reports of mounting reports) do not impress me. I doubt they impress anyone else with my level of exposure to both cannabis and it’s users, either.

Teens are having pot induced pschotc episodes. A term is Canabis Induced schitophrenia.

The clinical term is toxic psychosis. And it only lasts as long as the buzz. I will eagerly devour any credible evidence of physiological addiction.

In every way, pot is safer, less addictive and less of a societal problem than alcohol or tobacco.

 

[bilby]

Regardless of how harmful (or how safe) any drug might be, addiction remains a medical problem, not a criminal one.

Treating drug use as a crime is stupid.

 

[Elixir]

Treating drug use as a crime is stupid.

I’ll applaud Trump if he agrees with that when his kids’ habits come to light.

 

[steve_bank]

The problem with drugs including alcohol and tobacco is they do not just affect the user.

They are a major driver of long term health care costs.

The drug crowd has always rationalized drug use going back to the 60s. I have never heard anyone publicly condemn drug use when an entertainment figure dies from drug abuse, going back to Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix. More recently the guy who fell or jumped from a balcony in Brazil and Mathew Perry. Jerry Gracia's drug abuse led to an early grave.

Recreational drugs are dangerous. 'All drugs have a risk' is a rat ionization.

In Oregon state sponsored psychedelics.

Oregon Health Authority : Oregon Psilocybin Services : Prevention and Wellness : State of Oregon

Oregon Psilocybin Services is a new section housed within the Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division’s Center for Health Protection.

www.oregon.gov

And people wonder why we have a manta health crisis.

 

[bilby]

The problem with drugs including alcohol and tobacco is they do not just affect the user.

They are a major driver of long term health care costs.

Yup.

That doesn't in any way justify criminalising their use, which we know is both ineffective in reducing use, and actively harmful both to users, and to society at large.

Prohibition leads to large scale organised crime. That was true with alcohol in the 1920s, of Cocaine in the 1980s, and of Methamphetamine today.

Legal and licenced access for users to drugs of regulated purity is by far the most effective way to minimise the harm due to drugs. We see this with ethanol, and with nicotine. There is zero reason to expect that it would be any different for cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, LSD, or any other substances.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The problem with drugs including alcohol and tobacco is they do not just affect the user.

They are a major driver of long term health care costs.

The drug crowd has always rationalized drug use going back to the 60s. I have never heard anyone publicly condemn drug use when an entertainment figure dies from drug abuse, going back to Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix. More recently the guy who fell or jumped from a balcony in Brazil and Mathew Perry. Jerry Gracia's drug abuse led to an early grave.

Recreational drugs are dangerous. 'All drugs have a risk' is a rat ionization.

In Oregon state sponsored psychedelics.

Oregon Health Authority : Oregon Psilocybin Services : Prevention and Wellness : State of Oregon

Oregon Psilocybin Services is a new section housed within the Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division’s Center for Health Protection.

www.oregon.gov

And people wonder why we have a manta health crisis.

Bold: It’s $11 billion a year. Obesity is $173 billion a year. You seemed to be fixated on drug users and how they affect non drug users. Now it’s mushrooms? John’s Hopkins has been helping people with depression and PTSD for years with mushrooms. Like marijuana, mushrooms are not addictive.
If you’re so worried about “major drivers” of healthcare costs, I’d think you’d be concerned with the food industry who get people hooked on sugar, salt, and fat. Does it concern you in the least to see people killing themselves in fast food restaurants? Comparing joints to cheeseburgers, which do you think ends up costing the healthcare system more, over the long run?
$11 billion versus $173 billion, Steve. Where’s the outrage. You should be so concerned with the poor food choices people make in their life.

 

[lpetrich]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about antidotes? Good antidotes would be a valuable contribution to resolving the problem of troublesome recreational drugs.

One might even mandate them for people caught doing troublesome things, like driving under the influence or stealing to support one's habit.

 

[bilby]

Good antidotes would be a valuable contribution to resolving the problem of troublesome recreational drugs.

If only they existed outside fiction.

There really aren't many non-fatal ways to get a given molecule out of a living human being faster than the natural metabolic processes.

Naloxone can have a fairly good effect on opiates, but it's far from perfect, and is the exception rather than the rule. It works by blocking the receptors in the brain, and doesn't get the opiate out of the patient's system - that has to wait for the liver and kidneys to do their thing. It can keep an overdose patient alive while that happens.

The antidote for methanol poisoning is ethanol. As you can imagine, that's hardly an effective way to treat addiction to alcohol - though many methanol poisoning cases are alcoholics who are consuming contaminated drinks, either accidentally or recklessly.

Biochemistry and pharmacology are more complicated than we think, even when we take account of the fact that they are more complicated than we think.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with drugs including alcohol and tobacco is they do not just affect the user.

They are a major driver of long term health care costs.

The drug crowd has always rationalized drug use going back to the 60s. I have never heard anyone publicly condemn drug use when an entertainment figure dies from drug abuse, going back to Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix. More recently the guy who fell or jumped from a balcony in Brazil and Mathew Perry. Jerry Gracia's drug abuse led to an early grave.

Recreational drugs are dangerous. 'All drugs have a risk' is a rat ionization.

In Oregon state sponsored psychedelics.

Oregon Health Authority : Oregon Psilocybin Services : Prevention and Wellness : State of Oregon

Oregon Psilocybin Services is a new section housed within the Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division’s Center for Health Protection.

www.oregon.gov

And people wonder why we have a manta health crisis.

Tobacco and alcohol cause a lot more health costs than the illegal ones do.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with drugs including alcohol and tobacco is they do not just affect the user.

They are a major driver of long term health care costs.

Yup.

That doesn't in any way justify criminalising their use, which we know is both ineffective in reducing use, and actively harmful both to users, and to society at large.

Prohibition leads to large scale organised crime. That was true with alcohol in the 1920s, of Cocaine in the 1980s, and of Methamphetamine today.

Legal and licenced access for users to drugs of regulated purity is by far the most effective way to minimise the harm due to drugs. We see this with ethanol, and with nicotine. There is zero reason to expect that it would be any different for cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, LSD, or any other substances.

But how can you say that something bad is good?

Perfect is always the enemy!