Adam Tinworth&#39;s online journal

OK, I'm going back to find something to debate you on :-)

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Good call. :-)

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The thing that sets me against drug use is that I have yet to meet anyone who has improved their lot in life by long-term drug use.

It can be argued that the same is true of alcohol and tobacco. I agree, but then I think they should be made illegal too. I know this is not realistic for historical reasons, but I still believe it.

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You know why you haven't met them?

Because you can't tell.

Despite how drug users are demonised by the media and governments, it is quite possible to indulge on a regular basis and still hold down a full time job, be active and social, have diverting hobbies and be an interesting person.

Not all drug users wear a big sign saying "I take drugs."

Some do, but not all.

So how do you know you've never met anyone whose lot in life has been improved by long term drug use?

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Is this the case for any drug? I say this because I watched a number of friends from school days get involved in drug use. Some stopped, some managed to keep it to a little dope every now and again, and some spiralled out of control. Some are dead now.

If we're talking about dope alone, then I'll maybe move toward agreeing with you.

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No, I'm not talking about dope alone.

Your experience of your friends doesn't invalidate my point at all.

It is possible to smoke dope on a regular basis and still function fully in society.

It is possible to snort cocaine, drop acid, take E, sniff Ketamine and down a whole concoction of other drugs, legal or illegal and still function fully in society. It's even possible that use of certain drugs can improve your lot in life; which drugs? Well, that's largely going to depend on the individual, isn't it?

And my point still stands; you say that you've never come across someone who has managed to improve their lot in life through drug use - my question to you, unanswered above, was how can you tell?

How do you know that the bank clerk who serves you doesn't sniff the occasional line of coke, and the confidence that he gains from that allows him to become more assertive?

How do you know that the guy who packs your bags at the supermarket doesn't have the most fantastic artwork on his walls, based on visions he had on mushrooms?

You don't. And I don't.

I know a lot of little success stories; people whose lives have been improved by the choices they've made. Some of those choices have involved drugs.

But you'd never know to look at them, because they're normal members of society.

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Why isn't the pro-legalisation lobby making just this argument? If taking drugs is so good for you, surely legalisation is a no-brainer decision?

And my point still stands; you say that you've never come across someone who has managed to improve their lot in life through drug use - my question to you, unanswered above, was how can you tell?

Well, I'll modify the point in a way that might be clearer - nobody I know who has taken drugs over a long period has ever had anything good to say about their use of drugs. I would expect, on balance, that I might at least have heard one story promoting the other point of view.

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Why isn't the pro-legalisation lobby making just this argument? If taking drugs is so good for you, surely legalisation is a no-brainer decision?

Sorry - I fail to see the point of discussing with you if you're going to misrepresent my words in this way.

I never said "taking drugs is so good for you" - what I said is that it is possible for long term drug use to bring benefits to your life; a point I raised in disagreement to yours. And note the "possible" - there is no drug, legal or illegal about which you can make a blanket statement of benefit or harm - even alcohol (especially alcohol). Some people will take a drug, other people let the drug take them.

And the pro-legislation lobby do make the point that there are benefits to taking drugs; perhaps you're not reading widely enough.

Might I suggest http://www.erowid.org or http://www.norml.org as good starting places to look at the discussion about the effects that drugs of all sorts have on people?

Well, I'll modify the point in a way that might be clearer - nobody I know who has taken drugs over a long period has ever had anything good to say about their use of drugs. I would expect, on balance, that I might at least have heard one story promoting the other point of view.

And my experience is almost the opposite - the majority of people I know who use recreational drugs on a regular basis do not feel that their lives have been negatively effected by their drug use.

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Interesting debate.

John has a good point in that you don't have to look very far back into the past to see examples of literature, art and music inspired in part by the use of drugs. Some of the creators involved even managed to avoid rehab. :-)

So, as Fraser says, for some people drug use leads to a downwards spiral.

So, as John says, for some people it's an inspring and recreational experience.

How do you square these two positions?

Well, I suppose the elephant in the room here is "addiction". What causes one person to become addicted quickly (and many drugs cause physiological addiction, not psychological addiction) and others to be able to remain occasional users without harm?

I remain very wary of handing over the legal sale of an addictive substance to a company, whatever the potential benefits, simply because companies will abuse it for the good of their shareholders.

I wonder if some of the answers don't lie in

bruceb's reply to the original post, where he talked about the problems getting cannabis accepted for medical use. If we stopped applying labels like "good" and "bad" to drugs, and started to look at long, hard, scientific look at the advantages and disadvantages of the substances, much as we do with foods or medicinal drugs, then maybe we could create a more rational framework for the legalisation or continued banning of individual drugs?

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I was waiting for someone to mention addiction.

And it's a very fair point, and the crux of the matter. It goes back to my original point about the hypocritical approach to the war on some drugs.

I remain very wary of handing over the legal sale of an addictive substance to a company, whatever the potential benefits, simply because companies will abuse it for the good of their shareholders.

Tobacco? Alcohol? Methadone?

With each of those, we have regulatory bodies able to enforce a semblance of good practice upon the industry. No advertising cigarrettes on TV, no advertising alcohol during childrens programmes etc. And the reason we can legislate about those things is because those industries are legal.

And, perhaps the best result - because those industries are legal, we can legislate to make sure that their products do as little harm as possible - no bathtub gin to make you blind if you buy it from Gordons.

It is possible to get addicted (physically or psychologically) to many recreational drugs, legal or illegal. And I think Adam asks the correct question - why do some people get addicted, and others not?

A lot of it, from my experience and from the reading I have done on the subject, is situational. Soldiers in Vietnam were taking amounts of heroin that would kill a first time user, but in many cases were able to stop using it when they got back to the US. The commonly accepted reasons for this are many, but include the purity of the heroin they were taking, the massive reduction in stress that not being in a war zone brings, and having something worthwhile to come back to.

It's hardly surprising that someone unemployed, living on a run down council estate and getting heroin (cut so that it's more adultarants than drugs) should have difficulty kicking the habit, is it?

In the UK in the 60's, the standard treatment for heroin addicts was to give them heroin; pure heroin, administered under medical supervision. That's still referred to as "The English System" around the world, even though we no longer practice it.

Now, we give addicts methadone, which is more addictive than heroin, and doesn't give anywhere near the same buzz, so addicts still go out, needing their fix.

Then we had somewhere in the region of 25,000 heroin addicts in the UK. Now we have in the region of 250,000.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,718805,00.html

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maliszew.livejournal.com

I didn't respond, because, for the most part, I agreed with you.

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I'm not terribly surprised by that news. :-)

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jltraut.livejournal.com

I enjoyed reading your meme, but the topics you posted on are not things I can come up with responses for off the top of my head during my lunch hour; they demand some thought. My views have changed a great deal since my 20s... real world experiences (some good, some not) do that to you.

I'll try to get to it though.

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point5b.livejournal.com

Perhaps we've all formed ourselves into self-reinforcing cliques and no longer need to dispute one another's opinions. Perhaps we're so into moral relativism that it doesn't matter what anyone else believes.

Or perhaps we don't think it's actually plausible to change a given person's entrenched opinion on some matter. Really, how often do you see anyone much beyond college change his or her opinion during or after an online debate? I may think my opinion is utterly, absolutely, objectively right...but no amount of erudition, explication, or citation by me is going to change the other person's opinion. (And that's assuming forensic perfection from myself.)

In that case, I may argue just out of the fun of debate, an interest in swaying undecideds, a particular conviction, or simple irritation, but if I'm sensible, I drop it soon. If something's really important, jaw-jaw pales before vote-vote.

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