h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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"1. the friend I referred to already has an extraordinary degree of compassion BECAUSE she was an addict. Meaning it was her experiences of being a doing anything for the next fix junkie that gave her a huge appreciation for the struggles that many people have in their lives."

Could you seriously say that outbalanced the bad, though? The effects on health, economic well-being, employability, state of mind, effects on loved ones etc etc etc?
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I wouldn't say it outweighed the bad, no, and neither would they. However unlike SoRB I don't believe that addiction is a personal choice in an absolutist sense. Some people become addicts from overusing socially, but most of the addicts I've known were running bloody fast from something they couldn't deal with. There was no "oh I'll take addictive drugs so I don't have to deal with this pain", it's not as conscious as that. So we can say that my friend would have been better off not becoming an addict, but in the reality of their life, something has to be done about the pain and I'm not sure at the age that they were there was anything else that would have made a difference i.e. if there had been something else they would have done it.


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Interestingly, a lot of people say this *whilst* being a drug addict but tend to reject it once they recover.
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The people I was thinking of were either addicts in recovery (i.e. not using), or addicts post-recovery.

Most people I've known don't make the connections to pain and self medicating when they start using. Probably alot of people I've known start using as teens. Also pretty much everyone starts using in a recreational way i.e. they're doing it for a good time, so again it's not like they're thinking "oh I'll smoke this joint so I don't have to think about xxx", it's more "I need to feel good and someone's offering me this high".


>>Very often the "problems" that the drug is dealing with are actually created by the drug itself <<

There is a high proportion of female addicts who have histories of sexual assault from before they started using. I've known a number of women who got clean via NA and went to women's NA meetings, and sexual abuse is a significant factor in their addiction.

I do agree that drug use creates all sorts of problems for addicts. But many addicts have underlying pain from before they started using.


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"3. I know pleny of addicts who've had a bloody good time at least some of the time."

But the bad always outweighs the good, as any recovered addict will tell you.
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Sure. I'm not arguing that addiction is a good thing per se. Just that not all addicts are losers.

Also, there is a huge difference between the experience of a heroin addict and someone who is 'psychologically' addicted to cannabis. I've known plenty of cannabis addicts who were having a good time.

The majority of drug addicts are *functional* which explains the disparity between drug related crime cost estimates and the estimated profits of the illegal drug trade (as I pointed out earlier). Many if not most functional drug addicts hold down jobs, make payments and can hide their addiction from even their spouses. Some even hide their illness right up until they die, often not of directly drug related problems. I suppose it would depend on your definition of the word *loser* but at the very least not all drug addicts are drooling smash and grab criminals.

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I agree but "having concern" often means feeling contempt for the fact they've let themselves become a drug addict.
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Yes, and note the difference between having contempt for the fact that the person is an addict, and having contempt for the person themselves.

Having contempt for the addicted person increases their experience of pain, marginalises them further.


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I judge addicts *because* they are valid human beings and have done this to themselves. I admire people who acknowledge their addiction and try and do something about it.
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Do you see those as two mutually exclusive states? Being an addict and improving one's life?

I don't see addiction as a self choice. If you subject people to enough pain then it's reasonable for them to find ways to relieve that pain. The societies we live in don't support people to do that in other, more healthy ways. This isn't to say that addicts don't have personal responsibility, just that they're not responsible for it all. And obviously personaly responsibility is a prerequisite for recovery.

But not everyone gets to recover, and that is not a failing always or only on a personal level. There are very real institutional and societal reasons for why some people can't recover that outside of the individual addicts control. Another reason to not consider them all losers. Some make the best of a really crap situation.

Zagreb, in NZ addiction is dealt with by the State via the mental health services. There is a strong emphasis on addiction being a mental health issue, and as such (at least in some circles) seeing addiction as a choice is akin to seeing depression as a choice i.e. you don't (not least because it's unhelpful to recovery).

I'd be interested to know what models are being used where you have worked.

One interjection, on a peripheral point made by Zagreb.

>>We Brits have an admirable attitude to failure which is that the important thing is trying, even a bit, because it proves you have spirit (another reason I hate "loser" because it implies that trying doesn't matter).

That is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've read today. We Brits FEAST on failure, we have built an ENTIRE CULTURE on the basis of rejection, disgust, ritual humiliation and ignominy. All of which does a great deal to feed the loser mentality, and the inevitable lure of addiction.

Okay, not *the* most ridiculous thing. I have read some stuff from that bizarre Scottish guy.

You trying for quote of the day again Chris?

Do, kea, or do not. There is no try.

I said: "One example please, just one, of a heroin addict you'd aspire to be like. One example please, just one, of a heroin addict you'd want your children to admire."

Kea replied: "I'd hold my friend when they were on methadone up as an example of a good human being, over someone as selfish as you"

Perhaps the drugs you take interfere with your ability to read. I didn't ask you if you knew any *recovering* drug addicts who are better people than you consider me to be.

I asked if you could supply JUST ONE example of a heroin addict that you would aspire to be like, or that you would want your children to admire.

Was that question too complicated for you? Or do you simply not have an answer you're not ashamed of?

I don't take drugs. Why would you assume that I do?

I don't know any heroin addicts. Heroin has been pretty scarce in NZ, at least in the parts of it I've lived in. Opiate addicts here tended to use homebake. So when you said 'heroin' I didn't take that literally, I just thought of people I've known who've been addicted to any of that class of drug.

My friend was still an opiate addict while on the methadone programme. That's what methadone is, an opiate, like heroin. And that's what an addiction is - addiction, in this case to opiates, means that you can't do without them. If my friend didn't have access to methadone they'd be a cot case.

To further prove my point that 'addict' isn't a descriptor of functionality, for people on methadone you can have a wide range of functionality, from my friend who went to uni and eventually got off all opiates to people who still use other opiates while on methadone and do all those behaviours that you are complaining about (being scum in your words).


I did have a friend for a while who was probably an opiate junkie. I don't know exactly what he was using. He used to be a roadie for the Rolling Stones, and was doing security for touring acts of various kinds here when I knew him. He was a lovely guy and his life looked pretty interesting.


The only other person on opiates that I've known well enough to comment on, is still addicted. They're someone who is likely to never get off. I don't aspire to their life, but I would expect my children to admire the good things about this person.

I have known alot of people addicted to things other than opiates. And some of those people had admirable qualities even when they were using.

Like I said to Zagreb, I'm used to an understanding of addiction that treats it similarly to mental illness. In the same way that I don't see someone who is bipolar as a loser, I don't see someone who is a substance addict as a loser either.


I can't remember what your point was. Do you want to make it again?

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Ive tried a lot of drugs and theri relative merits and effects are fairly wide ranging. From what Ive heard of methamphetamine its big selling point is that it has a short supply chain and can be made in what isnt too different from a bog standard kitchen. no troublsome or expensive suggling operation is needed. If you lowered the cost of other drugs and made them legal or less illegaI dont think people would turn to meth.

Who'd drink meths if they could get hold of there favourite tipple easily?

I think P (methamphetamine) is very dangerous to make, even though people do do it at home. Houses that have been P labs have to be quaranteened and specially cleaned to make them safe to be in again.

We have a major P problem in NZ, especially up north. P seems to be relatively accessible, and it's become the next big thing. One thing that is immediately obvious is how many serious crimes are being committed by P addicts. Usually holdup type crimes, but the P makes them aggressive and violent so when something goes wrong they tend to kill people instead of running away. That's all from the media and public discussion though, I don't know anyone personally who's used P.

I'm assuming the reason we have a major P problem is because we can make it here (as opposed to importing opiates etc which are difficult to get in NZ). It's interesting to think about if the desire for P would drop if other drugs were more available i.e. legal or decriminalised. I'm not sure what the attraction for P is over other kinds of speed - presumably it's a better high? More addictive?

I suppose what I was interested in was the idea that all drugs should be legalised. It's hard to make a case that P should be.

"Like I said to Zagreb, I'm used to an understanding of addiction that treats it similarly to mental illness. In the same way that I don't see someone who is bipolar as a loser, I don't see someone who is a substance addict as a loser either."

I'm not sure of the exact official line on drug addiction but I suspect we class it as a form of "mental illness" too. Personally, I think this is wrong. Mental illnesses have various causes but one thing that unites them is that they are an illness acquired unintentionally. There is no direct action on the part of the sufferer that creates them so a suffrer of mental illness is the victim of genetics or circumstance.

Drug addiction is different because the afflicted person has made themselves that way by their own choice. There's a completely different aspect of personal responsibility involved. By classing it a "mental illness" you treat it as something that's "just happened" to the sufferer which is patently nonsense. There is some debate over whether people can suffer from some mental illnesses which make them more susceptible to drug addiction but this is not the same as claiming that the addiciton itself is a similar illness.

There was a "King Of The Hill" episode from a few years ago that satirised this quite well. Hank Hill employs a man, well-presented at interview, who turns out to be a serious drug-addict (although it takes his son Bobby to point this out to him) who is incapable of carrying out his job. He promptly tries to fire the man only to find out he can't. Because drug addiction is classed as a "mental illness", he's guilty of descrimination if he does so.

I don't buy the "becoming a drug addict because of terrible personal circumstances removes the personal responsibility aspect". Again, the example of Tommy in "Trainspotting" deals with this quite well. We're shown a believeable reason for Tommy's heroin use but he is perfectly aware of what it does to people (he's friends with heroin-addicts after all) and it's hard to see his decline and death as anything other than the result of the way he dealt with a personal tragedy rather than the exclusive fault of the tragedy itself.

IF the drugs were all legal, and above board as it were, then it would be easier wouldn't it, to treat those who are addicted to their favourate tipple.... As to weather or not it is a choice, at the end of the day, someone who takes heroin for the first time, and then decides to take it again, and again, is deciding to do that, it might be addictive, but in my experiance at least it ain't so addictive that after one or two injections you can't consciouslyy decide that 'I'm gona stop taking this now', Actually heroin really is very addictive, that was obvious, and for me at least the reason I consciously decided I'd never touch it again, which wasn't in reality that hard to do; I've a friend who died from an overdose, and know of others through mutual friends who also died by overdosing, and there really can't be many people about who don't know of the delaterious affects of long term use of such drugs

<> (SoRB)

I agree with this. Very sound. The only thing obtained by keeping drugs illegal (as alcohol used to be during prohibition in the US) is to promote the illegal drug cartels, the profits of which make their way into supposedly legal operations such as our police force and judiciary.

Money corrupts more than just about anything.

az

<> (blicky)

Not only that but when someone goes out to buy an illegal substance *from a criminal* where the hell is the quality control? You have no idea what you're actually buying, or what sort of shit it's been cut with, until you guinea-pig it yourself.

At least with 'government approved' alcohol products you can see the percentage of alcohol clearly shown on the bottle. I think the maximum percentage for spirits is 40º. Which of course won't stop some die-hard drunken idiots from buying bootleg 100 proof killer alcohol, but again, they are the minority.

Imagine you could go to a shop that offered quality heroin and clean needles, and you'd be assured that it wasn't cut with baby powder or anything worse, and you just got your hit. For a reasonable price.

I honestly don't think this would create more heroin addicts. Any more than being able to visit your local off-license for a bottle of scrumpy creates more alcoholics.

az

One other thing is that there wouldn't be much of an incentive for dealers to get new people hooked on addictive stuff like heroin. Apparently the number of junkies has been falling for years in the Netherlands.