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The victim complex of prohibitionists

Slingshot Bob said:
Having walked away from hard drugs, I agree with him. I did not do rehab, I made a simple choice and decided I was no longer willing to live that way. At one point, I was as out there and strung out as it gets.
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Sincere respect to you.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
your personal experience means absolutely nothing to other people. You don't represent all of humanity, so sorry, just because you did something (if we even believe your story) does not represent everybody, everyboyd has different physiology and experiences.

If it was so easy, why the hell doesn't everybody do it? Even the most hardcore drug users wish they weren't, living in squalor, on the streets, risk of OD or being a victim of a crime. That's as dumb as saying homosexuality is a choice, why would people choose something that will make their lives harder and possibly be ostracized?
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He never said it was easy.

Unless accidentally hooked on opioids prescribed for pain, it's always the poor choice of the user and their consequences. We all make bad choices in life...so I'm not taking any moral High Ground here...but I'm not absolving drug addicts of their own responsibility in their decisions. And yes...every one can CHOOSE to get well. But no one implies it's easy.
 
Lursa said:
Sincere respect to you.
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Thank you, and I am not saying that is the only way, like Sampson seemed to think I was implying. Just that IMO a big obstacle to recovery is not taking personal responsibility for ones choices. In the beginning, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I simply did not care. Until it stopped being fun, it was like a full time job. It's all fun and games until the worms come out (I will spare you the details)

Then two people close to me ODed within days of each other. I knew if I continued, death was not far off. So I made my choice. Have not touched it in 5 years. The thought of it, sickens me.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Thank you, and I am not saying that is the only way, like Sampson seemed to think I was implying. Just that IMO a big obstacle to recovery is not taking personal responsibility for ones choices. In the beginning, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I simply did not care. Until it stopped being fun, it was like a full time job. It's all fun and games until the worms come out (I will spare you the details)

Then two people close to me ODed within days of each other. I knew if I continued, death was not far off. So I made my choice. Have not touched it in 5 years. The thought of it, sickens me.
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It's like women who remain in domestic abuse situations or alcoholics...we all know it's incredibly hard to get out. To get well.

It doesnt matter how hard it is, the only solution never changes...get out. Stop. All the justification in the world, the claims of how hard it is...dont matter. The reality is, there IS only one solution (unless you want to accept death as another).

So either people make the choice to change...or they dont. If they dont, it doesnt fix itself.
 
OlNate said:
Sorry, science disagrees, and I believe them over an old fat guy... ;)
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Your science, liberal political science, buried with a complete lack of research, disagrees.

You, or any individual is still faced with that first moral decision. The buck stops there. Certainly, there are those seduced by opiates taken to ameliorate pain after trauma. Been there, done that. Been shot, hit by shrapnel, stabbed, heart surgery, cancer surgery, used morphine, demerol, assorted oxi compounds, and other goodies. Each time, I assessed myself, and I decided to stop taking them, and did so. Those drugs are all seductive. It wasn't easy, but doable. It is a decision. And I am no superman.

During the 1960's Britain experimented with legal heroin for addicts. The addicts had to register, take a weekly class for stopping use, get a job, received the heroin for free. Within months, the addicts were employed, functional, out of the subculture, not committing other illegal acts to support their habits. Research showed, absent the junkie detox as many times per day a fix was needed, and the lack of adulterants found in the street supply, the addicted became healthier, and even showed a retardation of the aging process. Certainly, no one wanted them operating heavy equipment or driving school buses and taxis for a living, but menial and office jobs, went well. The number of new addicts decreased drastically, because there was no profit to be had enlisting new addicts. The American DEA found this abhorrent. American politicians started lobbying the British government to revert the laws, with threats of noncooperation and withdrawal of other benefits, as well as trade sanctions. The program ended. Addiction rose, crime rose, people suffered and research stopped.

It was the American intolerance movement, the same movement that led to prohibition, along with lies from politicians and bureaucrats like Harry Jacob Anslinger that made former over the counter drugs like opium, marijuana, cocaine and so forth illegal. Always on the basis of morality.

Feel free to go with science, I prefer honesty. Government doesn't give grants for honesty. People make money selling goods to police forces and prisons that wouldn't be needed. Yup, marijuana, the gate way drug that leads to REEFER MADNESS.

Some people are weaker than others, but people like you need to stop giving them excuses for their own immorality.

It would far less expensive for our nation to buy the entire world opium harvests, than pay for interdiction, imprisonment, associated crimes, law enforcement, security guards at prisons, and so forth, give heroin away for free to registered addicts, burn the balance that has no medical use, but somebody or somebodies are making a hell of a lot of money keeping heroin illegal. You want to stop the abuse of synthetic opiates, put a cap on how much can be produced by the big pharma companies that make those synthetics. Figure out how much is really needed for medical application, and stop the manufacture of the rest. Don't tell me synthetic opiate production by companies who do know their excess production will end up on the streets is a disease. Cut the BS, stop enhancing the lies about who is making so much money off human depravity. We'll never stop the manufacture of bathtub meth, or overseas fenatyl, but we can kill the entire drug subculture by making it all legal, controlling the supplies as best as possible and eliminating the profits. It is a set of moral problems. No excuses for anyone. Eliminate the "forbidden" in fruit and see how the problem disappears.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
why would someone who's life is being ruined continue to do drugs and kill themselves willingly?
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See my answer to Nate. Now you show me a junkie, a crack addict, who thinks with logic, who has a survival instinct intact. Have you ever met a child who said "one day, I want to grow up to be a skank-whore, a toothless speed freak, a crack whore, who is diseased and can no longer sell my body on the streets for a fix because I'm 20 years old and look 80 years old, with suppurating sores, no teeth, and carry stds?" People commit suicide every day, some quickly, some slowly. Go ahead an enable them by telling them it is not your fault.

I suffer from congestive heart failure. With the help of good doctors, I've minimized the progress, and I live better than I should or would without their help. It is not a disease either. It is the result of over stressing my body, a moral decision I made, to live for the defense of my nation, my city, my home. I never said pity me, I never complained, and I lived my life the best I could and as fully as possible. My doctors said don't do that, don't push so hard, don't don't don't, I did, did, did and I'm about to hit 70. Now those same doctors tell their patients do, do, do.

Death comes to us all. You can live in fear, or you can live. No excuses.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
your personal experience means absolutely nothing to other people. You don't represent all of humanity, so sorry, just because you did something (if we even believe your story) does not represent everybody, everyboyd has different physiology and experiences.

If it was so easy, why the hell doesn't everybody do it? Even the most hardcore drug users wish they weren't, living in squalor, on the streets, risk of OD or being a victim of a crime. That's as dumb as saying homosexuality is a choice, why would people choose something that will make their lives harder and possibly be ostracized?
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Nonsense. Apples and oranges. There is no comparison. You are just making excuse and not facing the truth. Some people recognize they want to live, and act, others are too weak. It is a moral decision, not a disease. You are an enabler.
 
Ouroboros said:
Is the topic confined to "the victimization syndrome" with regard to drugs alone? 'Cause I can think of a lot of ways victimization affects other aspects of society.

Regardless, I'm not sure that the "just say no" crowd are precisely picturing themselves as victims of the drug war. Just objecting to X on moral grounds isn't always victimization.
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There is no "just say no" response that works for all, a few, maybe? For most it is recognition of a desire for life, and then getting help. More important, prevention. Kill the subculture, rid the world of the profits from selling drugs. For some there will be no recovery, they will be lost. For future generations, a less severe problem. You don't see the crack epidemic anymore. It is still out there. However, a generation died off, and their children, raised by their grandparents or their parents siblings said "I don't want to be that way." Moral decisions.
 
Lursa said:
Everything in life is like that.
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Thats why a one size fits all solution of "lock em up" isint having the desired effect on the populace, people have and will always continue to use drugs for various reasons and means.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Nonsense. Apples and oranges. There is no comparison. You are just making excuse and not facing the truth. Some people recognize they want to live, and act, others are too weak. It is a moral decision, not a disease. You are an enabler.
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Rather funny he had just got done preaching a sermon on compassion to addicts, then turns right around, in the same breath and attempts to minimize my recovery even implying that if "we" (I guess him and the mice in his pocket) even believe my story.


Evidently, the compassion of a hypocrite is only available if you share HIS opinion.


Never mind he has never walked even a block in my shoes yet feels qualified to dismiss my recovery from two years of a daily meth addiction.


He can keep his brand of "compassion" I don't want it and I certainly don't need it.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Your science, liberal political science, buried with a complete lack of research, disagrees.

You, or any individual is still faced with that first moral decision. The buck stops there. Certainly, there are those seduced by opiates taken to ameliorate pain after trauma. Been there, done that. Been shot, hit by shrapnel, stabbed, heart surgery, cancer surgery, used morphine, demerol, assorted oxi compounds, and other goodies. Each time, I assessed myself, and I decided to stop taking them, and did so. Those drugs are all seductive. It wasn't easy, but doable. It is a decision. And I am no superman.

During the 1960's Britain experimented with legal heroin for addicts. The addicts had to register, take a weekly class for stopping use, get a job, received the heroin for free. Within months, the addicts were employed, functional, out of the subculture, not committing other illegal acts to support their habits. Research showed, absent the junkie detox as many times per day a fix was needed, and the lack of adulterants found in the street supply, the addicted became healthier, and even showed a retardation of the aging process. Certainly, no one wanted them operating heavy equipment or driving school buses and taxis for a living, but menial and office jobs, went well. The number of new addicts decreased drastically, because there was no profit to be had enlisting new addicts. The American DEA found this abhorrent. American politicians started lobbying the British government to revert the laws, with threats of noncooperation and withdrawal of other benefits, as well as trade sanctions. The program ended. Addiction rose, crime rose, people suffered and research stopped.

It was the American intolerance movement, the same movement that led to prohibition, along with lies from politicians and bureaucrats like Harry Jacob Anslinger that made former over the counter drugs like opium, marijuana, cocaine and so forth illegal. Always on the basis of morality.

Feel free to go with science, I prefer honesty. Government doesn't give grants for honesty. People make money selling goods to police forces and prisons that wouldn't be needed. Yup, marijuana, the gate way drug that leads to REEFER MADNESS.

Some people are weaker than others, but people like you need to stop giving them excuses for their own immorality.

It would far less expensive for our nation to buy the entire world opium harvests, than pay for interdiction, imprisonment, associated crimes, law enforcement, security guards at prisons, and so forth, give heroin away for free to registered addicts, burn the balance that has no medical use, but somebody or somebodies are making a hell of a lot of money keeping heroin illegal. You want to stop the abuse of synthetic opiates, put a cap on how much can be produced by the big pharma companies that make those synthetics. Figure out how much is really needed for medical application, and stop the manufacture of the rest. Don't tell me synthetic opiate production by companies who do know their excess production will end up on the streets is a disease. Cut the BS, stop enhancing the lies about who is making so much money off human depravity. We'll never stop the manufacture of bathtub meth, or overseas fenatyl, but we can kill the entire drug subculture by making it all legal, controlling the supplies as best as possible and eliminating the profits. It is a set of moral problems. No excuses for anyone. Eliminate the "forbidden" in fruit and see how the problem disappears.
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Meh...I disagree. :)
 
DesertSands said:
Thats why a one size fits all solution of "lock em up" isint having the desired effect on the populace, people have and will always continue to use drugs for various reasons and means.
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Mankind has been using psychotropics for thousands of years, but usually in some sort of religious context, vision quests, speaking with the gods, whatever. In ancient Egypt, after the wheat harvests, they'd make wheat beer. No refrigeration, so they'd drink it all before it spoiled, blame the party on the fertility goddesses. Who needs an excuse?
 
OlNate said:
Meh...I disagree. :)
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Of course. But explain to me how scientists can do honest research on substances so illegal, they can be arrested for doing the research?
 
OldFatGuy said:
Of course. But explain to me how scientists can do honest research on substances so illegal, they can be arrested for doing the research?
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Easily...scientists do studies on drugs all the time. They're allowed. For, you know...science. Besides...people can be addicted to perfectly legal substances. Ever hear of AA? This is addiction research, not crack specific or meth specific.
 
X Factor said:
I agree totally with the quoted portion. Addicts seem to be some of the most self absorbed, self centered assholes out there.
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I know a fair number of nicotine addicts who are not that way at all. Caffeine addicts too.
 
OlNate said:
Easily...scientists do studies on drugs all the time. They're allowed. For, you know...science. Besides...people can be addicted to perfectly legal substances. Ever hear of AA? This is addiction research, not crack specific or meth specific.
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I asked about honest research of illicit drugs.

Alcohol Anonymous does not do honest scientific research about illicit drugs. In fact it's methods have proved false, but that's another story for another day. There is nothing scientific about sociological studies of 7 step indoctrination methods. Nor is sociology science. There is no point in studying the Flu without learning about the virus. We are not discussing addictions to lawful substances, poisons like sugar, psychotropics like nutmeg, or choose from a thousand herbs and spices that people use to enhance the tastes of food. You beg the question. And you won't save face with this trite nonsense.

Science gave us heroin to cure laudanum addiction (opium in alcohol, itself sold to cure the hysteria of menses), morphine to cure heroin addiction, codeine to cure morphine addiction, and so on, just as it today gives us oxys and fens. Science is the villain in this scenario, not the hero.

Science does not do honest research about illicit substance abuse "all the time," more accurately put as never.

Science is just beginning to learn about the chemistry and biologic effects of marijuana, yet marijuana use goes back to the dawn of human time, we know even less about that super drug which is legal, aspirin.
 
OldFatGuy said:
I asked about honest research of illicit drugs.

Alcohol Anonymous does not do honest scientific research about illicit drugs. In fact it's methods have proved false, but that's another story for another day. There is nothing scientific about sociological studies of 7 step indoctrination methods. Nor is sociology science. There is no point in studying the Flu without learning about the virus. We are not discussing addictions to lawful substances, poisons like sugar, psychotropics like nutmeg, or choose from a thousand herbs and spices that people use to enhance the tastes of food. You beg the question. And you won't save face with this trite nonsense.

Science gave us heroin to cure laudanum addiction (opium in alcohol, itself sold to cure the hysteria of menses), morphine to cure heroin addiction, codeine to cure morphine addiction, and so on, just as it today gives us oxys and fens. Science is the villain in this scenario, not the hero.

Science does not do honest research about illicit substance abuse "all the time," more accurately put as never.

Science is just beginning to learn about the chemistry and biologic effects of marijuana, yet marijuana use goes back to the dawn of human time, we know even less about that super drug which is legal, aspirin.
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Sooo...you don't like science...and any scientific study that disagrees with your gut feeling and personal experience is dishonest. Ok.

With that, OFG, we are done here, as we have zero common ground upon which to discuss. :)
 
OlNate said:
Sooo...you don't like science...and any scientific study that disagrees with your gut feeling and personal experience is dishonest. Ok.

With that, OFG, we are done here, as we have zero common ground upon which to discuss. :)
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Stop playing stupid games. Nothing I've said indicates I don't respect science. No matter what you claim, sociology, anthropology, archeology, practicing medicine, and so forth are not sciences, they are arts, at times based on sciences, dependent upon sciences. Still they are arts, liberal arts as they are labeled with exception of medicine at colleges and universities universally. Ask any practicing doctor who is honest about whether the practice of medicine is an art or a science. The answer is always the former.

The only dishonesty here is your own.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Stop playing stupid games. Nothing I've said indicates I don't respect science. No matter what you claim, sociology, anthropology, archeology, practicing medicine, and so forth are not sciences, they are arts, at times based on sciences, dependent upon sciences. Still they are arts, liberal arts as they are labeled with exception of medicine at colleges and universities universally. Ask any practicing doctor who is honest about whether the practice of medicine is an art or a science. The answer is always the former.

The only dishonesty here is your own.
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lol...what, disagreeing with you is "playing stupid games" and "dishonesty"? Psh… You prove my post with your response. What's next, your flat earth dissertation?

One more time: I'll go with what the scientific community is saying, over some random dude on an anonymous debate forum.
 
OlNate said:
lol...what, disagreeing with you is "playing stupid games" and "dishonesty"? Psh… You prove my post with your response. What's next, your flat earth dissertation?

One more time: I'll go with what the scientific community is saying, over some random dude on an anonymous debate forum.
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You've got nothing.

 
OldFatGuy said:
You've got nothing.

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Sorry, can't watch youtube behind this firewall, I'll have to check it out tonight, if I remember. But if you're talking about value derived from anything you've said in this thread, you're right, I've gotten nothing.
 
OlNate said:
Sorry, can't watch youtube behind this firewall, I'll have to check it out tonight, if I remember. But if you're talking about value derived from anything you've said in this thread, you're right, I've gotten nothing.
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Your BS word games don't make you cute, or snarky, just foolish.
 
Lursa said:
Hey it's Dixie from Emergency!
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My father watched that show religiously. His favorite Julie song "Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast."



Her older daughter claimed "Mom coined the phrase "Walk of Shame."" :)
 
OldFatGuy said:
Your BS word games don't make you cute, or snarky, just foolish.
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OFG, seriously, it's ok...we disagree. You did your best, you told me all about your uneducated opinion, and I remain unconvinced, thanks to the world of science. Now let me out of your head, there's no need to get yourself into trouble again so soon after your return. Or at the very minimum, if you must brawl with me, open a thread in the place we don't speak about, where we don't have to worry about demerit points. Sending me little love letters like this in main chat is bound to get us both in trouble... ;)
 
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