On Sun, 2005-09-11 at 01:35 +0200, Christoph Reuss wrote: > So with legal (i.e. wide-spread) consumption of > hard drugs, you'd have a two-digit percentage (how about 90%) of the > population running amok as crazed drug addicts in search of stuff...
I doubt this. Personal observations: I'm given pretty well free rein with opiate painkillers due to long term (pesticide induced, probably) damage to the central nervous system (so I am in considerable pain most of the time. Nasty.). OK, I'm a one time neurobiologist, very high IQ and a lot of willpower and determination (a 1 in 10,000 survivor into postgrad education via nightschool, from a neglected and poverty stricken background, cue lachrymose strings). So perhaps not a fair statistical test (I'm also by far the most active and physically fit victim I know of with this syndrome due to bloody mindededness. Many have collapsed into virtually bedridden state - and its not because they are in any worse health than I). But, but... As I said, I was given a pretty well free hand with opiates, with the request from the pain specialist at the local NHS hospital "try not to get addicted". And after some 7-8 years I haven't. Dependent, yes. Can take very high levels of dose for several days having a nasty relapse, but can also take days off to keep things under control (48-72 hour break will "reset" things -an unpleasant experience, but necessary). I could keep myself largely phased out - and sometimes do when it is bad and wife can take time off work - but keep doses at a level where I can function adequately, and time medication so can drive a car when I need to take the kids somewhere or do something, etc. Essentially, try and keep it to once a day if possible. Most people I know with access to opiates "on demand" manage the stuff quite well. Dependency develops, as does adaptation (requiring higher doses) but most seem to keep it under control and don't escalate it drastically. The point of this is that, in a free market (so to speak) for controlled substances I doubt you'd get the addiction rates people fear. I bet it would work out at the same sort of level as alchohol abuse - and probably much the same people would switch from alchol to opiates! Opiates are by far the less offensive chemical. They don't cause any physiological damage (being simple and related to natural substances they are easily metabolised) and the effects are calming and beneficient for most people, and they don't have the effect of making one more confident of ones abilities in the way alchohol does under the influence, I find I get more consciously careful for example. (I'm perhaps atypical in that I find a surprisingly high dose energising and increases alertness and concentration - really, not perceived. But then I suffered significant damage from organo-phosphate pesticides including vascoconstriction of blood supply to the brain and most vasodilatory chemicals have a positive effect when not well. Like today after a good run of nearly three week, dammit, woke up 06.30 feeling vile and a bit stoned as I gave up an hour ago and broke my rule about only taking a dose in the afternoon so I can get through then and the evening until kids bedtime). For most people opiates and cannabis are de-stressing, calming, and tempers aggressive urges, unlike alchohol. So, would a free market in opiates be such a huge problem? I doubt it. Personally, I'm for cutting out restrictions on drugs 'cos all it does is create fabulous levles of drug money which can corrupt any and all governments and institutions, either those involved in procurement and sale, or those who make a career and empires of power out of "stopping drug abuse". In the USA, of all advanced nations, this has clearly had the effect of distorting the whole social and governmental system, its not so bad in NW Europe. Concomitant to this liberalism over the use of drugs, I WOULD advocate a rather illiberal social policing policy of being intoxicated (crashed out in a daze on the street, misbehaving in a public place or behaviour impinging on childcare or other dependents, neighbours or maintenance of the dwelling and surrounds etc.). Thus replacing the issue of personal drug use with the issue of how one behaves and deals with responsibilities and self-control in a social context. OK, might lead to a lot of curtain-twitching and little Hitlers, but how bad is that compared to the rampant anarchy we see in cities (and even small towns and rural areas, like the "gypsy" encampment 5 miles up towards Chipping Norton who are terrorised by them) of the "drug economy"? Things were a lot better in the days an element of vigilantism and collective cudgelling of reprobates heads took place from time to time... Essentially the Police arrogated social control of behaviour that overstepped the mark from working class communities since the war - and then largely abandoned working class communities. Though part of this could be that for a period of some 30-40 years the access to higher education in the UK simply sucked out of rural and urban working class those with higher intelligence, quite a few of whom were "physically robust" in outlook and with the strength to match it from years of labouring as boys and young men on building sites, farms etc. Until ca 1968 many of "us" would have grown into the "natural leaders" of the community, and quite a few would have been involved in unionism (which I was as a young lad before being abstracted out to uni in my early 20s). The easy ride capital and local elites have had over the last generation or two is down in large part, IMHO, by the removal of us pains in arses into the professional middle or lower middle "lumpen intelligentsia" (most of the kids from such backgrounds simply don't get the access to tbe better professional jobs, certainly not in the 70s and 80s despite the media trash about "classless Britain". In my university, the working class kids were almost all in the top 5 percentile ability range, but were underepresented in the higher graduation mark levels - and in the 80s were nearly 6 times more likely to be unemployed upon graduation, for longer periods of time, more likely to lose their jobs in redundancy, than those from social classe 2. Social class 1 simply didn't register on the statistics for such blocks to their personal advancement. It was a wonder to see them progress into the BBC, City pre barrow boy era, etc. Things like the "Theatre Club" were effectively class barred. Like being black - nothing was said but all sorts of things seemed to go wrong with access and involvement. One got the message sooner or later (got so bad that some of us simply started up our own group and went in for gritty street theatre stuff in town etc stirring up a lot of trouble at times for the corrupt local politicians in revealing stuff the papers wouldn't touch!). But I meander. Sorry. Bit fuzzy today, y'see >;) not a good day at all :-(( I'm for ever blowing bubbles ... eh! Malcolm. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
