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Is opiates/Heroin an addiction?

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    #32
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    endacl wrote: »
    ?!?

    You'd first have to find an organization prepared to award such a curiously titled prize.
    The science prise is handed out by the Science league. Captain science himself usually hands it out to the lucky winner. Hopefully the Pope won't try to attack the ceremony again this year and turn everyone into Catholics using his mind control incense.
    jimpump wrote: »
    Do I have to spell it out, alcohol is the most damaging drug on the market and its legal. Yet other drugs get a bad rep yet theyre less harmful than alcohol
    Are they less harmful than alcohol? Or is alcohol the drug that causes the most harm because it's freely available whereas the others are restricted meaning they don't have the opportunity to hurt as many people.


    jimpump wrote: »
    Well if alcohol and tobacco are legal...the biggest killers of people worldwide, then why shouldnt cannabis, cocaine, opiates etc. Be legal? I pretty much know the answer, but im interested to hear your logic
    I'm all for drug legalisation but it needs to be done properly and clearly there needs to be some education so people don't end up falling into addiction.


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    #33
    pragmatic1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    ScumLord wrote: »
    Are they less harmful than alcohol? Or is alcohol the drug that causes the most harm because it's freely available whereas the others are restricted meaning they don't have the opportunity to hurt as many people.

    Yes, alcohol can be an extremely dangerous drug. So dangerous that withdrawals can kill you. It's right up there with the worst of them and wouldn't be legalised today if it were a new drug.


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    #34
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    pragmatic1 wrote: »
    Yes, alcohol can be an extremely dangerous drug. So dangerous that withdrawals can kill you. It's right up there with the worst of them and wouldn't be legalised today if it were a new drug.
    I agree, based solely on experience alcohol is as bad as any drug, but the comparison isn't like for like. Alcohol is freely and easily available to anyone over the age of 18 that wants it. While you could argue that drugs are too they're still not as easily accessible as alcohol. So there is going to be a difference in the numbers based purely on that fact.

    Alcohol isn't quite as dangerous as drugs like cocaine and heroin but it's surprisingly close IMO.


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    #35
    pragmatic1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    ScumLord wrote: »
    I agree, based solely on experience alcohol is as bad as any drug, but the comparison isn't like for like. Alcohol is freely and easily available to anyone over the age of 18 that wants it. While you could argue that drugs are too they're still not as easily accessible as alcohol. So there is going to be a difference in the numbers based purely on that fact.

    Alcohol isn't quite as dangerous as drugs like cocaine and heroin but it's surprisingly close IMO.
    It's right up there in terms of the harm it can cause to the human body. A heroin withdrawal won't kill you, a withdrawal from alcohol can.


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    #36
    SpaceSasqwatch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 768 ✭✭✭SpaceSasqwatch


    endacl wrote: »
    Cocaine causes misery to those who have to listen to those who use it.

    lol :) never a truer word said!


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    #37
    Perkinstock
    Registered Users Posts: 79 ✭✭Perkinstock


    Mathrew wrote: »
    Nowadays, lots of people dying on heroin overdose. That is another evidence how dangerous heroin is. You will become attached to it, characterized by the need of continuing using it.


    You are right. My friend was addicted to heroin, fortunately he was saved by the treatments in Hope Treatment Addiction Center. Heroin had ruined his life, just by taking a one shot.. you'll just going to be surprised how it will change you.


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    #38
    leinsterdude
    Registered Users Posts: 523 ✭✭✭leinsterdude


    heroin is a nasty drug, sold by nasty people, there is no way booze is as bad,heroin is almost instant addiction, as opposed to plenty of people who can drink a little bit all throughout life, not all and there are basket cases with booze, but you see very few social heroin users !!


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    #39
    Greenmachine
    Registered Users Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭Greenmachine


    leinsterdude wrote: »
    heroin is a nasty drug, sold by nasty people, there is no way booze is as bad,heroin is almost instant addiction, as opposed to plenty of people who can drink a little bit all throughout life, not all and there are basket cases with booze, but you see very few social heroin users !!


    Typical scaremongering propaganda. If opiates were as addictive as you make out, then who has every been prescribed morphine, codeine etc, would be addicted for life.


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    #40
    SeanW
    Registered Users Posts: 8,784 ✭✭✭SeanW


    jimpump wrote: »
    Do I have to spell it out, alcohol is the most damaging drug on the market and its legal. Yet other drugs get a bad rep yet theyre less harmful than alcohol
    True. Of cannabis, LSD, MDMA, mushrooms etc.

    Except heroin is not one of those drugs.


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    #41
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    Opiates are a type of drug that can form a physical addiction, so ehh yeah. Got any ? im bored


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    #42
    keithclancy
    Registered Users Posts: 9,222 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    ScumLord wrote: »
    I agree, based solely on experience alcohol is as bad as any drug, but the comparison isn't like for like. Alcohol is freely and easily available to anyone over the age of 18 that wants it. While you could argue that drugs are too they're still not as easily accessible as alcohol. So there is going to be a difference in the numbers based purely on that fact.

    Alcohol isn't quite as dangerous as drugs like cocaine and heroin but it's surprisingly close IMO.

    I think you only think about to the harm to the user and not the harm caused to others.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm

    Policing and Imprisonment is about protecting society from problems, individuals causing harm to themselves should not fit into this category.

    Therefore I would say it would make more sense to decriminalise these drugs and fix the problems that cause the addiction to something in the first place rather than just stick people in jail for taking certain harmful substances.

    Anything can be abused.

    We should just ban cake because fat people cost the tax payer money in healthcare.


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    #43
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    Greenmachine wrote: »
    Typical scaremongering propaganda. If opiates were as addictive as you make out, then who has every been prescribed morphine, codeine etc, would be addicted for life.

    there was an interesting thread on reddit. More relevant for the USA than here.
    Thread title was "Heroin users why did you start using". The majority of the answerrs were they were prescribed painkillers (usually oxycodone, which can be just as good/bad as heroin) then when they ran out of their prescription heroin was the only/cheaper option, either that or cold turkey.

    Personally i think thats a rare occurence here and that doctors only give out painkillers that arent nearly as potentially addictive as oxycodone, so the reason most people start here is curiosity + being around the drug a lot, in turn desensetized from the sensationalism + just not giving a ****


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    #44
    Wacker The Attacker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,473 ✭✭✭Wacker The Attacker


    apollo8 wrote: »
    If we can figure this one out we're in line for the nobel peace prize in Science!

    I agree. We'll be all like scientific and sh1t.


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    #45
    Wacker The Attacker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,473 ✭✭✭Wacker The Attacker


    fizzypish wrote: »
    Decriminalized not legal.

    What exactly is the difference?


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    #46
    keithclancy
    Registered Users Posts: 9,222 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    Wacker The Attacker wrote: »
    What exactly is the difference?
    While decriminalized acts are no longer crimes, they may still be the subject of penalties; for example a monetary fine in place of a criminal charge for the possession of a decriminalized drug. This should be contrasted with legalization, which removes all or most legal detriments from a previously illegal act.

    Like getting a speeding ticket you get a fine but you don't go to "bang me in the ass prison"

    Speeding isn't legal for example.


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    #47
    SpaceSasqwatch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 768 ✭✭✭SpaceSasqwatch


    Wacker The Attacker wrote: »
    What exactly is the difference?

    Normally if its decriminalised,when your caught with enough for personal use of whatever drug its taken off you and you dont get charged and the cops dont have to waste time presecuting peoplke for small amounts.

    When legalised the drug wont be taken off you.


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    #48
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    Wacker The Attacker wrote: »
    What exactly is the difference?

    i remember talking to a portugeuse person who's friend was caught with a large amount of ecstasy, the ecstasy was confiscated and they had to go to councilling.

    so maybe that is an example, i dunno.

    Like when i was in portugal people selling weed were just as scared of the cops as you'd see people here so obviously stuff still happens, even though its decriminalized.


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    #49
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    leinsterdude wrote: »
    heroin is a nasty drug, sold by nasty people, there is no way booze is as bad,heroin is almost instant addiction, as opposed to plenty of people who can drink a little bit all throughout life, not all and there are basket cases with booze, but you see very few social heroin users !!

    never really heard of anyone getting instant addiction, its just that they use it once or twice then realise that afterwards they assumed all the media scaremongering was BS coz they actually could go on with their lives without it, so they probably ignored everything they ever heard of heroin then on. Weeks and months go by and use increases gradually, then they get to a point when they stop they get really sick, then theyre ****ed.

    Its not some insta-junkie-mode drug like people think, same with crystal meth or any drug but those 2 are number one on the insta-junkie hype scale.


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    #50
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Good article here, explaining how the normal theories of drug addiction - of it being a 'moral failing', or of it being a physiological addiction - are likely wrong in significant ways, and that drug addiction is more about losing the opportunity/ability to connect/bond with people (and thus drugs take that place, giving people a sense of relief/pleasure in the absence of connection - explained far more lucidly in the article, so please read first), with people falling off the bottom rungs of society and getting stuck there:
    http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/28672-everything-you-think-you-know-about-addiction-and-the-war-on-drugs-is-wrong

    Best explanation for drug addiction that I've read - which shows well, how deeply it ties into all sorts of other societal/economic/political issues.


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    #51
    corner of hells
    Registered Users Posts: 8,363 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Good article here, explaining how the normal theories of drug addiction - of it being a 'moral failing', or of it being a physiological addiction - are likely wrong in significant ways, and that drug addiction is more about losing the opportunity/ability to connect/bond with people (and thus drugs take that place, giving people a sense of relief/pleasure in the absence of connection - explained far more lucidly in the article, so please read first), with people falling off the bottom rungs of society and getting stuck there:
    http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/28672-everything-you-think-you-know-about-addiction-and-the-war-on-drugs-is-wrong

    Best explanation for drug addiction that I've read - which shows well, how deeply it ties into all sorts of other societal/economic/political issues.

    My employment is in homeless services and have a background in low threshold drug services , I used to have a supervisor who gave a very loose explanation of chronic addiction as being an inability to delay and experience pleasure properly alone with little or no bonding of any significance with society or even an individual.


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    #52
    Macavity.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,745 ✭✭✭Macavity.


    There's not a single drug in the world that can have you addicted after only taking it once. We were shown a stupid propaganda video that said that about Ecstasy back in secondary school. At least 1/5 of the class had taken E before. The result - nobody ever took any educational videos we were shown in SPHE seriously again. Two girls ended up impregnado. We called them the barrel belly sisters. Good times. :pac:


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    #53
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    Macavity. wrote: »
    There's not a single drug in the world that can have you addicted after only taking it once. We were shown a stupid propaganda video that said that about Ecstasy back in secondary school. At least 1/5 of the class had taken E before. The result - nobody ever took any educational videos we were shown in SPHE seriously again. Two girls ended up impregnado. We called them the barrel belly sisters. Good times. :pac:

    yeah those in-school anti-drug type things can have some negative effects. You come into contact with cannabis and realise its not a big deal, so then why should we believe anything else they say ? (even though there is truth in those things)


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    #54
    SEPT 23 1989
    Registered Users Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    The school anti drugs lectures should be teaching kids what to do if you take something and things start going wrong bad trip bad yoke etc

    that will save lives


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    #55
    Greenmachine
    Registered Users Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭Greenmachine


    Spunge wrote: »
    yeah those in-school anti-drug type things can have some negative effects. You come into contact with cannabis and realise its not a big deal, so then why should we believe anything else they say ? (even though there is truth in those things)


    The thing with prescription drugs is you are giving a list of potential side effect that occur in the frequency of 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, less than 1 in 10000 etc. With street drugs you are given the impression of almost certainty about all the potential side effects. No attempt is made to quantify, any of the claims.


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