On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:53:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> What I am
> talking about is taking less than half an ounce, and, depending on your
> personal biology, having to have a full ounce **of the same thing**, a
> few years later, or having to take it several times a day, or "both". I
> am talking about people taking stuff where the withdrawal can kill you,
> without proper controls, and not being on it makes you more dangerous
> than being stoned, but you are useless in "either" condition.

And as a controlled substance, access would be significantly harder now 
than it is on the black market.  But again, personal responsibility is 
key.

>> It bothers me greatly that people think there should be no consequences
>> for what they do.
>>
> The problem here is, making them take responsibility doesn't solve the
> damn problem. 

So, if the person who sticks their foot in the wood chipper takes 
responsibility for their stupid mistake, they're going to repeat it?  I 
don't buy that - if they do, they didn't learn the first time, and maybe 
the lesson needs to be repeated.  I'm not a fan of protecting people from 
themselves.

> They did it. Now they are stuck with the problem, and no,
> the consequences *may* extend beyond their immediate family. Lets say it
> was loss of hearing, or blindness, or some other thing. Its not about if
> there are consequences. Most people have no damn clue how *big* the
> consequences can be, figure that most of what people are telling them
> are lies, since they can't imagine it being as bad as described, they
> may have the perception that others are doing it, so they should, and a
> whole host of other things. 

Yep, life can suck that way.  Nobody said life was safe.  I used to ride 
my bike as a kid without a helmet - and I went over the handlebars more 
than once.  Then I learned not to ride in a way that was dangerous, and I 
stopped going over the handlebars.  Imagine that - a member of the human 
race learned that to be safe, one has to act in a manner which is safe.

> Even the ones that try to get off it,
> because they realize they made a mistake, are stuck in a situation where
> they are **permanently** wanting to stick their foot in the wood chipper
> again. Their brain chemistry has changed, and they can't **stop**
> wanting to *ever*. I would say that *that* is a pretty damn big
> consequence, in and of itself, without all the other garbage people drop
> in their laps, including the, often, complete destruction of their
> lives, which just make it all that more tempting to give in to the need
> they can't ever get rid of.

Yep.  Sucks, don't it?  At the point where they're wanting to continue, 
someone certainly can intervene (and many people do).  But consider this 
as well - that person who's so hooked they're going to get their fix 
however they can is going to break some other law in order to do so, and 
land themselves in jail.  They don't allow drugs in jail (and the types 
of drugs we're talking about, they shouldn't allow), so they get a chance 
to be rehabilitated.

> It is, on some level, right up there with cutting someone's hand off, as
> punishment for stealing a single fig from someone's fruit cart. People
> are not willing to stop at punishing them for what they *did* do, or
> recognizing that the consequences are *already* more than they can
> imagine, they feel they have to keep punishing these people, even to the
> point of refusing to help keep them from falling back into using, based
> on one, single, initial mistake. And that is just idiocy.

No, that's life.  People who don't learn lessons from life are going to 
have the lesson repeated until they do learn.  The idiocy is in not 
letting people make mistakes in order to learn from them.

Look at all the people like me who have decided drugs aren't for them.  
We didn't have to make a mistake to learn that lesson.  We just had to 
learn from others' mistakes.  Some people can learn that way.  Some 
people refuse to believe that anything bad can happen to do them, and 
will not believe so until something bad *does* happen to them.  Sucks for 
them, but eventually they'll learn.

> The whole point of the "lost a foot" analogy is to point out that, once
> the choice is made, it doesn't matter what help you give them, or how
> often, etc., they live with the consequences, every single day of their
> lives, forever, short of finding a way to cure the actual chemical
> dependence, which never goes away. You can either treat them like
> someone worth help, or you can treat them like shit. Which solution do
> you imagine will help them avoid losing control again?

We all have to live with our choices every day.  I may choose to play 
football rather than to be working on studying for a test.  If I fail the 
test, I may not get the job I want.  That's my choice, and it could be a 
choice that affects me for the rest of my life.  That's what life is:  
making choices.  Some people make good choices, some people make bad 
choices.  Some people who make good choices have bad things happen as a 
result; some people who make bad choices do very well.  No guarantees in 
this life about fairness.

Jim

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