Posted by metric on April 7, 2009, at 16:35:04
In reply to Modern biochemistry and humanity » metric, posted by yxibow on April 4, 2009, at 13:43:17
> Yes. in certain cases -- I think our "war on drugs" is a waste on time when we should increase our "war on guns" -- but modern knowledge has said also that drinking bottle after bottle of heroin snake oil syrup just might perhaps create some addiction problems, just to name a hundred examples.
>Most of the damage associated with addiction is a direct result of prohibition. Where it isn't created outright, it is greatly amplified.
Since you raise the issue of heroin addiction, it's worth mentioning that there've been many high functioning opiod addicts. The famous surgeon William Halstead is one such example. These people do fine as long as their supply isn't cut off. In contrast with tobacco and alcohol, there is no known organ damage associated with long-term opiod use, even when the dose is continually raised to overcome tolerance.
> Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should criminalize marijuana, some light drugs and esoteric 'entheogens', etc -- but this "modern society", yes, has plenty examples such as e.g., the misuse and bad timing of hard drugs causing crack babies to be born from addiction.
>The problem with this argument is that we already *have* prohibition, so examples about crack babies can hardly be interpreted as supportive to your cause. The use of drugs such as crack has emerged _during_ prohibition. The demand for drugs such as crack would all but disappear if safe and effective alternatives were readily available.
> My whole point there was to illustrate that looking back a century through rosy lenses eliminates what were SERIOUS problems and people did not -necessarily- have a life expectancy of 78 (in developed regions) unless they managed to escape flu, terrible diseases that are now vaccinated against, etc.I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think we should go back to dark ages. I'm all for progress in medicine and any discipline that can improve the condition of life for humans. Unfortunately, prohibition has been a giant leap backward for mankind.
At least in part a consequence of prohibition, there has been a sharp increase in the medicalization of human behavior. Common but irritating behaviors and symptoms of personhood have become classified as medical illnesses in order to justify the use of psychoactive drugs. It would be a helluva lot more honest to simply accept that people want to use drugs to enhance their lives, and allow them to do so, instead of insisting that they have "diseases" (anxiety, insomnia, depression, etc.) that require medical treatment and permission slips from a doctor. Ideally, a prescription should be analogous to a shopping list rather than a permission slip.
The absence of a laboratory test for any so-called mental illness (point me to the "mind" in any anatomy textbook) further calls into question the usefulness of medicine in addressing them. I can't recall a single instance in my existence in which I needed a doctor to tell me I was, for instance, feeling nervous or depressed. Why can't people "diagnose" and "medicate" their own emotional symptoms without sanction from the state?
> This is where we are getting to the crux of things -- anyone is entitled to their opinion, but there has been an increased amount of anti-psychiatry threads on this board over the years I've been here.
>
> Why are people in the -medicine- board if they don't like medicine in the first place ?
>I'm not in any way against the use of drugs. I just don't see the use of psychiatry. If individuals were free to buy their drugs without a prescription, there wouldn't be any need for psychiatry. Psychiatrists don't do any kind of objective testing to diagnose physical pathology. They just prescribe drugs, often in combinations such that their "patients" would more appropriately be described as experimental research subjects, which raises the question: why aren't the "patients" receiving compensation instead of the other way around?
> No. Hardly. Try living with a psychiatric disorder for 7 years that NOBODY has and at least some medication and much therapy (if you think psychology is legitimate, I'm not going to get into another argument)...I'm genuinely sorry that you're suffering. It is *not* my intent to trivialize anyone's suffering.
> ...and you'll know what it feels like to be alone and what feels like inhumane is really anger against something that can't be solved yet, maybe not even in my own lifetime.
>I know very well what it's like to be alone. I am not a stranger to morbid despair, social isolation, severe anxiety. Please do whatever you can to make your situation better. Don't wait for psychiatry to "fix" you, or to make you feel "normal", because there is no such thing.
>
> Yes, part of this is -personal-, but what part of humanity isnt?
>
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> And try living, even now, in a situation where biological imbalances, mental illness, are labeled still all sorts of things despite organizations like NAMI attempting the otherwise.
>NAMI is a marketing arm of the pharmaceutical companies.
> I'm not a 'fruitcake' or a 'wacko' or 'crazy' or deserving of 1940s insulin shots.
>I would never label you as such.
poster:metric
thread:887877
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090330/msgs/889268.html