Posted by Chairman_MAO on February 2, 2004, at 11:59:20
In reply to Re: Thank you for that... » Chairman_MAO, posted by KellyD on February 1, 2004, at 10:52:31
Check out this debate:
From http://www.szasz.com/addiction.pdf :
DR. SZASZ: I am professor of psychiatry emeritus at State
University in Syracuse. The question, "Do drugs cause
addiction?" is prima facie nonsensical. Addiction is a form of
behavior. Behavior is not caused; it has reasons. Drugs can no
more cause addiction than sex hormones or genitals can cause
perversions or sexual acts. Some drugs, when ingested--which
itself is a decision--some drugs make people feel in certain ways
which they like to repeat. If you want to call that an addiction,
which is already a value judgment, because there are many
behaviors which are now called addictions--for example,
smoking-- Nobody called Churchill or Roosevelt an addict.
Now they would be called nicotine addicts. So addiction is not
a descriptive term, it is a stigmatizing term which is culturally
conditioned. And it reflects not a property of the drug, but a
property of the culture. So in sum, drugs cannot cause addiction.How can one dispute that argument? I don't get it, probably because any attempted at refuation, is, as Szasz says, prima facie absurd.
One can also ask this question: if the "moral majority" and our healthcare/addiction treatment system is so correct these days, why do we have more people with drug problems today than ever before? Our current "drugs cause addiction" craze is simply "demon possession causes addiction" masquerading as medicine.
Remember, masturbation amongst children and homosexuality used to require "treatment". In 1973, the APA no longer acknowledged homosexuality as a pathology. Let us hope someday they'll follow suit with addiction so addicts will stop being persecuted and blamed for social ills.
If addiction has a "chemical" cause, why is the prevailing treatment for it pseduo-spiritual cult-like 12-step groups? And if someone deemed an addict dares claim that they do not have such a disease, they are said to be "in denial". Sounds like the way Jews were treated in the inquisition, doesn't it?
poster:Chairman_MAO
thread:307693
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040131/msgs/308507.html