Posted by Elizabeth on May 19, 2001, at 13:44:33
In reply to Re: fellow foxhole veterans » Elizabeth, posted by JahL on May 18, 2001, at 20:44:06
> > All I can suggest is that you not take these "accusations" seriously; *you* know you're not an addict.
>
> Hi e.Hi j. :-)
> Even if I was it wouldn't be anything to be ashamed of. As you point out, it's an illness.
What confuses me is that the psychiatric profession has supposedly embraced the "disease model" of addiction, but people diagnosed as substance abusers are still stigmatised even in the realm of psychiatric treatment.
> The US govt's failure to comprehend this explains why it has the world's largest prison popn.
...And the US pressures other countries to adopt similarly draconian drug laws.
> I think that those who want the subject of drugs off this board fail to realise that censoring discussion only adds to the mystery & mystique of drugs.I find it hard to conceive of a psychopharmacology discussion board in which there was no discussion of drugs!
Seriously, I know you mean "drugs of abuse," but that isn't such a clear-cut category as people seem to think. The question is, what counts as "legitimate"/"appropriate"/"nonabusive" use? A lot of people have really strong, emotionally charged beliefs about this (as has been demonstrated here on this forum).
> People need the facts in order to make informed decisions. I wish I was better informed when I was using. In the UK (unlike other European countries) there is no educational drug program & guess what? We have the highest Euro rate of adolescent drug-use. Co-incidence?
Many (most?) public schools in the US have adopted a supposedly educational anti-drug program called "DARE." (I forget what that stands for.) It's not education at all, though; it's political indoctrination. (It's "taught" by police officers -- they don't have a doctor or scientist come in even once.)
> J the ex-Junkie ;-)
I'm glad that it's "ex-." Heroin got to be fairly popular when I was in college, and I watched a very close friend destroy himself and eventually die of an overdose. And then, two years later -- almsot to the day -- another friend, who I thought had stopped using, fatally ODed on a combination of heroin and N20. Nobody who knew these could help but feel compassion (in contrast to the intense hatred that most Americans seem to harbor for addicts).
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:17065
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010515/msgs/63629.html