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[EnigmaticHat]

Eh... helping people with mental illness is like 1% of what nicotine does.  My aunt had schizophrenia and smoked.  It had no visible positive effects and almost certainly shaved years off her lifespan.  Maybe she took it for some unknown positive effect on her brain but that's basically a non-sequitor.  Doesn't change any of the things people hate about tobacco or cigarette companies.  And it certainly doesn't make cigarettes the product in a capitalistic society a net benefit for the mentally ill, even if nicotine the substance might might be.

Also, lol at that article's assertion that smokers have a lower occurrence of Parkinson's.  You know what increases prevalence of Parkinson's?  Living to grow old.

You refer to addiction and demand as exclusive, but... I dunno.  I don't think the concept of the consumer having agency applies to addictive products because the consumer is only completely in control of their first purchase.  And for that purchase, all they have to go is secondhand information, which companies like the cigarette companies or casinos can and do manipulate.  So the concept that, say, alcohol is "in demand" and thus fine seems a bit weak to me.  Sure its in demand, but its nature is to create its own demand and the people selling it know that.  This applies to things MMOs too, its the most common trick ever to have the first X levels be super easy to obtain and then start spreading out the dopamine injections.

Yes, people will find some other stupid thing to become addicted to in the absence of specifically addictive things.  But that's throwing away "better" because its not "perfect".  History* has shown that as availability of drugs increases, addiction increases alongside it pretty much infinitely.  I guess you could say "oh they'll find something else to be addicted to" but it seems to me a defeatist argument.  The current model for most mental illness is genetic cause, environmental activation.  If we create an environment where addictive things are scarce we'll have less addicts.

*specifically the multiple occasions where a government intentionally flooded an area with addictive drugs

[Reelya]

I never said anything was "fine". I was making the point that you can't magically divide capitalism from all the icky stuff. Because the entire argument just becomes "bad = not capitalism, hence capitalism = good" circular reasoning.

Because any constrained choice must not be capitalism then. e.g. imbalance in bargaining power the labour market, totally not the fault of capitalism by the same arguments presented about not-true-choice.

[EnigmaticHat]

Fair.

But I'm in favor pushing society more towards socialism, so its acceptable to me that capitalism is icky.  Justifies my point of view   Still think something should be done to prevent people from developing addictions.  I think that is a need that society has at the moment.

[Reelya]

For heroin addiction the Swiss model from the 1990s is the best. It works much better than any other model but is also a political hot potato. It's also a model that is specifically for treating opiate addiction, so you would never use it for meth addiction for example.

http://www.citizensopposingprohibition.org/resources/swiss-heroin-assisted-treatment-1994-2009-summary/

Pretty much the entire government cost of the program was made back just in reduced police expenditures related to a crime rate drop in direct recipients (the crime rate of the recipients dropped over 60%). Obviously a large reduction in the crime rate has many more indirect benefits than saving money on police investigations though. There's a huge amount of money that is no longer being stolen to pay for heroin in Switzerland, thus the economy works better, there are more jobs, less criminal networks, less insurance payouts, less prison costs.

[EnigmaticHat]

So, if I'm reading that right, they take government issued heroine under controlled conditions.

I see how that might help, but how does it work to stop them taking heroine?  Or is that not the point?  The summary said that on average patients would leave the program after 3 years but it didn't say why.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

To provide a stable enough environment to keep them off the "my life is such shit, but I know what can fix it, more heroin" track for long enough to drop it.

[EnigmaticHat]

Ah, makes sense.

[Vattic]

Worth noting that long term medical quality opioid/opiate use has few bodily health problems on it's own. I have family members on them in the form of pain medication and according to their doctor the worst they'll get is constipation and the addiction itself (which can lead to wasting if the drug is withdrawn). As with krokodil (surprisingly a drug used medically too) it's the impurities and the too frequent use of injection/smoking that are the bigger issues in terms of bodily health. Obviously the addiction itself, if not managed as with a doctor, often leads to people not eating or otherwise looking after themselves properly.

You refer to addiction and demand as exclusive, but... I dunno.  I don't think the concept of the consumer having agency applies to addictive products because the consumer is only completely in control of their first purchase.  And for that purchase, all they have to go is secondhand information, which companies like the cigarette companies or casinos can and do manipulate.  So the concept that, say, alcohol is "in demand" and thus fine seems a bit weak to me.  Sure its in demand, but its nature is to create its own demand and the people selling it know that.  This applies to things MMOs too, its the most common trick ever to have the first X levels be super easy to obtain and then start spreading out the dopamine injections.

The vast majority of people buy and consume addictive products and are not addicts. I consider buying and doing things that cause pleasure to be rational within limits. I treat myself now and again to chocolate or a bottle of beer for example. You'd quickly run out of true demand purchases if you count none for things that cause addiction.

Isn't the notion of humans as rational actors within capitalism a fine theory that doesn't carry over well into the real world?

[Reelya]

There are also other benefits of the heroin trials - even if you never get them off the drug. Less deaths. Less infected needles all over the place. Less diseases. Less costs. Less crime - there was a 40% drop in property crime in the city they started it in. Also you put the dealers out of business, keeping more money in the taxable market, thus growing the GDP and tax base.

Another thing is that junkies have a social network consisting of other junkies, and the group dynamic completely revolves around obtaining and using the drug. Likewise these are the guys working together to commit crimes, but also committing crimes against each other, and other drug users. These drug-based social networks break down pretty quickly when the need to obtain the drugs goes away. That in itself can help prevent recovering users from relapsing, or being encouraged into more property theft. The worst thing when you're trying to give something up is that all your friends do it, ain't that right?

So even if you say "that guy is still zonked out - YOU FAILED!", it's not a failure by any stretch of the imagination. You've turned a guy who was a walking disaster area for himself and everyone around him into a non-entity who isn't a threat to anyone, and saved money to boot. Who cares if someone is still "high" if they're no longer a threat to those around them?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Because of people who don't want to admit that they'd rather sit around being high on government heroin all day than work, and thus grow resentful.

[Reelya]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment

Also, the notion that patients in heroin assisted treatment are enabled to maintain "destructive behavior" contradicts the findings that patients significantly recover in terms of both their social and health situation. A clinical follow-up report on the German "Heroinstudie" found that 40% of all patients and 68% of those able to work had found employment after four years of treatment. Some even started a family, after years of homelessness and delinquency.

I recall that they had 98% unemployment in the group going into the trials.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nobody of that mindset would know or care about the facts of the matter.

[Reelya]

Something I didn't consider is that apparently Swiss kids thing heroin is "uncool" now because it's that stuff you go to a government clinic to get. You see, they were right, government ruins everything.

[Antsan]

This kind of reasoning is why I think it's kind of ingenious to say that communism and anarchism ignore human nature while capitalism supposedly doesn't.

Also: Urges are not rational. The concept of rationality only applies to planning, not to goals. So calling demand rational only applies as long as you aren't satisfying basic needs.

[Vattic]

Reminds me of how a lot of Dutch kids consider cannabis to be uncool and have lower usage rates than in countries where it is illegal.

Antsan you may want to remove or anonymise the quote as the poster has requested in her sig.