I don’t see how legalization would have prevented Hoffman from being an addict to the point that he ODed. The legality of alcohol hasn’t prevented alcoholics from ruining, and even losing, their lives.
Well, Brand doesn’t seem to be advocating “go to the bar and get loaded” legalization, but rather a treatment system similar to the one in the U.K.. I don’t see a down side to them, really.
If Hoffman was getting his heroin from such a place, an overdose would be rare, and he’d have people treating him immediately if he did.
I guess the numbers don’t lie, and some addicts would benefit from it. From what I’ve read of Hoffman, he seemed to have been more of the “go to the bar and get loaded” kind of guy, but maybe not. At any rate, for his benefit it would have been good to at least have the option of a program like that.
In your Wikipedia link, I found this humourous in a black kind of way: “For decades it [the heroin maintenance program] supplied a few hundred addicts nationwide, most of whom were doctors themselves.”
Coroner’s report is out. Cause of death due to a speedball (the intravenous injection of cocaine with heroin or morphine in the same syringe). Heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepines were found in his system.
Is there anyone who does *not *know that heroin is addictive? If so, why do they start?
There is no one who does not know that cigarettes are addictive. Why do they start? Everyone knows that alcohol is addictive, why do people drink? Caffeine is addictive, why do people start that?
Because the perceived reward outweighs the perceived risk.
The same can be said for anything dangerous. You know that driving a car carries inherent risks, but (I assume) you do it anyway. Your personal risk-reward calculus results in your decision to drive.
People use drugs because they get something out of it, and their own evaluation of the risks of use versus the benefits of what they get out of it determines their use. It might be flawed reasoning. Hell, I agree that it is. But it’s pretty clear, to me at least, why people use heroin.
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Look at all the high horses in here.
There is no dumb luck involved in not engaging in something known to be egregiously stupid.
How does your simple worldview reconcile the prevalence of drugs?
Lots of stupid people, apparently.
Precisely.
Precisely simplistic, you mean?
No. Heroin makes your life worse, one way or another. It might kill you directly. It might convince you that krokodil is a good idea. Or it might just throw all your money into a pit. If you try heroin, it’s because you were not smart enough to not try heroin.
Horseshit. I’ve known plenty of smart people who were hooked on heroin. Being smart isn’t some panacea that keeps you from making mistakes.
we disagree on what makes someone smart. I know people who got straight A’s in school and couldn’t make simple rational decisions.
Which is why “using heroin == stupid” is a terribly simplistic and deeply flawed idea.
how so? You’ve never heard the term “book smart”? If repeating back information was a harbinger of intelligence we would be giving diplomas to parrots.
So you’re fine with the idea that “smart” manifests in different ways?
Aren’t we going around in circles here? I’m pretty sure we discussed this in this thread already. Do you have the notion that anyone who makes a stupid choice is automatically a stupid person?
I don’t know if this is the case but if PSH suffered from depression and was using drugs to compensate, then what we really should be focusing on is mental health and better ways to treat it.
I think it’s wrong to harshly judge PSH for using narcotics without knowing why he used them. Sure, it’s possible he was just trying to have fun and got sucked into an addiction. But what if his motivation was not quite so simple?