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Addiction is a chemical dependency. It is neither a disease or a crime, it's usually a symptom of something else. Substance abuse and addiction tends to origin

Addiction is a chemical dependency. It is neither a disease or a crime, it's usually a symptom of something else. Substance abuse and addiction tends to originate from either a variety of sociological factors, or treatment (self or prescribed). A very large number of addicts are simply self medicating for one reason or another. Or at least they started off that way. Even if society determines addiction and substance usage to be criminal, it's a victimless crime and a waste of resources.

miles 9y ago
"Addiction is a chemical dependency. It is neither a disease or a crime [...]" Apparently the AMA and others disagree: https://www.centeronaddiction.org/what-addiction/addiction-disease https://www.centeronaddiction.org/what-addiction/addiction-d... "Addiction is defined as a disease by most medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, addiction is caused by a combination of behavioral, environmental and biological factors. Genetic risks factors account for about half of the likelihood that an individual will develop addiction. Addiction involves changes in the functioning of the brain and body. These changes may be brought on by risky substance use or may pre-exist."
- notadoc 9y ago
  That's OK, not everyone has to agree about a particular description. If medicine gets to the point where a single substance or chemical can be easily avoided to entirely prevent diabetes, cancer, or heart disease, the same way that someone can entirely avoid alcoholism by simply not drinking alcohol, that will be quite an achievement. But this ignores the strong sociological component of addiction and substance abuse. Nobody is choosing to try cancer to self medicate depression, nobody is testing out heart disease to treat their pain or torment, and nobody is giving diabetes a whirl to address a sociological condition.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jahnu 9y ago
    People chose lifestyles that can cause cancer etc. So yeah I'll go with the medical definition of a disease.
    - notadoc 9y ago
      What lifestyle choice did a baby born with a cancer or type-1 diabetes make?
      - empath75 9y ago
        What life style choice did a baby born with a opiate addiction make.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Nobody is choosing to try cancer to self medicate depression, nobody is testing out heart disease to treat their pain or torment, and nobody is giving diabetes a whirl to address a sociological condition Like addiction, all of those can be side effects of things people do for exactly those purposes. In fact, heart disease and cancer are, like addiction, specifically frequently consequences of substance use directed at those purposes (and not just illegal substances; tobacco and alcohol are major culprits.)
  - simonh 9y ago
    >But this ignores the strong sociological component of addiction and substance abuse... Bullshit. All kinds of medical conditions and their treatment involve sociological factors. Treating drug abuse as a health issue in no way precludes dealing with its sociological context. Picking and choose medical conditions that differ markedly from substance abuse and contrasting them is disingenuous. What about other medical conditions that are much more similar such as dietary conditions, overeating disorders, etc? There are a whole range of metabolic diseases caused by or associated with patterns of consumption that are very similar and often even have sociological factors associated with them. These are treated as public health issues. Substance abuse is just another category of related conditions.
ivanhoe 9y ago
There are many types of addictions where no (external) chemistry is involved at all, caused by purely psychological mechanisms.
- notadoc 9y ago
  Right, that is why I suggested that addiction is usually more of a symptom of something else.
- lastofus 9y ago
  Things get a little more muddy if you take the view that there really is no mind-body division, and that human behavior is the result of chemical and neurological processes in the brain, which in turn is just another part of the body. It's easy to draw a distinction when physical withdrawal leads to death, but how do you differentiate between physical and psychological pain and suffering when abstaining is not fatal?
dingo_bat 9y ago
> it's a victimless crime Not always, not for the worst drugs out there. Heroin and meth addicts regularly commit violent crimes as a direct result of their addiction. You can say that the actual violence is the crime, but if there is a common root cause for a lot of crimes, doesn't it make sense to criminalize the root cause?
- astronautjones 9y ago
  no, because poverty is largely what causes those (and most) crimes
- flomble 9y ago
  Heroin and meth addicts regularly commit violent crimes in order to procure more heroin/meth. The only reason they need to is because prohibition makes those drugs orders of magnitude more expensive than they would otherwise be. The only reason the drug cartels engage in ruthless violence is because they operate outside of the law and thus outside of the government's monopoly on force. Criminalization is the root cause of the crime.
- tpm 9y ago
  It's not a direct result. Also no it does not, if it makes matters worse. So if you ban heroin, price will go up, addicts need more money, plausibly the criminality will go up, not down. Which is exactly what happened. The quality will go down and dealers/smugglers will optimize transport costs by using more effective and deadly drugs like fentanyl. So now the ban is directly harming the population of addicts, their relatives, and even first time/ recreational users. And alcohol, no stranger to huge amount of crime, is still legal. As it should be, but this perfectly shows the hypocrisy around drugs.

miles 9y ago

"Addiction is a chemical dependency. It is neither a disease or a crime [...]" Apparently the AMA and others disagree: https://www.centeronaddiction.org/what-addiction/addiction-disease https://www.centeronaddiction.org/what-addiction/addiction-d... "Addiction is defined as a disease by most medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, addiction is caused by a combination of behavioral, environmental and biological factors. Genetic risks factors account for about half of the likelihood that an individual will develop addiction. Addiction involves changes in the functioning of the brain and body. These changes may be brought on by risky substance use or may pre-exist."

notadoc 9y ago
That's OK, not everyone has to agree about a particular description. If medicine gets to the point where a single substance or chemical can be easily avoided to entirely prevent diabetes, cancer, or heart disease, the same way that someone can entirely avoid alcoholism by simply not drinking alcohol, that will be quite an achievement. But this ignores the strong sociological component of addiction and substance abuse. Nobody is choosing to try cancer to self medicate depression, nobody is testing out heart disease to treat their pain or torment, and nobody is giving diabetes a whirl to address a sociological condition.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jahnu 9y ago
  People chose lifestyles that can cause cancer etc. So yeah I'll go with the medical definition of a disease.
  - notadoc 9y ago
    What lifestyle choice did a baby born with a cancer or type-1 diabetes make?
    - empath75 9y ago
      What life style choice did a baby born with a opiate addiction make.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Nobody is choosing to try cancer to self medicate depression, nobody is testing out heart disease to treat their pain or torment, and nobody is giving diabetes a whirl to address a sociological condition Like addiction, all of those can be side effects of things people do for exactly those purposes. In fact, heart disease and cancer are, like addiction, specifically frequently consequences of substance use directed at those purposes (and not just illegal substances; tobacco and alcohol are major culprits.)
- simonh 9y ago
  >But this ignores the strong sociological component of addiction and substance abuse... Bullshit. All kinds of medical conditions and their treatment involve sociological factors. Treating drug abuse as a health issue in no way precludes dealing with its sociological context. Picking and choose medical conditions that differ markedly from substance abuse and contrasting them is disingenuous. What about other medical conditions that are much more similar such as dietary conditions, overeating disorders, etc? There are a whole range of metabolic diseases caused by or associated with patterns of consumption that are very similar and often even have sociological factors associated with them. These are treated as public health issues. Substance abuse is just another category of related conditions.

ivanhoe 9y ago

There are many types of addictions where no (external) chemistry is involved at all, caused by purely psychological mechanisms.

notadoc 9y ago
Right, that is why I suggested that addiction is usually more of a symptom of something else.
lastofus 9y ago
Things get a little more muddy if you take the view that there really is no mind-body division, and that human behavior is the result of chemical and neurological processes in the brain, which in turn is just another part of the body. It's easy to draw a distinction when physical withdrawal leads to death, but how do you differentiate between physical and psychological pain and suffering when abstaining is not fatal?

dingo_bat 9y ago

> it's a victimless crime Not always, not for the worst drugs out there. Heroin and meth addicts regularly commit violent crimes as a direct result of their addiction. You can say that the actual violence is the crime, but if there is a common root cause for a lot of crimes, doesn't it make sense to criminalize the root cause?

astronautjones 9y ago
no, because poverty is largely what causes those (and most) crimes
flomble 9y ago
Heroin and meth addicts regularly commit violent crimes in order to procure more heroin/meth. The only reason they need to is because prohibition makes those drugs orders of magnitude more expensive than they would otherwise be. The only reason the drug cartels engage in ruthless violence is because they operate outside of the law and thus outside of the government's monopoly on force. Criminalization is the root cause of the crime.
tpm 9y ago
It's not a direct result. Also no it does not, if it makes matters worse. So if you ban heroin, price will go up, addicts need more money, plausibly the criminality will go up, not down. Which is exactly what happened. The quality will go down and dealers/smugglers will optimize transport costs by using more effective and deadly drugs like fentanyl. So now the ban is directly harming the population of addicts, their relatives, and even first time/ recreational users. And alcohol, no stranger to huge amount of crime, is still legal. As it should be, but this perfectly shows the hypocrisy around drugs.