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>Is it even possible to be a responsible Heroin user? Or even Meth? Yes! And this is what is so fascinating is how well the "drug war" has helped shape societa

>Is it even possible to be a responsible Heroin user? Or even Meth? Yes! And this is what is so fascinating is how well the "drug war" has helped shape societal opinion to think it's not possible to be a functional user. Yet, you may be surprised to learn we have millions of people prescribed Adderall, an amphetamine mixture that is functionally equivalent to methamphetamine. They go about their daily lives on this drug. Likewise, we have beyond millions of people on oxycotin and other functionally equivalent drugs to Heroin going about their daily lives as well. Does this mean they live great lives? Not necessarily, but just as we have millions of functional alcoholics we also have many functional drug users in our country.

ryneandal 5y ago
Alcohol is the one that really throws me off. IT's often a malevolent substance yet has none of the stigma of "hard" drugs. Societal acceptance of alcohol, hell even encouragement, has led to countless deaths in this country. Yet it's readily accessible.
handoflixue 5y ago
> functionally equivalent to methamphetamine. "The average crystal meth addict uses about 500 mg a day. And they snort it, which probably produces about double the peak plasma level as taking it orally. So they're getting the equivalent of 1000 mg oral amphetamine daily. The average Adderall patient takes 20 mg." https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-drugs https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-o... The fact that it's safe to have licensed people prescribe a tightly-controlled substance at 2% of recreational doses is... not at all a good argument for fully unrestricted 100% recreational doses. (I'm still against the war on drugs, for what it's worth)
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Perhaps educating recreational users about safe dosing is important when it comes to harm reduction? 500mg dose in a non tolerant individual would cause serious issues, they didn't get there overnight.

ryneandal 5y ago

Alcohol is the one that really throws me off. IT's often a malevolent substance yet has none of the stigma of "hard" drugs. Societal acceptance of alcohol, hell even encouragement, has led to countless deaths in this country. Yet it's readily accessible.

handoflixue 5y ago

> functionally equivalent to methamphetamine. "The average crystal meth addict uses about 500 mg a day. And they snort it, which probably produces about double the peak plasma level as taking it orally. So they're getting the equivalent of 1000 mg oral amphetamine daily. The average Adderall patient takes 20 mg." https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-drugs https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-o... The fact that it's safe to have licensed people prescribe a tightly-controlled substance at 2% of recreational doses is... not at all a good argument for fully unrestricted 100% recreational doses. (I'm still against the war on drugs, for what it's worth)

netizen-936824 5y ago
Perhaps educating recreational users about safe dosing is important when it comes to harm reduction? 500mg dose in a non tolerant individual would cause serious issues, they didn't get there overnight.