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In Switzerland they can get actual, state grown, heroin. Clean heroin is one of the least problematic substances appearantly, less problematic and more "everyda
by herbst 9mo ago
In Switzerland they can get actual, state grown, heroin. Clean heroin is one of the least problematic substances appearantly, less problematic and more "everyday friendly" than Methadon even.
And you don't SEE any issues like in the US (or UK) around here at all.
- monero-xmr 9mo agoImagine you are sitting in a room. Your child is in front of you. A scary man sits next to them. The man says: “Your child is a drug addict. They are addicted to opioids. I am the devil, without any care in the world other than making money. The choice is yours. Would you rather they inject clean heroin made by a pharmaceutical company in your country, or banish them forever as street addicts slavishly doing what it takes to score their fix?” When facing the devil I’m voting for my tax dollars to give them clean heroin made by my country. That is what every parent wants when faced with an addicted child
- lolive 9mo agoI switched from my Twitter addiction to a Bluesky addiction. Still scrolling to death, but now my opinion is mine again. #dontDoGrok
- znpy 9mo agoThat’s a fake dichotomy btw, a sadly very common logical fallacy. You (wrongly) assume there’s no way out of an addiction, for example.
- acessoproibido 9mo agoIts definitely easier to beat addiction if you aren't living on the street, selling everything you have and are injecting one of the most horrible shit substances but instead you are using a clean, safe alternative that is provided by the state together with prevention programs (which is usually the model for this) - how is it a false dichotomy? Or are you someone who assumes you just need to "use willpower" and "stop" being an addict? I assure you its not so easy with opiates.
- dostick 9mo ago[flagged]
- spacecadet 9mo agoDefined as addiction... You ever struggle with one, loose a loved one to it? Comment comes off stupid.
- threethirtytwo 9mo agoInteresting fact: Hordes of American soldiers were doing heroin in the Vietnam war. When they came back to America we were expecting a massive addiction epidemic. It never happened. Overall, all the soldiers who came back lost the addiction. Little known phenomenon about addiction that can’t be fully explained yet. What you say is true, but the person you responded to, what he says has an aspect of the truth as well. Look into it.
- BigTTYGothGF 9mo ago> all the soldiers who came back lost the addiction This does not seem to be born out by the historical record. > https://department.va.gov/history/featured-stories/borne-in-battle-va-treatment-for-addiction-after-vietnam/ https://department.va.gov/history/featured-stories/borne-in-... > Despite initial fears, high substance abuse rates during the war did not entirely translate to enduring addiction issues post-war. A year after returning home, only 10% of Service members initially detected as drug positive reported using opiates after detoxification, and just 7% reported re-addiction > VA initially found itself unprepared for the sudden increase in drug cases. Please note the "entirely" and "7%". Also: > https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/99/4/235/138453 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/99/4/235/13845... > Rather than giving up drugs altogether, many had shifted from heroin to amphetamines or barbiturates.
- threethirtytwo 9mo agohttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/144431794/what-vietnam-taught-us-about-breaking-bad-habits https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/1444317... You’re wrong, and the “historical record” you’re citing is actually the same record the NPR piece is summarizing. What that NPR piece is pointing at is the Lee Robins follow up result that became famous precisely because it violated the folk story of heroin addiction being inevitably chronic. A later review of Robins’ findings summarizes it bluntly: In Vietnam, high heroin use and dependence. After return, only about 10% tried heroin, and only about 1% became re addicted in the first year. Now compare that to the VA history page you linked as a “gotcha.” It says the same thing in slightly different numbers: One year after return, 10% reported opiate use, and 7% reported re addiction. So no, “not entirely” and “7%” are not a refutation. They are the punchline. You can argue about whether it is 1% or 7%, depending on definitions and measurement, but the qualitative point survives trivially: it was nowhere near the relapse pattern people expected for heroin addiction, which is why NPR is telling the story in the first place. Your OUP line about some vets shifting to other drugs is also not the contradiction you think it is. “Some people continued using substances” does not falsify “heroin dependence largely remitted when the environment changed.” Those are different claims. If anything, substitution strengthens the “context and cues matter” thesis, because it implies the Vietnam setting was uniquely good at sustaining heroin use, not that heroin had permanently rewired everyone’s brain. Also, “VA was unprepared” is about bureaucracy, not epidemiology. The VA being behind the curve tells you the system wasn’t ready for the volume of cases showing up at the door, not that “everyone stayed addicted forever.” If you want to be precise, the correct statement is: Most soldiers who were using heroin in Vietnam did not remain heroin addicted after returning home, and relapse was low relative to expectations, which is exactly why this became a canonical example in the first place.
- imtringued 9mo agoUsually the fastest and most effective way out of an addiction is medication assisted treatment, which means having a doctor control your dosage with a clean supply of the drug or a less addictive substitute that targets the same receptors.
- solumunus 9mo agoThey never made such an assumption.
- Bridged7756 9mo agoMore often than not, there isn't. Your brain chemistry is just messed up and dependent on the drug. Ask any ex-addict about their cravings. The ones who manage to make it out, usually have something to live for (and the will to live for it), but a lot of people have no money, no job, no career, no family, no spouse, no kids, and no good memories of life, and even if they did, there's no guarantee they'll beat the substance. Sadly for these people, it's very likely they won't see a way out of addiction. The consensus is that "hitting rock bottom" is the only way to help an addict. But many hit rock bottom and never get up again, or don't have anything to climb for.
- Tom1380 9mo agoI live in Zurich. I spent 5 minutes waiting at a bus stop in Langstrasse and I was offered cocaine and marijuana by a thug
- herbst 9mo agoSounds like you have easy options for some common drugs. Not a bad thing perse and sounds like they didn't offer any opioids
- fennecbutt 9mo agoLmao as a kiwi living in UK it's definitely a bad thing. Can't go on a night out in London without half dozen dudes trying to sell you coke. Same dudes who are waiting in alleys waiting to mug people when they get the chance. If you ever see >1 person just standing around and not walking somewhere in London early in the morning just stay the fuck away from them. And if they start heading your way, run.
- herbst 9mo agoI know how annoying this can be, especially in some countries this behaviour is often directly associated with criminality. Here in Switzerland dealers are often (not always) just that, they make enough to not bother with anything else. They don't look like "dirty" junkies, they don't bother stealing from tourists, they basically don't look for any extra attention when the business is rolling anyway.
- Aurornis 9mo ago> Clean heroin is one of the least problematic substances appearantly, less problematic and more "everyday friendly" than Methadon even. Least problematic is too strong of wording. Consistent opioid use will take a large toll on the body and mind. A therapeutic level of dosing could possibly be better than severe chronic pain depending on the situation, but even chronic pain patients have to deal with a range of negatives and side effects that are only tolerable because they’re less bad than their severe chronic pain. Chronic opioid use induces a lot of changes in the body and mind. The initial euphoria isn’t sustainable, as everyone knows, but long term use induces even further changes that predispose users to deeper depression and can even begin to augment pain signals. Opioids are in a class of drugs that are unusually deceptive because users who more or less control their dosing will talk themselves into thinking they can do this forever without real negatives. They can go for years before the cumulative negatives become too obvious to ignore. For addicts deep in cycles of rehab-relapse extremes, going to a maintenance program and achieving stability is definitely better than continuing the cycle indefinitely. However it comes with a high price relative to sobriety. I think it’s important to not downplay the effects of being on opioids for years and years.
- F7F7F7 9mo agoYour response reads like status quo par for the course. The same thinking that fueled the "Just Say No" and "this is your brain on drug's" campaigns in the 80s/90s. Because we all know that cutting off access via stone cold sobriety and absolute illegality under the law is the right solution.
- Aurornis 9mo agoStraw man response. I didn’t say anything about that. I’m trying to counter the idea that a consistent heroin dependence is the “least bad substance” when there are clearly numerous drugs that are much less toxic over the long term. I said nothing about best techniques for dealing with people who have addictions. My goal is to avoid having being read these comments and think that because they’re smarter they’ll be able to handle and benefit from a stable opioid dependence. It’s exactly how one of my friends got started