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I’ve always found it fascinating that people don’t perceive socially sanctioned drugs as drugs at all. Saying “drugs and alcohol” to me is like saying “sandwich

I’ve always found it fascinating that people don’t perceive socially sanctioned drugs as drugs at all. Saying “drugs and alcohol” to me is like saying “sandwiches and hamburgers”. A person can drink a cup of coffee in the morning, smoke a cigarette on their lunch break, and drink a couple glasses of wine in the evening, and the only thing that keeps them from being called a “drug addict” is that these particular drugs are socially acceptable. There are Yemeni families in California who get in trouble for possessing khat, a stimulant which in Yemen is not even questioned—imagine being a Brit and being told you couldn’t drink tea!

atom_enger 12y ago
Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Everyone and their mother is addicted to something, it's just a matter of whether or not the authorities approve of your choice of substance. Truth is we're humans and humans seek to alter their consciousness whether it be through meditation, prayer, exercise, spinning in circles or a through a shortcut -- a substance. Unfortunately we're working against decades of misinformation and racism in this fight for our freedom to consume substances as we wish. It's unfortunate because I think there's a lot of medical value in a lot of the substances our government has deemed illegal.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  > Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Except "addict" is a loaded term, which implies... well, unequivocally maladaptive behavior. You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix.
  - malka 12y ago
    Because it is socially acceptable to be addicted to coffee. Plus you can buy coffee almost anywhere, and it is really inexpensive. In a situation where coffee would be banned, we would in all likeliness see a rise in coffee smuggling, a drop in quality of coffee, and coffee addicts would face problem due to the illegality of the stuff : imagine that one day, your dealer is all out of coffee. That would cause a withdrawal syndrome. So people would keep stash of coffee, and other behavior charateristic of 'drugs addict'
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > a situation where coffee would be banned, we would in all likeliness see a rise in coffee smuggling, a drop in quality of coffee, and coffee addicts would face problem due to the illegality of the stuff More likely if caffeine were banned. If coffee were banned, those with a dependence (which is most likely on caffeine, not coffee) would substitute other sources. Like tea. Or soda. (People might smuggle coffee if it were banned, the way they smuggle Cuban cigars into the US, but as a prohibited luxury rather than an item of dependence that there was no legal means to fulfill.)
      - forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
        I wonder if pedantry were banned, would we see a rise in darknet sites for posts like yours?
        eropple 12y ago
        dragonwriter pointing out that there are economically substitutable goods to coffee, and that the prohibition would have to be much more generalized, is a straight-up good point, and you're not contributing.
        notnickwolf 12y ago
        I think he was just making a joke, one I thought was very funny.
      - shard972 12y ago
        > (People might smuggle coffee if it were banned, the way they smuggle Cuban cigars into the US, but as a prohibited luxury rather than an item of dependence that there was no legal means to fulfill.) You do realize that caffeine is more addictive than cannibas right? If there is an illegal drug trade for that pot then I can't imagine people would just give up on coffee when it's harder to kick.
        12y ago
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix. I also seldom hear of people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden drug/alcohol stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their drug/alcohol fix. Really, I do often hear the same sad generic story which you refer to, but there are never any specifics nor any thing else that would prove it is actually as common as is purported.
    - rprospero 12y ago
      You're right that the generic story isn't really attached to statistical data that would make it meaningful. However, if you want specifics on the story, it's my mother in law. She could either pay the rent or buy alcohol. She purchased alcohol and was evicted form her home. Living homeless in the park, she and her children didn't eat for two days. When she received money, she decided to continue forgoing food to spend the money on alcohol. After over a month of homelessness, during an Indiana winter that was below freezing during the day and colder at night, she was offered private housing and food for herself and her children. The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. My wife has permanent medical problems from sleeping in those conditions. She didn't steal from her daughter's piggy bank to buy alcohol. She did use her daughter's social security number to apply for a student loan, then use the loan money to go on a bender. Alcoholism isn't just a generic scare story told by DARE officers to keep kids from drinking. It's a real issue killing a real woman named Virginia.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        > The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. This is a cruel joke that gets played on drunks. She didn't prefer the alcohol, she was/is addicted; and our society deals with addiction in probably the worst possible way. They may as well have asked her to jump over the moon. Rational people don't do that to themselves or their families. I didn't say that these things never happen. I said they are more rare than some would have you believe. I have my own horrible story in that vein (my father), but what I don't do is use it to pander to peoples' emotions in an effort to further perpetuate, or perhaps even expand the disaster that is the drug war. Addiction is an ugly unfortunate thing that exists, and as sad and regrettable as your wife's tale, and my father's tale, and the tales of others are; using these tales to support the continuance of, or the heaping of even more hardship (criminal sanctions) upon the susceptible/unfortunate/whatever is and always was the wrong thing to do.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash Try Utah some time. Great place, interesting culture, and occasionally, secret coffee stashes.
  - jasonl99 12y ago
    >> You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix. Actually, this brings up an perfect example of the first poster's point. Smoking cigarettes was socially acceptable at one point. Now, it's considered a bad, unhealthy habit. I've known quite a of people who hide, or attempt to hide, their habit from their friends. And I'm quite sure that a good number of parents have taken money from their kids piggybanks to buy cigarettes.
    - Jem 12y ago
      My mum emptied my savings (I probably had about £5 in change) at the age of 7 to buy another pack of cigarettes. When I found out, she promised she would pay me back. She never did.
- cappsjulian 12y ago
  Yeah I'm inclined to not use the word addict - maybe go with what DFW said about everyone worshipping
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  That's because we've somehow equated addiction with badness. When you read about opiates, for instance, the high addiction potential is called out as a major downside. Doctors get all nervous about it, try to prescribe little, don't allow refills, etc. Yet this is not the case when prescribed, say, antidepressants, which can be just as addictive. What we need to do is realize that addiction is not a bad thing intrinsically. Sure, it has the downside of needing a supply of the addictive thing, but that might be a minor and perfectly reasonable price to pay. Just like popular medications that have a small chance of making all your skin die and fall off, or over time, frying your nerves and making you jerk around. Never, in my personal experience, have any medical personnel made a big deal about those side effects of "good" drugs like anti-psychotics, stabilizers, or anti-depressants. But mention "bad" drugs and they go nuts about similarly small tradeoffs.
  - foobarian 12y ago
    It comes from protestant tradition which rejects indulgence but values hard work. Good drugs facilitate the latter.
  - pyre 12y ago
    I thought that one of the requirements for addiction was that you were willing to let the rest of your life go up in flames to get your next "fix." People definitely bandy about the word "addiction" for things that are somewhat less than that. E.g. not many people withdraw from those around them to get their next caffeine fix. (It's worth noting that this doesn't necessarily apply to just drugs. WoW-addiction falls into this definition too.)
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Smoking is losing a lot of its social acceptance lately and for alcohol, well, I think we all know what happened during the years it lost its acceptance.
      - marincounty 12y ago
        I think alcohol is a horrid drug on the body, and I look back at the Prohibition Era and it looks like the average person breaking the law was just looking for a good time, but I have a feeling a lot where self medicating at the time? Alcohol is a weird drug that affects so many parts of the brain; I don't think it's just coincidence that it's the drug of choice for so many people who have mental disorders? I know for myself, when I had my breakdown in my late twenties--alcohol is the only drug that really seemed to make me feel normal(a least for awhile). I went to various Psychiatrists and was prescribed the usual regime of tri, and hetrocyclic antidepressants--none worked in the slightest in my case. I finally found Klonopin. Yea, it worked at first, but was not better than alcohol. I know Klonopin has a long half life, but in my experience the effects wore off pretty quick? My point is I feel a lot of people abuse alcohol because the other drugs just don't work very well. I remember a Psychiatrist telling me I wish I could prescribe more Klonopin, so you didn't need to drink a six pack a day, but I can't. I'm afraid of the load on you liver. He was right, and I'm glad he didn't increase the dosage of Klonopin--I think? I really didn't have a say in the matter. But the anxiety went on for years and honestly effected my life and career. I went on to become an Alcoholic. I got to the point where I gave up, but didn't want to blow out my liver(I had a medical backround, and saw just how horrid alcohol was to the liver.) I saw someone die from liver failure, and it was Hell. It was beyond the worse misery I have ever seen, and it went on for days. I knew I was a alcoholic, and Psychotropic medications were not helping me so I just decided to keep my drinking down to only the times I truly needed it(that meant no partying, no drinks at dinner, etc.) I was a drug I used to treat my symptoms. I stayed away from hard liquor. Just medicated with beer and wine. Well years later--my career is toast, but I'am still alive. Most days were a pain in the ass, but I got through it, and had some good days. If anyone reads this who is suffering from an anxiety related disorder; I can honestly state that the my level of anxiety did get better with the natural aging process. If you are controlling panic attacks with alcohol--only drink enough to stop the paints attack. In my case 2-3 drinks would stop a panic attack if I timed it right. My worse years were the 90's up through around 2005. Back in the ninties I could get away with a little bit of alcohol on my breath. I couldn't imagine self medicating today--where alcohol is so demonized in many circles, and Cops don't take any sympathy. "Just lock him up even if even though he blew under .08 percent. He probally has something else in his blood stream, and through synergy, and our narrative, we can get a conviction?" The Psychiatriactic profession has failed us. Very few drug companies are working on new Psychiatric drugs. No wonder people self medicate? What I find ironic is right now it is harder than ever to get SSDI for a Phychiatric disorder. No I am not on SSDI, but would be homeless if I didn't get very lucky a few investments early on.(absolute blind luck on that money). I got lucky. I really should be homeless.
- derefr 12y ago
  More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances. Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooked on cigarettes way more often than other groups. Etc. The famous Rat Park experiment showed that addiction is not nearly as common a thing, for neurotypical individuals living in an adaptive environment, as we assumed when we built our models of addiction epidemiology. Most addicts (sparing a few drugs like cocaine and heroin that create strong chemical dependence) are either not neurotypical, or in a mal-adaptive environment, or both. Fix the problem with the neurology or the environment, and the addiction becomes easy to break.
  - TylerE 12y ago
    Why say undiagnosed? Maybe we ha've been and just prefer something less. Caffiene is easier on the body and mind than amphetamines.
    - derefr 12y ago
      People who have been diagnosed with something, and then pursue alternative lines of therapy, usually manage to use those alternative therapies responsibly, because they are actually thinking of them using the mental framing of "treatment for condition" rather than "fun recreational substance I seem to enjoy even more than other people." A lot of recreational drugs are fine if approached in a medical context. Amphetamines, nicotine, MDMA, whatever—given appropriately-controlled dosing and a desire to achieve a therapeutic effect rather than a "high", one can consume these substances in a long-term fashion without addiction, and remain "healthy" or even "healthier". It's the undiagnosed who are the problem. Since they don't think they have a problem (except perhaps a problem common to all human experience, or a problem with their environment—anything but an uncommon neuroendocrine ailment) they don't even realize that there's any other point than the "high" to begin with. They pursue these drugs because they seem really, really good: they get the recreational effects and they help with their problems! And then they get addicted, because they associate a recreational dosing schedule (rather than a therapeutic one) with their life getting better.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  If weed were legal, I wouldn't use coffee, cigarettes, or alcohol. The ugly truth is, this is the case for a lot of people, and its quite well understood in the trillion-dollar coffee, cigarette and alcohol industries. I'd also be less likely to ask a stranger for industrial drugs to treat depression. Plus, I could grow it myself for almost no cost. Anything that upsets the economic and industrial consumption status quo is going to meet fierce and powerful resistance from those currently selling consumption every minute of their lives.
jamesbowman 12y ago
David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  Except sugar.
  - hamiltonkibbe 12y ago
    Not sure why this was downvoted, sugar was likely the first example of the commodification of drugs, and the beginning of a global drug trade....
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old. That's certainly not true of all of the popular forms in which those (particularly alcohol and caffeine) are consumed by adults. Sure, most kids might not like black coffee or straight black tea (but plenty of adults take it with cream and sugar resp. milk and honey), but they've got very little problem with, say, Coca-Cola.
  - draven 12y ago
    Coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol are all "raw" products. Coca Cola was engineered to taste good. If all drugs were legalized I'm sure we'd get some excellent space cookies or strawberry flavored psylocibe products.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      No, alcohol isn't a raw product, not even relative to the popular forms in which it is consumed.
chrischen 12y ago
Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs. They do boil tea out of coca leaves, which normally has a small amount of cocaine. It's only when it's concentrated, snorted, that it gives the temporary super high.
- kaoD 12y ago
  > Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs. A common dose of LSD is about 50-150 ug (ug as in micrograms). A Starbucks Grande Coffee has 330mg of caffeine inside. That is THREE orders of magnitude! So, to sum it up: you can't compare dosages from different substances. Also: 330mg is a lot of caffeine.
hristov 12y ago
You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health. For a woman it is down to one glass. You can drink a glass of coffee or a cup of tea every day of your life and this will also probably improve your life and your health. Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences. There are very few discrete things in nature. Like most things psychoactive substances have varying effects. But some substances have effects so different from others, they should be in a different category. Someone might argue that sulfuric acid is just a more powerful version of lemon juice. But it's acidic effect is so much more powerful than that of lemon juice society quite correctly treats them as being completely different.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  A once-daily dose of cocaine or heroin is not likely to lead to serious dependence or health effects. So long as the dose and frequency remain constant, one should be able to ride that horse forever. Americans have forgotten just how ubiquitous drugs that are now illegal used to be, and how often they were used. Amphetamines used to be commonly prescribed by doctors, for just about anything. Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker. I read an article recently about a guy who became addicted to smoking opium. He said it took a long time and steady increasing doses before he finally reached the point where he was addicted. Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Provisioning notes from the time period reveal shockingly massive quantities.
  - foobarian 12y ago
    > Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker Not exactly a glowing endorsement of taking the drug.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
_nedR 12y ago
You're confusing intoxicants with stimulants. Noone accidentally ran over a kid or beat up his wife because he drank too many cups of coffee or smoked one too many cigarettes. Alcohol on the other hand... edit: If you are going to say that cocaine is primarily a stimulatant, You can't even compare the harmful effects/addictiveness of cocaine with coffee or cigarettes.
- researcher88 12y ago
  True. 6,000 people died of cocaine abuse in 2006. Another statistic said 17,000 died in 2000 from all illicit drugs. Now surely moderate cocaine abuse is causing deaths in people who aren't known addicts. But tobacco is certainly far far worse at 443,000 annual deaths. Occasional responsible use of hard drugs is likely not that bad for you.
  - soylentcola 12y ago
    To be fair, the tobacco issue is due to the delivery method of smoking rather than the active ingredient (nicotine). On its own, nicotine is an addictive but relatively mild stimulant in normal doses. People desire it for the typical stimulant effects (energy, focus, wakefulness, appetite suppression) but as long as the predominant delivery method involves the repeated inhalation of carbon monoxide, lung-coating tars, particulates, and hundreds of other hazardous compounds, it comes with a terrible burden to health. If everyone had been smoking coffee grounds to ingest caffeine all these years, I'd imagine there would be similar issues around caffeine. Thankfully, there are other delivery methods for nicotine which are more in line with those for caffeine but they are often prohibitively expensive (inhalers, gum, etc) or under a lot of pressure from tobacco companies and those who produce the gum, patches, and inhalers (nicotine vaporizers commonly referred to as "e-cigarettes"). I think that as long as people derive a benefit from nicotine (like caffeine) there should be a lot more support for these more novel delivery methods that don't involve the inhalation of burning leaves. You can argue that anything habit-forming is negative and undesirable but as with coffee or tea, people often find it worth the tradeoff of potential blood pressure issues common to stimulants.
  - _nedR 12y ago
mc32 12y ago
To be fair, it is called a drug store. I think the reason we say drugs and alcohol is simply because alcohol was around way before we had a notion of 'chemicals which do harm to your body' kind of knowledge and alcohol has been an accepted beverage for millenia. It has been seen a vice, however, just like drugs, for quite some time.
finishingmove 12y ago
It's even worse, because the society-set standards demand of you to drink coffee every day, otherwise you will be seen as less productive than someone who drinks 3 cups a day.
- fahadkhan 12y ago
  I have worked with people that do not need caffeine to be far more productive than myself with caffeine. Also read research which claims caffeine only brings people with caffeine tolerance to a normal level of alertness, i.e. its counter productive to use caffeine frequently. Unfortunately I cannot fix the cause, lack of sleep, so I try to address the symptoms.
wingerlang 12y ago
> “sandwiches and hamburgers” I kind of get what you mean, but those are very different.
- evincarofautumn 12y ago
  In what way? A hamburger is a sandwich, and alcohol is a drug. A hot dog is a sausage, too.
  - wingerlang 12y ago
    Sandwich isn't necessarily a hamburger though. Also, doesn't a hot dog refer to the whole package? That'd make it different from a sausage.
    - bornhuetter 12y ago
      Americans consider hamburgers to be a type of sandwich. It can be confusing to people from other countries who don't consider meat in a bun (as opposed to meat between slices of bread) to be a a sandwich.
      - wingerlang 12y ago
        Yeah. I'm from Sweden and when I think sandwich I think of this: http://i.imgur.com/hJwtQ7N.png http://i.imgur.com/hJwtQ7N.png
      - evincarofautumn 12y ago
        Sorry to keep doing this, but I would say a bun is bread, too: “A bun is a small, sometimes sweet, bread or bread roll,” quoth Wikipedia.
        wingerlang 12y ago
        > Sorry to keep doing this I guess likewise, because while bun is a type of bread, bread doesn't, again, necessarily have to be a bun.
WickyNilliams 12y ago
A friend and I had a good laugh recently after spotting someone had posted a rant on FB declaring (amongst other misinformed nonsense) that "if someone is addicted to drugs they deserve to die". In the comments underneath more people chimed in with "yeah, bloody druggies, they deserve it", and other similar sentiments. Then the original poster commented, without a hint of irony, "I know, who would want to do drugs?! I'm bad enough after 10 jaegerbombs, i can't imagine what i'd be like on drugs". 10 jaegerbombs!! First, that is undeniably drug abuse. Second, these people don't realise that level of alcohol is far more intoxicating and dangerous (perhaps also addictive?) than many of the hardest drugs! How are people's perspectives so off with this stuff? I understand education tells people "drugs are bad mmmkay" but to be as cold-hearted as to think addicts/users deserve to die, while ignoring the massive contradiction in your own beliefs? It absolutely astounds me It's drug abuse which poses problems at social and personal levels, not drug use.
- vidarh 12y ago
  Part of the reason is that they don't know how often they see people under the influence of drugs, because it's not something that will be paraded in front of someone who is clearly anti-drug - unlike alcohol - because of the legal risk. So their image of drug users is drug addicts with so severe problems that they are "visible" in wholly negative ways, because outside of a few self-destructive people or activists, for the most part the only ones that will expose their use publicly, or to people who make it clear they are against drugs, are the ones unable to hide it. I used to think all drug users were the kind of broken down addicts you occasionally see on the streets too, though I felt pity for them rather than express the kind of unfeeling anger you'r describing from that Facebook user. That first changed over time as I over the years met more and more drug users who were fully functioning, and mostly entirely normal people (using drugs ranging from cannabis to heroin) and was forced to accept that not only were they not all broken down wrecks, but many of them were not even addicts. Including some of the ones using some of the hardest drugs.
  - mercer 12y ago
    This goes both ways. I've met many people who seem to be just as 'normal' as the people around them, but suffer from their behavior. Especially when it comes to alcohol, I've noticed that identical behavior over time can diverge: one person might just stop drinking as they grow up, while the other ends up being unhealthily dependent on their drinking. And the latter situation seems fine and might even go unnoticed by everyone... until it suddenly isn't (break-up, being fired, depression).
dragonwriter 12y ago
Or the fact that mere use of a substance isn't the same thing as addiction/dependence. Now, what stops them from being called a "drug abuser" is that their substances of choice are legal, so aren't subject to the use=abuse idea that applies to illegal drugs, but even illegal drugs aren't generally subject to a use=addiction idea.

atom_enger 12y ago

Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Everyone and their mother is addicted to something, it's just a matter of whether or not the authorities approve of your choice of substance. Truth is we're humans and humans seek to alter their consciousness whether it be through meditation, prayer, exercise, spinning in circles or a through a shortcut -- a substance. Unfortunately we're working against decades of misinformation and racism in this fight for our freedom to consume substances as we wish. It's unfortunate because I think there's a lot of medical value in a lot of the substances our government has deemed illegal.

Terr_ 12y ago
> Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Except "addict" is a loaded term, which implies... well, unequivocally maladaptive behavior. You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix.
- malka 12y ago
  Because it is socially acceptable to be addicted to coffee. Plus you can buy coffee almost anywhere, and it is really inexpensive. In a situation where coffee would be banned, we would in all likeliness see a rise in coffee smuggling, a drop in quality of coffee, and coffee addicts would face problem due to the illegality of the stuff : imagine that one day, your dealer is all out of coffee. That would cause a withdrawal syndrome. So people would keep stash of coffee, and other behavior charateristic of 'drugs addict'
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > a situation where coffee would be banned, we would in all likeliness see a rise in coffee smuggling, a drop in quality of coffee, and coffee addicts would face problem due to the illegality of the stuff More likely if caffeine were banned. If coffee were banned, those with a dependence (which is most likely on caffeine, not coffee) would substitute other sources. Like tea. Or soda. (People might smuggle coffee if it were banned, the way they smuggle Cuban cigars into the US, but as a prohibited luxury rather than an item of dependence that there was no legal means to fulfill.)
    - forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
      I wonder if pedantry were banned, would we see a rise in darknet sites for posts like yours?
      - eropple 12y ago
        dragonwriter pointing out that there are economically substitutable goods to coffee, and that the prohibition would have to be much more generalized, is a straight-up good point, and you're not contributing.
        notnickwolf 12y ago
        I think he was just making a joke, one I thought was very funny.
    - shard972 12y ago
      > (People might smuggle coffee if it were banned, the way they smuggle Cuban cigars into the US, but as a prohibited luxury rather than an item of dependence that there was no legal means to fulfill.) You do realize that caffeine is more addictive than cannibas right? If there is an illegal drug trade for that pot then I can't imagine people would just give up on coffee when it's harder to kick.
      - 12y ago
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix. I also seldom hear of people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden drug/alcohol stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their drug/alcohol fix. Really, I do often hear the same sad generic story which you refer to, but there are never any specifics nor any thing else that would prove it is actually as common as is purported.
  - rprospero 12y ago
    You're right that the generic story isn't really attached to statistical data that would make it meaningful. However, if you want specifics on the story, it's my mother in law. She could either pay the rent or buy alcohol. She purchased alcohol and was evicted form her home. Living homeless in the park, she and her children didn't eat for two days. When she received money, she decided to continue forgoing food to spend the money on alcohol. After over a month of homelessness, during an Indiana winter that was below freezing during the day and colder at night, she was offered private housing and food for herself and her children. The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. My wife has permanent medical problems from sleeping in those conditions. She didn't steal from her daughter's piggy bank to buy alcohol. She did use her daughter's social security number to apply for a student loan, then use the loan money to go on a bender. Alcoholism isn't just a generic scare story told by DARE officers to keep kids from drinking. It's a real issue killing a real woman named Virginia.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      > The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. This is a cruel joke that gets played on drunks. She didn't prefer the alcohol, she was/is addicted; and our society deals with addiction in probably the worst possible way. They may as well have asked her to jump over the moon. Rational people don't do that to themselves or their families. I didn't say that these things never happen. I said they are more rare than some would have you believe. I have my own horrible story in that vein (my father), but what I don't do is use it to pander to peoples' emotions in an effort to further perpetuate, or perhaps even expand the disaster that is the drug war. Addiction is an ugly unfortunate thing that exists, and as sad and regrettable as your wife's tale, and my father's tale, and the tales of others are; using these tales to support the continuance of, or the heaping of even more hardship (criminal sanctions) upon the susceptible/unfortunate/whatever is and always was the wrong thing to do.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash Try Utah some time. Great place, interesting culture, and occasionally, secret coffee stashes.
- jasonl99 12y ago
  >> You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix. Actually, this brings up an perfect example of the first poster's point. Smoking cigarettes was socially acceptable at one point. Now, it's considered a bad, unhealthy habit. I've known quite a of people who hide, or attempt to hide, their habit from their friends. And I'm quite sure that a good number of parents have taken money from their kids piggybanks to buy cigarettes.
  - Jem 12y ago
    My mum emptied my savings (I probably had about £5 in change) at the age of 7 to buy another pack of cigarettes. When I found out, she promised she would pay me back. She never did.
cappsjulian 12y ago
Yeah I'm inclined to not use the word addict - maybe go with what DFW said about everyone worshipping
MichaelGG 12y ago
That's because we've somehow equated addiction with badness. When you read about opiates, for instance, the high addiction potential is called out as a major downside. Doctors get all nervous about it, try to prescribe little, don't allow refills, etc. Yet this is not the case when prescribed, say, antidepressants, which can be just as addictive. What we need to do is realize that addiction is not a bad thing intrinsically. Sure, it has the downside of needing a supply of the addictive thing, but that might be a minor and perfectly reasonable price to pay. Just like popular medications that have a small chance of making all your skin die and fall off, or over time, frying your nerves and making you jerk around. Never, in my personal experience, have any medical personnel made a big deal about those side effects of "good" drugs like anti-psychotics, stabilizers, or anti-depressants. But mention "bad" drugs and they go nuts about similarly small tradeoffs.
- foobarian 12y ago
  It comes from protestant tradition which rejects indulgence but values hard work. Good drugs facilitate the latter.
- pyre 12y ago
  I thought that one of the requirements for addiction was that you were willing to let the rest of your life go up in flames to get your next "fix." People definitely bandy about the word "addiction" for things that are somewhat less than that. E.g. not many people withdraw from those around them to get their next caffeine fix. (It's worth noting that this doesn't necessarily apply to just drugs. WoW-addiction falls into this definition too.)
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Smoking is losing a lot of its social acceptance lately and for alcohol, well, I think we all know what happened during the years it lost its acceptance.
    - marincounty 12y ago
      I think alcohol is a horrid drug on the body, and I look back at the Prohibition Era and it looks like the average person breaking the law was just looking for a good time, but I have a feeling a lot where self medicating at the time? Alcohol is a weird drug that affects so many parts of the brain; I don't think it's just coincidence that it's the drug of choice for so many people who have mental disorders? I know for myself, when I had my breakdown in my late twenties--alcohol is the only drug that really seemed to make me feel normal(a least for awhile). I went to various Psychiatrists and was prescribed the usual regime of tri, and hetrocyclic antidepressants--none worked in the slightest in my case. I finally found Klonopin. Yea, it worked at first, but was not better than alcohol. I know Klonopin has a long half life, but in my experience the effects wore off pretty quick? My point is I feel a lot of people abuse alcohol because the other drugs just don't work very well. I remember a Psychiatrist telling me I wish I could prescribe more Klonopin, so you didn't need to drink a six pack a day, but I can't. I'm afraid of the load on you liver. He was right, and I'm glad he didn't increase the dosage of Klonopin--I think? I really didn't have a say in the matter. But the anxiety went on for years and honestly effected my life and career. I went on to become an Alcoholic. I got to the point where I gave up, but didn't want to blow out my liver(I had a medical backround, and saw just how horrid alcohol was to the liver.) I saw someone die from liver failure, and it was Hell. It was beyond the worse misery I have ever seen, and it went on for days. I knew I was a alcoholic, and Psychotropic medications were not helping me so I just decided to keep my drinking down to only the times I truly needed it(that meant no partying, no drinks at dinner, etc.) I was a drug I used to treat my symptoms. I stayed away from hard liquor. Just medicated with beer and wine. Well years later--my career is toast, but I'am still alive. Most days were a pain in the ass, but I got through it, and had some good days. If anyone reads this who is suffering from an anxiety related disorder; I can honestly state that the my level of anxiety did get better with the natural aging process. If you are controlling panic attacks with alcohol--only drink enough to stop the paints attack. In my case 2-3 drinks would stop a panic attack if I timed it right. My worse years were the 90's up through around 2005. Back in the ninties I could get away with a little bit of alcohol on my breath. I couldn't imagine self medicating today--where alcohol is so demonized in many circles, and Cops don't take any sympathy. "Just lock him up even if even though he blew under .08 percent. He probally has something else in his blood stream, and through synergy, and our narrative, we can get a conviction?" The Psychiatriactic profession has failed us. Very few drug companies are working on new Psychiatric drugs. No wonder people self medicate? What I find ironic is right now it is harder than ever to get SSDI for a Phychiatric disorder. No I am not on SSDI, but would be homeless if I didn't get very lucky a few investments early on.(absolute blind luck on that money). I got lucky. I really should be homeless.
derefr 12y ago
More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances. Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooked on cigarettes way more often than other groups. Etc. The famous Rat Park experiment showed that addiction is not nearly as common a thing, for neurotypical individuals living in an adaptive environment, as we assumed when we built our models of addiction epidemiology. Most addicts (sparing a few drugs like cocaine and heroin that create strong chemical dependence) are either not neurotypical, or in a mal-adaptive environment, or both. Fix the problem with the neurology or the environment, and the addiction becomes easy to break.
- TylerE 12y ago
  Why say undiagnosed? Maybe we ha've been and just prefer something less. Caffiene is easier on the body and mind than amphetamines.
  - derefr 12y ago
    People who have been diagnosed with something, and then pursue alternative lines of therapy, usually manage to use those alternative therapies responsibly, because they are actually thinking of them using the mental framing of "treatment for condition" rather than "fun recreational substance I seem to enjoy even more than other people." A lot of recreational drugs are fine if approached in a medical context. Amphetamines, nicotine, MDMA, whatever—given appropriately-controlled dosing and a desire to achieve a therapeutic effect rather than a "high", one can consume these substances in a long-term fashion without addiction, and remain "healthy" or even "healthier". It's the undiagnosed who are the problem. Since they don't think they have a problem (except perhaps a problem common to all human experience, or a problem with their environment—anything but an uncommon neuroendocrine ailment) they don't even realize that there's any other point than the "high" to begin with. They pursue these drugs because they seem really, really good: they get the recreational effects and they help with their problems! And then they get addicted, because they associate a recreational dosing schedule (rather than a therapeutic one) with their life getting better.
fit2rule 12y ago
If weed were legal, I wouldn't use coffee, cigarettes, or alcohol. The ugly truth is, this is the case for a lot of people, and its quite well understood in the trillion-dollar coffee, cigarette and alcohol industries. I'd also be less likely to ask a stranger for industrial drugs to treat depression. Plus, I could grow it myself for almost no cost. Anything that upsets the economic and industrial consumption status quo is going to meet fierce and powerful resistance from those currently selling consumption every minute of their lives.

jamesbowman 12y ago

David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.

mgkimsal 12y ago
Except sugar.
- hamiltonkibbe 12y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted, sugar was likely the first example of the commodification of drugs, and the beginning of a global drug trade....
dragonwriter 12y ago
> David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old. That's certainly not true of all of the popular forms in which those (particularly alcohol and caffeine) are consumed by adults. Sure, most kids might not like black coffee or straight black tea (but plenty of adults take it with cream and sugar resp. milk and honey), but they've got very little problem with, say, Coca-Cola.
- draven 12y ago
  Coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol are all "raw" products. Coca Cola was engineered to taste good. If all drugs were legalized I'm sure we'd get some excellent space cookies or strawberry flavored psylocibe products.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    No, alcohol isn't a raw product, not even relative to the popular forms in which it is consumed.

chrischen 12y ago

Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs. They do boil tea out of coca leaves, which normally has a small amount of cocaine. It's only when it's concentrated, snorted, that it gives the temporary super high.

kaoD 12y ago
> Coffee served at starbucks is in much lower quantities and milder concentrations than what one would normally ingest or inhale in harder drugs. A common dose of LSD is about 50-150 ug (ug as in micrograms). A Starbucks Grande Coffee has 330mg of caffeine inside. That is THREE orders of magnitude! So, to sum it up: you can't compare dosages from different substances. Also: 330mg is a lot of caffeine.

hristov 12y ago

You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health. For a woman it is down to one glass. You can drink a glass of coffee or a cup of tea every day of your life and this will also probably improve your life and your health. Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences. There are very few discrete things in nature. Like most things psychoactive substances have varying effects. But some substances have effects so different from others, they should be in a different category. Someone might argue that sulfuric acid is just a more powerful version of lemon juice. But it's acidic effect is so much more powerful than that of lemon juice society quite correctly treats them as being completely different.

vinceguidry 12y ago
A once-daily dose of cocaine or heroin is not likely to lead to serious dependence or health effects. So long as the dose and frequency remain constant, one should be able to ride that horse forever. Americans have forgotten just how ubiquitous drugs that are now illegal used to be, and how often they were used. Amphetamines used to be commonly prescribed by doctors, for just about anything. Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker. I read an article recently about a guy who became addicted to smoking opium. He said it took a long time and steady increasing doses before he finally reached the point where he was addicted. Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Provisioning notes from the time period reveal shockingly massive quantities.
- foobarian 12y ago
  > Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker Not exactly a glowing endorsement of taking the drug.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

_nedR 12y ago

You're confusing intoxicants with stimulants. Noone accidentally ran over a kid or beat up his wife because he drank too many cups of coffee or smoked one too many cigarettes. Alcohol on the other hand... edit: If you are going to say that cocaine is primarily a stimulatant, You can't even compare the harmful effects/addictiveness of cocaine with coffee or cigarettes.

researcher88 12y ago
True. 6,000 people died of cocaine abuse in 2006. Another statistic said 17,000 died in 2000 from all illicit drugs. Now surely moderate cocaine abuse is causing deaths in people who aren't known addicts. But tobacco is certainly far far worse at 443,000 annual deaths. Occasional responsible use of hard drugs is likely not that bad for you.
- soylentcola 12y ago
  To be fair, the tobacco issue is due to the delivery method of smoking rather than the active ingredient (nicotine). On its own, nicotine is an addictive but relatively mild stimulant in normal doses. People desire it for the typical stimulant effects (energy, focus, wakefulness, appetite suppression) but as long as the predominant delivery method involves the repeated inhalation of carbon monoxide, lung-coating tars, particulates, and hundreds of other hazardous compounds, it comes with a terrible burden to health. If everyone had been smoking coffee grounds to ingest caffeine all these years, I'd imagine there would be similar issues around caffeine. Thankfully, there are other delivery methods for nicotine which are more in line with those for caffeine but they are often prohibitively expensive (inhalers, gum, etc) or under a lot of pressure from tobacco companies and those who produce the gum, patches, and inhalers (nicotine vaporizers commonly referred to as "e-cigarettes"). I think that as long as people derive a benefit from nicotine (like caffeine) there should be a lot more support for these more novel delivery methods that don't involve the inhalation of burning leaves. You can argue that anything habit-forming is negative and undesirable but as with coffee or tea, people often find it worth the tradeoff of potential blood pressure issues common to stimulants.
- _nedR 12y ago

mc32 12y ago

To be fair, it is called a drug store. I think the reason we say drugs and alcohol is simply because alcohol was around way before we had a notion of 'chemicals which do harm to your body' kind of knowledge and alcohol has been an accepted beverage for millenia. It has been seen a vice, however, just like drugs, for quite some time.

finishingmove 12y ago

It's even worse, because the society-set standards demand of you to drink coffee every day, otherwise you will be seen as less productive than someone who drinks 3 cups a day.

fahadkhan 12y ago
I have worked with people that do not need caffeine to be far more productive than myself with caffeine. Also read research which claims caffeine only brings people with caffeine tolerance to a normal level of alertness, i.e. its counter productive to use caffeine frequently. Unfortunately I cannot fix the cause, lack of sleep, so I try to address the symptoms.

wingerlang 12y ago

> “sandwiches and hamburgers” I kind of get what you mean, but those are very different.

evincarofautumn 12y ago
In what way? A hamburger is a sandwich, and alcohol is a drug. A hot dog is a sausage, too.
- wingerlang 12y ago
  Sandwich isn't necessarily a hamburger though. Also, doesn't a hot dog refer to the whole package? That'd make it different from a sausage.
  - bornhuetter 12y ago
    Americans consider hamburgers to be a type of sandwich. It can be confusing to people from other countries who don't consider meat in a bun (as opposed to meat between slices of bread) to be a a sandwich.
    - wingerlang 12y ago
      Yeah. I'm from Sweden and when I think sandwich I think of this: http://i.imgur.com/hJwtQ7N.png http://i.imgur.com/hJwtQ7N.png
    - evincarofautumn 12y ago
      Sorry to keep doing this, but I would say a bun is bread, too: “A bun is a small, sometimes sweet, bread or bread roll,” quoth Wikipedia.
      - wingerlang 12y ago
        > Sorry to keep doing this I guess likewise, because while bun is a type of bread, bread doesn't, again, necessarily have to be a bun.

WickyNilliams 12y ago

A friend and I had a good laugh recently after spotting someone had posted a rant on FB declaring (amongst other misinformed nonsense) that "if someone is addicted to drugs they deserve to die". In the comments underneath more people chimed in with "yeah, bloody druggies, they deserve it", and other similar sentiments. Then the original poster commented, without a hint of irony, "I know, who would want to do drugs?! I'm bad enough after 10 jaegerbombs, i can't imagine what i'd be like on drugs". 10 jaegerbombs!! First, that is undeniably drug abuse. Second, these people don't realise that level of alcohol is far more intoxicating and dangerous (perhaps also addictive?) than many of the hardest drugs! How are people's perspectives so off with this stuff? I understand education tells people "drugs are bad mmmkay" but to be as cold-hearted as to think addicts/users deserve to die, while ignoring the massive contradiction in your own beliefs? It absolutely astounds me It's drug abuse which poses problems at social and personal levels, not drug use.

vidarh 12y ago
Part of the reason is that they don't know how often they see people under the influence of drugs, because it's not something that will be paraded in front of someone who is clearly anti-drug - unlike alcohol - because of the legal risk. So their image of drug users is drug addicts with so severe problems that they are "visible" in wholly negative ways, because outside of a few self-destructive people or activists, for the most part the only ones that will expose their use publicly, or to people who make it clear they are against drugs, are the ones unable to hide it. I used to think all drug users were the kind of broken down addicts you occasionally see on the streets too, though I felt pity for them rather than express the kind of unfeeling anger you'r describing from that Facebook user. That first changed over time as I over the years met more and more drug users who were fully functioning, and mostly entirely normal people (using drugs ranging from cannabis to heroin) and was forced to accept that not only were they not all broken down wrecks, but many of them were not even addicts. Including some of the ones using some of the hardest drugs.
- mercer 12y ago
  This goes both ways. I've met many people who seem to be just as 'normal' as the people around them, but suffer from their behavior. Especially when it comes to alcohol, I've noticed that identical behavior over time can diverge: one person might just stop drinking as they grow up, while the other ends up being unhealthily dependent on their drinking. And the latter situation seems fine and might even go unnoticed by everyone... until it suddenly isn't (break-up, being fired, depression).

dragonwriter 12y ago

Or the fact that mere use of a substance isn't the same thing as addiction/dependence. Now, what stops them from being called a "drug abuser" is that their substances of choice are legal, so aren't subject to the use=abuse idea that applies to illegal drugs, but even illegal drugs aren't generally subject to a use=addiction idea.