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Jedi and "Drugs"
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8 years 11 months ago #190888
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Replied by on topic Jedi and "Drugs"
Health and Medicine
Many People Use Drugs – But Here’s Why Most Don’t Become Addicts
January 11, 2015 | by Paul Hayes
Photo credit: Some people are more vulnerable. Chicago Public Media, CC BY-NC
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Drug use is common, drug addiction is rare. About one adult in three will use an illegal drug in their lifetime and just under 3m people will do so this year in England and Wales alone. Most will suffer no long-term harm.
There are immediate risks from overdose and intoxication, and longer-term health risks associated with heavy or prolonged use; damage to lungs from smoking cannabis or the bladder from ketamine for example. However most people will either pass unscathed through a short period of experimentation or learn to accommodate their drug use into their lifestyle, adjusting patterns of use to their social and domestic circumstances, as they do with alcohol.
Compared to the 3m currently using illegal drugs there are around 300,000 heroin and/or crack addicts while around 30,000 were successfully treated for dependency on drugs in England in 2011-12, typically cannabis, or powder cocaine.
A powerful cultural narrative focusing on the power of illegal drugs to disrupt otherwise stable, happy lives dominates our media and political discourse, and shapes policy responses. Drug use is deemed to “spiral out of control”, destroying an individual’s ability to earn their living or care for their children, transforming honest productive citizens into welfare dependent, criminal “families from hell”.
This is a key component of the Broken Britain critique of welfare and social policy advanced by the Centre for Social Justice and pursued in government by the CSJ’s founder Iain Duncan Smith in his role as secretary of state for work and pensions. However, the narrative has resonance far beyond the political arena and underpins most media coverage of drug addiction and the drug storylines of popular culture.
Most drug users are ..?
In reality the likelihood of individuals without pre-existing vulnerabilities succumbing to long-term addiction is slim. Heroin and crack addicts are not a random sub set of England’s 3m current drug users.
Addiction, unlike use, is heavily concentrated in our poorest communities – and within those communities it is the individuals who struggle most with life who will succumb. Compared to the rest of the population, heroin and crack addicts are: male, working-class, offenders, have poor educational records, little or no history of employment, experience of the care system, a vulnerability to mental illness and increasingly are over 40 with declining physical health.
Health and Medicine
Many People Use Drugs – But Here’s Why Most Don’t Become Addicts
January 11, 2015 | by Paul Hayes
Photo credit: Some people are more vulnerable. Chicago Public Media, CC BY-NC
Share on facebook
97.9K
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632
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Drug use is common, drug addiction is rare. About one adult in three will use an illegal drug in their lifetime and just under 3m people will do so this year in England and Wales alone. Most will suffer no long-term harm.
There are immediate risks from overdose and intoxication, and longer-term health risks associated with heavy or prolonged use; damage to lungs from smoking cannabis or the bladder from ketamine for example. However most people will either pass unscathed through a short period of experimentation or learn to accommodate their drug use into their lifestyle, adjusting patterns of use to their social and domestic circumstances, as they do with alcohol.
Compared to the 3m currently using illegal drugs there are around 300,000 heroin and/or crack addicts while around 30,000 were successfully treated for dependency on drugs in England in 2011-12, typically cannabis, or powder cocaine.
A powerful cultural narrative focusing on the power of illegal drugs to disrupt otherwise stable, happy lives dominates our media and political discourse, and shapes policy responses. Drug use is deemed to “spiral out of control”, destroying an individual’s ability to earn their living or care for their children, transforming honest productive citizens into welfare dependent, criminal “families from hell”.
This is a key component of the Broken Britain critique of welfare and social policy advanced by the Centre for Social Justice and pursued in government by the CSJ’s founder Iain Duncan Smith in his role as secretary of state for work and pensions. However, the narrative has resonance far beyond the political arena and underpins most media coverage of drug addiction and the drug storylines of popular culture.
Most drug users are ..?
In reality the likelihood of individuals without pre-existing vulnerabilities succumbing to long-term addiction is slim. Heroin and crack addicts are not a random sub set of England’s 3m current drug users.
Addiction, unlike use, is heavily concentrated in our poorest communities – and within those communities it is the individuals who struggle most with life who will succumb. Compared to the rest of the population, heroin and crack addicts are: male, working-class, offenders, have poor educational records, little or no history of employment, experience of the care system, a vulnerability to mental illness and increasingly are over 40 with declining physical health.
The usual message. Imagens Evangelicas, CC BY
Problem cannabis use is less concentrated among the poor, but is closely associated with indicators of social stress and a vulnerability to developing mental health conditions.
Most drug users are intelligent resourceful people with good life skills, supportive networks and loving families. These assets enable them to manage the risks associated with their drug use, avoiding the most dangerous drugs and managing their frequency and scale of use to reduce harm and maximise pleasure. Crucially they will have access to support from family and friends should they begin to develop problems, and a realistic prospect of a job, a house and a stake in society to focus and sustain their motivation to get back on track.
In contrast the most vulnerable individuals in our poorest communities lack life skills and have networks that entrench their problems rather than offering solutions. Their decision making will tend to prioritise immediate benefit rather than long-term consequences. The multiplicity of overlapping challenges they face gives them little incentive to avoid high risk behaviours.
Together these factors make it more likely that, instead of carefully calibrating their drug use to minimise risk, they will be prepared to use the most dangerous drugs in the most dangerous ways. And once addicted, motivation to recover and the likelihood of success is weakened by an absence of family support, poor prospects of employment, insecure housing and social isolation.
In short what determines whether or not drug use escalates into addiction, and the prognosis once it has, is less to do with the power of the drug and more to do with the social, personal and economic circumstances of the user.
Heads in the sand
Unfortunately the strong relationship between social distress and addiction is ignored by politicians and media commentators in favour of an assumption that addiction is a random risk driven by the power of the drug.
It does happen. But the atypical experience of the relatively small number of drug users from stable backgrounds who stumble into addiction and can legitimately attribute the chaos of their subsequent lives to this one event drowns out the experience of the overwhelming majority of addicts for whom social isolation, economic exclusion, criminality and fragile mental health preceded their drug use rather than being caused by it.
Viewing addiction through the distorting lens of the minority causes policy makers to misunderstand the flow of causality and pushes them towards interventions focused on changing individual drug-using behaviour and away from addressing the structural inequality in which the vulnerabilities to addiction can flourish.
Until we re-frame our understanding of drug addiction as more often the consequence of social evils than their root cause, then we are doomed to misdirect our energy and resources towards blaming the outcasts and the vulnerable for their plight rather than recasting our economic and social structures to give them access to the sources of resilience that protect the rest of us.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/many-people-use-drugs-here-s-why-most-don-t-become-addicts
Many People Use Drugs – But Here’s Why Most Don’t Become Addicts
January 11, 2015 | by Paul Hayes
Photo credit: Some people are more vulnerable. Chicago Public Media, CC BY-NC
Share on facebook
97.9K
Share on twitter
632
Share on reddit Share on google_plusone_share More Sharing Services
Drug use is common, drug addiction is rare. About one adult in three will use an illegal drug in their lifetime and just under 3m people will do so this year in England and Wales alone. Most will suffer no long-term harm.
There are immediate risks from overdose and intoxication, and longer-term health risks associated with heavy or prolonged use; damage to lungs from smoking cannabis or the bladder from ketamine for example. However most people will either pass unscathed through a short period of experimentation or learn to accommodate their drug use into their lifestyle, adjusting patterns of use to their social and domestic circumstances, as they do with alcohol.
Compared to the 3m currently using illegal drugs there are around 300,000 heroin and/or crack addicts while around 30,000 were successfully treated for dependency on drugs in England in 2011-12, typically cannabis, or powder cocaine.
A powerful cultural narrative focusing on the power of illegal drugs to disrupt otherwise stable, happy lives dominates our media and political discourse, and shapes policy responses. Drug use is deemed to “spiral out of control”, destroying an individual’s ability to earn their living or care for their children, transforming honest productive citizens into welfare dependent, criminal “families from hell”.
This is a key component of the Broken Britain critique of welfare and social policy advanced by the Centre for Social Justice and pursued in government by the CSJ’s founder Iain Duncan Smith in his role as secretary of state for work and pensions. However, the narrative has resonance far beyond the political arena and underpins most media coverage of drug addiction and the drug storylines of popular culture.
Most drug users are ..?
In reality the likelihood of individuals without pre-existing vulnerabilities succumbing to long-term addiction is slim. Heroin and crack addicts are not a random sub set of England’s 3m current drug users.
Addiction, unlike use, is heavily concentrated in our poorest communities – and within those communities it is the individuals who struggle most with life who will succumb. Compared to the rest of the population, heroin and crack addicts are: male, working-class, offenders, have poor educational records, little or no history of employment, experience of the care system, a vulnerability to mental illness and increasingly are over 40 with declining physical health.
Health and Medicine
Many People Use Drugs – But Here’s Why Most Don’t Become Addicts
January 11, 2015 | by Paul Hayes
Photo credit: Some people are more vulnerable. Chicago Public Media, CC BY-NC
Share on facebook
97.9K
Share on twitter
632
Share on reddit Share on google_plusone_share More Sharing Services
Drug use is common, drug addiction is rare. About one adult in three will use an illegal drug in their lifetime and just under 3m people will do so this year in England and Wales alone. Most will suffer no long-term harm.
There are immediate risks from overdose and intoxication, and longer-term health risks associated with heavy or prolonged use; damage to lungs from smoking cannabis or the bladder from ketamine for example. However most people will either pass unscathed through a short period of experimentation or learn to accommodate their drug use into their lifestyle, adjusting patterns of use to their social and domestic circumstances, as they do with alcohol.
Compared to the 3m currently using illegal drugs there are around 300,000 heroin and/or crack addicts while around 30,000 were successfully treated for dependency on drugs in England in 2011-12, typically cannabis, or powder cocaine.
A powerful cultural narrative focusing on the power of illegal drugs to disrupt otherwise stable, happy lives dominates our media and political discourse, and shapes policy responses. Drug use is deemed to “spiral out of control”, destroying an individual’s ability to earn their living or care for their children, transforming honest productive citizens into welfare dependent, criminal “families from hell”.
This is a key component of the Broken Britain critique of welfare and social policy advanced by the Centre for Social Justice and pursued in government by the CSJ’s founder Iain Duncan Smith in his role as secretary of state for work and pensions. However, the narrative has resonance far beyond the political arena and underpins most media coverage of drug addiction and the drug storylines of popular culture.
Most drug users are ..?
In reality the likelihood of individuals without pre-existing vulnerabilities succumbing to long-term addiction is slim. Heroin and crack addicts are not a random sub set of England’s 3m current drug users.
Addiction, unlike use, is heavily concentrated in our poorest communities – and within those communities it is the individuals who struggle most with life who will succumb. Compared to the rest of the population, heroin and crack addicts are: male, working-class, offenders, have poor educational records, little or no history of employment, experience of the care system, a vulnerability to mental illness and increasingly are over 40 with declining physical health.
The usual message. Imagens Evangelicas, CC BY
Problem cannabis use is less concentrated among the poor, but is closely associated with indicators of social stress and a vulnerability to developing mental health conditions.
Most drug users are intelligent resourceful people with good life skills, supportive networks and loving families. These assets enable them to manage the risks associated with their drug use, avoiding the most dangerous drugs and managing their frequency and scale of use to reduce harm and maximise pleasure. Crucially they will have access to support from family and friends should they begin to develop problems, and a realistic prospect of a job, a house and a stake in society to focus and sustain their motivation to get back on track.
In contrast the most vulnerable individuals in our poorest communities lack life skills and have networks that entrench their problems rather than offering solutions. Their decision making will tend to prioritise immediate benefit rather than long-term consequences. The multiplicity of overlapping challenges they face gives them little incentive to avoid high risk behaviours.
Together these factors make it more likely that, instead of carefully calibrating their drug use to minimise risk, they will be prepared to use the most dangerous drugs in the most dangerous ways. And once addicted, motivation to recover and the likelihood of success is weakened by an absence of family support, poor prospects of employment, insecure housing and social isolation.
In short what determines whether or not drug use escalates into addiction, and the prognosis once it has, is less to do with the power of the drug and more to do with the social, personal and economic circumstances of the user.
Heads in the sand
Unfortunately the strong relationship between social distress and addiction is ignored by politicians and media commentators in favour of an assumption that addiction is a random risk driven by the power of the drug.
It does happen. But the atypical experience of the relatively small number of drug users from stable backgrounds who stumble into addiction and can legitimately attribute the chaos of their subsequent lives to this one event drowns out the experience of the overwhelming majority of addicts for whom social isolation, economic exclusion, criminality and fragile mental health preceded their drug use rather than being caused by it.
Viewing addiction through the distorting lens of the minority causes policy makers to misunderstand the flow of causality and pushes them towards interventions focused on changing individual drug-using behaviour and away from addressing the structural inequality in which the vulnerabilities to addiction can flourish.
Until we re-frame our understanding of drug addiction as more often the consequence of social evils than their root cause, then we are doomed to misdirect our energy and resources towards blaming the outcasts and the vulnerable for their plight rather than recasting our economic and social structures to give them access to the sources of resilience that protect the rest of us.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/many-people-use-drugs-here-s-why-most-don-t-become-addicts
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8 years 11 months ago #190924
by OB1Shinobi
im not missing a point, im MAKING a point, and you keep responding as if i am wrong
addiction is unhealthy
wherever youre ("you" being a general "you" and not meant to imply any specific individual) at in the addiction chain, the process moves forward and gets worse, pretty much until youre dead or you make changes which better your lifestyle
inebriation to the point that ones judgement or emotional stability or motor control is greatly impaired, is unhealthy and is asking for trouble
making excuses and justifications to explain these things away is bullshit
that is my point and it is the only point i am making
if you want to argue that i am wrong in any way then on any of these points, well, you are wrong
if you want to say that people have a right to decide their own lifestyle i will say YES i agree
if you want to say that certain substances have medicinal and psychological value i will say YES i agree
if you want to take the position that there is a difference between drinking alcohol and being an alcoholic i will say YES i agree
you have this drive to justify drug use which shows up whenever this topic appears - i dont think there is much argument against the basic ideas that you put forward, i myself am not totally against them, but in your zeal you seem to be interpreting more into what i am saying than is appropriate
in response to the article you posted
if you do it every day youre setting yourself up for failure
if you want to find out how much power drugs have over you, quit them for six months - quit for three months - and youll know
if you cant do that without some great sense of unease and emotional discomfort pestering you and making you anxious the whole time then you should consider yourself an addict, because you are
if you are an addict then face up to it
if youre not then dont worry about what im saying here - it doesnt apply to you
People are complicated.
Replied by OB1Shinobi on topic Jedi and "Drugs"
Khaos wrote:
the difference between working out until exhaustion and drinking until oblivion are that the workout will result in your becoming stronger
Thats completely besides the point.
The point im making, is that I can of course introduce those few small scenarios that would make being intoxicated(notice, I did not say drinking until oblivion, as that again, is that small window argument.) a worse case scenario.
If were going to base our whole rationale on what we dont do by the lowest percentage scenario, well, thats not logical, or rational in any way, shape, or form.
Lets look at that scenario logically.
How many Jedi have first aid, and CPR certification, because in most places, its illegal to perform without such.
It also means, especially considering such things update in method, that even if they knew it at one time, they may be performing it wrong, or if they have n card at all, or training, there just as useless as the drunk guy.
Calling 911?
Sure, but a drunk guy could do that, and perhaps in slurring there speech a few more minutes may be taken, but again, its an argument for the lowest percentage to make a point.
Mine is much higher percentage. Also, being able to respond immediately is much more pertinent than just the ability to call 911, especially the Jedi and the call to help the helpless, as it were.
A lot of people, arent certified, or even know the method.
Even Jedi.
So, again, you missed the point.
im not missing a point, im MAKING a point, and you keep responding as if i am wrong
addiction is unhealthy
wherever youre ("you" being a general "you" and not meant to imply any specific individual) at in the addiction chain, the process moves forward and gets worse, pretty much until youre dead or you make changes which better your lifestyle
inebriation to the point that ones judgement or emotional stability or motor control is greatly impaired, is unhealthy and is asking for trouble
making excuses and justifications to explain these things away is bullshit
that is my point and it is the only point i am making
if you want to argue that i am wrong in any way then on any of these points, well, you are wrong
if you want to say that people have a right to decide their own lifestyle i will say YES i agree
if you want to say that certain substances have medicinal and psychological value i will say YES i agree
if you want to take the position that there is a difference between drinking alcohol and being an alcoholic i will say YES i agree
you have this drive to justify drug use which shows up whenever this topic appears - i dont think there is much argument against the basic ideas that you put forward, i myself am not totally against them, but in your zeal you seem to be interpreting more into what i am saying than is appropriate
in response to the article you posted
if you do it every day youre setting yourself up for failure
if you want to find out how much power drugs have over you, quit them for six months - quit for three months - and youll know
if you cant do that without some great sense of unease and emotional discomfort pestering you and making you anxious the whole time then you should consider yourself an addict, because you are
if you are an addict then face up to it
if youre not then dont worry about what im saying here - it doesnt apply to you
People are complicated.
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8 years 11 months ago #190974
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Replied by on topic Jedi and "Drugs"
If I may, I'm not sure you guys are really disagreeing a whole lot, you're just talking about slightly different things. 
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