America's Most Dangerous Drug

[Ani_Ibi]

oat soda:

i have to agree with you here. durg addicts have a sickness which needs treatment. we shouldn’t demonize them and think the answer is to enforce tougher laws.

something over 90% of all crimes are drug related. but i don’t know if that means you make them legal. for example look at abortion. if something is inheriently evil like drugs, pornography, contraceptives, …etc., it should be illegal.

the fact that they are illegal does provide for organized crime and violence. maybe we should see that drug use is a symptom of a larger problem -the break down of the family. i think we should attack the problem at it’s source and promote healthy loving families. contraception, homosexuality, pornography, divorse, secularism, only exasterbate the problem.

What does compassion look like?

So much error happens in interfacing with drug addicts; error resulting from the enabler wanting to look good. Addicts are manipulative and smart as the day is long.

You remember someone on this thread (I forget who) counting his rating earlier on? Addicts have a meter. As soon as you start interfacing with one, the meter goes on and the deeper his or her hooks go into you. In their minds, the time you spend with them is time they could be doing something else. They have an acute sense of the economics of any given situation and particularly of opportunity cost.

You think you are giving of yourself and of your time. This gives you a good feeling about yourself. You look good to yourself. You think that gives you leverage over the addict. It does not. The addict thinks you are consuming a product for which he has exclusive marketing rights: himself, his own time. And he has you played for a mark. He has you played for a mark, because he sees straight off the starting blocks your weakness, your points of leverage and that is that you want to look compassionate.

Does the addict understand true compassion? True compassion, yes. False compassion, yes. Both.

False compassion is what makes you into his next mark. True compassion is what makes him crash and burn; it is the mirror which you hold up to him. It is the reality of his fallenness; the ineffectiveness of his ‘program’ and his ‘self-reliance.’ It is the realization that all roads lead to his destruction except the road to God. That is true compassion. And sometimes that true compassion has nothing to do with us personally. God chooses whom He chooses. Whom He chooses may not be us.

Well, isn’t that a confronting little piece of information?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Some more on compassion.

Some people make it out of the pit. Those people choke on their pride and fear to get themselves into detox. After detox, they choke on all the little tricks they have depended on to lie and cheat their way through the next day and the day after that so that they can get themselves into rehab.

Then they give up all their family. Then they give up all their friends. Then they give up the hood. Then they go to 12-steps every day. They go to the psychiatrist every week. They go to group therapy, art therapy, acupuncture, diet education, meditation, the gym (one that the dealer doesn’t frequent), the library every hour of every day. Every single waking hour is spent on recovery. Every single waking hour, for years. It’s work. That’s what it takes.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Ani Ibi:

Some more on compassion.

Some people make it out of the pit. Those people choke on their pride and fear to get themselves into detox. After detox, they choke on all the little tricks they have depended on to lie and cheat their way through the next day and the day after that so that they can get themselves into rehab.

Then they give up all their family. Then they give up all their friends. Then they give up the hood. Then they go to 12-steps every day. They go to the psychiatrist every week. They go to group therapy, art therapy, acupuncture, diet education, meditation, the gym (one that the dealer doesn’t frequent), the library every hour of every day. Every single waking hour is spent on recovery. Every single waking hour, for years. It’s work. That’s what it takes.

So, if there is someone who is reading this and saying to yourself: “I can’t do that,” listen up. There is someone who will help you every hour of every day. That person is Jesus. It is not the person down the street. It is not the well-meaning neighbour with the collection of theories (and an agenda). It is Jesus.

 

[AmyS]

My thing with making drugs legal…

If you thinking mandatory treatment will to get the person off drugs while the person is prison, or mandatory drug court will work instead of prison… Then why doesn’t a mother get off drugs when has a child… Why would that person let their newborn be born addicted, or starve to death so they could get there child… Why would one 9 month old victim’s mother prostitute her out in order to get her fix, yes she was 9 months old? Even after getting this miraculous help in prison before that… Why didn’t it work? Could it be because she didn’t want to change… Do you really think the mother wouldn’t have done those things in order to get her fix if drugs where legal? That is a decision the addicit has to make.

Oh and if drugs where made legal do you really think that the drug dealers would stop making and selling them? Do you really think orgainzed crime would not be involved with it? Law enforcement would only have their hands tide more than they already do. IMHO.

 

[burnside]

Karin:

Snicker & Vern:

Nasty,snide or offensive comments are not needed nor required!

True,but.Snicker.deserves.more.credit.than.he.is.getting.for
beating.his.addiction.Addicts.really.should.be.in.a.hospital.
environment.Unfortunately,if.you.get.bored.with.the.treatment,you
can.discharge.yourself,and.a.lot.of.addicts.would.You.can’t.
discharge.yourself.from.prison.
I.turned.18years.old.in.1960.Drugs.were.not.easily.available.then.
My.parents.drank.little.alcohol.“There,but.for.the.Grace.of.God,
go.I”.

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

Bad behavior, generally speaking, only has rewards in a shallow sense. That is why you, in reality, would not lie or cheat or steal, even if you knew you could get away with it./quote]

Yet there ARE those who lie, steal, cheat, take drugs, and so on. The rewards are clearly enough for those people.

For those of us who do not do these things, it is because we have a self-image to life up to.

BLB_Oregon:

The ideal is that one does good not so much to avoid hell as to recognize the glory that is Heaven. As I said… the behavior I am talking about is gratitude-driven, connection-driven, grace-driven. Whether the person would call it that or not, they do good because they are open to Grace.

All true, theologically. But we are talking human learning and psychology. I suspect none of us can truly recognize the glory that is heaven (having never seen it and lacking the divine intelect to imagine it.) How much more true is this for the murderer or rapist or child molester?

BLB_Oregon:

I purposely am not using the phrase “self esteem” because it has a psychological definition that is somewhat different than what I am talking about. (I probably shouldn’t use “inner-directed man” for the same reason.) I mean that a person needs to appreciate their true worth and place in the world. You can’t have that in any true sense and then go out and start killing people. If your “self-esteem” doesn’t also call humility into the equation, it is not what I am talking about.

You cannot do any of that without a sense of right and wrong. “Wrong” is what makes you feel bad when you do it.

BLB_Oregon:

A person does have to have the capacity for shame and guilt to form their conscience correctly. You have to recognize that there are behaviors that are contrary to your sense of integrity, things that you avoid doing even if you could avoid being caught simply because they are wrong. But if a conscience is properly formed, sin is not just penalty-risking act, but a violation of the relationship with one’s self, one’s fellows, and with God.

There is a state of innocence, and a state of a properly formed conscience – and a big transition between them. It is that transition that parents work to get children through – many never make it. They must use the proper tools – did your mother not tell you on occasion, “You should be ashamed of yourself?”

BLB_Oregon:

I am talking about a level of functioning that is not the common lot, but I think it is possible to have a society that is both disciplined and kind. It requires education about the self, the development of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence.

But long before we talk about functioning above the common lot, we must talk about the common lot. We aren’t born superior to the rest of man – and if we manage to achieve that state we must first transit all the hazards and overcome them – not because we are somehow innately able to do it, but because we have learned to do it. And we learn in the Affective Realm.

BLB_Oregon:

It is the stuff of the world’s wisdom literature. Not an easy prescription, but let’s face it: Easy doesn’t cut it. Guilt, shame, punishment… these have their places. But they can’t be the whole answer.

But they are the first answer. Long before we have formed the power of logic and reasoning, we begin to learn. And in the Affective Realm, we learn through Affective strategies.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

Long before we have formed the power of logic and reasoning, we begin to learn. And in the Affective Realm, we learn through Affective strategies.

Can you explain in a little more detail what are your Affective strategies?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ani Ibi:

Can you explain in a little more detail what are your Affective strategies?

There are three realms in Human Learning Theory:

1. Congnitive – this is logic, math, reading, language, and so on – mental skills.
2. Psycho-motor – this is the physical side of learning. Riding a bicycle, throwing a ball, shooting a rifle.
3. Affective – this covers feelings and emotions, values and similar aspects.

Each realm has its own strategies – as I said, you can’ t learn to ride a bicyle by reading a book, nor to do calculus by shooting hoops.

The strategies in the Affective Realm are shame, guilt, pride, status (or lack there of) and recognition (peer pressure).

This explains why “education” in things like sexual behavior or drug abuse doesn’t work – because we are applying Cognitive stratigies to Affective problems. At the, the “student” is being subjected to Affective strategies to do what we’re trying to stop them from doing – look at how many people are willing to admit how peer pressure is a major factor in sexual promiscuity and drug abuse.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

look at how many people are willing to admit how peer pressure is a major factor in sexual promiscuity and drug abuse.

Bingo! Got it.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ani Ibi:

Bingo! Got it.

When my girls were in high school in York County, Virginia, the school had an anti-smoking campaign. The kids were taught to refer to smokers as “Butt Heads.” The PC crowd made them stop.

Apparently it’s okay to have an anti-smoking campaign, you just can’t use tactics that work.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon11.gif

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

When we compare alchol and its effects with crystal meth, we are comparing jumping out of bed with jumping from an airplane in flight.

No. We are talking about legalizing addictive substances to ruin drug dealers and reduce the amount of drug related crime.

America’s most dangerous drug in the '50s & '60s was heroin, and today heroin use is down as other designer drugs, such as crystal meth, have become the current fad. Once you remove the ‘fad’ status by legalization, then the demand will lessen in turn. But you will have stopped a billion dollar a year criminal enterprise that causes a lot of innocent deaths outside of the meth users.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Bobby A. Greene:

No. We are talking about legalizing addictive substances to ruin drug dealers and reduce the amount of drug related crime.

At the cost of dramatically increasing the rate of addiction and actually increasing crime – and runing lives of the people who become addicts as a result of our policies.
Bobby A. Greene:

America’s most dangerous drug in the '50s & '60s was heroin, and today heroin use is down as other designer drugs, such as crystal meth, have become the current fad. Once you remove the ‘fad’ status by legalization, then the demand will lessen in turn. But you will have stopped a billion dollar a year criminal enterprise that causes a lot of innocent deaths outside of the meth users.

Addicts will continue to use drugs, fad or no fad. Those who become addicted in the “spike” following legalization will remain addicted.

Again, comparing alcohol and crystal meth is like comparing jumping out of bed with jumping out of an airplane.

 

[KathleenElsie]

Bobby A. Greene:

No. We are talking about legalizing addictive substances to ruin drug dealers and reduce the amount of drug related crime.

America’s most dangerous drug in the '50s & '60s was heroin, and today heroin use is down as other designer drugs, such as crystal meth, have become the current fad. Once you remove the ‘fad’ status by legalization, then the demand will lessen in turn. But you will have stopped a billion dollar a year criminal enterprise that causes a lot of innocent deaths outside of the meth users.

**Not sure of your logic. If heroin use is down and it was never made legal then how do you come to conclusion the legalization reduces demand?

Something I found with my children and other peoples children is that if you are involved with them and keep them active in appropriate activities they might get into minor trouble. But, if on the other hand, parents that let the public schools raise their children, don’t do things with them and in general let them raise themselves, these children seem to get into major trouble more often.

Before you yell at me. This is not always true and there are many exceptions. Just that the children and families have a better chance survival in our society if we do things together.
**

 

[BLB_Oregon]

vern humphrey:

BLB_Oregon:

You cannot do any of that without a sense of right and wrong. “Wrong” is what makes you feel bad when you do it.

There is a state of innocence, and a state of a properly formed conscience – and a big transition between them. It is that transition that parents work to get children through – many never make it. They must use the proper tools – did your mother not tell you on occasion, "You should be ashamed of yourself?.

It is critical that children learn from the very start that right and wrong have little to do with how they feel. You have to teach that right and wrong are defined by unchanging principles that have no necessary connection to feelings. My kids are six and they know that a grownup can both listen to their own feelings and still act in a way that is right.

Returning evil to someone who has done you evil feels great. It doesn’t feel shameful. It feels right. But it is still wrong. As I tell my boys, “If his hitting you makes it okay for you to hit him back… where does it end?” It is not okay to steal, even when a particular form of stealing doesn’t feel wrong. You can’t say to yourself, “I hate my job, my boss is unfair” and use that feeling as an excuse to steal stuff from work.

Allowing yourself to be used by someone manipulative may feel better than refusing to, but refusing is the better way. Feeling sorry for someone or being made to feel guilty doesn’t mean it is okay to give in to their manipulations. You have to act on what is really good for them.

The full admonition is “You should be ashamed of yourself. You can do better than that.” A stab of guilt or shame needs to be a call to turn back to what is good, to what you are made for, not a reason to hide your face and withdraw from action. Just feeling bad doesn’t help anybody.

Now, of course, I also raise the kids to know that there are external consequences to actions and legal consequences, too. God’s law’s aren’t arbitrary. What is wrong is wrong because it will hurt someone or fall short of what is best. When Mom tells you to do something, you’ll wind up doing something unpleasant or losing something pleasant if you don’t. As their parents, we have the right to dictate their behavior. Likewise, society may dictate to citizens, and obviously both of those rights have limits. If you choose to ignore your friends’ opinions and feelings, there are consequences there, too. And so on.

Every night, I have my boys bring to mind what they have done wrong that day and what was done to them that was wrong. (They don’t have to tell me.) Then when they’ve done that, I say, “Okay. Ask God to forgive you both, and then let it go… unless you have something you can fix before you sleep, God can hold on to it until morning.” Then I have them tell me the good things they did that day, and the good things that happened to them… even if it is a “well, it could have been worse.” They go to sleep trusting in God’s forgiveness, knowing that is connected to their forgiveness of others, and meditating on the good actions of the day. I think that practice forms the foundation of a good & active conscience.

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

It is critical that children learn from the very start that right and wrong have little to do with how they feel. You have to teach that right and wrong are defined by unchanging principles that have no necessary connection to feelings. My kids are six and they know that a grownup can both listen to their own feelings and still act in a way that is right.

How about when they were 18 months old?

You have to have a foundation to build upon. In those early formative years, children are not susceptible to logic – yet even children who cannot talk can learn with affective strategies.

You put a toddler on the pot and applaud when it does something. You use terms like “WE don’t do that” when a child misbehaves.

BLB_Oregon:

Returning evil to someone who has done you evil feels great. It doesn’t feel shameful. It feels right.

But it is still wrong. As I tell my boys, “If his hitting you makes it okay for you to hit him back… where does it end?” It is not okay to steal, even when a particular form of stealing doesn’t feel wrong. You can’t say to yourself, “I hate my job, my boss is unfair” and use that feeling as an excuse to steal stuff from work.

Yup – and if you haven’t got an inner sense of shame and guilt when you do wrong, there’s nothing to stop you from those things.

What do we call people who do wrong and feel no remorse? Sociopaths!

BLB_Oregon:

Allowing yourself to be used by someone manipulative may feel better than refusing to, but refusing is the better way. Feeling sorry for someone or being made to feel guilty doesn’t mean it is okay to give in to their manipulations. You have to act on what is really good for them.

If you allow children to grow up with no sense of guilt or shame, you raise them to be sociopaths.

BLB_Oregon:

The full admonition is “You should be ashamed of yourself. You can do better than that.” A stab of guilt or shame needs to be a call to turn back to what is good, to what you are made for, not a reason to hide your face and withdraw from action. Just feeling bad doesn’t help anybody.

Yet, you do see that you have outlined a strategy that uses guilt and shame to inculcate a sense of right and wrong?

No one says as people grow older, there are not other ways to improve their character – but they must first have that basic foundation.

When you have adults who don’t have that basic foundation, you have drug abusers, criminals and other social problems. To deal with such people you have to start from the basics.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

vern humphrey:

Yet, you do see that you have outlined a strategy that uses guilt and shame to inculcate a sense of right and wrong?

No one says as people grow older, there are not other ways to improve their character – but they must first have that basic foundation.

When you have adults who don’t have that basic foundation, you have drug abusers, criminals and other social problems. To deal with such people you have to start from the basics.

First off, I said quite clearly that you have to have a sense of guilt to build a conscience. What I also want to make clear though is that you can’t stop there. Guilt is a starting point to amendment. Guilt without amendment or guilt for its own sake is at least worthless and is as often as not counter-productive. Children who become convinced by inappropriate shaming that they are bad people will, as often as not, choose acting the part over changing it. They are primed to become addicts and delinquents.

Second, feelings are a terrible basis for moral judgement. A person who can be made to behave in a certain way by being made to feel bad or guilty is primed for manipulation, both by individuals close to them and by demagogues (including advertising).

It is like your sense of smell. It is an extremely useful thing. It is a life-enriching thing. It is in no way an unerring judge of what in that refrigerator needs to be kept or thrown out. Kids need to know that.

Of course you have punishments and consequences. Externally applied consequences are both protective of society (by removing offenders from circulation) and training wheels for the conscience. But if you stop there, you have the situation of throwing criminals into prison and expecting that the experience will “cure” them. It doesn’t work that way, I know you agree with that. Besides, if riding a bike were just about not scraping your knees up, wouldn’t most of us just choose to stay off of the thing? Teaching the positive side of a life well-lived, and doing it from the outset, is indispensible. You fall off, ouch that hurts, let’s look at what we might change so that won’t happen again (and replant the neighbor’s flowers, if need be)… now let’s get back on that thing and go.

If a person gets to be a certain age and has not experienced love and acceptance, have not had the Good News modelled for them, they are going to be harder, not easier, to convince of the power of doing good and avoiding evil simply because one is good and the other is evil. You have to catch “at risk” kids when they are young, before they become sociopaths. Once the damage is done, the road is steep, indeed.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

BLB_Oregon:

You have to catch “at risk” kids when they are young, before they become sociopaths. Once the damage is done, the road is steep, indeed.

Are sociopaths made or born?

 

[KathleenElsie]

Ani Ibi:

Are sociopaths made or born?

**IMHO This is possible

No genetic loading + poor dysfunctional environment = social dysfunction of varying degrees from none to mild

Genetic loading + good functional loving family from birth = social dysfunction of varying degrees from none to mild

Genetic loading + poor dysfunctional environment = social dysfunction from mild to sociopaths
**

 

[davy39]

Snicker:

True…but it makes no sense to throw drug users in jail.

And why not? They don’t hesitate to throw drunk drivers in jail. Are they anymore dangerous on the highway on a user of meth? I think not.It’s getting so bad in our area, that sudafed ( which contains a drug that is used in meth) had been taken off the shelves and sold behind the counter only, with a name, address, ID, and phone required before sale. There is too much money being made from the sale of illegal drugs, and the powers that be won’t stop it, even when they have a chance.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Ani Ibi:

Are sociopaths made or born?

First off, I need to not throw around the term sociopath quite so easily. To become a habitual criminal, for instance, is not the same as becoming a sociopath. To be “at risk” is to be at risk of throwing one’s life away on crime, co-dependency, self-anesthesia, or even self-cynisim. None of that is equivalent to becoming a sociopath.

I think that some sociopaths are born… that is, some people are born without the capacity to learn empathy. My feeling, though, is that that is rather rare. Many of the people we think of as sociopaths did not need to be that way. They were not born without the capacity for empathy. They just didn’t get any. You have to get empathy to have empathy. Just as you to be exposed to light to develop eyesight and must be spoken to before you can learn language, someone has to show you that they feel for you before you can feel for someone else. There has to be someone opening that door, both in terms of quality and quantity. For some people, such a tiny amount can do the trick. They just get it, under circumstances where that hardly seems possible.

For others, it takes far more. But everybody needs something. The younger you are when you get it, the less wounded and the more innocent, the better, and the more generously it flows to you, the better. If it comes with strings attached, for instance, you will only give with strings attached. That is the way it is handed down. Early handicaps in empathy, like early handicaps in speech and language, are only overcome with great difficulty.

I think it is also possible to use drugs to kill your ability to feel and act appropriately. The drugs take that central place in your life that your humanity is meant to have. You can have had a wonderful family, but getting the drug takes precedence. You can be a mother or father… the drug takes precedence. Even when you see yourself dissolving before your eyes… the drug comes first. No one matters, only the drug matters. What anyone else may feel or suffer has no impact on how you act. In this case, a sociopath is made…sometimes in spite of huge childhood advantages. Beautiful souls… essentially wiped out.

This makes sense. Your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors all have a necessary physical capacity that makes them possible. A demented person doesn’t choose to be illogical. They can no more follow a logical train of reasoning than they can fly.

A diabetic cannot choose directly to make insulin appropriately… but if they know how their disease works, they can make choices that make the most of their body’s own capacities. They can do for themselves what doctors cannot do, although sometimes they need others to do for them what they cannot do for themselves.

Drug addictions are like this. There is an aspect to which the person is not responsible and an aspect in which they are. It differs from person to person, but the more one takes responsibility for one’s own health, the better. Maybe a diabetic should have eaten and exercised differently when they were younger… but that is water under the bridge. Past behaviors are in the past. Maybe their brother acted 10 times worse and was never sick a day in his life… life’s not fair. Like it or not, the cards you were dealt are what you have to play. What matters is that what can be done today is done, and that the patient is the one willing to be primarily responsible for his or her own life and health. There is no substitute for that. But for mercy’s sake, they deserve all the help and empathy that the rest of us can muster for them. Drug addiction is a bad, bad disease.