Economic Facts and Fallacies

[MSimon]

In many cases I believe punishing the abuser reducing him or her to tears, is the best form of therapy rather than prescribing everymore drugs to numb the pain.

Which is exactly why pain is undermedicated in the USA.

Next time you get a wisdom tooth pulled or break a leg try going without pain medication. You don't want to get addicted do you?

In any case what you propose goes against both medical ethics and Christian ethics.

BTW punishing people for their drug use will, if my theory is correct, increase drug use. It seems to be working so far.

Note what you are saying: punish people who take unapproved medicine. You might want to look up the history of fibromyalga (sp?). No one knew what caused it so the folks with it were considered drug fiends. A lot of effort was put into punishing the innocent because of your bad theories. Well no doubt they had it coming. And now a bunch of bleeding heart doctors just give the fiends the dugs they crave.

"Distrust anyone in whom the desire to punish is powerful" Friedrich Nietzsche

[jmc]

Again the genetics-trauma thing is a plausible theory. It still doesn't indicate that drugs enhances the lives of people who've suffered with a set of genes that make them vulnerable to addiction.

There may be one or two extreme cases of people who get flashbacks every night, whose lives are made unbearable by the trauma they have suffered in the past, those people should get such drugs as THC on perscription and their usage should be monitored to make sure that the habit doesn't become a debilitating abuse. It should also be administered in a way to cause the minimum adverse side effects (such as tar in the lungs)

I still believe that the bulk of people who are addicts, perhaps with the exception of heroine junkies, are people who have genes that dispose themselves to addiction and may or may not have suffered mild to moderate trauma or some other environmental trigger, were surrounded by peers and friends who had a plentiful supply decided to take it and got addicted. These people never needed the drug, they were just open and vulnerable to becoming addicted to it. Such people would be far better off if they were never exposed to drugs in the first place.

Perhaps in the cases of heroine junkies, they really have suffered far more sexual abuse and feel the need to go on heroine. My guess is that this is primarily due to the enormous stigma which taking heroine carries. Even people who have abused cocaine amphetamines and marujana look at heroine junkies with disgust and mistrust. As a result only those who really feel the need for relief would ever consider going on it. If you removed that social stigma though, I would be willing to bet that the number of junkies would go up, and the percentage which suffered trauma would go down.

Using drugs as a relief for short sharp temporary pain (e.g painkillers) is perfectly legitimate. Using it to numb chronic pain is far more questionable and the question must be asked whethers a more permanent way to cure the pain rather than block it out. Your example of a wisdom tooth is a good example, in that your given painkiller to dull out the brief pain of getting it pulled out. An alternative would be not to bother pulling out the wisdom tooth and just administer drugs to people for years and years and years to block out the chronic pain, does that make sense?

Self medication is always dodgy and can lead to abuse and personal catastrophy. Thus it should not be encouraged.

There's no doubt that sending people to jail, or an insane asylum certainly does increase drug use as people get traumatised in their and there is a constant flow of drugs into these establishments aswell which is one of the reasons why I don't really advocate jailing people for using drugs.

The best way to get rid of the drug problem is to cut off the supply cleanly and meticulously. The best way to do that is to hang everyone who profits from the drug trade on the black market.

[fltcoils]

I had a wisdom tooth pulled a couple of days ago.

No pain, had novocain and a couple of tylenol.

I pd for it out of pocket, no insurance, total was about $180. So I don't see the problem. I expect some pay more than this for a hair perm.

I bet I'd understand this better if I'd read all the thread. Sorry about that. I may have started the thread but occupation events prevent me from reading it all.

Just finished the "Economic Facts and Fallacies" chapter on the 3rd world economics. Gosh, Thomas Sowell being from the Washington DC ghetto sure doesn't spare any punches. He really emphasizes internal culture as the controlling factor in national poverty. Without a stable government assuring rule of law and property rights, and a general culture of trustworthiness, a country doesn't stand a chance. Paraphrased, a lazy lying cheating theiving culture will drive out investment and prosperity.

Did anyone read his book? Not too deep, but certainly expressive of a viewpoint.

[fltcoils]

I thought Dr's Abraham and Flechas has found the effective treatment for fibromyalgia was appropriate intake of magnesium, iodine and malic acid. Not narcotics. Just good nutrition.

I know it worked for my health, eliminated allergies and enhanced my immume responses and stamina.

It's encouraging how much good can come from proper nutrition.

Drugs, e.g. thyroid hormone, insulin, chemo, for malnutrition and toxic ingestion caused illnes is like turning up the car radio to mask mechanical troubles. They don't cure the cause, just mask the symptoms (which is better than nothing, but malnutrition is an easy fix)

[jmc]

Just finished the "Economic Facts and Fallacies" chapter on the 3rd world economics. Gosh, Thomas Sowell being from the Washington DC ghetto sure doesn't spare any punches. He really emphasizes internal culture as the controlling factor in national poverty. Without a stable government assuring rule of law and property rights, and a general culture of trustworthiness, a country doesn't stand a chance. Paraphrased, a lazy lying cheating theiving culture will drive out investment and prosperity.

Yes, while capitalism is better than socialism, I think one of the problems with corporate capitalism in the USA is that too much emphasis is placed on competition and not enough emphasis on the importance of trustworthiness and honesty.

[MSimon]

I thought Dr's Abraham and Flechas has found the effective treatment for fibromyalgia was appropriate intake of magnesium, iodine and malic acid. Not narcotics. Just good nutrition.

I hadn't heard that. It still doesn't change my point. When a treatment is unknown the right thing to to is to make the patient comfortable. They were not drug fiends.

Same goes for PTSD and similar problems. Until there is effective treatment drugs to relieve pain are indicated.

In any case for those who support drug prohibition:

Do you support it because it finances criminals or because it finances terrorists?

http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/08 ... on-as.html

[MSimon]

Just finished the "Economic Facts and Fallacies" chapter on the 3rd world economics. Gosh, Thomas Sowell being from the Washington DC ghetto sure doesn't spare any punches. He really emphasizes internal culture as the controlling factor in national poverty. Without a stable government assuring rule of law and property rights, and a general culture of trustworthiness, a country doesn't stand a chance. Paraphrased, a lazy lying cheating theiving culture will drive out investment and prosperity.

Yes, while capitalism is better than socialism, I think one of the problems with corporate capitalism in the USA is that too much emphasis is placed on competition and not enough emphasis on the importance of trustworthiness and honesty.

What are the odds of your sending money to some one you don't know and receiving the product you ordered in America? What are the odds of them honoring their return policy?

[Nanos]

There are some products you can only buy if you live in the US, even those of us in the UK are barred from buying them..

Take Levi clothing for example, I wanted a particular pair of trousers, but the US arm wouldn't sell them to me! the UK branch had no stock and no idea when they would have!

So I had to get a friend to bring some with them when they came over.

[MSimon]

There are some products you can only buy if you live in the US, even those of us in the UK are barred from buying them..

Take Levi clothing for example, I wanted a particular pair of trousers, but the US arm wouldn't sell them to me! the UK branch had no stock and no idea when they would have!

So I had to get a friend to bring some with them when they came over.

I would like to find out why that happened. Is it Euro policy? Brit policy? American policy?

[jmc]

Do you support it because it finances criminals or because it finances terrorists?

http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/08 ... on-as.html

I found the link interesting because in it was a sentence which stated "prohibition has not worked in any rich country"

When your fighting a war you have to put everything you have into it, sofar the criminals and drug barons have been fighting with tooth and nail, terrorizing civilians shooting police and army officers, bribing politicians and judges. While the government has been putting on kid gloves, sending them dealers to jail, occassionally, if they can succeed in getting all the terrorized witnesses to testify and their teams of defense lawyers can't come up with some half arsed story to get them off the hook.

I think I've made my point, that while many illicit drugs have medical merit and should perhaps be prescribed more, in certain extreme cases to people suffering trauma, and in other cases where the medicinal qualities could enhance peoples lot. Indiscriminatedly flooding society with readily available narcotics would be both detrimental and disastrous.

If something is wrong you stop it.

If you can't stop it through existing policies you up the anti- if drug gangs are willing to kill police and civilians, then the state should be willing to kill drug gangs.

There is nothing worse than withdrawing a law that is right just because the forces of evil flout it with impugnity.

Police around the world are having a great deal of difficulty ridding the internet of child pornography and the world off child prostitution. Maybe if we legalized, taxed and regulated it rather than fought against it, we could save a bit of money on law enforcement, trial cost, and maintaining offenders in prison, while getting more tax revenues for the government.

[MSimon]

I think I've made my point, that while many illicit drugs have medical merit and should perhaps be prescribed more, in certain extreme cases to people suffering trauma, and in other cases where the medicinal qualities could enhance peoples lot. Indiscriminatedly flooding society with readily available narcotics would be both detrimental and disastrous.

That sure worked well with alcohol prohibition.

As to poor countries: look at the narco democracies South of our border. That does not seem to be working. In fact the armed attacks on our border from Mexico seem to be increasing.

BTW the idea that "drug taking is wrong" was what motivated alcohol prohibition. And a few years previous drug prohibition. And you know there was a place on this earth where a lot of people were taught capitalism was wrong and they operated on that theory for some 70 years.

I'm from the minimalist school of government - i.e. you can't prevent people from harming themselves. Any attempt will lead to totalitarianism. Which we see in the shredding of the 4th Amdmt. You are safe in your home and person from government intrusion except if they are looking for drugs. And when aren't they looking for drugs?

There are two classes of crimes: malum per se and malum prohibitum. The second class are very hard to police because it is hard to get a complaining witness. You know: vices vs crimes.

But hey. If you are content with the drug war financing criminals and terrorists - have fun. Not to mention financing smugglers to get experience evading border controls. A lot of benefit there.

Milton Friedman called drug prohibition a socialist enterprise: price supports for criminals. If you tell me you are a socialist I will understand.

http://www.druglibrary.org/special/frie ... ialist.htm

If you tell me you are a market oriented capitalist I'd have to say that you don't understand your own contradictions. i.e. what makes a pile of vegetables worth its weight in gold?

In any case the idea that "drugs/alcohol are bad" is a religious belief. Not all religions hold to that view. That view was popularly agitated for by "progressives" - you know. Socialists by a different name.

BTW you might want to look at some of the recent work done in co-operation with the US Government on using psychedelic drugs in the treatment of mental problems and end of life issues. MDMA is frequently used. As is psylocibin. Occasionally LSD.

So let me go back and recap:

1. You can only get addicted if you need drugs.
2. Casual users are not a problem because they only dabble and then quit.

So explain your hatred of drugs? Is it because such hate is socially acceptable and most every one needs their two minutes of hate a day?

Please explain how the country survived from its founding until 1914 when opiates were freely available?

from the wiki on heroin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant.

Now why would they think that? Could it be that most folks who used it medicinally didn't become addicted? Just as I have been claiming all along? Drugs do not cause addiction.

Let me add: heroin was an over the counter drug.

Let me mention that heroin was tried on about 10 people in its first clinical trial. None of them became addicted. So that is where the idea came from. If it was universally addicting some one would have noticed.

In addition if opiates were so universally recognized as bad why did the general agitation and enactment of Federal laws only come about in the early 20th century along with similar agitation for alcohol prohibition?

What we don't know is not nearly as dangerous as what we know that ain't so.

I must say that prohibition is the very model of a government program. It attempts to solve a problem by methods guaranteed to make the problem worse. After 90+ years of trying only a true believer could say otherwise. Marxists have the same problem. Doesn't stop them either.

As we have made enforcement more draconian the problems have only gotten worse.

You might like to read this history: assuming you want to learn history.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

It is a talk given to a convention of judges. A similar talk was once given to the FBI. The guy is not a flake.

[MSimon]

Child pornography and child prostitution are evil because the child is not sufficiently informed to be able to give consent.

Non-slave adult prostitution is another matter.

However, I think we should cut back on adult prostitution. The simplest way to to that is to make illegal drugs available at a lower price. i.e. regulated buying and selling - like hard liquor.

However, since logic was never involved in creating attitudes it probably won't work to change them. Except in exceptional cases.

We see the same thing here re: fusion. Many got told IEC can't work and very very few will look into that to see if what they were told corresponds to the facts. And even when facts present a different picture few change their minds. In fact I was told by a physicist that well formation was a crock. But I didn't take his word for it. I did my own research. And so here I am.

Human nature at work.

BTW riddle me this. If doctors prescribe medicines to fill a certain receptor and you can buy drugs on the street that fill those same receptors - what is the objective difference? No one has ever given me a satisfactory answer to that question. You could be the first.

[JohnSmith]

I can give you an answer: The stuff you get from the doctor has quality control, safety testing and publicly available information on risks.
The street stuff is often made with things like antifreeze, gasoline, and motor oil.

[MSimon]

I can give you an answer: The stuff you get from the doctor has quality control, safety testing and publicly available information on risks.
The street stuff is often made with things like antifreeze, gasoline, and motor oil.

Quite true. But that is not a function of the drugs. It is a function of prohibition. Same thing happened with alcohol prohibition re: methanol.

NEXT

[JohnSmith]

I wasn't arguing that. Just answering a question.

But now you get to answer my riddle.
Why do we need a doctor's prescription to get the stronger drugs and painkillers?