[iheartmemcache]

Heroin (and the fact that it's a scarce commodity due to legislation first world countries) has the self-harm potential (needles can be used by addicts so many times they actually snap/collapsed veins/'cotton fever') along with social negatives (shared needles=>increased rates of transmittance of hep C and other maladies, petty crime, prostitution (which is a-okay by me if regulated, but addicts who resort to sex working as a means to sustain their habit often are subjected to violent situations) organized crime/gang warfare due to the market effects of prohibition effectively making powdered heroin high purity being incredibly valuable in a fairly transportable form). Nasal consumption can lead to deviated septums, decreased nasal mucosa production, etc (not limited to heroin, habitual insufflation of cocaine exhibits the same effects). Smoking heroin off foil surely can't be good for ones lungs, though I'm not sure specifically what pulmonary effects it would yield.

As long as electricity and the components/knowledge is commonly available, those sociological byproducts are more or less eliminated (though the self-injurious effects have analogous deleterious effects one could argue). Unlike heroin, where the side-effects are well-known (about two hundred years of opium usage in the west, ranging from laudanum in the 19th century among primarily the affluent women of society to Purdue's OxyContin(tm)). We know how mu-opioids are structured molecularly, the pharmacological behavior occurs as they bind to (primarily) mu-opioid receptors in the brain, etc). tDCS main risk factor is (as stated in the article) the fact that it's a fairly new science. Even if properly administered by trained neuroscientists/neurologists/technicians within the field, we're not aware of the long-term 10 year side-effects. The risks increase dramatically if an average Joe is half-informed and tries to administer (or modify) tDCS themselves.

[wyager]

If heroin was legal, safe, and free, I still wouldn't use it.

The state I would be in as a heroin addict has a large negative value in my current utility function. This negative value is so large that it swamps the positive value of being happy all the time. I suspect this just means I'm not entirely hedonistic.

[mirimir]

Heroin doesn't make you happy.

It nukes emotion.

[iheartmemcache]

I suffered a pretty horrible Smith's fracture on my dorsal radius two years ago, such that the resident at the ER called his attending, who called the ortho specialist and immediately got 30mg oxycodone's 4x daily just as a stop-gap until they could block in a surgeon skilled enough to work on the Smith's fracture. Even through the egregious pain, I could see a: how those without opiate dependencies can find it euphoric and b: how easily an average person could form a habit without noticing it by escalating consumption.

[mirimir]

I've used oxycodone for pain, and have occasionally played with higher dosages. I don't find the effects euphoric. More like numbness, but in a vaguely pleasant way. Or at least, not euphoric in the sense that Psilocybe are. But maybe that's just me. I've never had problems with opiate dependence.

[kofejnik]

heroin does have self-harm potential, but so do free climbing, flying in wingsuit, etc. Should we outlaw them as well?

[iheartmemcache]

Absolutely not my point. In fact, properly administered IV opiates have less long term damages of administered in than alcohol. (Pill-form opiates of the non-paracemetol fashion have no chance of liver cirrhosis, and the withdrawal has no potential to kill you, unlike sucking down two quarts of plastic vodka a day for 2 weeks then stopping cold.)

There were political benefits to scaremongering tons of drugs into illegality, economic benefits of keeping them illegal (should, say, 5mg generic Perocets enter into CVS tomorrow as over-the-counter and/or on-the-shelf drugs, petty theft might go up [much like I'm sure Robotussin is stolen frequently by high-schoolers who can't find someone to buy them booze]) would put tons of people out of work. There goes a significant part of the DEA (from those out in the field to those who push papers) along with the politicians who made their name during the Reagan-just-say-no-years, the extra police who were hired in more-or-less crimeless-suburbia to deal with some 16 year olds half-gram of weed, the attorneys who prosecute them, the defense contractors who make an excess of tanks in order to give those suburban law enforcers tanks[1].

My overall point was that opioids are a magnitude safer than DIY brain-hacking, if only due to the well-explored terrain of the analgesic properties of the narcotic (which, again, was the point of the article). "Even us neuroscientists/neurologists with extensive graduate school/residencies/fellowships and years of experience still don't know what the long-term effects are when we properly administer controlled dosages of current via well-placed electrodes on your skull. Please don't try to 'hack' your brain."

Sidebar, I'm not a medical doctor but every every grandfather, uncle (except one who went into mathematics as I did), and father all have been practicing MD's (including two neurologists), MD/PhDs, or PhDs in specifically drug design for evil-bigpharma). Drug design is basically 'throw a lot of junk at the wall and see what doesn't kill mice, oh god please make it to at least phase 1". Specifically, we're going to effectively look at our understanding of the brain and compare it to the crudity of surgery during the Civil War. The brain is an amazing thing - don't attach electrodes to it and try to modify its behavior until 'brain hacking' has been well-explored terrain.

[1] http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/nj-police-departments-g... I'll spare you an Eisenhower MIC schpeal