[tharkun__]

While I do like this discussion I also wonder why addictive substances have to be excluded. I understand that you would like have the answer to the question be "no I don't". We can find all sorts exclusions and find a narrow path to an answer that says "no no, all drugs are always safe, see, if you only take them for a month you won't mysteriously die from exactly this 20 years from now". And while that is most probably true (and if it were true, probably hard to prove), the real answer to the question is: Yes, there medications that even if taken for a short period of time will be detrimental and harmful to you over the long term and heroin or morphine are perfect examples of this.

Remember all those war movies? I remember watching Vietnam war movies as a kid and one of the things I remember best is the use of morphine as _the_ field medicine.

Now we can argue that, especially in those times, it might be better to give a soldier that just lost a limb in the battlefield morphine than not to. It doesn't change the fact that

https://www.onceasoldier.org/veteran-ptsd-and-opioid-addicti...

    The VA and other reports acknowledge that physicians need better training to manage opioid treatment for veterans. Between 2001 and 2009, for example, the percentage of veterans receiving pain management with prescription narcotics increased from 17 percent to 24 percent. The number of opioid prescriptions written by military physicians more than quadrupled during that time.

[wussboy]

Full credit to you for this. My only quibble is that "narrow" should be "wide". But all of the rest of your points have been enjoyable to think about and hold a lot of important truth. I believe at the heart of it you have a concern for humans and their welfare that is to be rejoiced and encouraged. I hope you have a good weekend!