[pmoriarty]

"And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die."

Not only that, but most drug users aren't addicts.

To the general public, when they hear the words "drug user" they immediately equate that with "addict", and many can't even imagine that people could use drugs and not get addicted.

But that's not true, as addicts are a small minority of drug users.

Drug policy affects far more than just addicts. Lots of non-addicted users are affected too.

[leesalminen]

> addicts are a small minority of drug users.

Do you have any reliable data to back up that claim? In my experience users who purport to not be addicts are indeed addicts in massive denial about their poor choices.

[volkl48]

For one argument, consider the disparities between the # of people who've used a type of drug at some point in their life, vs the # that have used them in the past year, vs the # that have used them in the past month.

While some % of those are people who got help and quit in the past year, or people on the start of a downward spiral/addiction, plenty of those seem to just be infrequent users.

Unless the drug kills you so frequently/quickly that you can't sustain use for long or is rapidly gaining users for a new addiction crisis, the level of greater than monthly users should be higher if most of those infrequent users are going to become addicts.

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt3...

You can further see that the spread of yearly vs monthly use is closer for substances typically considered more addictive and wider for those less thought to be. (not a lot of LSD addicts out there, relatively speaking).

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My experience is that a lot of people are very quiet about their drug use outside the environment where they dabble in it and never mention it at all in company where they're uncertain about how it'll be viewed, so I also suspect that you may not recognize most of those people as people who'd use drugs at all.

I'm a big live music person and being around people using drugs somewhat comes with the territory, especially festival-type environments. But most of the people I've met at those things don't do much of those substances otherwise aside from possibly weed. They've got their once or twice a year time of hitting up the party drugs for their weekend of fun + music, but that's it.

[Broken_Hippo]

I've known a lot of folks that smoke pot on the weekends. I don't always mind heavy pot users: Generally better than alcoholics.

I've known a lot of folks that use hallucinogens: You aren't addicted to those, in general.

I've known a lot of folks with a liking to cocaine, but they can't afford to use more than a couple times a year. Or it just isn't something they want to feel every day. This applies to a lot of drug use.

I've met a lot of folks that only use drugs (or alcohol) when they have a sitter for their children.

You probably don't have reliable data to back up your claim either, and have the added mental block of deciding that all of the folks have poor choices. And unfortunately, you aren't using what you know about, say, alcohol and applying that to other druts. Most folks that drink alcohol aren't addicts or alcoholics. Even if they drink more than you, it doesn't mean they are alcoholics.

[LorenPechtel]

I think both are true.

Different drugs have wildly different addiction rates. Most people who use drugs are using the non-addictive stuff.

However, the people we traditionally view as addicts are almost certainly addicts even if they pretend they could quit anytime.