[cletus]

Addiction is a weird beast. As I understand it is has two parts:

1. Physiological dependence as evidenced by tolerance and withdrawal symptoms; and

2. Psychological addiction.

(2) can manifest itself in many ways that go well beyond drugs--gambling, adrenalin junkies, even Farmville.

The danger of some hard drugs is that they can, for some unfortunate segment of the population, be a potent mix of (1) and (2).

Further to (1) is that genes seem to play a role [1]. My personal view is that like many complex "traits", genetics will give certain people a predisposition to addiction.

The real danger of certain hard drugs (IMHO) is that you often don't you're predisposed to something until it's too late. It's almost certainly the exception rather than the norm but (I believe) you can get addicted to certain drugs very very quickly.

You may be able to use them just fine and not get addicted. Or you may not. Is it really worth the risk in case you turn into one of those people who spends the rest of their (much shortened) lives chasing that initial high?

[1]: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/genetics/

[blackhole]

And yet, the exact same argument applies to alcohol and alcoholics. So, why take the risk of drinking and becoming an alcoholic? For some people who are genetically predisposed to alcoholism, this is exactly what prevents them from drinking, even though it's still legal. Yet, this small chance of being an alcoholic doesn't prevent anyone else from drinking alcohol, so why should it prevent people from doing drugs? It seems as though we run under the foolish assumption that being an alcoholic "isn't as bad", without realizing just how bad alcoholism can get. Double-standards like this are the entire point of the article.

[slurgfest]

Of course everyone knows that alcoholism is garden variety addiction, and cigarettes are addictive as hell.

Nobody is actually saying that being an alcoholic is any good at all; that's a straw man. But we do have some level of cultural accommodation to and regulation of alcohol. By now we have nearly the same level of facility in dealing with marijuana, which is also a drug of abuse which is not that hard to use safely.

But every compound is unique. Taken in the ways they are almost always taken, alcohol and marijuana are pretty mellow and easy to dose and don't have wild side effects like immediately blinding you or shutting down your lungs if you screw up slightly. But they are not the same as each other and neither is the same as datura or belladonna. Many psychoactives are blow-your-head-off powerful tools that should never be used in the casual, vacuous party-time way that our culture likes to do for the last 60 years or so. And many, it's just prudent never to use at all.

Heroin is (or was) legal for UK hospitals to use in killing pain and I believe in its usefulness for that reason. But I am not going to defend high-dose, party-time heroin use as a reasonable and prudent practice any more than I am going to defend promiscuous, unprotected sex with many HIV+ individuals (which also has a very surprisingly low per-instance probability of doing anything - yet that is exactly how it continues to spread and ruin people's lives).

In any case, saying 'alcoholism is also bad' is certainly not a reason to suppose that heroin addiction is not bad.

[ZoFreX]

> Of course everyone knows that alcoholism is garden variety addiction

Really? Try doing a straw poll of everyone over the age of 50 in a British pub at the weekend, see how many of them think alcohol is addictive. Then ask how many of them drink every day.

I think you are repeating the party line boogey man mantra regarding "hard drugs", alcohol does far more harm than any other drug, so how do you draw the line for "hard"? Not based on harm, clearly, not based on lethality, but instead based on... what?

[slurgfest]

Addiction is a valid folk concept: everyone is aware of someone who can't get off cigarettes or booze, for example, or gambling, or occasionally heroin or meth or crack - to the impairment of their life, past the point of ongoing pleasure. So there are real phenomena to study, of some social importance. And I don't dispute that many people lose control and mess up their lives in various ways, in addition to running afoul of the law. So be careful with drugs, not even once, blah blah blah.

But the term 'addiction' does not correspond to any natural scientific category. Because unless it is made impossibly rare and unlike our folk concept, any definition will drag in all routine motivated behavior to the point where a lot is included which we all like and find healthy and normal.

There is no actual distinction between 'physiological dependence' and 'psychological addiction.' The relevant phenomena are all psychological and all have biological basis - just as one's behavioral responses to hunger, dehydration, embarrassment or sexual arousal do. Avoiding withdrawal might be more or less motivating depending on the drug - for example, cocaine doesn't really have much of a withdrawal compared to heroin. But the fundamental reason people use heroin isn't because of withdrawal, it's because they love it. The situation where one takes heroin simply to avoid symptoms is just not the primary mechanism of heroin addiction. And since heroin is the paradigm case for this kind of explanation, it is just generally not a good one. We have confused the different phenomenology of the cravings with a spurious major distinction between physical and ghostly causes, when we should really be considering the specific neural systems which are engaged by the different drugs.

I appreciate that what I am saying sounds controversial. If what I say is true, why do people keep talking about addiction? Because the word has an important function OUTSIDE of science - it applies a specific kind of pressure, an important feature of which is the appearance of being scientific. It is an implicit value judgement said in a scientific tone of voice, making it more legally and secularly palatable.

Addiction is nothing more than the pathologized version of desire or enjoyment. If you wish to cast shadows on anything people enjoy doing, simply call it an addiction. In particular if you wish to conflate social disapproval of an activity with a scientific judgement of unhealthiness, call the activity an addiction.

Suppose, for example, that a certain person goes to a bondage club on a weekly basis... so easy to make this into an addiction. Doing the same thing with 'normal' sex is just significantly harder. (Though still possible - in a situation where someone has an interest in pathologizing sex)

[shin_lao]

Withdrawal symptoms make it harder to quit.