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Comment by logicrook | Hacker News Reader

The analogy is "I decide to drive my car" while drunk "then I hit someone".

In which case you are responsible. There is no accident.

It's all a question of probabilities and risk. The probability to hit someone while driving normally are pretty weak, and the consequences fairly low in normal circumstances (i.e. while you respect every law). When drunk, the probabilities go through the roof, as well as how damaging the consequences can be.

When you start to take drugs, even considering all the surrounding context, the consequences can be terrible and the probabilities are quite high.

So no, it not an accident, assuming you see yourself as a human being, able to think about these. If you see yourself as a victim who couldn't foresee anything, then good for you.

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The probably of hitting someone while drunk driving on a given day are actually fairly low, as in under 1%. The real issue is people get into the habit of driving drunk and some people will drive drunk 3-4 days a week for a decade. It's the aggregate numbers that are a problem, when 10+ million people drive drunk at least once a month it was a huge issue even if most of them never get into an accident.

People like to pretend driving drunk is somehow different from driving tired, but the risks are actually similar. In fact a large chunk of 'drunk driving' accidents have more to do with people driving home late than intoxicated. Speeding, talking even just to passengers, and just flat out not paying attention also present major risks.

PS: 13x low odds are still generally low odds. http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittPorterHo...

> The analogy is "I decide to drive my car" while drunk "then I hit someone".

That's an analogy, but so is just driving. There is a risk of being presented with a situation in which you cannot avoid hitting someone every time you drive (the risk is significantly greater if you drink, but it is present irrespective.) If knowing that a risk exists with an action is sufficient to make it "not an accident" if the risk materializes when you have chosen to take the action, even when you have no intention for the risk to materialize, and even the contrary intention, then there is no such thing as an "accidental" collision -- whether with a pedestrian or another vehicle -- while driving.

If that principle, OTOH, is invalid and it is possible to have an accidental collision when driving, then the principle cannot be invoked to argue that no one becomes addicted to drugs accidentally.

I agree with your assertments about drinking and driving and the probabilities of harmful outcomes.

I just don't think it is a good analogy for hardcore drug use. Many of us did not choose to start taking drugs. Not with any real sense of context. The consequences are very often "not real" until they become "all too real."

A better analogy, would be "What do you do when you find yourself in a car moving at high speed with no brakes and no control over speed?"

This analogy specifically does not mention how you got into that position. Because its sort of irrelevant how your brakes came to be shot. What is relevant is how you can stop without causing damage to anyone else - in this situation, like with hardcore drug use, everyone involved is a victim. My point here is that recovery and harm reduction are not about casting blame. They are about finding a damn barrier to run into instead of a minivan full of kids.

The whole "drug users are victims" makes absolutely no more sense that "any criminal is a victim". You can't find a single person in the world who doesn't have bad circumstances. Even the people at Goldman-Sachs may have had a bad history of bullying, a difficult childhood because of divorce, a family that induced an unhealthy relation to competition or money, whatever. This example is not even a joke. Many "privileged" people had really bad psychological circumstances. But you won't say that any of the wall street crooks are victims.

I know a guy who spent 8 years of his life in prison, in many visits, mostly for petty theft and drug use/traffic (mostly cannabis). He had a really horrible life, and is a pretty cool guy, although he's obviously still struggling with addiction. He often says "there are only innocent people in prison, at least they all say that".

> "The whole "drug users are victims" makes absolutely no more sense that "any criminal is a victim"."

What about people who become addicted to prescription drugs like painkillers and sleeping tablets? There may have been sound medical reasons for their use at the start.

Why does the word "victim" matter either way? We should treat drug abuse as a health matter; some people can have a few drinks and eventually get addicted and can't stop drinking every night, others are not affected that way. My mom smoked until she died from cancer, me I never smoked so I avoided the biological component of nicotine addition fortunately.

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