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To add to what you're saying, many users aren't just self-medicating emotional pain, but serious psychiatric illnesses. This can be for a number of reasons: lack of insurance coverage, difficulty navigating the medical system (which can be very challenging for someone with mental illness), and unfortunately, the fact that modern medical science just does not have effective treatments available for some of these conditions.

Branding these people as criminals and throwing them in prison is outright cruel.

> and unfortunately, the fact that modern medical science just does not have effective treatments available for some of these conditions.

I suspect that many psychiatric illnesses are indicative of metabolic disorders, and/or malnourishment. An effort to apply the findings of physiology to psychiatric practice would certainly lead to an Understanding that would allow effective treatments to become mainstream.

> Branding these people as criminals and throwing them in prison is outright cruel.

In the future the 'war on plants' will certainly be recognized as a crime against humanity, or at least as society's autoimmune disease.

> Really I think she just must've been lonely. This week I found a copy of a book she gave me for my birthday after we met. She inscribed it, in part, "my heart melted the moment I first heard you speak." > I think I've successfully bullied her current court-ordered mental health providers into recognizing the mistaken diagnosis made by their colleagues in the other county.

I don't know who you or her are but the situation you describe is rather familiar to me. Thank you for being around for someone else and doing these sorts of things to help them.

You've undoubtedly met lots of people who have used cocaine recreationally. I think it's a lot easier to do than using opiates recreationally.

Cocaine gets a bad rap and probably justifiably so (as it has ruined or taken more than few lives) but it's not the same type of addiction as opiates. If people were able to use cocaine responsibly in small amounts I really think it wouldn't be much of an issue. The trouble is that people have trouble gauging where they and tend to go overboard, particularly during a session. But it doesn't have to be used like this. A good analogy might be turning up a bottle of liquor vs slowly enjoying a few beers. With cocaine many people are simply unable to resist the temptation of overdoing and it causes problems. But in my mind it's not the same level of harmful as something like opiates or methamphetamine.

I don't recommend running out and looking for cocaine because "hey it's not really that bad" though. Chances are good you'll get carried away. As for smoking or injecting cocaine, that's a whole different topic.

A lot of people use cocaine recreationally but you don't see what happens to them after you stop going to the parties. Therefore you can go through decades of seeing the stuff around and having friends that will take the stuff if it is going, but not see what happens to people who get a proper taste for the stuff.

A girl I work with moved house a couple of years ago, to move in with some cool people who invited her out to cool parties. To fit in she tried the cocaine, then moved on to buying her own to share with her best friend. Roll on two years and her life is as good as over. Bearing in mind that she is just a workmate, not the love of my life or a relation, however, finding out that she has moved on from cocaine to crack has been the most shocking thing that has happened to my life. Today she has conjunctivitis which is a progression of what kept her off work last week - some grizzly puss filled sores in her throat and ears. Obviously it is just a flu and not because she has wiped out her sinuses by smoking/snorting cocaine.

As mentioned I have seen these white powders around all my life, if I think now how lucky I was to be naive enough to not take the path of my workmate, otherwise I would be done over a dozen times by now!!! Only now in seeing the descent of my workmate have I learned what these things do. I am now wondering how the marriages and jobs worked out with those people I saw along the way with the white powders at parties, maybe I saw them at the stage my workmate was at a couple of years ago, seemingly in control.

I have had to read 'Beyond Addiction' to personally cope with the one-person humanitarian crisis that I only learned of three months ago. I can already see how the next stage gets progressed to, my workmate has nightmares and awful sleep, I believe that 'benzos' help with that or there is also the heroin mix. So then there is the descent into homelessness and prostitution, then the legendary rock bottom where a methodone script can be my workmate's existence for the rest of her days.

I would do anything to save my workmate but it is already too late. If she lasts three months in work then that will be a miracle. With a 'payday loans' existence as it is the fall is going to be out of control crazy stuff.

Essentially her problem is a triple onion of the childhood hurt, the drug itself and the scene of 'happy party people' that she 'has a good time with'. She thinks that if she can solve the childhood hurt then everything will be great but she ignores the elephant in the room.

The disease she has is 'addiction' and there is no cure. It makes no difference whether she is on cocaine or opiates because the journey is the same. It is a horror movie and it really does affect more than just the addict.

I've witnessed crack cocaine induced psychosis, before I knew anything about psychosis. People can recover from a lot of damage with the right interventions.

I understand that Cocaine's effect on brain chemistry is sort-of like the Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs, 1st-generation anti-depressants). The reversible MAOIs are safer than the non-reversible ones.

Methylene Blue is a research chemical that has MAOI properties, and is reversible.

If you're interested in emailing let me know where to contact you.