Overuse is then "proof" of the person's underlying problems.
That seems too reductive. Find me a person without "emotional / psychiatric problems"(!)
Substance use is multi-faceted. It can be modulated by availability (cost being a factor), social acceptability, religion, personal biology (eg alcohol intolerance), emotional state, age, physical addiction, history/habit, availability of substitutes (e.g. availability of heroin will tend to suppress use of krokodil), social supports and more.
To this way of thinking there was widespread heroin use among GIs in Vietnam because it was socially acceptable in context, widely available, people were bored, their usual social and emotional supports were not present, and for some, trauma.
You can change any of the factors above and that will influence how people use.
This is objectively wrong. Could you find a person without OCD? No, you couldn’t under your framework because people use these names frivolously and in the context of their own lives. People use PTSD in the same way. Not everyone has these kinds of problems. That is super ignorant of you.
Like yeah, a lot of people have OCD-like things going on. It's often fine though! A good psychiatrist will heavily weight "is it causing you problems in your life" before handing out a diagnosis or thinking about treatment.
IMHO what counts as wellness or illness is mostly societally constructed[1]. In various places and times for example, hearing voices or having visions is, if not "normal", accepted as something that can happen to anyone at various times in their life.
A person can be superbly well adapted and functional according to the norms and values of one social context yet be seen as deeply mentally ill in another.
[1] I do agree of course there are problems (often organic) that render people dysfunctional in almost any context. The situation is much more fuzzy for most.
To be clear, I do agree that a lot of cases of addiction will start with emotional problems getting people into prolonged consumption. However, emotional problems can also get people into obsessive running, yoga or whatever. But after getting their mind straight people generally don't need to be careful and abstain from running due to risk of a relapse of obsessive running --- contrast this with drugs, most prominently alcohol. Risk of relapse only happens with drugs, because it seems to my layman mind that it's not the emotional problems that get people addicted, but substance abuse. Emotional problems get people into substance abuse, but it's the substance that creates addiction, not the emotional problems, because see example with running.
And there are other triggers that get people into irresponsible consumption (societal expectations, such as in military[1]) that aren't emotional problems. They nonetheless often end in addiction, because of what the substance is doing to people's brains.
[1]: I'm talking about what I've heard from my father from Soviet era military about nicotine. I don't know what it looks like now/in other countries.
The vast majority of Vietnam soldiers who used heroin overseas did not continue using heroin after coming home. They weren’t using different kinds of heroin, therefore it is the person and not the material.
I'm wondering what role that word 'suddenly' plays in that sentence. Juices it up, I guess, tries to make it sound scary.
But when the drugs you actually need are locked behind a retarded system, you use what you can get.
I reply to someone who compares some warning over eating tomatoes with the totally unrelated drugs problem, making it even more irrelevant by dragging mental health into it, and then you reply with some positive spin on opiates? Because we use them under medical supervision for pain relief? What is this? The Taliban's PR agency?
And about your precious opiates: remember what happens when they're used freely. Just look for 30s at this clip starting at 4:08, then look in the mirror and repeat your opinion.
https://www.pbs.org/video/addiction-affects-everyone-43qm7x/