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Comment by jmngomes | Hacker News Reader

"When Alexander’s rats were given something better to do than sit in a bare cage they turned their noses up at morphine because they preferred playing with their friends and exploring their surroundings to getting high."

Well, AFAIK, this doesn't happen with most humans struggling with addiction to hard drugs. Addicts will neglect everything, namely social activities, in order to get what they need.

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Addiction is a topic that has been poisoned by deliberate Drug War propaganda. Almost everything about drugs on TV shows, which are paid to include it in their content, is government approved propaganda.

But wait, it gets worse: Non-addicted people are sent for "treatment," in order to avoid jail. So there is a whole industry of quack medicine diluting and poisoning the real science of addiction.

The Drug War is the foundation on which most of the prison industry, and most of the budgets of police departments rests on, plus whole federal law enforcement agencies, large segments of Homeland Security, etc. Truth is a low priority. Question everything you think you know.

As far as you know. Firstly, the study is about the onset of addiction from one single experience with the drug. People that take a drug once and decide to not do it again don't attract the same social and media attention as heavy users. Similarly, if functional users of hard drugs exist, you are unlikely to hear about them. This is one of the effects of the drug prohibition: it hides a lot of data.

More worryingly, science becomes compromised when researchers cannot attract funding to explore unpopular hypothesis.

This. People assume that all opiate users are crackheads committing armed robbery. Many are highly skilled, highly paid professionals.

I must confess a certain amount of cognitive dissonance seeing middle-aged men in tailored suits scoring heroin on the street!

These days there is no need for that. They can just visit a "pain clinic" and get a prescription.

Apparently not in St Kilda.

I was :) I even ran a startup while I was using. Heroin is not a drug that discriminates.

>Well, AFAIK, this doesn't happen with most humans struggling with addiction to hard drugs. Addicts will neglect everything, namely social activities, in order to get what they need.<

Do you have any tangible data to support your claim?

nice try, but data are by definition intangible

Nope, synonym for tangible is factual, data is by definition factual:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/data

Definition of tangible:

-substantially real , material

-capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind

-capable of being appraised at an actual or approximate

We must have different dictionaries - to me tangible means perceptible by touch. But since language is defined by usage, I accept your broader definition.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/tangible?q=...

I didn't. I was what they call a "functional" addict, hooked on heroin. I have been off heroin and on suboxone for a year, after being addicted since I was 16. I held down a normal life, achieved a lot, and still used.

I stopped because of existential issues. I decided that having a chemical have that much power in my life, even if I kept it somewhat at bay, wasn't worth it. That was a very personal thought and decision.

What you will find, is no two addicts are the same, and broad generalisations don't hold very well. That's something that good councilors accept and work with :)

For many people activities you mentioned is so called cage. Getting high is a way to get away from socializing, playing, friends and family.

And why? That is up to individual to answer, if he dares.

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