An Addict With Friends | Hacker News Reader

An Addict With Friends

nytimes.com

29 pointskp028 comments

tl:dr People who have never been addicted to anything and don't take the time to talk to addict to find out what is really going on are ignorant.

It's sad when people are witch hunted like this. Not taking the time to see what is really going on. Being ignorant and only focusing on one thing. My fiance is a recovering addict who happens to be on Suboxone. As controversial as it is, it still helps tremendously. Anyone who actually takes the time to talk to people like this will find themselves wrapped up in a very complex and interesting story. There are some who do heavy drugs and end up ruining their lives or worse, dying. However, there are a few who use, and have it completely under control. Based solely on this article, one can see that this man, Mr. Aaron, had/has his addiction under control and only wants to be left alone to handle it himself. But when it comes to addicts, most look down on them and see them as scum. Many believe addiction is a disease, and if that is the case, one wouldn't look down on someone with Aspergers. They would help.

Totally agree. This article really made me tear up; the association is enough to destroy you in the end.

> Many believe addiction is a disease, and if that is the case, one wouldn't look down on someone with Aspergers. They would help.

Sadly, people still stigmatise and discriminate against people with mental health problems and with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities often die younger than they need to (even after adjusting for the health difficultites caused by the LD) because of poor quality of care.

I agree with everything you say though. People are often horribly judgemental toward people with addictions.

This doesn't strike me as HN relevant, much less front page worthy. Am I nuts?

I thought the same, but still had to give my two cents. Oh well.

HN takes an inordinate interest in health matters, physical and mental. This is pushing the envelope of relevance, though, yes. Your own mental state cannot be determined by your current correctness.

Personally I found it interesting and thought-provoking, which is what I want from HN content. If I'd read the article outside HN it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to submit it here, but I'm happy that somebody did.

edit: Since nobody else has, might as well pull out the usual response to this sort of comment too - here's from the HN guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." So really the question is did you not find it interesting?

Drug trade is multi billion dollar industry.

Anti-drug trade is also multi billion dollar industry.

Seeing how different modes of business work is interesting. This guy raises an interesting point about selling heroin. He does it to earn a bit of extra money to buy drugs. But if he has enough money to buy spare heroin then he doesn't need to sell it because he has the thing he needs.

Also, HN readers enjoy thinking about puzzles and about incentives and disincentives. Stopping criminal gangs earning millions from drugs; reducin harm from drug use; avoiding criminalising drug users; saving money; - these are all interesting and complicatey entangled problems that would make the world a nicer place to live in.

A lot of crime was (still is?) driven by the need to earn money for drugs.

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