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PussEKatt

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17 hours ago, Villan_of_oz said:

Mate clearly you're set in your opinion which is fine. I'll give you a stat. Alcohol does more harm to society than any other drug yet it's legal and accepted.

I don't really have any desire to argue, nor justify my views on pot.

 

As I said in my first post (the one you started arguing with... it wasn't aimed at you), I'm a recovering addict.

I've spent plenty of my life using and abusing alcohol, pot and various more damaging things, so I'm not some Sunday School teacher giving you a drugs are bad mmmkay lecture. I was never trying to say pot is the most dangerous thing on the planet, just that for some people it can cause problems.

We have more common ground than you realise. Definitely wasn't looking for a slanging match.

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13 hours ago, AVFCDAN said:

Same here, one of my childhood friends ended up with Schizophrenia from smoking on a daily basis so there are dangers although you could say it was always there I guess.

I'm sorry about your friend but like you said they were predisposed to it before they ever touched pot. 

Maybe I have been a touch cavalier on the subject. I'm not saying pot is great and we should be getting kids to smoke before they do their maths at school. I'm more saying it is demonised to make it look way worse than it is, while legal drugs like alcohol tear society apart.

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8 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

There's an issue with scale here though. If meth, heroine, cocaine, cannabis (especially high strength skunk), MDMA etc were available legally in the way alcohol was, that picture would be very different.

Yes I agree with that, although if you MDMA legal I don't think as many people who drink would jump on board.

 

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1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

As I said in my first post (the one you started arguing with... it wasn't aimed at you), I'm a recovering addict.

I've spent plenty of my life using and abusing alcohol, pot and various more damaging things, so I'm not some Sunday School teacher giving you a drugs are bad mmmkay lecture. I was never trying to say pot is the most dangerous thing on the planet, just that for some people it can cause problems.

We have more common ground than you realise. Definitely wasn't looking for a slanging match.

Apologies my friend, I didn't mean to come across as defensive. I certainly wasn't meaning to make light of what you have been through. I agree with you that pot isn't and shouldn't be for everyone.

My main point is that alcohol is accepted because it's legal, while pot is demonised because it's illegal (not everywhere). 

This all started because I mentioned I'm doing Dry July, and that's because I became aware that alcohol was having a negative affect on me.

I'll admit I don't often go a day without smoking pot, but I do go without it. I'll admit also I don't like it 😁 but I wouldn't say I go through withdrawal symptoms or anything like that. Then again a medical professional might argue with me like that.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

His whole YouTube channel is pretty good. There's a hint of retired gangster cashing in on stories from the crazy days to it, but theres a humbleness and honesty which allows him to pull it off.  Fair play because he could have been just another guy who lived too fast and died too young. 

 

Edit:

 

Didn't realise he was born in Wimbledon and went to school in St John's Wood until just now.  Thanks Wikipedia! 

Edited by The_Rev
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On 19/07/2019 at 01:20, A'Villan said:

 

Just on this video, since it pops up fairly frequently on social media...

It's worth noting that Johann Hari (who was sacked from the Independent for lying and plagiarising) is not a expert in this field, and bases most of his thesis on one study done on mice (who are psychologically quite different from human beings), and on observational findings on returning GIs from Vietnam.

There's a lot of truth to his point that addiction is driven and exacerbated by loneliness, and that more socially connected communities are less affected by addiction. But it's a bit of a strawman he creates when he says "everything we think we know about addiction is wrong". It's already widely known that social and circumstantial factors help drive addiction, just like any other mental health problem.

Like most psychological problems, you usually have to attack it from several angles, and it often involves some degree of acceptance that the individual has a certain personality type that needs to be managed in a certain way.

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Cautionary tale in Steve-O. He probably thought he needed to get **** up to exude charisma and keep getting paid. I thought he'd be dead by now. Hope there's no relapse in his future and that he surrounds himself with people who don't feed his addictions. You can see how it's given him some brain damage. Sad.

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21 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Just on this video, since it pops up fairly frequently on social media...

It's worth noting that Johann Hari (who was sacked from the Independent for lying and plagiarising) is not a expert in this field, and bases most of his thesis on one study done on mice (who are psychologically quite different from human beings), and on observational findings on returning GIs from Vietnam.

There's a lot of truth to his point that addiction is driven and exacerbated by loneliness, and that more socially connected communities are less affected by addiction. But it's a bit of a strawman he creates when he says "everything we think we know about addiction is wrong". It's already widely known that social and circumstantial factors help drive addiction, just like any other mental health problem.

Like most psychological problems, you usually have to attack it from several angles, and it often involves some degree of acceptance that the individual has a certain personality type that needs to be managed in a certain way.

Should the ideas you have which have insight and are thought-provoking be deemed redundant on account of you making an error in judgement in an unrelated matter?

Yes, you could look at it that way, personally I think he is attempting to address the dogma and stigma that so often come up when discussing addiction.

It's like I often hear regarding homelessness, people assume that they are problem riddled on account of their own decisions.

When I worked for the Salvation Army, we did a survey of people experiencing homelessness in Melbourne. Over 70% reported childhood sexual abuse.

Go point the finger at a child who's been sexually abused and say to them, "You did it to yourself", that's essentially the message these people get.

Having worked with the leading doctors in the Addiction Medicine department at Australia's 4th best hospital (900 beds) I would be inclined to say we don't know much.

I have studied AOD work and from my experience and understanding any productive program falls by the way-side because adequate funding isn't made available.

The programs that do see results are then expected to take on a greater workload and produce the same results. It's really not a priority despite what politicians say.

It's complicated.

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6 hours ago, A'Villan said:

Should the ideas you have which have insight and are thought-provoking be deemed redundant on account of you making an error in judgement in an unrelated matter?

Definitely not deeming it redundant. I found it quite inspiring in parts - indeed I remember the first time I saw it, I read up on some of the research, and it actually informed some of my (positive) decisions at the time.

I just think it's worth pointing out that he has a track record of embellishing, and isn't always a faithful reporter of evidence and secondary sources. He takes an interesting angle and makes it into a more coherent thesis by massaging the facts a bit and sanding away the inconvenient edges. That doesn't mean it isn't worth listening to, but like Malcolm Gladwell or any of the other pop gurus it means you should exercise a bit of caution.

Quote

Yes, you could look at it that way, personally I think he is attempting to address the dogma and stigma that so often come up when discussing addiction.

It's like I often hear regarding homelessness, people assume that they are problem riddled on account of their own decisions.

When I worked for the Salvation Army, we did a survey of people experiencing homelessness in Melbourne. Over 70% reported childhood sexual abuse.

Go point the finger at a child who's been sexually abused and say to them, "You did it to yourself", that's essentially the message these people get.

Sure, and I think in comparison the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" school of thought, he does present a fairer picture of how people end up in a mess.

But my sense is that a decent proportion of society - and certainly most academic experts - have already moved against that. That doesn't mean they know what the solution is, but Hari's assertion is that nobody even understands the causes. I think that's pushing it too far.

My problem is that he not only tries to take on the "druggies are scum" crowd, but he always glosses over some of the more compassionate, factually sound stuff, like the long-term physical effects of drug abuse on brains which make users more prone to impulsive behaviour.

Quote

Having worked with the leading doctors in the Addiction Medicine department at Australia's 4th best hospital (900 beds) I would be inclined to say we don't know much.

I have studied AOD work and from my experience and understanding any productive program falls by the way-side because adequate funding isn't made available.

The programs that do see results are then expected to take on a greater workload and produce the same results. It's really not a priority despite what politicians say.

It's complicated.

Sure, it's not fashionable to divert taxpayer money towards drug treatment programmes. And their high failure rates make them unpopular. There's still a lot of work to be done. Reducing the stigma would help a lot, in my opinion, as at the moment it acts as a barrier to good research, effective treatment, etc. Some of the most important avenues of treatment (social life, family life, work life) are often shut off because users are too ashamed to discuss their problem.

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  • 1 month later...
5 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

WTF

 

I actually think it’s pretty genius. I guess the idea is partly challenging stereotypes but equally it has done the rounds everywhere. Arguably a very successful campaign and at the very least has people thinking.

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5 hours ago, Spoony said:

I actually think it’s pretty genius. I guess the idea is partly challenging stereotypes but equally it has done the rounds everywhere. Arguably a very successful campaign and at the very least has people thinking.

Yes, you're right, it now seems to have gone utterly viral so mission accomplished. 

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  • 1 month later...

Relaxing tonight with the help of the following:

alcohol

cannabis

neurontin

cyclobenzaprine

escitalopram

propranolol

hydrochlorothiazide

pravastatin

amlodipine

They're all keeping me stitched together 😀

 

 

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6 hours ago, maqroll said:

Relaxing tonight with the help of the following:

alcohol

cannabis

neurontin

cyclobenzaprine

escitalopram

propranolol

hydrochlorothiazide

pravastatin

amlodipine

They're all keeping me stitched together 😀

 

 

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