Geez, it must suck to be a lab rat. Very interesting bit about the nose pokes. But I feel for the poor little guys.

I'd feel like such a horrible prick at the end of the day if I spent it poking caged rats in the nose.

Says the geneticist to his parents.

There better be some serious legislation around this type of thing. Can you imagine NOT having Stephen Hawking in the world because of some genetic test?

Please, this is the wonder of life and needs its mysteries left alone.

Not because we shouldn't want to know but because our society is only concerned with the monetary bottom line.

I'm certainly not opposed to using the genetic knowledge to HEAL. But even then would the interference mean that Stephen Hawking would not be the person he is today?

I don't know if we should be playing those games.

Don't needd a Hitler....just a few influential right wing-fundamentalists. First it's a refusal to fund stem cell research:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/19/stemcells.veto/index.html
then it will be to find a "cure" for homosexuality.........

Judging by the prevalence of heroin and/or cocaine and/or alcohol addiction among rock or jazz musicians, it leaves me thinking the (environment - in this case the rock n roll environment) must have a heck of a lot more influence on the tendency to addiction than genes do! The list of addict musicians alone is nearly endless, I believe. As a start, just think of the biggest "classic" British bands. Chances are, a group you name will have had at least one addict!

Hey, and what about nicotine addiction or caffeine addiction? Addiction to sugar or fatty foods? Or non-substance addictions: gambling, sex, TV...

It seems to me a majority of people are in fact addicted to something or other! Would genetic screening nab potential caffeine addicts? Could screening differentiate between a predisposition to opiate vs. caffeine
addiction? This genetic screening idea sounds rather scary.

The liberal view, that people are not responsible for their actions, has no truth to me.
Now I suppose if you grow up in a home where your parents spend all day smoking joints and drinking beer, you may end up the same.
This isn't a disease or have anything to do with genetics.
To say you were born with e gene that makes you likely to become an alcoholic or drug addict is not true.
We are formed by what influences we have. Like homosexuality, I don't believe one is born a homosexual.
I don't pretend to understand fetal alcohol syndrome or babies born to crack addicts, they may be predisposed to addiction, being that they are formed with these substances in their system.
Parents have the tools to prevent depravity, if they exercise proper lifestyles themselves.

Is that IAMC I see waving at me on my side of the fence wayyyy over there? Holy (deleted)!!

Except I don't think you have accounted for normal variation. Dawkins has lots to say about it in terms of evolution, and there isn't any reason why good parents who do all the right things might still have a real winner on their hands after all that. Or a homosexual.

It's just chaotic. Like life is sometimes.

If you think the information gathered by the NAZI'S was never used...THINK AGAIN !

And to put things into perspective,abortion was murder,killing Jews,Gypsies,etc.,was just the Germans at their most efficient ,cleaning up God's little mistakes.

Today we clean up God's little mistakes with legalized abortion,funny how the rules change to support the desires of those in power .

And you don't need any fancy science to get the gender you want...anyone,cloned their spouse yet? their kid ?

I figure we should cull the species every century and really get busy creating a master race,because,looking around,i don'see much difference between the knuckle draggers and the holier than thou .

IAMC said

Are you referring to those two left-wing drunks, Ralf Klein and Gordo Campbell? Or perhaps George W. Bush, or pill-popper Rush Limbaugh?

I'm all for personal responsibily, I'm a small-L lib, and I don't see a lot of responsible behaviour coming from the right side of the spectrum.

Calling addiction a "disease" does not remove ones responsibility for dealing with it -- it simply means that it requires treatment.

Booker (and others):

Are you sure you're not yourself among the addicted in our society? Cigarettes maybe? Have to have some beers to unwind after work? Caffeine - need a daily hit each morning, or any devotion to Starbucks' habit forming offerings? A weakness for sugar or fat laden foods maybe, and some extra baggage around the middle?

Trying to divide the population into addicts vs. non-addicts, "us and them", is in many cases somewhat disingenuous, IMO, and not very helpful.

The heroin addict and caffeine addict have a lot in common: each has a drug of choice which they've chosen because it makes each feel better in some way.

Both are "slaves" to their drug, typically not missing a needed dose each day, or several times a day.

Both experience unpleasant, even intolerable physical withdrawal. Caffeine withdrawal can produce headaches, irritability, depression, inability to concentrate, insomnia - not exactly insignificant symptoms!

Opiates and coffee and tea
appear to have both positive and negative
effects and risks regarding health:

-Opiates are excellent pain relievers,
and are very good treatments for diarrhea. Opiates appear to have few or no disease risk factors associated with them (beyond addiction itself). Opiates, in themselves, and in proper dosage, do not damage the body. (Beyond OD risk), it's dirty needles and lifestyle that present
the other apparent health risks).
-Coffee and tea may possess substances which protect against certain diseases.

-Coffee and tea also have some potential negative health risks including anxiety, heart disease risk (in coffee which has not had oils removed by filter paper), some cancers , and other problems.
-Heroin presents the risk of a deadly OD in improper dosage, and is strongly addictive.

It is the ILLGALITY of heroin which leads to many or most of the perceived risks to the addict, NOT the drug itself.
The black market means dosage is unreliable, not standardized, which greatly elevates OD risk.
The illegal status makes a heroin habit very expensive, leading addicts to lead desperate lives to maintain themselves.
This produces property crime, health problems from poor diet, dirty needles etc., spotty legitimate employment,and a "poverty" lifestyle.

If all illegal drugs were legalized and controlled, many of the problems associated with them now would greatly diminish, if not disappear. Users would also have a better opportunity to make more responsible drug choices:

If both cocaine and coca leaves were legal and available, cocaine addicts might conceivably be able to wean themselves off cocaine and switch to chewing coca, a relatively harmless activity. As it is now, on the street only the worst form, cocaine, is commonly available. No coca leaves.

Similarly, if both heroin and opium were
legally available, heroin users would have the choice between the more problematic opiate, heroin, and the less
problematic one, natural opium, and conceivably be able to make the switch.
As it is now, opium is not available on the streets of Canadian cities the way heroin is.

Addiction is a human trait so prevalent that a majority of people could be accurately termed "addicts" - to some substance, food, or behaviour.

We should stop demonizing and persecuting one type of addict over another.
We need to legalize and control all drugs, and use a medical, not a legal approach...But I fear Stephen Harper has different ideas.

I was always told while in treatment that addiction is a Bio-Psycho-Social condition. That is, only part of its biological, the other is psychological, and yet another is one's social environment. any one of these three can outweigh the other. For example, and this might be playing on sterotypes, but my parents are both Irish, I grew up in Whalley, and I have manic depression. Thats a recipe for disaster if I ever heard of one.

the point about personal responsibility is only half the equation. Its no use if a person decides to clean up if there is nowhere safe to do so. On the flipside, you can't ever make someone clean up especially by assigning them treatment as a penalty for some crime.

I have always found it difficult to determine how much of addiction is nature (genetic) and how much is nurture (environment). It's such a complicated process that it sometimes seems futile to try to determine the root cause. In the end it's not the cause that's important, but the recovery.

Bobb999, I agree that criminalizing drugs is not the answer. I hope that Vancouver's progressive approach to harm reduction continues and isn't cancelled by the new council.

Well, it's well established that drugs are not soon to be legalized. So let the drug users deal with that.
Legalization of drug use, isn't coming anytime soon.
The addicts are not prevented from using drugs.
Illegal issues are the thing that prevent illegal drugs from being promoted as a way of life.

As far as Vancouver's progressive drug policies (safe injection sites, heroin maintenance pilot):
The mayor and council appear to be on board. Fortunately, drug policy is an area where Mayor Sullivan is in the progressive vanguard. Even Campbell's prov. Libs are not opposed. Amazingly, even David Emerson - controversial for abandoning the federal Libs for Harper's Tories, and getting new flack for flogging a new softwood agreement hardly anyone likes - has come out publicly satting he supports continuing safe injection, at least, and will push for it at the cabinet table.

Harper is "surrounded" and is looking more and more isolated on this issue.

As to the myth that illegality discourages usage: In European countries that have decriminalized cannabis - take Holland for instance, where cannabis is
allowed to be sold legally in cafes - stats show cannabis use actually declined after the relaxing of laws. It did not increase as the myth makers would have you believe it "should" do. Or take prohibition in the States. New York City alone had, I believe, 5,000 illegal speakeasies. Cops were easily paid off as a quasi "tax". One reason prohibition was lifted was everyone was drinking anyway!

As a DTES resident, former connoisseur of opiates, and in love with Caffeine and tobacco I can tell you that we're all addicted to something.

And don't be so quick to think that our Safe Injection Site is going to be taken away. No way, it'll never happen. Yet, people will still get jacked up just outside the door and the cops will continually try to scare people away from using it, defeating its purpose.

I have used the SIS and because I did use it I do not have HEP C, HIV, and a whole host of other problems. If you met me on the street you'd never know I injected opiates. I did it safely with the knowledge from the nurses at SIS. So you can't say that I'm some useless drug addict who takes so much money away from the non-addicts because I put strain on social services. It's the exact opposite in fact. That site has saved BC incredible amounts of money. But we're not totally there yet.

And thank heavens for the NAOMI project. Natural opiates have no ill effects on the body like the synthetic ones do.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Just think of all the tax money we'll have to spend if we legalize these substances. We could shovel all that money into education and all sorts of other things.

Quit seeing addicts as us and them like Bobb999 so wonderfully has said. It's not a battle of us vs. them.

We're all human and most of us use something that becomes an addictive object, whether it be pure heroin or carrying around a cup of Starbucks coffee wherever we go.

I'd rather have a society free of stigma and freedom to use these substances rather than the 'WAR ON DRUGS.'

It's not the war on drugs, it's the wheel of fortune and $$ that keeps a useless societal and political structure in place that really doesn't solve anything. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it PROMOTES drug use.

And if you have to ask me why then you're not paying attention.

Substance abusers are a boon to politicians. When it is convenient they have something to "Crack down on". The solution to addictions will never come from a politition unless their politcal carreer will be fatally jeopardized by not doing so.
Cheers:
Bob

Bob Rogers:
The "crackdown" strategy, as a vote getter, may work well in the States. But fortunately not quite so well in much of Canada anymore, especially in BC!

The Vancover municipal race of a few years back that saw Larry Campbell's COPE win, had the downtown east side and how to address addiction there, as the number one issue in the minds of voters.
Larry Campbell ran on safe injection sites, and the so-called 4 Pillars. The "maintain the crackdown and no coddling!" party, the NPA, got deservedly slaughtered.

This last election saw the NPA win, but they are the new NPA, very much pro-safe injection, even heroin maintenance...Sanity is beginning to prevail.

O.W.A.:
There have been other drugs threads at the Tyee where a few ex-heroin-addicts wrote with a stunningly hard line, demonizing their former habits, and being against SIS even, because they believed abstinence was the answer, and SIS was just "facilitating" the continued use of drugs, they thought.

I was quite surprised to read such opinions from some ex-addicts. I hope this view is a minority one.
I thought those who had been there would
most likely hold the compassionate view
that you hold, and I hope most others hold too.

I agree with you on the failure of the war on drugs. In the US, draconian drug laws have not caused use to decline, apparently. Drug use keeps going up! This makes me wonder if maybe you're right about the war on drugs even promoting drug use, in a strange way.

At the very least, the US drug war is a
major industry, a make work project creating many thousands of justice system jobs (police, judges,prosecutors, prison guards), while it persecutes users.

The propaganda issuing from the captains of this entrenched industry, and from the politicians who support it, seems to work in the US, sad to say. When I think of this,plus how easily led Americans still are about topics such as Saddam, etc.... A recent Gallup poll shows 61% of Americans still believe Saddam had WMDs at the start of the war, and 50% still believe Saddam was an ally of Al Qaida!...Are these the most gullible people on earth?!

Unfortunately, US popular hysteria
about drugs can act as a damper on Canada's move towards saner drug policies...Just look at how Harper has been cosying up to the Bush admin. on a bunch of issues, including drugs. VOTE THAT MAN OUT, I say!

Check out this good news on Mayor Sullivan's proposal expand drug maintenance
programs!
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=bf184ac0-01c2-4251-8c46-24cbb64be30f&k=18677

Nuance, that is a word that liberals always throw out to conservatives.
Nuance means being flaky, but we conservatives are throwing this word back in your face.
The justice system is not, unnecessarily harassing drug users. It is only interested in limiting the influence of organised crime.
Don't get sucked into the argument that legalizing drugs in Canada, only, will help anything.
Drugs won't be legalized. Why do so many of you promote this?
Why not promote sobriety?

Organized Crime?

What do you think made the Mafia rich and powerful in the '20s, richer and more powerful than ever before? PROHIBITION.
The illegality of alcohol gave organized crime a near monopoly on the super lucrative alcohol trade.

Why do you think Hell's Angels are rich and powerful now in Canada: DRUG PROHIBITION provides them with a black market they make a fortune from.

You're quite wrong that conservatives as a group oppose the legalizing of drugs. Former Secretary of State, George Schultz, a Republican has gone public in saying the war on drugs is a failure, wasting taxpayer money. If drugs were rather legalized, controlled, and taxed,
and treated medically, not judicially, both the user and taxpayer would be much better off. And Schultz is not alone.

Our own conservative Fraser Institute published a study which argued for legalizing cannabis, for much the same rationale.

I thought (fiscal) conservatives were supposed to be concerned about taxpayer dollars? Or are you simply a moralist, a so called social conservative, and to hell with the taxpayer?!

I agree with you on the failure of the war on drugs...

At the very least, the US drug war is a
major industry,...

There's a stage in withdrawal, or cessation of use of opiates where the user tends to look at the drug as the evil player. It's like a bereavement, a saying 'goodbye' and it's a phase.

Then there comes an understanding that it's NOT the drug that's evil, it's the way a human being has to degrade themselves in order to obtain the drug that's evil.

I am not surprised that ex-drug connoisseurs said this when framed in this way.

I can't wait for the day we live in a society where going to the store and getting opium is like buying a JOLT Cola. Put the cocaine back into the Coke please!

These structures who have the 'WAR ON DRUGS' mentality are no better than Organized Crime outfits. The premise is the same:

Profiting from the use of something, whether it be selling booze out of the back of a car or creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and policies that make people money. Same thing.

Put these NATURAL substances back into the hands of the people, freely, where they belong. Not in the pocket of OC and certainly not in the pocket of the War on Drugs structure.

Why is this such a hard thing for people to understand. Drugs don't ruin people's lives, people do.

Educate people, let them make informed choices. Now THAT'S freedom.

OWA

OWA: Thanks for your thought provoking post. That you see demonizing of the drug by ex-addicts as a kind of phase in the withdrawal process, I found vey interesting. A while back, there was one ex-addict in particular on a Tyee thread,demonstrating a hardline about his ex-drug of choice, opiates. I could see it was his way of dealing psychologically with the whole issue, but it sure was puzzling!
How you explain it, as a phase, a saying goodbye makes it more understandable. Thanks.

Your point about the drug warring judicial arm and organized crime having much in common, is right on.
...Who in our society (aside from the moralists) prefers to see drugs stay illegal, and who benefits financially from that illegality? - Law enforcement
and organized crime both! They are ruthless competitors against each other,
each involved in the same industry,but one being on the "tails" side of the coin (interceding), the other on the "heads" side (actively marketing).
What a crazy world we live in!

We agree. Legalize all drugs. Provide adequate services including harm reduction programs, and detox if people want to kick.
Besides having healthier users and ex-users, this would end up costing the taxpayer a lot less money. Gov'ts would receive huge amounts of cash from taxing drugs, which would be more than enough to pay for all social services for
users. And if people want to avoid paying tax, they can simply grow their own cannabis, poppies (in fact, they can easily do that now, especially with garden poppies), and produce their own drugs, as hobby gardeners with a twist!
...In a more perfect world, that is.

Notice how everybody shuts the hell up when provided with the reality?

Amazing isn't it? All they have is a fear-based moral argument that really doesn't cut it.

Bobb999: Imagining that world is the first step to having that world.

Imagine the peacefulness of that world as opposed to people being shot, stabbed to death, forced to sell their sacred spirit and body (ending up dead in a pig farm) and all the other human rights violations that we incur as a society by keeping this WAR ON DRUGS structure.

I imagine the day I go visit say, my father, and he asks me if I have any opium, and we go out into the backyard and enjoy its natural effects together and talk about life.

He looks at me and I am healthy. I have not been ravaged by others, raped, sodomized, subjected to jail terms, scarred from shooting up in an alley, diseased and broken.

NO!

Instead, I am working at my dream job. I have not been scarred, raped, or put in a cell. I am doing very well and contributing to a society that accepts me. One thing: I go to the drugstore and buy pure opiates. That's it. No evil there. Just getting my medicine because somewhere in my brain it tells me that opium helps me, makes me feel balanced and normal. And it makes my osteoarthritis feel better.

Imagine.

It's too bad the views you and I share aren't more universal in Canada. If they were, we would have a healthier, happier population.
There has been progress though...SIS or drug maintenance would have been unthinkable by the public or politicians 10 years ago.
I'm afraid we may not see outright legalization though, in my lifetime.
Change comes (too) slowly sometimes.

Yes, however, the fact that we are changing is better than nothing. And if we speak out every chance we can then maybe the changes that need to take place within our society will happen faster.

I hope that before I die I see these changes.

Keep up the Good Fight for REAL Freedom.

Diana

I enjoyed the discussion with you,OWA!

One more hopeful sign: Harper's popularity is plummeting according to a few recent polls. With luck, he and his misguided moralists will be out of power within a year.

Cheers (with Opium tea [my fave])!

Cheers (with Opium tea [my fave])!

I have always wondered how these moralists ever got through University where ideas abound. How did they ever make it? I'd like to see some of their Uni transcripts. I bet they just barely graduated by the seat of their pants.

Either that or they had 'Silver Spoon Syndrome.'

Feel free to contact me off board at

In the subject line just write an opiate in there, whether street or pharmaceutical and I'll know it's you.

I enjoyed talking with you as well.

OWA