This is an example of the damage that heroin does to the mind’s decision-making function. Heroin is a biologic molecule that mimics the actions of normal chemicals of the brain. In doing so, it hijacks the brain’s normal neurotransmission biochemistry causing false neruotransmission processes. This commandeering of the normal biochemistry produces dramatic decision-making deficits. These chemically induced decision-making deficits results in lack of judgment and a dramatically reduced concern for the consequences of ones actions (reduced loss aversion). This action in itself facilitates the user’s decision to maintain their habit even with the most negative consequences. This deficit causes a series of other complications: impaired self-control, impaired impulse control, the inability to plan for the future and long term memory.
The biochemically induced deficits and biases may reflect residual, enduring and possibly irreversible effects of chronic drug use; or an interaction between pre-existing predispositions and the permanent residual effects of heroin use. It is estimated that we had 948,000 (the population of San Jose) heroin users in 2016. Will those numbers rise to the levels of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 which killed between 50 to 100 million people? In short, what we have is a ever growing massive drug epidemic causing a chemically induced mental illness that has permanent effects of severe cultural consequences. If we had a flue epidemic with similar results, we would have an outcry for a vaccine and a stampede to get the vaccine when it became available.
Heroin’s stealth destruction of the mind is as bad as the effects on the body from a person eating a Tide pod. Both have their seductive elements that embody all of the characteristics of stealth and a trap. What we have is the stealth destruction of a huge segment of the American population which will soon be just as severe as the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic or a biochemical attack against our nation.
"...eating a Tide Pod..."