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I understand what you are saying about all the scare tactic propaganda, lies, and exaggeration. All that makes it hard for people to know what to believe. I think using scare tactics like this is risky business because it turns alot of people off such that they won't believe any negative message about drugs.

I deal with a lot of young people. I've had teens sitting right here in my office telling me that meth or coke are only psychologically addictive, and therefore they could easily quit anytime they wanted to. And of course I've talked to a lot of these same young people who kept messing with the drugs years later and have seen a completely different outlook as they struggle with their addictions. Actually, experts are not all in agreement that meth or cocaine are physically addictive.

It doesn't really matter though whether these drugs are physically addictive or just psychologically addictive, both tend to produce very powerful addictions. Getting hung up on whether an addiction is psychological or physical kind of obscures the fact that some addictions are a whole lot more powerful than others. I agree with you completely that people can develop "psychological addictions" to darn near anything. You can it seems get addicted to playing on the internet, playing video games, candy, and so on. People can get really obsessive and compulsive about things and do them habitually despite the negative consequences. Some of these addictions are a whole lot more powerful than others though.

If you have a guy who just can't seem to stop himself from playing on freerepublic.com during work hours and at home even though it's hurting his job performance and his family life, maybe he's addicted. Take away his ability to access freerepublic.com and he might experience some psychological withdrawals, but he'd quickly move onto something else (hopefully work and quality time with his family) and be fine. Addictions to seemingly non-addictive substances or activities can be destructive, but they generally are not so powerful that people will let them destroy their lives and/or cause great harm to those around them. Addictions to things like cocaine and meth are extremely powerful. People addicted to these drugs will often progressively lose there jobs, their children, their freedom, everything they have. Even with their lives crashing around them they will continue to use these substances. With most "psychological addictions," people would never allow themselves or people they care about to suffer such extreme adverse consequences before the quit whatever it was they were doing. Some "psychological addictions" are a lot more powerful than others. Addictions to drugs like meth and cocaine are among the most powerful.

You may not agree with me that there is not much difference between psychological and physical addictions, but surely you would agree that some addictions are far more powerful than others. Maybe you haven't seen how powerful the addiction to cocaine can be, but it truly is an addictive drug that produces powerful addictions. I'm guessing you were in college in the eighties when I was in college. You saw friends doing coke a lot and didn't notice any becoming addicted. I can recall pretty much the same thing, but my recollection is that while a lot of people may have played around with cocaine in college, very few did the stuff all the time. They'd do it as much as they could get it, but they couldn't get it very much because it was so expensive. It was more of a special occasions type thing. At least in my college there weren't many who could afford drug habits costing several hundred or more dollars a week. There were certainly people fooling around with cocaine, but I sure didn't know any who did it all the time except for a couple of Panamanian guys who were making frequent trips to pick the stuff up and bring it back to school to sell and those guys both ended up failing out of school and eventually getting arrested. Most just fooled around with it some, never getting in the habit of doing it all the time, and then went on to work careers, have families, and put their wild oats sowing time behind them. The people I knew who got addicted tended to be the ones who would start selling it so they'd have a cheap or free supply around all the time or people who kept doing it after they went on to get good jobs where they made good money and could afford to buy it all the time. Frequent users of cocaine stand a really good chance of becoming addicted.

Oh, and if you tried cocaine several times in college and felt no effect at all except for a strange feeling in your nose, you were probably getting some lousy cocaine. According to government sources, and some folks I know who partake in it a little, cocaine back in the eighties was not as strong on average as it is these days. I've handled hundreds of pounds worth of cocaine cases and I see drug lab reports all the time that confirm that the coke out there today is pretty darned strong. The stuff my drug mule clients are carrying tends to be really strong, better than 90% usually. These guys tend to be carrying dozens of pounds or more at a time though, and most of the cutting goes on at the retail sales level. Purity levels on the little user amount busts vary but for the most part it's still pretty strong. There's so much coke out there I guess people aren't able to cut it as much as they used to and still sell it for a decent price. I would imagine that higher purity levels and lower prices probably increase the percentage of those who become addicted because using the drug is more enjoyable, more reinforcing, when it actually gets you off and when you get some bang for your buck, rather than getting cheated with powder that ends up being mostly baby laxative or some other cut.

I think we can agree that anything that produces a euphoria is addictive.

Addiction, in a real sense, is as dangerous as its effect on society. Psychological addiction, except in extreme cases, does not drive the addict toward violence and damage to innocent parties to get the drug.

Most physically addictive drugs do. I would put the amphetamines in the physically addictive category.

And, yes, I agree that psychological addictions can be destructive. But, where one will become addicted to a thing or action, another won't. Caveat emptor has always been the ruling maxim in a free society. Caveat laxor is its ruination.

I'll agree that psychological addictions are more powerful in some persons that in others. I think it could be said, generally, that psychological addiction varies as wide as do substances, body chemistries and intelligence. Thereby, we shrink the problem to the individual away from society. Cocaine affects the individual in various ways, as does cannabis.

Physical addictions are another story. I distinguish drugs that may produce a psychological addiction in some (or many, if you like) from those that produce a physical addition in most, if not all.