Posted on 11/22/2001 10:26:32 AM PST by runningbear
EUROPE-WIDE ALARM FOR HEROIN CUT WITH ANTHRAX
According to a report broadcast by "Cadena Ser," a private Spanish radio station, laboratory analysts of Europol issued a warning to all drug squads in Europe, alerting the police to the arrival of heroin cut with anthrax, originating from Afghanistan. Traces of anthrax were found in the body of a Norwegian drug addict, who died of an overdose.
1) Try reading ALL the posts in CONTEXT, Don. 2) I'm not going to argue with you about your presumptions. 3) Is injecting oneself with heroin a moral act?
ICHTY: Oh, now I get it. You don't like capitalists.
Don: This response is out to lunch: try reading what's said to you with your brights on, and answering the question asked.
What part of "White, White Collar, Right Wing, Capitalist Pariah" don't you understand, Don?
What part of "White, White Collar, Right Wing, Capitalist Pariah" don't you understand, Don?
The part where you distract yourself by responding to a random example to make a point, as if your opponent held the position he obviously does not. Trouble tracking? Maybe you need more coffee. Or is caffeine also immoral?
I read all the posts. No part of the complete context appears to answer my question, which I'll repeat, as apparently, since you say:
2) I'm not going to argue with you about your presumptions.
you're no great fan, either of context or presumptions, at least, of anyone else.
3) Is injecting oneself with heroin a moral act?
In and of itself, it is a morally neutral act, much in the same manner that a morning cup of coffee and a cigarette is a morally neutral act. I usually manage to ignore these drug threads of late, but you have been passing out such lurid misinsformation with such assurance, that my threshold of annoyance has been overcome.
Like most people exposed to the medical/judicial crash&burn cases, you have quite an a-statistical, jaundiced view of the problem. Heroin users die off at a rate not much different than the general population. Heroin users mostly work for a living, and pay for their heroin out of their paycheck. So says the DEA, and as is painfully obvious from a comparision of the estimated gross heroin consumption, and the number of esitmated hard core addicts.
If it is immoral to use heroin, on the basis of it's potential for harm, than it is painfully obvious that a number of other things are also immoral, including alcohol and late-night television.
I can tell you about something that is truly, unambiguously morally evil, though. And that's for a country founded on the moral basis of protecting individual human freedom allowing its government officials to dictate what you may put in your mouth, without requiring courtroom quality evidence of the critical nature of the harm avoided. The moral harm from this violation of basic human trust between the governed and the governors so far outstrips the harm from heroin, as to make it irrelevant.
When you put your hand over your heart and pledged "liberty and justice for all", did you actually mean "liberty and justice for rich drunk white people"?
Whose morals are those? Not mine; must be yours. You said you've read my posts on this topic. If you had, you would have read about the differences between heroin and other substances, and my science based opinion that it's a bit disingenuous to compare them. You, however, need to claim some kind of medical parity between street narcotics and legal substances. I repeat, they are not in the same pharmalogical or physiologic class.
I usually manage to ignore these drug threads of late, but you have been passing out such lurid misinsformation with such assurance, that my threshold of annoyance has been overcome.
So glad to be of use to a dyspeptic sophist such as yourself. My lurid misinformation is based on extensive education ( three degrees) and twenty years of hospital work, tending to the very people we are discussing. I imagine yours has been colored by, um, law school?
Like most people exposed to the medical/judicial crash&burn cases, you have quite an a-statistical, jaundiced view of the problem.
Why, thank you.
Heroin users die off at a rate not much different than the general population.
And I said differently where? Your factoid is beside the point. I would respond to you by mentioning that heroin users, "die off" of a number of diseases and conditions that afflict the general population at a much lower rate. If that helps, and I suspect it doesn't.
Heroin users mostly work for a living, and pay for their heroin out of their paycheck. So says the DEA, and as is painfully obvious from a comparision of the estimated gross heroin consumption, and the number of esitmated hard core addicts.
I see. So that negates the behavior of addicts who rob to support their habits, and who are involved in the violence that surrounds the drug trade. How enlightening. I bet it also excuses the fact that they are addicts whose lives revolve around drugs. It neutralized the negative effects on their families, their health, and the community at large. The fact that they spend their pay on heroin rather than food, the mortgage and medical care for the kids is more than compensated for by the fact that they work, and pay taxes. Might I add that I sure hope they aren't doing anything on the job that could harm another human being?
If it is immoral to use heroin, on the basis of it's potential for harm, than it is painfully obvious that a number of other things are also immoral, including alcohol and late-night television. M/P>
If you had read my posts, as you said you have, you would already know that comparing heroin to alcohol or , god forbid, late night tv, is not a valid comparison. They are not in the same classification of poisons. I know you are not being disingenuous. You are being sophistic. And that, my friend , is the crux of the matter.
I can tell you about something that is truly, unambiguously morally evil, though. And that's for a country founded on the moral basis of protecting individual human freedom allowing its government officials to dictate what you may put in your mouth, without requiring courtroom quality evidence of the critical nature of the harm avoided. The moral harm from this violation of basic human trust between the governed and the governors so far outstrips the harm from heroin, as to make it irrelevant.
Nice rhetoric, but irrelevant to the thread at hand.The thread at hand is about dope cut with anthrax, the risk one assumes when using it, even with full knowledge, and who is resppnsible for the inevitable outcomes of using it.
Now, I will tell you what I think is an unambiguous evil. Folks who marginalize the real experiences of humans - including their suffering - to a handful of abstract concepts in order to win an argument.
When you put your hand over your heart and pledged "liberty and justice for all", did you actually mean "liberty and justice for rich drunk white people"?<
Oh, you are so right. That is exactly what I say.
I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for, donh. As far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over.
Turn the other cheek, then.
This is not responsive, unless you want me to assume you are a complete moral relativist--not a notion I readily extract from your previous opinions.
You said you've read my posts on this topic. If you had, you would have read about the differences between heroin and other substances, and my science based opinion that it's a bit disingenuous to compare them.
Your opinions are based on the usual heartfelt mish-mash of statistically allergic anecdotal evidence obtained in clinics, and, no doubt, the stientistic misinformation handed out by the DEA and NIDA.
Heroin addicts in maintenance regimes have repeatedly demonstrated only a slight statistical variation from their non-addict counterparts, where heroin is consumed in pharmaceutically controlled environments, without forcing the addict to bankrupt himself, consort with career criminals, or withdraw from his social environment to satiate his cravings. You give evidence of knowing this when you say:
You, however, need to claim some kind of medical parity between street narcotics and legal substances. I repeat, they are not in the same pharmalogical or physiologic class.
but apparently the implications haven't penetrated your confusion as to what constitutes moral behavior. When it comes to measures of either harm or addiction, there is no obvious analytically measureable reason for preferring coffee and cigarettes over heroin.
And, by the way, if you have sufficient money and education, contrary to your presentation, there is little difference between legal and illegal heroin. Street heroin is still heroin, however polluted for the cheap seats.
I am more than used to people flashing their credentials here in lieu of statistically sound supporting evidence, then trying to slip out the side exits with an ad hominem argument. The DEA says about 5000 people a year die here of heroin, and that includes those who die of lead-poisoning due to drug deals gone bad, and unintended deaths attributable to the lack of pharaceutical care and labeling of street substance. Nor does it account for the fact that coronors will happily attribute almost any kind of puzzling death to heroin, if heroin can be detected at all. Honest reporting, that cared to differentiate death-from-heroin from death-from-heroin-prohibition, would put the number at between 1 and 2 thousand, at best. Just by way of comparison, 1 to 2 thousand kids die here each year due to previously undiagnosed aspirin or other children's medical allergies. About that same number are taken from us by unbannistered staircases.
In actual point of fact, it is pretty hard for addicts to die purely of pharmeceutical heroin. You'd just about have to drown the addict in it to make that happen. When addicts were offered all they wanted, in a comfortable clinical environment, not only did they not perish, they almost universally cut back their usage over time to about the standard street dose.
Your assessment of heroin & alcohol addiction is also off. Alcohol addiction is a continuous ramp, destroying brain-cells, and therefore judgement, at an accelerating rate as the usage accelerates. Heroin addiction is a distinct event, accompanied by very obvious, precipiteous chemical changes called "resonance" in the technical papers. When they handed you your numerous degrees, they apparently also handed you the standard brand of professional contempt for heroin usage un-supported by actual science, but by plenty of anecdotal clinical evidence (which you will have, of course, like countless others, re-inforce first hand once you start practicing)--despite what an obviously specially selected population this is. Actual science has never even come close to painting heroin in the harsh colors professionals and laypeople alike assume, without feeling the obligation to even look at the sound evidence.
If I wanted actual science, treating clinicians are about the last people on the planet I would ask. All they see are the addicts too addled or indifferent to avoid the law and the docs, and that colors their worldview so much they tend to forget what real evidence consists of, and how Bayes Theorem teaches us to analyze it, even in the unlikely event that they learned it in school.
Now, just to repeat my question, since it doesn't seem to get answered for all the noise: why is heroin usage immoral? Since you seem to want to agree with me, sort of, that the main harm from heroin is caused by prohibition, why isn't it the prohibition that's immoral?
dead is dead. Whether from rat scrapings in heroin or smashed by a Jay-Leno-sleep-deprived driver at high speed. Holding your breath until you turn blue will not prevent anyone from noticing that dead is dead, that that is a pretty good measure of harm, and that the numbers can be compared, and that comparing harms is how we reason in the law.
They are not in the same classification of poisons. I know you are not being disingenuous. You are being sophistic. And that, my friend , is the crux of the matter.
This is not an argument, it is just a dodgy insult, helping you to try to pretend we don't have to make comparisons and analytically assess what we are doing in talking about the law and morality. It is your contention that taking heroin is immoral. What I've, quite reasonably, asked for is reasons that make sense and are consistent with our moral reasoning concerning other issues.
Irrelevancy appears to be another relativistic issue with you: I'll remind you of a question you were previously asked--would it be any less or more a mass-murder if they sent us anthrax in coffee instead of heroin? What is clear is that you dislike heroin. What is not so clear is why tainting heroin with Anthrax is all that morally different from tainting coffee with Anthrax.
Now, I will tell you what I think is an unambiguous evil. Folks who marginalize the real experiences of humans - including their suffering - to a handful of abstract concepts in order to win an argument.
I have another candidate: folks who willfully marginalize the experience of everyone--which is what statistics are--in favor of of a selected group (about whose selection criteria they have grown oblivious) of clinical subjects they've actually observed.
Justice that doesn't grow out of the end of a gunbarrel--as Mao contended it did. Based on a morality that doesn't appear to be constructed of vapor.
As far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over.
Suit yourself.
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