In their never-ending march down the path of stupidity, the “intelligentsia” in Vancouver is now offering free booze to alcoholics. And of course, they have an endless number of “studies” to “prove” that this is a good idea.
David Berner disagrees.
In this video, John Robson & Barbara Kay discuss the insanity that has become reality.
EBL, which one is Debbie?
@SMALL C CONSERVATIVE.
LMAO. You got it …lol.that was good sand amazing lol.
@JOHNNY
GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR TRIUMPH
!!!….
IF anyone wants to know what alcoholism is like in real life and wants to have some sence of how it truly controls you no less than heroin or any other drug watch the movie.
LEAVING LAS VEGAS. With Nicholas cage what a sad but true movie. Very well done in capturing some of the high risk alcoholic life style.
It will be interesting to see what the response of the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons is to the next harm reduction program of prescribing cocaine to addicts who have developed an autoimmune disorder from levamisole. Levamisole is now a common contaminant in cocaine (there for reasons only a brain damaged dealer can understand) and it causes severe autoimmune disease in some people. The solution is simple: stop using street cocaine but users don’t.
Had a patient in hospital last year with MRSA sepsis and levamisole induced neutropenia. Every time she’d disappear from the hospital for a few hours her neutrophil count would plunge and her urine drug screen would be positive for cocaine. So, the harm reduction protocol would mandate giving this person a prescription for cocaine hydrochloride and that’s where the fun begins. How much coke/day should one prescribe? What does one do about “lost” coke? Should she be switched to methamphetamine instead? If she continues to do street cocaine contaminated with levamisole, she might spend another couple of months in hospital on IV antibiotics at a cost of $2K/day.
Providing free booze to alcoholics is simply stupid. Most alcoholics have done so much brain damage and liver damage by the time they end up on E. Hastings that it’s probably kinder to just let them die off quickly. Isopropanol is a cheap high and relatively non-toxic. I’ve seen E. Hastings alcoholics deliberately drink methanol as they knew it would get them a clean bed in the ICU on an ethanol drip so they could stay drunk at taxpayer expense for a few days out of the rain. That’s assuming they didn’t go blind first if ER was really busy.
One of the things that puzzles me the most about the BC College of Physicians is that, while it approves of “harm reduction” programs of the sort that will end up providing free kids to pedophiles, it very much disapproves of doctors prescribing benzodiazepines. Most physicians in BC have gotten letters from the college about patients who are on what are considered to be overly large doses of benzodiazepines. One far more rational option for alcoholics is to take them off a very toxic drug, alcohol, and put them on diazepam instead. Aside from the fact that certain segments of the population can become addicted to benzodiazepines, they are incredibly safe drugs which don’t cause brain or liver damage. My tactic 20 years ago of switching alcoholics to valium worked but is now verbotten. Similarly, promising therapies such as use of LSD and other psychedelics to treat alcoholism are now illegal.
What would probably work the best would be to get chronic alcoholics through the withdrawal phase (which can be fatal if untreated) and then give them a choice: back on the street or living in a remote wilderness camp that is alcohol free. I suspect this would turn out to be the most cost effective solution especially if there was some form of employment available to the inhabitants.
As far as shipping alcoholics and drug users to Vancouver, Calgary was a heavy user of “Greyhound therapy” which consisted of giving people a choice: jail, or a one way bus ticket to Victoria. A schizophrenic could be adequately medicated to ensure that they wouldn’t get thrown off the bus until they’d gotten over the Alberta BC border at which point they’d be BC’s problem. This was an early form of harm reduction: trying to sleep on the street during a Calgary winter can be fatal whereas the worst that happens during a Victoria winter is that one gets wet.
Just so you know I drink but I can control it ……my wife doubted me caused ’twas every weekend two forties of wiskiey …but she ked me to go without it .i asked why? She said cause I think your a drunk and hiding something …I laughed (very hard) and agreed I asked her when I should start lol she is smart she said this weekend cause I only drink fri sat so I agreed and laughed . Three months later not a peep she said honey you have gone three months with out even a drink. I told her I had one beer for wing night …but she was right …she apollogized and said I could drink when ever and however much I Wanted …lol. We have never had the dis union since I will drink fri and sat for a nice relaxing evening and I like to enjoy the spirits I don’t drive I don’t get rude or violent I don’t black put or even get weird. I just get to feel good about the week gone by and the hard work I have done and the differences made in this world. An alcoholic could never ever ever do that never!!!!!!!.
@ Loki at February 19, 2012 12:26 AM
The major problem is that the great minds that wield the power do not ask for input from the people that actually know something. (like yourself) The people that make major decisions do not work in the field or have experience in what works and what does not. They are at the political level rather than the intellectual level. As in politics, it’s a pecking order that defies common sense.
“Will it do these people any more harm? No. Will it do less harm? Yes. Will it save the taxpayer some money? Yes.”
If you are referring to drug addicts and the “shooting gallery”, the drugs are not given to them-only the place to “shoot up”. They still have to get the drugs usually–er- always- by stealing. And they steal from people like me. I happen to have vending machines in a clinic near the DE. Even though the machines are in the lobby, zonked out druggies will just smash the glass. So it doesn’t do less harm. It just perpetuates the problem and the public gets to pay for it in terms of finanicial losses and fear.
Euthanize them all!!!
“How many on this board have driven thru the Downtown Eastside, let alone actually walked a block?”
Many, many, many times. Usually walking.
If you are referring to drug addicts and the “shooting gallery”, the drugs are not given to them-only the place to “shoot up”. They still have to get the drugs usually–er- always- by stealing.
Yup, that’s exactly what I was referring to about seven hours ago at 7:18 PM when I posted:
Shooting galleries only make the problem worse.
The only workable ‘harm reduction’ is to give them as much as they want for free as often as they want it so they OD more quickly and stop being a problem. Treat the problem like the pest infestation it is.
Hello Loki,
The source of one’s drug addiction is not drug addiction. It lies a little deeper. With drug addictions, doctors are not much interested in treating the source of the problem, only its symptoms. Is it any wonder that so little is achieved.
There are many addictions, to food, drugs, behaviours that are very destructive. And doctors really don’t have the time for understanding.
If you supply an addict with their preferred activity, the addict stands are far better chance of discovering the underlying cause and dealing with it.
Many people drink alcohol. Few people are alcoholics. Of those few, many manage to get on with their lives without coming into contact with the police and courts. Those on East Hastings are probably chronic and incorrigible. If past remedies have failed, perhaps a new tactic is needed.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
Gary, you’re right that the cause of most addictions is quite a bit deeper than it would appear. We’re doing a better job finding underlying causes than we used to and recent studies show that 50% of people with addictions are bipolar. Thus, the addiction can be viewed as a form of self-treatment. Of course diagnoses change all of the time and we’ll likely decide it’s something else 10 years from now. Support for the bipolar disorder theory exists in the form of good results in putting stimulant addicts on mood stabilizers. I accidentally discovered this over 10 years ago when I put a number of heavy cocaine users on Lithium under the assumption that the Lithium would block the euphoric effects of cocaine (which it didn’t do) but the cocaine users felt so much better on the Lithium they didn’t need to use as much cocaine as before.
What we often do is to replace one addiction with another. I view the former addict who’s stopped taking drugs but is so addicted to NA or AA that they have no time in their life for work to be just as bad off as when they were addicted to drugs. Often they are worse off now that they’re “cured” as heavy amphetamine users may be very productive but once they stop their “addiction” they are no longer productive and figure that even more NA meetings are needed to deal with how rotten they feel.
Socially, certain addictions are viewed positively such as successful workoholics; even though the effects on their personal lives might be indistinguishable from that of a heroin addict. The trick is finding the right degree of balance in life and very few people do so.
Having had extensive contact with the Hastings street crowd of alcoholics during my internship, my solution was to replace the alcohol with much safer benzodiazepines. Alcoholics often suffer from marked anxiety which is relieved by gaba-active drugs. When someone has done extensive liver damage through a lifetime of drinking, the only way I can see putting them back on alcohol is if it’s a palliative measure.
There’s been some very interesting work done using LSD to treat seemingly incorrigible alcoholics (in the 1960’s). Psychedelics are now illegal and viewed as having no place in modern medicine. What we have instead are primitive techniques that may produce the same enlightenment in a tiny majority of addicts. Only adherents of the Native American Church have legal access to mescaline.
The one thing that does occur in all addictions is creating of an autonomous wetware routine that is solely concerned with obtaining the addicts drug of choice regardless of the cost. Opiate addicts are particularly unpleasant people to deal with as there is nothing they won’t sacrifice to obtain their beloved drug. The best way I’ve learned to deal with them is to assume that if their lips are moving, they are lying.
Peterj, you’re quite right that most of the decisions that are made are political ones although the physicians making them will go through endless contortions to ensure that they appear to be “evidence based medicine”. I’ve recently found out that insite and other “harm reduction” methods have support at the highest level of the College of Physicians. Thus, doctors who publicly challenge the wisdom of such “harm reduction” methods do so at great risk to their careers. The fundamental principle I can see is that under no circumstances will doctors be allowed to prescribe safer drugs to addicts as doctors are accountable for their actions. To me, allowing people to inject a drug of completely unknown composition, purity and sterility under “supervised” conditions is the height of medical malpractice, but that’s just my opinion.
Trust liberals to keep people alcoholics in bondage forever. Just to feel superior
“How many on this board have driven thru the Downtown Eastside, let alone actually walked a block?”
When I was very young and very poor I lived there for a couple years. Very few people can get out once they are pulled into that mess and most of them were damaged before they arrived. There aren’t enough counselors or social workers who could ever turn this ship around. Inevitably the do gooders will try to help but they will help all the wrong people and hurt the people that could have been helped all the while throwing tax money into the air.
Gary Marshall said “If you supply an addict with their preferred activity, the addict stands are far better chance of discovering the underlying cause and dealing with it.”
I don’t know about that. Perhaps in some cases. From my experience the addicts do more soul searching once their supply is cut off and they hit bottom. The drug itself is what stops you from focusing on the underlying causes of your problem. I don’t know of anybody who quit doing drugs when they still had some in the house.
Of course there is a difference between people with addictive personalities and people who suffer from some form of mental trauma.
There are some people who’s bodies require alcohol. A friend’s father who had a lovely wife and family, a good business with a partner who covered for him, discovered that he could not live without the stuff. Towards the end of his life he would use any product he could get his hands on if there was any hint of alcohol in the ingrediants, including lysol and shaving cream. There was nothing that could be done for him and he died fairly quickly after his liver failed.
Consensus is that the difference between giving an alky free drinks or giving him a small cell with a rope and a chair in it is only time. The booze is as sure as the rope, it just takes longer.
Harm reduction isn’t.
Pedophiles already get free child porn in prison from the psych staff. The re-victimization of the children is supposed to show what and how much of a response the “little lovers” get. The government wants to know if their threat to the public is reasonable.
I think someone should go down to the Harm Reduction unit and ask for a round of drinks as you heard that they were free here.
And when refused go to the Human Rights Commission and lay a charge of discrimination.
Do you think the HRC would take the case.
In Alberta, about 30 or so years ago, medicinal brandy was removed from the list of prescription drugs with the reasoning that alcohol at any level was not beneficial. Actually granny probably is preventing a stroke with that daily shot.
It is interesting that otherwise smart people choose to feed a fatal addiction when all treatment opinions are that only abstinence works. Hard core alcoholics that I’ve known are dead by 50. Some people might actually consider contributing to a 30 year premature death as a problem. I guess family members should sue those that give poison to sick people.
Coddling an addict just enables the behaviour, and keeps the damage going. As Loki said, if their lips are moving, they are lying, ANYTHING to sustain their addiction. And the addict will tell the enablers anything and everything, so long as they get to keep getting the fix.
Its the enablers who are delusional, that think they are helping get off the drugs. The opposite is true.
Its the addict who has to be sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and as said previous, in their time of withdrawal/DTs, achieve some clarity as to the reality of their addiction. That’s when they are truly ready for a life change.
A nice warm place to shoot up with a friendly face assisting them doesn’t equate to them thinking, “I NEED TO QUIT DRUGS”
Hey…this was actually a good discussion of the issue, with people who know what they are talking about, Loki in particular, making good contributions. Wouldn’t it be nice if all comment threads were like this, instead of being full of trolls and people insulting each other.
My own opinion is that if this program saves money, as it must do if it keeps these people out of hospitals, it’s a good thing. What amazes me is how long people live which abusing themselves this way…they must have strong constitutions…
Loki and peterj nail it.
“The people that make major decisions do not work in the field or have experience in what works and what does not. ”
This in a nutshell is the central reason why government involvement is a wrecking ball, in any and all activities.
Instead of experts with a single motive ( the best care for the patient), like Loki, making patient decisions, we have people who have mixed motives making the decisions, like the College of Physicians which is – at least in part – a political body.
Medicine should be the sole province of the patient and doctor. Government has no business there. (if they want to help the indigent, they can give subsidies to the indigent. )
“EBL, which one is Debbie?”
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at February 19, 2012 12:20 AM
The one with an adam’s apple, the dead eyes, the half jar of mayonnaise in her hair and the teeth like a mutant moral eel’s. You can’t miss her, horribly.
Ineveitably some lawyer will launch a class-action suit on behalf of the druggies and the winos for the harm these programs will inflict, a la Oglala Sioux.
Hello Loki and Gord,
Thanks Loki for your comments. Interesting that you rather treat symptoms rather than underlying causes. I completely agree. The only way an addict will shed their addiction is by their own hand and determination. Having the state do it for them achieves nothing but misery, for the population as well as the addict.
Most alcoholics handle their problem in their own way without the need of the medical community or the legal community. It may not be optimum, but they and those around them cope as best they can.
Those few incorrigibles on East Hastings may never find a resolution or abstinence. But with such programs, the costs to the taxpayer in medical, social, and legal spheres are greatly lessened. The addicts receive their drug with some supervision, and comparatively they leave everyone else alone.
When these chronic addicts decide to cease with the addiction, the state can intervene and provide a host of needed services. But its up to the addict where and when this occurs. Any other avenue will be costly and futile.
It is the same prescription for all drug addictions whether narcotics or not. Its a medical problem, not a criminal problem. And its far from being a moral question.
What greater harm can be done to those incorrigibles on East Hastings by giving them a safe drug to ingest? By diminishing the harm not only to themselves, but all those about them?
There is no greater harm, and its certainly a mitigation of harm.
To all the rest, continue with your jokes and feigned morality on a subject you all know so little about.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
Hello Gord,
It may be that some will stop ingesting drugs when the immediate supply runs out. But how long does the abstinence last? I don’t know. All addicts are not equal. The underlying problem may be severe for some, and tolerable for others.
There is so little research done on these people, and unwise regulations,impositions, and sanctions of the state only inhibit research and remedies.
Some addicts can be very dangerous people when deprived of the choice substance. And society sees daily the results of that deprivation. People are murdered for $5. Homes are ransacked for $100 in potable goods. Vehicles are stripped for the same. Emergency rooms are inundated with those pleading for drugs, or those suffering from the ill effects of substances obtained on the street. And think of all the financial costs in police, courts, prisons.
All this nefarious industry in order to slip someone a couple of pills or needles to temporarily satisfy an inveterate compulsion.
There are far better ways of remedying Hell.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
Gary Marshall @3:58 – “Its a medical problem, not a criminal problem. And its far from being a moral question.”
Why on earth do you assume it can’t be all those things? You write in your next comment: “People are murdered for $5. Homes are ransacked for $100 in potable (sic? Maybe not; booze is potable) goods.”
I’d say that sort of thing could be looked at from a moral and a law-enforcement perspective, wouldn’t you?
Gary Marshall said: “Those few incorrigibles on East Hastings may never find a resolution or abstinence. But with such programs, the costs to the taxpayer in medical, social, and legal spheres are greatly lessened.”
Call me crazy, but isn’t that what JAIL is supposed to be for? And didn’t we used to send people TO JAIL for making an incorrigible public nuisance of themselves?
And really, would it be worse for a career alcoholic to be alive in jail, or dead as a mackerel on the sidewalk from end-stage cirrhosis, with one last happy gut-full of Harm Reduction Smirnoff in him?
You’d prefer the small room with the rope and the chair maybe? Quicker, and cheaper for sure.
Gary Marshall said “All addicts are not equal. The underlying problem may be severe for some, and tolerable for others.”
Very true. I have several friends who kicked their habits and I had several friends who died because of their habits. My experiences tell me that the only people who escape are the people who just outright quit. No methadone, no chipping and no substituting. Counseling helps as does AA. I think that giving them booze or drugs is just prolonging the process. Although for some people it would seem like the best thing to do at the time, in the end you are still faced with the inevitable choice. Choose life or choose death.
Gary Marshall said “The underlying problem may be severe for some, and tolerable for others.”
I don’t think a lot of people realize that death is preferable to being drug free for a lot of people. It makes it very difficult to reform an addict when a drug free life for them would be unbearable. You really can’t help these people no matter how much you care.
Next it will be free Oxycotin for Indians , than heroin. Bank on it. The Public Union types would be on this like piranhas on beef.
Hello Black Mamba,
What exactly does a person with a compulsion to consume certain substances have to do with your moral standards or the criminal element? How do these people harm you? I certainly see that they harm themselves, but how exactly are you superior standards of living involved?
GM
Hello Gord,
Yes, I completely agree. Choose life or choose death?
But whose choice is it? Will coercion with all its exorbitant costs, of which only a small number have been mentioned, elicit the beneficial choice? Or is it the addict who must ultimately make the choice?
You cannot help people who do not wish to be helped. And chaining them up is not going to do much good either. There is no shortage of drugs in prisons. They can be had anywhere.
Those friends of yours who quit did so because they chose to quit. Whatever the reason, they made the decision.
Heroin, cocaine, and many other narcotics, cigarettes, alcohol can be consumed for years. They are not perilous drugs. What makes them perilous is having the criminal element produce, supply, and distribute them. Having a reliable source supply the good in measured amounts will take care of a lot of the medical costs imposed upon the hospital system.
Alcohol is legal, but very costly. So addicts must resort to all sorts of secondary products, mostly cleaners, to satisfy the need.
To protect society and its members, and to conserve its finances and resources, it would be far better for everyone to move the addict from the courts and prisons to the medical office.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
Hello Revnant,
No one is advocating handing out drugs like goodies to any who demand them. We don’t hand out percocets or morphine to just anyone? Those drugs are legal if prescribed properly. Cocaine is illegal. Heroin, yes and no. Marijuana generally illegal.
Not every wound is palpable. Sometimes wounds are carefully concealed within the mind along with its pain.
If a person possesses a compulsion to consume a certain substance, which can be easily verified, to address that pain, why should he be denied?
GM
I’m addicted to sex. Where’s my program?
Gary Marshall said “To protect society and its members, and to conserve its finances and resources, it would be far better for everyone to move the addict from the courts and prisons to the medical office.”
It would be great if we could. You make some very good points and your ideas are sound. There was a time where I would have been in complete agreement with you. I think that my reluctance to get on board with this idea now is I don’t think it’s manageable with the people we have running things. Particularly the front line workers. I think it would eventually become a boondoggle and would end up helping all the wrong people and ignoring the people who could actually could have been helped. My experience with addicts and the government lead me to believe this.
You however are free to carry on fighting the good fight and I respect you for it.
Dear Gary Marshall – I was merely pointing out that you were contradicting yourself, or at best saying things that no normal person could possibly agree with. Snidey remarks about “your (i.e. my) moral standards” and “superior standards of living” (for all you know I live in a trash can with an internet hook-up) are just an attempt to distract from that. I don’t claim any particular moral high-ground, but I do question the wisdom of enabling the most crippling forms of addiction. Heroin, in particular, is a substance to which an admirable degree of dedication and perserverence is required to get hooked, and usually only criminals ever go near it in the first place. Take away the drug, they’d still be criminals. Junkies proscribed a modest, therapeutic dose of free heroin or methadone will take it, take it, and then go out and buy a bunch more contaminated junk from the streets. People who genuinely want to quit will quit. Mao threatened to shoot every opium addict in China if they didn’t clean up pronto (I think he gave them a couple of months). Worked wonders.
The problem with a libertarian approach to drugs is that we live in a society that rescues people from their mistakes, and that ain’t free. Since the State is going to be paying to pick junkies out of the gutter, it might be the State’s best interest not to go out of its way to encourage ever more crippling addiction and create more junkies. Unless the State is power-mad. That might be a different story.
“How do these people harm you?”
I volunteer at a soup kitchen. These people steal from me, although I’m quite wiley by now.
“prescribed”
Hello Larry,
If addicted to sex, the program is called ‘self satisfaction.”
GM
Hello Gord,
Thanks for the support. Look, nothing is going to turn out perfectly. This is not a question of right and wrong. Its a question of the lesser of 2 evils. Do we treat addicts as criminals or as persons afflicted with some inscrutable mental condition? I prefer the latter. At least they will get some medical attention. If they don’t want to quell the addiction, then just give them what they want until they do.
When the relentless pursuit of one’s insatiable desire ceases with a ready store, these people will have plenty of time to work on whys of what they do. At present, all they can think of is where is it and how do I get it.
There are many people like opium addicts that when given the drug manage to live a somewhat normal life. They cease prostitution, drug trafficking or theft, and manage to carry on a normal routine. Upon some it will never work. But better they have consume their drug without contaminants under medical supervision, and without harming others.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
Hello Black Mamba,
I meant to say portable, but it could also as you say mean potable.
Your post:
###
Gary Marshall @3:58 – “Its a medical problem, not a criminal problem. And its far from being a moral question.”
Why on earth do you assume it can’t be all those things? You write in your next comment: “People are murdered for $5. Homes are ransacked for $100 in potable (sic? Maybe not; booze is potable) goods.”
I’d say that sort of thing could be looked at from a moral and a law-enforcement perspective, wouldn’t you?
###
Now those people steal from you because our government has proscribed the substances that they seek, pushing their prices into the stratosphere. If one needs to ingest something that is dear in price, what do you think they will do or become if they are without the means to buy it?
The government, elected by the people, have criminalized this activity. The authorities have created this problem. Then you lament that these people become criminals, that they lie and steal to get what they must have?
The problem here is not the addict. Its the arrogance and stupidity of those who believe they are doing best. Don’t blame those who possess a compulsion. Blame those who for some erroneous moral belief get in their way.
Some people gamble away their possessions and the possessions of others; others eat themselves to obesity, others have an insatiable appetite for sex, or cigarettes. But we don’t throw them in prison or proscribe the behaviour or activity, do we?
In this increasingly despotic state, that may change. But for now, no.
Helping people is not immoral.
GM
So there is no moral or criminal dimension to the problem of someone being knifed for $5. Huh.
Very few drugs are a matter of need. My understanding is that heroin withrawal is the equivalent of a nasty flu. To steal a rhetorical question from a writer/doctor I admire, would you rob an old lady to assuage flu symptoms?
“Don’t blame those who possess a compulsion.” – why not? We all have compulsions we don’t act on. Addicts got themselves hooked. I am actually in favour of the legalization of most drugs, but I don’t see how stripping human beings of fundamental moral agency helps anyone.
Hello Black Mamba,
And why is a person knifed for $5 by an addict?
For some, Heroin withdrawal may seem like a case of the flu. For most others, its hell.
When you see a car accident casualty coming into the ER, would you question whether he caused the accident? And if so, would you refuse treatment and call the police?
How about rock climbers, steroid users, auto and boat racers, boxers, and so many others that engage is risky behaviour? Do we outlaw their activities and throw them in prison when they come for treatment?
The addict did not get himself hooked. He is predisposed to any number of compulsive activities and habits.
You only see the behaviour. That is all that interests you. What causes the behaviour is no concern. It is merely a weakness in character, in moral standards. They could resist, but choose not to. And how they dare offend my morals, my beliefs.
I’ve heard this many times. And really, its simply the inane commentary of those who understand nothing. Its the commentary of an arrogant ignoramus.
You remind me of those people that scowled at and mocked those who suffered from shell shock, physically unharmed, but mentally a wreck. Nothing wrong with them that a good kick in the ass wouldn’t fix. Deserters, or cowards.
With a little research, it was discovered that such folk were not as at first thought. They actually were suffering.
I’ve come down with a bit of the flu. Couple of days and I shall be back to normal, just like any degenerate Heroin addict. Right Mambo?
GM
“You only see the behaviour. That is all that interests you. What causes the behaviour is no concern.”
You’re crap at mind-reading. You want to yell at some straw man, fine, but don’t pin my pretendo-name on it.
Did you read the bit where I said I was largely in favour of legalization? Yeesh.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-poppycock.htm
Do they serve underage addicts?
Lol, GM, the problem is that I am insufficiently “self-satisfied”, and it has proven a gateway drug to addiction to sex with women. Where’s my program?
On a serious note, I take the harm-reduction arguments seriously but do these programs contain any aspects of weaning, skills training, etc? This is the issue I have with methadone programs. It is great to get people off the treadmill, but when five years later they are still on the program, same dose, still homeless, jobless, I have to start asking if we are just enabling.
Might as well face it, you’re addicted to love! Queue here…