Only cops and crooks have benefited from $2.5 trillion spent fighting trafficking.

[thewholetruth]

Someone like Don who works in the helping profession mostly meets clients, people with addiction problems.

Granted, professionally speaking. But is my life solely professional? Have I ever had a personal life, with personal experiences? Do I have a personal life now, in which I might meet with nonaddicted individuals who share common interests with me who might have conversations with me and, over time, say a LIFEtime, might enable to see more than just the view from which I operate professionally today? That is to say, Zeno, that my life is about much more than my professional life, and always has been. I've walked on both sides of the street, for years at a time, always learning in retrospect more about human nature, human behavior, noting over the years the mass of commonalities we share compared to the very few ways in which we are different, despite how this Capitalistic society of marketing oversaturation would try to lead me/us to believe the contrary.

Other people who use drugs but have no addiction problems don't go to Don.

I see them every day, dealing with them professionally (those who also serve others), socially, spiritually, and recreationally. I've lived here all my life and know people across the USA. If your inference is that I only know drug addicts and alcoholics, sir, you couldn't be further from the truth. I know plenty of clean and sober people, people who have never used drugs, people who use drugs recreationally and people who fall in between there somewhere, as well.

So he is not lying, but speaking from his experience. But his experience is one-sided.

One-sided?!? That's an assumption, Zeno, and a foolish assumption, at that. Perhaps had you asked the question before you answered it for me, you might not have posted such ridiculous, assumptive poppycock today.

[Braggi]

Someone like Don who works in the helping profession mostly meets clients, people with addiction problems. Other people who use drugs but have no addiction problems don't go to Don. So he is not lying, but speaking from his experience. But his experience is one-sided.

Remember that he has a financial interest in keeping drugs illegal.

He makes money from the Failed War on Some Drugs.

He chooses to see the truth that helps him balance his checkbook.

-Jeff

Edit: according to Don, I am incorrect in this statement. His denial is noted and I apologize for any errors in my post.

[Zeno Swijtink]

One-sided?!? That's an assumption, Zeno, and a foolish assumption, at that. Perhaps had you asked the question before you answered it for me, you might not have posted such ridiculous, assumptive poppycock today.

One-sided, in the sense that you don't know people like braggi, who use drugs but have no problems with it.

Your life-path - starting in a life with drugs, getting into problems, reversing your path, now working with clean and sober people who work with you, are in alignment with your mission - has made it harder for you to meet people like braggi or, for that matter, me: libertarians, libertines, lidirachi.

["Mad" Miles]

lidirachi.

??? Dictionary.com'd it, Googled it (learned about Liberace) but no luck. It is Dutch? Did you mean "Literati"?

"Mad" Miles

[Braggi]

... lidirachi.

Was he that flamboyant, gay piano player?

-Jeff

[MsTerry]

Was he that flamboyant, gay piano player?

-Jeff

lidirachi???
No, not Liberace, it's Pig latin for Bleeding (achi) heart (lidi) Liberals (dira)

[Zeno Swijtink]

Was he that flamboyant, gay piano player?

-Jeff

"lidirachi" ...

Well, I COINED that word. Yes, s/he is flamboyant and gay, but not (necessarily) homosexual. It's inspired by the German "Lieder,"




attaching some fake Italian ending.

[thewholetruth]

Actually, Jeff, you are mistaken. Helping men and women who have drug problems is only part of what I do for a living. If that aspect of my ministry were to go away, I would still be helping hundreds of people every day. Drugs heads don't support my job in any way. Quite the contrary, in fact. It costs me money to help them.

Again, here's Jeff, completely uninformed, then you ASSUMED, and you were incorrect.

Imagine that...

Remember that he has a financial interest in keeping drugs illegal.

He makes money from the Failed War on Some Drugs.

He chooses to see the truth that helps him balance his checkbook.

-Jeff

[thewholetruth]

One-sided, in the sense that you don't know people like braggi, who use drugs but have no problems with it.

Why am I having to repeat myself now, Zeno? I already told you that not only do I know people like Jeff, I WAS someone like Jeff. Why would you even repeat your false premise about me when I already explained at length that you are straight-up wrong about that?

Please, read my last reply to you again (it's post #31, sir), then post back again. I pray that your comments reflect that you actually read what I wrote this time.

Your life-path - starting in a life with drugs, getting into problems, reversing your path, now working with clean and sober people who work with you, are in alignment with your mission - has made it harder for you to meet people like braggi or, for that matter, me: libertarians, libertines, lidirachi.

Again, you're pretending I've never used drugs recreationally and that I have no friends who do. Read my post again. That's why I wrote it, Zeno. I would have been interested in your thoughts back had you actually read what I wrote. This post strongly suggests, if not proves, that you didn't even read my post, like the man who really isn't listening who simply restates his case because the object for him isn't to get to the truth, but to simply hear himself voice his own opinions.

I'll wait. I'm excited at what you might say (who knows!) after you actually read my last reply to you...Again, it's post #31.

[Braggi]

Actually, Jeff, you are mistaken. Helping men and women who have drug problems is only part of what I do for a living. If that aspect of my ministry were to go away, I would still be helping hundreds of people every day. Drugs heads don't support my job in any way. Quite the contrary, in fact. It costs me money to help them.
...

I have edited my post to note your comments and my error. However, I find your rigidity in thinking curiously out of line with this statement. I'll try to be more careful in the future.

-Jeff

[thewholetruth]

I have edited my post to note your comments and my error. However, I find your rigidity in thinking curiously out of line with this statement.

Having the courage of one's convictions can appear to be "rigidity" to people who just make up life as they go along. Seekers of truth vary greatly in many ways from people who call their opinions "my truth" and who call my opinions "your truth", when in fact, they are opinions. I've lived a long time, Jeff, always curious and interested in the Human Condition. I've spent years in intensive study at the legendary Hard Knock University, where truth runs rampant and opinions - while plentiful - carry no real weight and very little value. Money talks, and bullcrap walks, Jeff, and the Truth is the truth, regardless of anyone's opinions.

I've lived in the maze of opinionated b.s. where some folks still like to live, Jeff, and I've seen the Light of Truth. I can't not know, now. I know that I know. It's no longer just my opinion guiding my life and filling my head with thoughts.

I'll try to be more careful in the future.

-Jeff

Thank you, sir.

[thewholetruth]

Edit: according to Don, I am incorrect in this statement. His denial is noted and I apologize for any errors in my post.

By your comments, you prove that you lack integrity, Jeff, and you are insincere. To tell me in your last post that you "edited my post to note your comments and my error" you have lied. Instead, you accused me of being in Denial and implied that you really aren't sure if there are any errors on your part. Wow. What's it like to live that far removed from Reality, sir?

[Braggi]

... Too fast for me, Kimo Sabe. When you say "legalize", I gather you mean "decriminalize", so folks won't be arrested for possession or growing. Is that a base approach? ...

Yup. That would be good enough.

... Will you advertise? Why stop at 18 years of age as a base? Why not 5 year olds? What if parents "feel" their 7 year old is ready? Any legal problems there? No child abuse? Is the 'use of" a day at the beach? ...

I think the current model for cigarettes should work for other drugs, but there is no advertisement of pot now, except by the Government. No reason to change that model, except the Govt. could start telling the truth. Child abuse? Please Lenny. Stay on topic.

... psychiatrist office or gurus need apply only? Imagine the insurance industry! No "imparied use" matters while high? or afterwards? up to three years? The legal profession alone would expand exponentially! ...

There are laws on the books that cover impaired behavior. No need to change them. People need to be responsible for their behavior.

The legal profession fights legalization tooth and nail because of all the business they would lose. Remember that approximately half of all prosecutions are for minor drug offenses. That's a lot of lawyer time.

Imagine if all those lawyers, cops, snoops and investigators, police officers and prison guards, all the support people and all that vast amount of money went to some positive use instead of persecuting a minority that doesn't agree with the current political stance. Imagine that!

... ALL of the drugs are "easily handled by the underground" right now. I don't know why you make such a distinction. ...

That's not what I said. I mention a few non-addictive, "mind expanding" drugs not "all of the drugs." Big difference. You don't find people who have been harmed by DMT. You find very few people admitted to emergency rooms after taking LSD and most of those had a panic attack not any kind of medical problem. People have panic attacks without taking any drugs. MDMA (ecstasy) is an exceedingly safe drug when taken by someone who has even minimal knowledge of using it safely. Although I have a little trouble understanding why people would take these substances at a "rave" or a concert, I know a lot of people do and few have any problems. This is a far cry from alcohol where so many get in trouble. Look at all the people who get arrested at football games for getting drunk in public.

You find vanishingly few people getting in trouble with plants, except in legal trouble. Changing the law will solve that one.

... I know I can go out and get any of that stuff in less than an hour, far less, with little to no hassle, and I know no single soul that uses, so I miss your message, unless "the underground" is not so hidden in Sonoma. ...

Yeah, you miss my message, but then you usually do.

Lenny, there is an underground community of people who CONSCIOUSLY and safely use these sacred medicines and get in no trouble of any kind with them. If fact, there are a great many people whose lives have been greatly enriched and in many cases, healed through the conscious use of these emotional, mental and spiritual tools. Just because you are unaware of these people and this community doesn't mean they don't exist.

Go to Erowid.org and look in the "spiritual" section. There is a wealth of information there. That is a fine source of real drug education.

-Jeff

[Zeno Swijtink]

Please, read my last reply to you again (it's post #31, sir), then post back again. I pray that your comments reflect that you actually read what I wrote this time.

You're right, I did not read your post carefully enough: you say you know all four kinds: people who use drugs and because of that got into problems, people who use drugs and have no problems with that, and people who are clean of drugs (and I assume some of them got into problems nevertheless).

[Braggi]

... To tell me in your last post that you "edited my post to note your comments and my error" you have lied. Instead, you accused me of being in Denial and implied that you really aren't sure if there are any errors on your part. ...

Don, here is the definition of denial I used: "4. The act of disowning or disavowing; repudiation."

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/denial

Words have meaning, Don. That's the meaning I meant. That's what you did. I made a broad apology. If you don't accept it ... I'll live with it, I guess.

No lie on my part.

-Jeff

edit: just to be clear, I meant this definition of repudiate: 2. To reject emphatically as unfounded, untrue, or unjust: repudiated the accusation

[MsTerry]

LMFAO

Braggi wrote:
Edit: according to Don, I am incorrect in this statement. His denial is noted and I apologize for any errors in my post.

Jeff, actually knows how to have fun AND tell the truth

By your comments, you prove that you lack integrity, Jeff, and you are insincere. To tell me in your last post that you "edited my post to note your comments and my error" you have lied. Instead, you accused me of being in Denial and implied that you really aren't sure if there are any errors on your part. Wow. What's it like to live that far removed from Reality, sir?

Don, when we are blind with rage, it is easy to shoot yourself in the foot,
*Cocks head, looks at poor Don, shaking head slowly in sympathy, then says quietly*

it is going to be Oh-kaaaaaaay.

[Braggi]

... If your inference is that I only know drug addicts and alcoholics, sir, you couldn't be further from the truth. I know plenty of clean and sober people, people who have never used drugs, people who use drugs recreationally and people who fall in between there somewhere, as well. ...

To clear things up, here's the quote Zeno and Don a fussing over.

What's missing from this list is the people who use sacred medicines in a sacramental, conscious, spiritual manner, for visioning a better life, for healing emotional, physical and spiritual harms, and for seeing a "bigger picture" of their place in the cosmos. These are people that don't get into trouble, who don't use habitually, and sometimes are in the process of deep healing from post traumatic stress. What's also missing is the people who use sacred medicines as a means of deepening personal relationships to each other, to humanity in general and to the Earth and Nature: to God and Goddess.

These people are also worth acknowledging. Thankfully, they are a growing and increasingly influential force.

-Jeff

[thewholetruth]

Jeff, the people you're referring to are simply drug users and abusers who use "healing, sacramental, conscious, etc." as their way of rationalizing ongoing drug abuse. Thankfully, they all live in Sebastopol and are a shrinking group, collectively speaking.

To clear things up, here's the quote Zeno and Don a fussing over.

What's missing from this list is the people who use sacred medicines in a sacramental, conscious, spiritual manner, for visioning a better life, for healing emotional, physical and spiritual harms, and for seeing a "bigger picture" of their place in the cosmos. These are people that don't get into trouble, who don't use habitually, and sometimes are in the process of deep healing from post traumatic stress. What's also missing is the people who use sacred medicines as a means of deepening personal relationships to each other, to humanity in general and to the Earth and Nature: to God and Goddess.

These people are also worth acknowledging. Thankfully, they are a growing and increasingly influential force.

-Jeff

[thewholetruth]

You're right, I did not read your post carefully enough: you say you know all four kinds: people who use drugs and because of that got into problems, people who use drugs and have no problems with that, and people who are clean of drugs (and I assume some of them got into problems nevertheless).

Thanks, Zeno. Needless to say, you're a breath of rational and reasonable fresh air in here, particularly after being engaged with folks like Jeff and Ms. Terry.

[MsTerry]

Sir Don,
Zeno is merely pointing out your fallacious math

Zeno Swijtink wrote:
You're right, I did not read your post carefully enough: you say you know all four kinds: .

love
MsTerry

Thanks, Zeno. Needless to say, you're a breath of rational and reasonable fresh air in here, particularly after being engaged with folks like Jeff and Ms. Terry.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Jeff, the people you're referring to are simply drug users and abusers who use "healing, sacramental, conscious, etc." as their way of rationalizing ongoing drug abuse. Thankfully, they all live in Sebastopol and are a shrinking group, collectively speaking.

Could you elaborate? You said you know people who use drugs and have no problems with that. Why are all sacramental users abusing drugs??

[Braggi]

... Thankfully, they all live in Sebastopol and are a shrinking group, collectively speaking.

Heh heh heh. Don, you could be a comedian if you weren't so serious.

Go here and read up on all the millions of people who have used, and do use these sacraments:

https://www.erowid.org/entheogens/spiritual.shtml

It's worth noting that the "Western" Judeo-Christian culture is the only one on Earth, except for eskimos, that have no history of spiritual use of these substances. Eskimos have no psychotropic plants that would serve the purpose. It's also worth noting that our Western culture is the only one with significant drug problems. The other cultures that now have drug problems are largely due to the interference of Western governments, as Lenny mentioned in his comments on the "opium wars" which were fought over England demanding the right to import opium into China.

We have a lot to learn from other cultures and how to safely and effectively use sacred medicines is one of them. Thankfully, there are thousands of people working on investigating and recording sacred medicine use in cultures around the world, and not all of them are from Sebastopol

-Jeff

[thewholetruth]

Could you elaborate? You said you know people who use drugs and have no problems with that. Why are all sacramental users abusing drugs??

Zeno, a healthy individual doesn't need drugs. Anyone using drugs without medicinal need is abusing them. Escaping into LaLa Land isn't "medicinal" or therapeutic, sir. It's recreational, which translates into "drug abuse". The people I know who use drugs are abusing them, too, Zeno. They aren't sick but they take drugs anyway? Abuse, not use. We use drugs for a reason, boredom not being a valid reason.

[thewholetruth]

Jeff, you couldn't be more wrong if tried. Drug problems are worldwide, sir, not just here in the West.

So you found an excuse not to learn how to cope with life. We all have that option. Most of us grow out of using drugs to escape. Others escape from reality their entire lives using drugs and/or alcohol.

It's your perogative. It's doesn't make it healthy or normal. It's still drug abuse, Jeff.

Heh heh heh. Don, you could be a comedian if you weren't so serious.

Go here and read up on all the millions of people who have used, and do use these sacraments:

https://www.erowid.org/entheogens/spiritual.shtml

It's worth noting that the "Western" Judeo-Christian culture is the only one on Earth, except for eskimos, that have no history of spiritual use of these substances. Eskimos have no psychotropic plants that would serve the purpose. It's also worth noting that our Western culture is the only one with significant drug problems. The other cultures that now have drug problems are largely due to the interference of Western governments, as Lenny mentioned in his comments on the "opium wars" which were fought over England demanding the right to import opium into China.

We have a lot to learn from other cultures and how to safely and effectively use sacred medicines is one of them. Thankfully, there are thousands of people working on investigating and recording sacred medicine use in cultures around the world, and not all of them are from Sebastopol

-Jeff

[Braggi]

... Jeff? Do you imagine nicotine to be a more addictive drug than heroin? ...

Go do some reading Don. Nicotine has the curious ability to "create" new receptor sites for itself in the brain which rapidly creates dependency. Heroin works on our natural opioid receptor sites and therefore true addiction happens more slowly.

I'm not suggesting the world would be a better place if all tobacco addicts were hooked on heroin.

However, the world would certainly be a better place if tobacco addicts smoked moderate amounts of cannabis instead. (Assuming no interference from law enforcement, of course.)

-Jeff

[Braggi]

Jeff, you couldn't be more wrong if tried. Drug problems are worldwide, sir, not just here in the West. ...

Don, comment on what I wrote if you wish, but don't put words in my mouth.

-Jeff

[Braggi]

... So you found an excuse not to learn how to cope with life. We all have that option. Most of us grow out of using drugs to escape. Others escape from reality their entire lives using drugs and/or alcohol. ...

Drugs can also be used to enter into life more fully. That is not a model you are familiar with. For some it is the only model they will use drugs in. For some it is about stopping the escapism and fully facing their reality.

-Jeff

[Lenny]

Uh, in a word, no.
Ask any former junkie who also kicked tobacco and they'll tell you tobacco was the much harder habit to break.
There's more to addiction than numbing and sweetening. It's worth noting that a lot of "drugs of abuse" do neither.-Jeff

Arg, hoisted on my own petard!
Well, the junkie's I've known do often claim smoking is "tougher". Right there.
And you are right, heroin and friends do not numb or sweeten reality as time goes by on the individual. Just to feel NORMAL (as we do at the moment)they need some stuff, but then, for the most part, they don't want to feel normal, and they don't want to feel sick (without smack) they want to "get high", and you are friendly to that! I am outraged by that, from you!
I am dang near positive, if asked, and legal, and only one of the two were offered, the junkie will take his stuff over smoking, every time. Smoking is a social, legal drug, whereas....well you know.
After having not smoked for over 20 years, I would go back in a New York second if I could. So I suppose that is how a junkie feels about his loving spoonful.

[Lenny]

Those fun-loving whacky Germans! I was familiar with the history. I knew heroin was a "remedy" for morphine addiction, just as methadone was a "cure" for heroin addiction.....And "Bayer" was behind it all! It is fun reading but there's so much more to do at the moment. Thanks, though.

Perhaps this could explain why heroin became such a huge problem for an uninformed public (hint: this could never happen again):
" ... In 1897 the Bayer chemist Felix Hoffmann, acting on Eichengruen's instructions, discovered a new process for modifying salicyclic acid (a remedy for fever and inflammation which unfortunately has excruciating digestive side effects) to produce acetylsalicyclic acid (ASA).
This compound, later to be named Aspirin, had been isolated before and the healing powers of salicylates (derived from willow bark) had been known for centuries. But Hoffmann had created a reliable process for making it.
Eichengruen enthusiastically recommended ASA to Dreser in 1898. Dreser, after cursory consideration, rejected it. Ostensibly, his objection was that ASA would have an "enfeebling" action on the heart. "The product has no value," he pronounced confidently. But the real problem was almost certainly that he had another product on his mind whose impending success he was anxious not to jeopardise. This was heroin.
Like aspirin, the drug that Bayer launched under the trademark Heroin in 1898 was not an original discovery. Diacetylmorphine, a white, odourless, bitter, crystalline powder deriving from morphine, had been invented in 1874 by an English chemist, C R Wright.
But Dreser was the first to see its commercial potential. Scientists had been looking for some time for a non-addictive substitute for morphine, then widely used as a painkiller and in the treatment of respiratory diseases. If diacetylmorphine could be shown to be such a product, Bayer - and Dreser - would hit the jackpot.
Diacetylmorphine was first synthesised in the Bayer laboratory in 1897 - by Hoffmann, two weeks after he first synthesised ASA. The work seems to have been initiated by Dreser, who was by then aware of Wright's discovery, even though he subsequently implied that heroin was an original Bayer invention.
By early 1898 was testing it on sticklebacks, frogs and rabbits. He also tested it on some of Bayer's workers, and on himself. The workers loved it, some saying it made them feel "heroic" (heroisch). This was also the term used by chemists to describe any strong drug (and diacetylmorphine is four times stronger than morphine). Creating a brand name was easy.
In November 1898, Dreser presented the drug to the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians, claiming it was 10 times more effective as a cough medicine than codeine, but had only a tenth of its toxic effects. It was also more effective than morphine as a painkiller. It was safe. It wasn't habit-forming. In short, it was a wonder drug - the Viagra of its day.
"What we don't recognise now," says David Muso, professor of psychiatry and the history of medicine at Yale Medical School, "is that this met what was then a desperate need - not for a painkiller, but for a cough remedy". "
[end quote]
https://opioids.com/heroin/heroinhistory.html
Go to the website to read more. Fascinating stuff.
-Jeff

[Braggi]

... but then, for the most part, they don't want to feel normal, and they don't want to feel sick (without smack) they want to "get high", and you are friendly to that! I am outraged by that, from you!
I am dang near positive, if asked, and legal, and only one of the two were offered, the junkie will take his stuff over smoking, every time. ...

A lot of agreement here Lenny, but I really don't like the idea of heroin addicts getting addicted or even getting high. I think there are much better, safer drugs to dabble in if a person really does want to get high.

Heroin is really a special case in a nihilistic sort of way. Nobody in the US who gets into heroin these days is ignorant of the dangers. Perhaps it's a cry for help or a half-assed attempt at suicide. I think it's a tragedy. Don't get me wrong, Lenny. I think heroin use is a bad idea and I don't think this country is ready to legalize it. However, I also don't think the country benefits from putting heroin users in prison, especially for exceedingly long terms.

There are drugs that are powerful anti-addiction tools when used with proper supervision and controls. Heroin addiction is one of the problems the ibogaine researchers have had a lot of luck with. Decades ago LSD therapy was used to help some heroin addicts. There are a number of hopeful pilot studies underway using these substances so perhaps we'll have some successful protocols in the near future. I think MDMA (Ecstasy) could be used in this effort. We'll see.

Maps.org lists a great many studies underway right now as well as some gearing up for government permissions. Thankfully, management at NIDA and the FDA are more creative and have minds a whole lot more open than some on this forum.

Here's a list of studies looking for volunteers. Maybe you, Lenny?

https://www.maps.org/volunteer.html

-Jeff