I need some help...
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"Cane" jjdigiu...@hotmail.com
I am a recovering drug addict, and have been clean for 2 years. I am finishing up college and am doing research into drug abuse. Your help in my research would help me greatly. The survey is completely anonymous.
The purpose of my research is to explore prescription drug abuse and effective treatment for this disease. More specifically, it will look at what types of prescription drugs were used and what types of treatment recieved. This research builds on previous research that hopes to give insight into ways to design more effective drug treatment programs that better help to serve the individual needs of each patient.
Here is the link-
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=25083194832 Your help with this research is greatly appreciated.
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Okay. A good starting point for your research would be to rid yourself of the absurd delusion that an individual's autonomous decision to take a drug is somehow a "disease." Evaluate, for example, the formal logical features that are shared by, say, lymphoma, and deciding to open the medicine cabinet and take a couple of pills. If you undertake this analysis in a way uncontaminated by cultural prejudice, you'll find that the set of features shared by these two phenomena is the null set. Once you've cleared up this m***ive logical error in your thinking, you will readily see that the idea of "treating" a person's decision to take drugs is incoherent.
A good conceptual place to begin would be the examination of the concepts of disease and pathology; the recognition that the description of something as pathology is unavoidably normative; and a logical exploration of the notion that voluntary decisions about behavior can somehow qualify as "diseases." I'm ***uming that you're an actual scholar concerned with genuine research (that is, coming to a clear understanding of a phenomenon). If your interest is in producing propaganda, of course, these remarks aren't relevant.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
I guess that Alan I. Leshner, the former Deputy Director of the Institute of Mental Health, disagrees with your opinion.
Drug Addiction Is a Disease Table of Contents: Further Readings Reprinted from "Addiction Is a Brain Disease, and It Matters," by Alan I. Leshner, Science, October 3, 1997.
About the author: Alan I. Leshner, former deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Dramatic advances over the past two decades in both the neurosciences and the behavioral sciences have revolutionized our understanding of drug abuse and addiction. Scientists have identified neural circuits that subsume the actions of every known drug of abuse, and they have specified common pathways that are affected by almost all such drugs.
Researchers have also identified and cloned the major receptors for virtually every abusable drug, as well as the natural ligands for most of those receptors. In addition, they have elaborated many of the biochemical cascades within the cell that follow receptor activation by drugs. Research has also begun to reveal major differences between the brains of addicted and nonaddicted individuals and to indicate some common elements of addiction, regardless of the substance.
That is the good news. The bad news is the dramatic lag between these advances in science and their appreciation by the general public or their application in either practice or public policy settings. There is a wide gap between the scientific facts and public perceptions about drug abuse and addiction. For example, many, perhaps most, people see drug abuse and addiction as social problems, to be handled only with social solutions, particularly through the criminal justice system. On the other hand, science has taught that drug abuse and addiction are as much health problems as they are social problems. The consequence of this gap is a significant delay in gaining control over the drug abuse problem.
Part of the lag and resultant disconnection comes from the normal delay in transferring any scientific knowledge into practice and policy. However, there are other factors unique to the drug abuse arena that compound the problem. One major barrier is the tremendous stigma attached to being a drug user or, worse, an addict. The most beneficent public view of drug addicts is as victims of their societal situation. However, the more common view is that drug addicts are weak or bad people, unwilling to lead moral lives and to control their behaviors and gratifications. To the contrary, addiction is actually a chronic, relapsing illness, characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use. The gulf in implications between the "bad person" view and the "chronic illness sufferer" view is tremendous. As just one example, there are many people who believe that addicted individuals do not even deserve treatment. This stigma, and the underlying moralistic tone, is a significant overlay on all decisions that relate to drug use and drug users.
Ingrained Ideologies Another barrier is that some of the people who work in the fields of drug abuse prevention and addiction treatment also hold ingrained ideologies that, although usually different in origin and form from the ideologies of the general public, can be just as problematic. For example, many drug abuse workers are themselves former drug users who have had successful treatment experiences with a particular treatment method. They therefore may zealously defend a single approach, even in the face of contradictory scientific evidence. In fact, there are many drug abuse treatments that have been shown to be effective through clinical trials.
These difficulties notwithstanding, I believe that we can and must bridge this informational disconnection if we are going to make any real progress in controlling drug abuse and addiction. It is time to replace ideology with science.
At the most general level, research has shown that drug abuse is a dual-edged health issue, as well as a social issue. It affects both the health of the individual and the health of the public. The use of drugs has well-known and severe negative consequences for health, both mental and physical. But drug abuse and addiction also have tremendous implications for the health of the public, because drug use, directly or indirectly, is now a major vector for the transmission of many serious infectious diseases-particularly acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), hepatitis, and tuberculosis-as well as violence.
Because addiction is such a complex and pervasive health issue, we must include in our overall strategies a committed public health approach, including extensive education and prevention efforts, treatment, and research.
Science is providing the basis for such public health approaches. For example, two large sets of multisite studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of well-delineated outreach strategies in modifying the behaviors of addicted individuals that put them at risk for acquiring the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), even if they continue to use drugs and do not want to enter treatment. This approach runs counter to the broadly held view that addicts are so incapacitated by drugs that they are unable to modify any of their behaviors. It also suggests a base for improved strategies for reducing the negative health consequences of injection drug use for the individual and for society.
What Matters in Addiction Scientific research and clinical experience have taught us much about what really matters in addiction and where we need to concentrate our clinical and policy efforts. However, too often the focus is on the wrong aspects of addiction, and efforts to deal with this difficult issue can be badly misguided.
Any discussion about psychoactive drugs inevitably turns to the question of whether a particular drug is physically or psychologically addicting. In essence, this issue revolves around whether or not dramatic physical withdrawal symptoms occur when an individual stops taking a drug, what is typically called physical dependence by professionals in the field. The ***umption that often follows is that the more dramatic the physical withdrawal symptoms, the more serious or dangerous the drug must be.
This thinking is outdated. From both clinical and policy perspectives, it does not matter much what physical withdrawal symptoms, if any, occur. First, even the florid withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction can now be easily managed with appropriate medication. Second, and more important, many of the most addicting and dangerous drugs do not produce severe physical symptoms upon withdrawal. Crack cocaine and methamphetamine are clear examples: Both are highly addicting, but cessation of their use produces few physical withdrawal symptoms, certainly nothing like the physical symptoms accompanying alcohol or heroin withdrawal.
What does matter tremendously is whether or not a drug causes what we now know to be the essence of addiction: compulsive drug seeking and use, even in the face of negative health and social consequences.
These are the characteristics that ultimately matter most to the patient and are where treatment efforts should be directed. These behaviors are also the elements responsible for the m***ive health and social problems that drug addiction brings in its wake.
Addiction Is a Brain Disease Although each drug that has been studied has some idiosyncratic mechanisms of action, virtually all drugs of abuse have common effects, either directly or indirectly, on a single pathway deep within the brain [the part of the brain that involves emotion and motivation].... Activation of this system appears to be a common element in what keeps drug users taking drugs. This activity is not unique to any one drug; all addictive substances affect this circuit.
Not only does acute drug use modify brain function in critical ways, but prolonged drug use causes pervasive changes in brain function that persist long after the individual stops taking the drug. Significant effects of chronic use have been identified for many drugs at all levels: molecular, cellular, structural, and functional. The addicted brain is distinctly different from the nonaddicted brain, as manifested by changes in brain metabolic activity, receptor availability, gene expression, and responsiveness to environmental cues. Some of these long-lasting brain changes are idiosyncratic to specific drugs, whereas others are common to many different drugs. The common brain effects of addicting substances suggest common brain mechanisms underlying all addictions.
That addiction is tied to changes in brain structure and function is what makes it, fundamentally, a brain disease. A metaphorical switch in the brain seems to be thrown as a result of prolonged drug use.
Initially, drug use is a voluntary behavior, but when that switch is thrown, the individual moves into the state of addiction, characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use.
Understanding that addiction is, at its core, a consequence of fundamental changes in brain function means that a major goal of treatment must be either to reverse or to compensate for those brain changes. These goals can be accomplished through either medications or behavioral treatments [behavioral treatments have been successful in altering brain function in other psychobiological disorders].
Elucidation [clarification] of the biology underlying the metaphorical switch is key to the development of more effective treatments, particularly antiaddiction medications.
The Social Context Of course, addiction is not that simple. Addiction is not just a brain disease. It is a brain disease for which the social contexts in which it has both developed and is expressed are critically important. The case of the many thousands of returning Vietnam war veterans who were addicted to heroin illustrates this point. In contrast to addicts on the ...
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
BTW Cane, keep up the good work. How did you keep clean for 2 years?
Did you go to meetings?
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Steady Eddy informs us: Yes, I know Dr. Leshner (as I've mentioned before, the National Institute on Drug Abuse paid for my graduate education), and of course he disagrees with me. Wouldn't it be a little odd for someone to have a high-profile position at the National Institute of Mental Health, and *not* believe that "mental illnesses" were actual disease entities or processes?
Wouldn't offering even some weak evidence, or some sort of reasoning, do more to support your view than just cutting and pasting a fallacious authoritarian pseudo-argument?
Of course, that would take reasoning abilities, and independent thought, and you don't really excel at those things, do you, Ed? Over and over again, in virtually everything you think qualifies as making an argument, there's nothing there at all except the informal fallacy _argumentum ad verecundiam_ (appeal to authority). You don't even *try* to show why what you believe is true; you're content to simply point to some "expert" and say, "he disagrees with you, therefore, you're wrong." And what's really sad is that, apparently, you think that this is actually a reason to believe or disbelieve something.
From the fact that this is essentially the *only* way you ever try to argue for anything, it's plain that you've never studied logic at all, have no significant facility at critical thought, and nothing to say that has any actual content. Your posts, of course, are valuable insofar as, over the years, they've been an almost complete catalog of all categories of logical fallacies (the informal ones, anyway ...
you've never committed a formal fallacy, simply because you've never actually attempted to produce an argument).
Thanks so much for pointing out that people whose livelihood depends on the belief that "mental illnesses" are genuine diseases believe that "mental illnesses" are genuine diseases. Perhaps you feel that that's an impressive contribution to the discussion.
Unfortunately ... although I hate to let you down ... I already knew that. It also has nothing whatsoever to do with whether anything is true or false (no fallacies do ...
that's why they're called "fallacies"). I can easily quote equally "authoritative" experts taking the exact opposite position with tremendous certainty in their tone.
Does this tell you anything? No, I didn't think it would.
If you have any empirical evidence to support what you're saying, or a genuine logical argument for it, I'm all ears. But I'm not really impressed by, "Dr. Big Shot, who gets paid to spread the belief that cultural value judgments are medical illnesses, disagrees with you, so you're wrong." Telling me such things wastes my time, and makes you look dumb. If you can't even come up with any actual reasoning that suggests that I'm wrong, then why are you even replying to me?
So that you can avoid continuing to look foolish by doing this over and over in the future, may I suggest that you read about this common error at http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html? BTW, Leshner's entire little polemic itself consists of nothing but fallacies and misrepresentations of (very sparse) empirical evidence strung together. Is it just a coincidence that conservatives always seem to be very impressed by authority, and believe that the statements of anyone who is an "official authority" constitute proof of whatever is being stated? The stuff you quoted can be ground into head cheese very easily by anyone with a decent neuroscience background and some ability to think independently.
Have a good night.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
I guess you disagree with Dr. Volkow and Dr. Lishner. I read her speech (below) and she makes sense. Dr. Volkow's views are well stated and organized. Frankly, your arguments are disjointed, disorganized and simple minded. ****ing sad really, I get no pleasure in pulling your covers. I am worried that you are sailing off of the deep end.
Title: Drug Addiction., By: Volkow, Nora D., Vital Speeches of the Day, 0042742X, 6/1/2006, Vol. 72, Issue 16/17 Database: Academic Search Premier Find More Like ThisDrug Addiction FREE WILL, BRAIN DISEASE OR BOTH? Delivered to the Town Hall Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, April 27, 2006 Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here. I thank very much the organizers for having invited me and giving me a chance to come to beautiful Los Angeles. But, more importantly, for giving me a chance to speak to you about drug addiction and what we know. I have 20 minutes so of course I cannot go in great depth but I want to leave you with some of the most important facts about drug addiction.
All of my life, since I've been a medical student, I've been fascinated by the effects of drug abuse on the human brain and I'm trying to understand what it is that drugs do that ultimately lead to the loss of free will for an individual. That's in fact one of the things in my brain that always resonates when people say it's not a disease, it's a problem of free will, as if free will were coming out of the skies. Free will is a product of neurobiology and the question that one has to ask oneself, if those areas, those secrets in the brain involved in allowing us to exert decisions, judgment, may allow us to exert free will, gets disrupted, what happens? What we've learned from drug addiction is that indeed many of the brain regions involved in that process that allow us to exert free will are deranged. I am an imager, I say, but ultimately I'm also a physician.
To me, I've always throughout my career, valued enormously the patient's suffering from the particular disease.
Before I'll go into the imaging and all the science, I want to share with you what it is to be an addicted person from the perspective of the individual suffering from it. This happens to be an individual who sent me an e-mail and I chose this particular e-mail because it does highlight some of the characteristics of addiction: "I am a Dutch thirty-year-old male, very addicted to marijuana, alcohol and crack cocaine. I have no social life and no job and feel more and more isolated. I have less and less hope to break free of this hell. My life is a mess and I did several attempts to break with my addictions in the past. Now, as I am so tired of trying, I find it very difficult to keep on fighting, even more so because of the depressed moods and feelings of dissatisfaction while being clean. I do not feel whole without the damn drugs anyway." I think this expresses the distress and despair that goes through the life of someone that's addicted. So when someone comes to me and says, well, the notion of the addicted person makes a choice--there's no one that chooses to be addicted. From that perspective, what can we do to actually try and convey that information such that drug addiction can be identified as a disease of the brain, which is fact No. 1? We've learned that drug addiction is a disease of the brain and here it's illustrated [on the screen behind me] that if you use all the criteria that we've been using for all other diseases, addiction is not any different. These are images that I obtained that measure the consumption of sugar. In the lower part are images from the heart of a normal person and this is a heart from a patient who suffered myocardial infarction. No one will doubt that a myocardial infarction is a disease of the heart, that when the tissue is healthy it consumes high concentrations of glucose and this is high and this is low. When someone suffers a myocardial infarction, blood is not delivered to this area of the tissue and this area of the tissue gets damaged and as a result of that it no longer consumes glucose. So you can do this imaging type of studies to identify the extent of the damage a person's heart has suffered and also to determine which area within the heart is damaged. In the heart, then, the consequence of something like this is if this muscle is not properly functioning; in this case it's partially dead and that muscle will not be able to contract. The only thing that the heart does is it contracts very rhythmically.
Extraordinarily important, I'm not dismissing it, but very simple--the heart contracts. Consequence? The blood will not be pumped, it may stagger in your lungs, and you will not be able to actually, if you don't treat it properly, to survive.
Now, we can do exactly the same technology in the brain and this is exactly the same type of method. You're looking at [on the screen behind me] glucose sugar consumption on the brain of a healthy control. The slice is horizontal. This is the front part, this is the posterior part, this area of the brain is very important. We call it the orbital frontal cortex, just on top of your eyes. It's extraordinarily important for two things. One of them is that this is the part of the brain that allows us to exert inhibitory control. That is to say when we're faced with something we want very much but we cognitively know that it's not a good choice for us to do it, this is the area of the brain that will actually send the signals to say do not do it and allow you to inhibit that reaction. It's also an area of the brain that is extraordinarily important in ***igning value to stimuli. Well, you say that's automatic. No, it's not automatic and it's also not static. That is to say, for example, those very nice croissants you had out there in the morning were great when I came there but after I ate three they were no longer valuable and the area of the brain that's able to shift the value is this one. Now look at the person that's addicted to cocaine. In this case, just as you saw with the heart, this area of the brain that allows us to exert inhibitory control and ***igns value to the stimuli that we face on a daily basis is significantly disrupted. Now what are the consequences?
It's not a muscle that contracts. The consequence is your ability to exert control of your actions. Even though you cognitively want to do it, it's going to be deranged by the fact that in this case and I like to use a metaphor: the brakes of your brain are not functioning properly. So fact No.1, drug addiction is a disease of the brain everybody--actually my colleagues, and I come from NIH, my colleagues say it's a disease of the brain--but, and when I hear that my blood pressure goes up because it basically means while they may accept that it's a theoretical concept it's not incorporated and it's not incorporated because I think it is still very difficult for us to conceive the notion that a person may not be able to willfully control his or her acts. We're using our own experiences to project to the other without recognizing that that experience is very different for a person whose brain areas are not functioning properly. So that's fact No. 1. Fact No.2: Drug addiction is a developmental disease. What do we mean by that? What we've learned from many years of epidemiological studies is drug addiction develops during these periods of our lives, during adolescence and early adulthood. This is a graph that actually describes at what age individuals develop, at first, a dependence to marijuana. Similar graphs occur for cocaine, nicotine and alcohol. You can see the peak at this case is around age 18. By age 25, if you have not become addicted to marijuana the likelihood that you will do so is very minimal. It's not zero but it's very minimal.
The question that follows is why is that so? Well, it's likely to reflect two things. These are children actually and unfortunately one of the things that we're also seeing is there are some individuals who start taking drugs at age 10 or 12; there are some kids that fit criteria for alcoholism of nicotine dependence at age 13. Why is that so that we see this vulnerability period? It's an area that we're investigating but we already know significant information. Our brains are very different when we are adolescents and when we are adults.
That, of course, is extraordinarily important because our role in life as adolescents is very different than that of adults. As adolescents you have to explore the world, you have to learn. That requires that your brain be very receptive to stimuli and those stimuli have long-
lasting effects. That's one of the things that is remarkable. I come from Mexico and in Mexico one of the things they do is they teach you languages when you are very little and all of those languages that I learned before adolescence are stuck in my brain and I love them, I'm not saying anything derogatory. Whereas those languages that I learned when I was a medical student where you had to learn two languages, those are buried in the cemetery of my memories. So the notion and we know that the things that you learn when you are growing up are easier to learn and longer lasting. It's a function of the fact that your brain is much more plastic when you're growing up. The negative side of that is of course if you take a drug it is possible that the learning effects of that drug, that the plastic changes, are longer lasting. For example, this could very much explain why the younger a kid starts taking drugs, and this has been demonstrated for alcohol, nicotine and marijuana, the younger you start, the greater the likelihood that you will have problems of drug dependence. Not just to that drug but to others. There's another aspect that also plays a contributory role and that is the brain of adolescents differs significantly from that of adults as we were saying. This graph [located behind me] illustrates some of the main ...
"Annette" alchemy...@earthlink.net
This was fundamentally the most redundant and tediously boring, unimpressive piece of shit that I've ever read. I may be academically challenged in the sciences, but I know I'm capable of deductive reasoning. No where in this speech could I find one thing that addresses the subject of *why* people are addicted, become addicted, or even what the term *addiction* truly implies.
How can contradictions, flawed theories, and the use of a slide show of "the brain on drugs" reveal anything? Basically, I thought this was perversely advocating nature and nurture at the same time!...and the question of free will being a neuro function!! Is that based on absolute proof!? It's my understanding that animals don't have free will..(moralistic choices of rats?!). I'm too tired to point out the absurd contradictions in this speech by Dr.Volkner (sic). This talk sounded like an appeal for answers from the audience! Begging the question this....and begging the question that....all the while ***erting there were no questions. Dr. Volkner and Leshner, (whose papers I have read) are the ones in denial....... not the so-called *diseased* subjects they patronize.
I hope that you'll forgive me for my humble opinion, Eddy. What's more important is where you stand on this speech?! What did you make of it? For or against? Why?....
I had to read the whole ****ing thing and now I have a headache...and no cigarettes.
lt would be exhilarating if in my lifetime, I would get the chance to hear ETF debate one of these misleading, academic posers.
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"Mitchell" tomaloc...@yahoo.com
That is the sum of Eddie.
"Mitchell" tomaloc...@yahoo.com
Addiction is not a disease it is a condition. There happens to be many reason for such a condition both physical and mental, neither makes it a disease.
Such things as this being labeled a disease will enable the drug companies to make yet another "mediciation" to counter-react such.
The best way to understand why a person is a addict is to understand why they take the drug that makes them a addict, in some cases you may very well see that it is out of necessity more than desire. Granted this isn't the norm, and alot of time it will show that once a person has "found" a certain "item" be it legal or illegal that works for whatever reason they will stick with it.
A person can go on and on both pro and con, the best way to understand something is to be objective to such and discover the real answers even if they do not agree with the established norm.
later
"Mitchell" tomaloc...@yahoo.com
I just saw your link, you don't want any real answers, only repeats of what society wants to hear.
smitty smi...@innovate.inv
In article <1170576802.640321.261...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, nonsmoki...@comcast.net says...
see what happens when people start talking *facts* brains turn to plastic.
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Once again, Eddy posts more appeals to authority: You still don't get it. Things are not true or false because of what Dr. Smith and Dr.
Jones say. As I told you, I could post plenty of scientists saying exactly the opposite thing. So what?
Speech? What kind of scientist makes speeches pretending that his or her political opinions are objective, scientific facts??
What's the difference if you think she makes sense, in any event? That simply means that she says what you want to believe. Having absolutely no understanding of neuroscience, chemistry, pharmacology, or physiology, you are in no position at all to decide whether these statements are true or not ... and your feelings about what "makes sense" have nothing to do with anything but your prejudices.
Oh, shut the hell up, already. Frankly, if my views are so simple-minded, then how come you can't comprehend them at all, can't rebutt them, and are reduced to cutting and pasting other people's opinions, rather than offering your own? And if my arguments are so disjointed, disorganized, then why is it that people much more familiar with the subject, and much smarter, than you are, have no trouble following them?
The idea that you find my arguments, which I've actually presented in a very straightforward form so that non-scientists can give them some thought, "disjointed, disorganized and simple minded" is simply a long-winded way of saying that they flew right over your head.
Next time you're tapped to referee an article in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, let me know, and I'll re-consider taking you seriously. For now, however, I take it to be an established fact that you're just a putz and a fool who has no idea what he's talking about, but who insists on arguing anyway, because it tremendously upsets you that a sub-human drug addict knows more and can think more clearly than you can.
Don't worry, you're not pulling my covers. You're simply pulling your pud, in public, and it's rather sickening to watch, to be honest. There is also no one who is reading your posts who *doesn't* realize that you have no idea what you're talking about (what am I saying? You're not writing *anything* on the subject ... because there's no way you could, since you don't even understand the most rudimentary thing about it ...
you're just searching for stuff that says what you want to believe, then cutting and pasting it into a post).
First of all, you're lying when you feign concern about me. Secondly, if I'm sailing off the deep end, then you're stuck in mud up to your neck on the shore. I don't mind you replying to me, if you feel that you absolutely *must* publicly make yourself look like (even more of) an idiot, but please don't argue with me about matters that I'm extensively educated in and have spent decades thinking about, and which you literally know *absolutely nothing* about, don't think about at all, but simply believe whatever the popular media tell you to believe.
You've been a halfway reasonable person lately, Eddy, and I don't want to killfile you again just because you insist on pretending to have an opinion worth listening to when in fact you don't even understand what the subject under discussion is.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Annette said: Annette, please keep it simple. Eddy doesn't understand what "begging the question" is. He doesn't even understand what "appeal to authority" is.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
I am sorry if you can't accept that there are people who have a different viewpoint. I simply posted counter arguments to your views.
I agree with the "Drug Addiction Is a Disease" experts. In fact I also agree with the "Mental Illness is a Disease" experts. I think you have not proved your point by a long shot. Kill file me if you want, what do I care if you cannot handle counter viewpoints from experts. You may have had some academic credibility many years ago but drugs have taken that away from you. Last time you claimed to be working you were a "Database Expert". A long way from academic researcher. I prefer to stick to the opinions of those who are currently doing research in the field and that hold positions of responsibility in that field.
Honestly, I prefer if you did kill file me. Every time I respond with an opposing expert viewpoint you start with your childish name calling because you can't counter the argument.
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I disagree with your viewpoint. I agree with the author Dr. Volkrow. In fact the the majority of experts accept the viewpoint that Addiction is a Disease.
I also believe that Mental Illness is a Disease. BTW, people like Dr.
Volkrow won't debate anyone who is not on their academic peer level.
Eaton is not actively engaged in the research of addiction and is not considered an expert in the field.
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Eddy says: That's a flat-out lie. You haven't "simply posted counter arguments to [my] views." You've called me simple-minded. You've said that my reasoning is "disjointed and disorganized." You've piled on a bunch of phony pity, as if I was a desperate psychotic in need of your help. You've said that my ideas are "really ****ing sad." What a disgraceful liar you are. I enjoy responding to other views and ideas, and if you had presented any, that's what I would have done. You aren't able to come up with any, though, so you post other peoples' diatribes, just by way of insulting me. And then you're too much of a coward to admit that that's what you were doing.
No, that's not true. You prefer to stick to the most *orthodox* views in the field.
Plenty of of currently working scientists have written volumes of stuff demonstrating that biopsychiatry is a complete fraud (a great example is Elliot Valerstein, Ph.D., "Blaming the Brain"). "Positions of responsibility?" What does that mean? Higher-ups in the NIMH/NIDA and FDA bureaucracys' are simply pharmaceutical industry shills. Is that what you mean by "positions of responsibility?" Tell me, Ed ... do you believe that you're more familiar with NIMH and NIDA, and what goes on there, than I am?
Seriously ... I'm truly curious. You will not answer this, of course, but I'm still going to ask it.
Come on, already. You're the person who told another poster not to listen to me, and to follow her doctor's advice and feed antidepressants to her 12-year-old *one day* before the FDA finally came out and insisted that severe warnings of the potential for violence and suicide when those drugs are used in adolescents be placed in bold print at the top of the labeling.
You haven't presented a single argument for me to counter. You've cut and pasted several opinion pieces by major players in the biopsychiatry fraud, but nothing of any logical or scientific substance for me to respond to. And it's just a joke that you accuse me of "childish name calling" when you've done nothing but that.
I don't really think you have any particular axe to grind with me. I just think you're the kind of drone who always falls in lockstep with orthodox opinion on everything, and who never thinks critically or questions the veracity of a so-called expert. I do, however, resent your sudden turning of the tables and lying about how you've been characterizing me. I've always understood that you're a person of ill-will, but in general, it's always seemed that you've left the straight-up lying to jose.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
You started the name calling when you responded to my first post.
Remember posting this "Of course, that would take reasoning abilities, and independent thought, and you don't really excel at those things, do you, Ed?" I decided to give you back a little of your own medicine. BTW I think your writings on the subject (or should I say lack of) doesn't reveal anything to suggest that you possess any special insight on the subject.
cheech cheech...@goodolyahoo.com
well eddie he's paid to do that.
i would guess that most of the negative effects of drug addiction are due to the fact that the drugs are illegal. so that in order to acquire the drugs they "need" addicts are forced to become criminals.
otherwise law abiding citizens are made to become criminals because of their need. i'm thinking there are definite changes in one's personality because they are forced to perceive themselves as criminals. living in fear of jail and/or withdrawal cannot be good for one's mindset. this alone is enough to cause behavioral problems.
prohibition causes the disease eddie.
one love, cheech
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"Lifer" Lifer.Li...@Gmail.com
Eaton is not actively engaged in the research of addiction and is not considered an expert in the field.
My response is IMO Eaton is an expert in this field. He knows his stuff Eddy try to listen to him sometime!
"Steady Eddy" nonsmoki...@comcast.net
IMO he is not. Nothing he has written proves otherwise.
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
Eddy says: The truth of a proposition is not established by taking a vote. Surely you can, at least *occ***ionally*, say something that isn't a straightforward fallacy, can't you?
Here we have _argumentum ad populum_, the so-called "bandwagon fallacy." Are you trying to go through the book and demonstrate each and every one of them?
Further, your reasoning is circular (this one is "petitio principii," as long as you intend to display all known informal fallacies) because in the present climate of opinion, no one who rejects the "disease model" (the fact that it's a "disease model," BTW, proves that it's not a disease ... have you ever heard of a "disease model" of leukemia?) will ever be considered an "expert," if by "expert" you mean "someone recognized as an authority by the American Psychiatric ***ociation," which receives enormous amounts of money - more than all other medical specialties *combined* - from the drug industry.
In fact they go much further than that. They won't debate anyone who *is* on their peer level, if that person won't agree to their debating terms. Examples of highly recognized physicians and scientists these people will not debate include neuroscientist Elliot Vallerstein, neurologist Fred Baughman, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, the late Leon Mosher, MD ... it's a very long list.
Basically, they will refuse to debate anyone who will demand that they produce scientific evidence that even a single so-called "mental illness" has any kind of anatomical, physiological, or chemical basis.
Why? Because no such evidence exists ... in spite of nearly 60 years of research.
People who can actually defend their views do not restrict who they are willing to debate in any way at all.
You speak of biopsychiatry's refusal to debate anyone who disagrees with it as though that showed something good about biopsychiatry. But what it shows is fear of the truth, and the full, but unadmitted, awareness that biopsychiatry's claims cannot stand up to even a superficial analysis.
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ETF www.etfrc.com
=Julia Set= strange--attrac...@hotmeal.com
On 4 Feb 2007 10:11:07 -0800, "neurodancer" '''""""""""""""""""""""""""""""arbitrary snip Reverted?
=JS
"Eaton T. Fores" e...@etfrc.com
BTW, JS ... your "arbitrary snip" was my favorite part of that article. After paragraphs spent informing us that addiction is just a brain disease, the author suddenly says, "Of course, addiction is not that simple. Addiction is not just a brain disease." See, unlike other scientists, biopsychiatrists don't have to be troubled by inconveniences like remembering not to contradict themselves.
I suppose it's just so obvious that drug addiction and, say, Parkinson's disease, have nothing whatsoever in common (beyond both having something to do with people) that even one of the major players selling this fraud can't get through a short statement without feeling the need to blurt a huge disclaimer that essentially says, "Of course, I'm not saying what I'm saying." When someone's going to put on their white coat and abuse the authority of science to say things that are obviously false in order to sell soap, that person probably feels some sense of conflict, since science is about intellectual honesty, while biopsychiatry is about lying.
Of course drug addiction certainly stands in some relationship to neurophysiology. But that's only because *every* conscious phenomenon does. Personally, I think that conservatism, gun nut syndrome, self-centered greed disorder are mental illnesses, and I'm absolutely certain that PET, fMRI and/or SPECT scans would show a difference between such people and normal controls. The trick here is simply that the investigator gets to say who's "normal." Once that's taken care of, there's no further problem, because every subjective or mental difference between people has a corresponding difference in the brain.
This is the main reason this kind of bullshit drives me nuts: they declare that a certain behavior they don't like is a "mental illness," and then go hunting for some kind of neurochemical or neurophysiological difference between people who engage in that behavior, and people who don't. And, of course, eventually they'll find such a difference ... there *has* to be one, because *any* difference in thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or behaviors must have a corresponding difference in the brain. Once this difference is found, then, it is said to "prove" that the feeling or behavior in question *really is* a "mental illness," because, see, these brain scans are different from those. That there are people who hear this and don't notice that it's nothing more than circular reasoning is almost infinitely sad.
The biggest problem with this whole subject is that the whole idea of "mental illness" is not a scientific question; it's a conceptual and philosophic problem. Trying to prove its existence with more and more "research" is like trying to prove that _The Iliad_ is a more significant piece of literature than a "Spider-man" comic book by grinding them both up and subjecting the resulting mush to chemical analysis. The bottom line is that what are called "mental illnesses" are negative cultural judgments about someone's behavior or experience. In the case of things like "depression," they are painful emotions. Humiliation, fear, jealousy, and a million other things are also painful emotions. Depression is much more like these things than it is like diabetes, or cancer.
Of course, the NIMH scientists who are paid to spread the belief that peoples' thoughts and feelings are medical diseases don't agree with me, so that proves that I'm wrong about this. What could be more obvious than that?
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ETF www.etfrc.com '''""""""""""""""""""""""""""""arbitrary snip Reverted?
=JS
"Stix" cailmesti...@aol.com
I know what they are!!! They are common fallacies. Others include; red herring, slippery slope, confusion of correlation and causation, non sequitur, straw man, and argumentum ad baculum. Damn!!! I've only been in college a little over one year and Im already a brilliant scholar!!! LOL. But seriously- before I started school I would have been lost. But I just took critical thinking last term and we covered all this. Interesting stuff. I no longer get sucked into infomercials or buying crap I don't need. -Sticksy
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