Nesta
Well-Known Member
Here's an illuminating report from UK reporter Johann Hari (author of a new book: Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War of Drugs).
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/4/johann_hari_everything_we_know_about
He says that addiction is not caused by the drug but by the environment of the user. The standard lab proof that drugs are addictive: Rats in cages are given the choice of two water bottles. One spiked with heroin or cocaine, the other plain water. The rats will drink the drugged water exclusively, until it kills them.
But a researcher tried the same experiment except he kept the rats in a nice environment - good food, room to run & play, the ability to have sex. In that situation the rats occasionally drank the drugged water but normally drank the pure water. And this holds true for humans as well.
He also says that our old friend Harry Anslinger, the father of the War on Drugs (& evidently a nasty racist) harassed & hounded Billie Holiday to death. Anslinger was incensed when Holiday began singing 'Strange Fruit' - her song about lynching. He demanded that she stop singing the song & when she refused Anslinger committed an agent to pursue Holiday. It took a couple of years but they busted her. After her conviction she was unable to get a license to sing in clubs where alcohol was served. Holiday was distraught & slipped back into addiction.
When she’s in her early forties, she collapses, is taken to a hospital, and she’s convinced the narcotics agents aren’t finished with her. And she was right. She says to one of her friends, "They’re going to kill me in there. Don’t let them. They’re going to kill me." In her hospital bed, she’s diagnosed with liver cancer. She’s handcuffed to the bed. They take away her record player and her candies. They don’t let her friends in to see her. One of her friends manages to insist to the doctors they give her methadone, because she had gone into withdrawal. She starts to recover a little bit. Ten days later, they cut off the methadone & she dies.
He gives some interesting examples of a Drug Truce- Portugal, Uruguay & Vancouver.
There's a video of the interview as well as a transcript in the link above.
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/4/johann_hari_everything_we_know_about
He says that addiction is not caused by the drug but by the environment of the user. The standard lab proof that drugs are addictive: Rats in cages are given the choice of two water bottles. One spiked with heroin or cocaine, the other plain water. The rats will drink the drugged water exclusively, until it kills them.
But a researcher tried the same experiment except he kept the rats in a nice environment - good food, room to run & play, the ability to have sex. In that situation the rats occasionally drank the drugged water but normally drank the pure water. And this holds true for humans as well.
He also says that our old friend Harry Anslinger, the father of the War on Drugs (& evidently a nasty racist) harassed & hounded Billie Holiday to death. Anslinger was incensed when Holiday began singing 'Strange Fruit' - her song about lynching. He demanded that she stop singing the song & when she refused Anslinger committed an agent to pursue Holiday. It took a couple of years but they busted her. After her conviction she was unable to get a license to sing in clubs where alcohol was served. Holiday was distraught & slipped back into addiction.
When she’s in her early forties, she collapses, is taken to a hospital, and she’s convinced the narcotics agents aren’t finished with her. And she was right. She says to one of her friends, "They’re going to kill me in there. Don’t let them. They’re going to kill me." In her hospital bed, she’s diagnosed with liver cancer. She’s handcuffed to the bed. They take away her record player and her candies. They don’t let her friends in to see her. One of her friends manages to insist to the doctors they give her methadone, because she had gone into withdrawal. She starts to recover a little bit. Ten days later, they cut off the methadone & she dies.
He gives some interesting examples of a Drug Truce- Portugal, Uruguay & Vancouver.
There's a video of the interview as well as a transcript in the link above.
