Is drug abuse a medical problem?

13. June 2010 by admin.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, many people say that drug abuse is a medical problem, which leads them to oppose the criminalization of drug use.  Their stances against criminalization can vary anywhere from fining people for possession (”high” standards), to providing users with needles and giving the addicts places to inject themselves (really really low standards).  Either way, their argument is the same: they say the physical act of taking drugs doesn’t directly harm another person, and drug addicts have a medical problem relating to urges.

To be fair, those supporting de-criminalization are correct: when a person has an overwhelming urge to take a substance, they’re dealing with a set of chemical circumstances and urges that the general public doesn’t, and those urges are caused by the use of drugs. But legalizers forget a few very important things about drug addiction; most notably that once a substance is consumed, the substance alters the user’s set of urges to something very different than what they had before, while at the same time lessening inhibitions. This should lead us to wonder: do we have to excuse those urges, too?  After all, if the urge to take a drug is only a medical problem, then the urges following drug abuse must also be medical, since the only difference between a sober person and a deranged addict is the chemical imbalance resulting from drug use. Read the rest of this entry »

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