How would you eradicate smoking?

[condor]

To me, this seems as big a problem as vodka was in Soviet Russia.

[PhoenixAsh]

Free and accessible health care.

Ultimately it is your own choice. But for those who wish to quit there needs to be free access to help, support, medication and counceling so they can.

On top of that more money/dedication should be expended in research of prevention and treatment of health risk behavior.

Within capitalist society this won't actually happen. Smokers expend more money on taxes and insurance as well as being generally cheaper when it comes to overall per person health care costs.

[Guardia Rossa]

Prevention, education, conscientization and the improving of life quality
(There are studies showing that drug consumption is directly related to unhappiness and lack of life quality, perhaps this explains why it is common among students, that are constantly under pressure to study and do that the whole day.)

[John Nada]

By smoking I assume the op means using tobacco. I wouldn't eradicate smoking, tobacco or whatever else. Life can be miserable, so many people will turn to whatever makes it slightly better. Tobacco makes things a little bit more bearable.

Me personally, I just use e-cigs. Not really smoking but vaporizing. Possible in the future this might completely replace the combustion of plant material.

[Luís Henrique]

What would the problem with tuxedos be?

Ah, that kind of smoking. I see.

So, in order that someone can smoke tobacco, someone (else) has to cultivate and process it. If people do not cultivate or process it, then there will be no tobacco that anyone can smoke.

Now why would anyone cultivate or process tobacco? In a capitalist society, of course, because they earn money by doing this. And in a socialist society? What would make people consume their time in such boring and unhealthy activities?

Luís Henrique

[mutualaid]

why eradicate smoking? people in france smoke all day long and have a higher quality of life than US counterparts. Sure, smoking is bad, but the root of the problem is soul crushing labor. In a society that values freedom and dignity in the workplace, people could occasionally enjoy tobacco, weed, lsd, heroin, cocaine, or anything else without it becoming a problem. Human beings are suited to do drugs and to have fun; so-called "drug addiction" results from the way capitalism denigrates our collective humanity; "drug addiction" is a socio-economic problem, not a human desire problem.

[Quail]

No point trying to eradicate smoking if people's lives are so shitty. Make people's lives better and they don't need to turn to drugs. Simple.

[DOOM]

I wouldn't
no one's touching my hookah

[Zoop]

Abolishing smoking sounds so self-righteous.

Services and help will be available to all who wish to stop smoking. That's their decision. I don't give a shit about "abolishing" smoking when it comes to those who want to keep smoking. It's none of my business.

[Faust Arp]

We just shouldn't.

By our current, capitalist standards, a "healthy person" pretty much means a "productive person" - that is, a person who has optimal physical and mental capabilities for the creation of surplus value. Vodka was also that much of a problem in the USSR because:
1) it was capitalist, duh, and kept adhering to capitalist notions of productivity and distribution;
2) due to the above, people still felt the grip of alienation.

Enforced teetotalism of any form is just cruel, as it blocks people from having one possible escapist outlet and condemns them to face a grey, oppressive capitalist reality with no holds barred. Besides, there's a lot of research that shows that most substances aren't addictive by themselves, but become so when their use is coupled with stress. I'm fairly certain that in socialism, and especially communism, tobacco, alcohol and most drugs could easily be enjoyed recreationally, without overt health risks and risks of addiction.

[cyu]

No point trying to eradicate smoking if people's lives are so shitty. Make people's lives better and they don't need to turn to drugs. Simple.

The purpose of alcohol is to make wage slaves forget their slavery.

The same goes for Valium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

[cyu]

...or as Yogi Berra might say, "Opium is the opiate of the masses"...

[Sibotic]

Free and accessible health care.
Y'all have asked and answered, and ISIS have listened (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-borrow-nhs-advert-to-discourage-people-from-smoking-a6752571.html). Although you have to wonder if the 'price' of cigarettes going up to '1.5' indicates that they're quite successful at this.

Presumably if you wished to 'eradicate' smoking, then legislating or whatever against it would be a start, since that is after all the principle. As was pointed out, obviously it needn't be produced, distributed, etc. You would have to evaluate whether people's reasons for smoking really seem to make it worth keeping around, or if it isn't a drag on a society which could do better, and hence a social form celebrating human waste. That said, the question seems a bit strangely phrased, so no point in going into too much detail. One might as well answer that the Soviet Union's 'problem' could have been solved by the fluoridation of water, which hardly seems necessary.


Life can be miserable, so many people will turn to whatever makes it slightly better. Tobacco makes things a little bit more bearable.
This isn't for the sake of those 'it's not my revolution if I can't dance' kind of people, is it? They probably don't deserve a whole sector of society devoted to them.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's just too cute to see leftists discuss being wardens in their own little fantasy prison-state.

[Comrade #138672]

Well, those who are in favor of banning smoking, how consistent are you? Are you willing to ban other addictive and "unhealthy" activities as well? How about gambling? Drugs in general? Video games? Television? Hamburgers?

[Sibotic]

It's just too cute to see leftists discuss being wardens in their own little fantasy prison-state.
The prison that is xkcd strips from years ago. One where very few are imprisoned.

Drugs can't talk, as much as they are identified with the 'left,' in any case as Luis Henrique pointed out when you look at this as an issue on the side of production rather than abstract consumption, or in brief in terms of socialism, it is one where recourse can't be had to negative freedoms and complete social indifference to the social production, which is in any case not socialistic. But like if you like smoking then alright but it might lessen your capacity for one-liners.

[motion denied]

please eradicate cigarettes 2016

[HevMet]

I wouldn't, I'd just regulate it a bit more but otherwise I don't believe in drug prohibition.

[Emmett Till]

The prison that is xkcd strips from years ago. One where very few are imprisoned.

Drugs can't talk, as much as they are identified with the 'left,' in any case as Luis Henrique pointed out when you look at this as an issue on the side of production rather than abstract consumption, or in brief in terms of socialism, it is one where recourse can't be had to negative freedoms and complete social indifference to the social production, which is in any case not socialistic. But like if you like smoking then alright but it might lessen your capacity for one-liners.

The prime benefit of smoking is as a stress reliever. Hopefully a socialist society will be less stressful than capitalism.

Obviously, if people want to smoke tobacco in a socialist society, they will have to either persuade others that tobacco is a desirable product, or simply grow their own, like many marijuana smokers do. Which, with the rapid technological advances we can expect in a society not burdened by capitalism, will probably be fairly easy.

In America, my speculation is that Indian reservations may still exist, due to tribal solidarity, and whereas gambling casinos will go by the wayside in a society not worried about money, Native Americans might well do what they have done for thousands of years and grow tobacco, and exchange tobacco for other things with remaining addicts and tobacco fanciers.

That way they would get their revenge on the white man fror centuries of genocide by giving him cancer.

[Sasha]

I think its only fair to allow columbian coca farmers a bunch of chemical spray sorties through the Marlboro offices though.
Maybe let them foster civilwar in the boardroom by handing out weapons and money.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Well, those who are in favor of banning smoking, how consistent are you? Are you willing to ban other addictive and "unhealthy" activities as well? How about gambling? Drugs in general? Video games? Television? Hamburgers?

Okay, I'll play paternalists' advocate.

1. I'm in favour of banning smoking in environments where there would be a risk of second-hand smoke. Even if I accept the premise that my neighbour's health is my neighbour's concern and responsibility and I shouldn't concern myself with it (a shaky position to start with), I wouldn't then have to accept smokers putting the health of others at risk. You don't have to worry about someone rudely blowing dice in your face at the bus stop, and as far as I know, hamburgers don't have a track record of being a fire hazard. I see no reason to overturn existing smoking bans in hospitals or places where there are many children.

2. "Well, XYZ is also bad" is not really much of an argument, in itself, against banning smoking. On the contrary, if we have all these other health risks, one could argue that adding smoking to the mix is the last thing people need.

I don't see a real solution in patriarchal policies of bourgeois governments. I agree that the decision not to smoke should be, as far as possible, made spontaneously (without intervention by authority). There are, however, legitimate arguments for why "eradicating smoking" is desirable.

The war on drugs is a myopic bourgeois policy, but the aim of reducing or outright ending drug abuse is desirable, and no less so simply because there are other things which are bad for one's health. All of those other things you listed may not be inherently harmful in a society wherein they would be approached differently, but the same can't really be said for smoking.

[Galbatorix994]

I would prohibit smoking and make sure that the penalty for violating this prohibition is significant enough to deter people from violating it.I would also strive to set up a network of free (or very cheap) rehabilitation centers to help those who need to shake their addiction.I have a similar stance towards most other drug (notable exceptions being alcohol (which I would only have restricted) and caffeine ).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The prison that is xkcd strips from years ago. One where very few are imprisoned.

Drugs can't talk, as much as they are identified with the 'left,' in any case as Luis Henrique pointed out when you look at this as an issue on the side of production rather than abstract consumption, or in brief in terms of socialism, it is one where recourse can't be had to negative freedoms and complete social indifference to the social production, which is in any case not socialistic. But like if you like smoking then alright but it might lessen your capacity for one-liners.

I don't smoke. That said, the worst thing smokers can do to me is knock a few years off my life expectancy. Not an ideal situation, which is why I don't try to force myself in smoking spaces (that, and a genetic predisposition to cancer), but the student left on its crusade to save other people from themselves can do something worse. It can make however many years I have tiring and bothersome. Everything fun can be banned under some kind of pretext or other. Drugs kill, eating meat and owning pets is incompatible with animal rights, cross-dressing is sexist, anal sex causes colon problems, Italian food is cultural appropriation, whatever. And of course, the vile brutes that the workers are (I mean they don't even read French academic drivel) need to be saved from their own backwardness.

But unfortunately for the concerned middle strata, socialism is a society where the government over men has withered away; the socialist society is "merely" an association for production. Therefore all this talk about how Your Socialist Excellency would ban this or that is just that much verbal masturbation. It's like a small child dreaming of being the emperor of the world.

So the only thing to do is to be an adult about it and realise other people are going to live their life as it pleases them, and that they don't have to jump through hoops to please student politicos.

I have no idea why people want to grow plants. It's completely incomprehensible to me (as I don't feel comfortable unless I'm surrounded by concrete); but it doesn't need to be comprehensible. Empirically we know that some people like this sort of work. And if there is a demand for tobacco (because, for example, someone had to listen to a "leftist" with a prawn headmate and a personal crusade against people living unhealthily), then we'll tell them to grow tobacco. Pretty elementary.

[motion denied]

I would prohibit smoking and make sure that the penalty for violating this prohibition is significant enough to deter people from violating it.

So not at all different from present (far) right logic? "Crime is on the rise. Death penalty! Heavier weaponry for the police! 20 years for crossing a red light!".

Because if there's something that solves social issues, it is jurisprudence. "Socialist" [sic] or not...

[The Intransigent Faction]

I would prohibit smoking and make sure that the penalty for violating this prohibition is significant enough to deter people from violating it.

Sounds like behaviorism, to me. Behaviorist solutions are crude and ineffective.

[Sibotic]

So not at all different from present (far) right logic? "Crime is on the rise. Death penalty! Heavier weaponry for the police! 20 years for crossing a red light!".

Because if there's something that solves social issues, it is jurisprudence. "Socialist" [sic] or not...
To be fair, they sound more like they would be on the far-right if the left-wing were elves. And the political spectrum were replaced by - Eragon, really?

Realistically such a post by 'Galbatorix' is probably better and more apt as a part of the social organism than most posts on Stormfront were. To exercise a capacity for judgement on this issue.

[Galbatorix994]

So not at all different from present (far) right logic? "Crime is on the rise. Death penalty! Heavier weaponry for the police! 20 years for crossing a red light!".

Because if there's something that solves social issues, it is jurisprudence. "Socialist" [sic] or not...



Based on your judgement,I would assume that you didn't pay as much attention to what I said about cheap (or free) rehabilitation being available for smokers.This would certainly help addicts recover from their poisonous habit.I believe that the simplest way to alleviate the social ill of smoking is to cease and prohibit the import or growth of tobacco.You also immediately applied a slippery slope to my argument,accusing me of rightist tendencies and claiming that my beliefs would likely include the death penalty and totalitarian punishments.I support neither of these,believing that community service (to avoid the provocative term 'convict labour') would not only deter people from crime but would also assist national development.I also staunchly oppose the idea of bail,believing it to be a bourgeois tool for the rich to avoid prison.

[Црвена]

I would prohibit smoking and make sure that the penalty for violating this prohibition is significant enough to deter people from violating it.I would also strive to set up a network of free (or very cheap) rehabilitation centers to help those who need to shake their addiction.I have a similar stance towards most other drug (notable exceptions being alcohol (which I would only have restricted) and caffeine ).

http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/4/1/7/1/2/3/hahahaha-no-107105163314.png

Seriously though, what kind of logic is this? Others have commented on the bankruptcy of behaviourism, and I agree with them, but regardless, what kind of a socialist wants the state meddling more with people's bodies? It should be obvious that when it regulates our bodies, it's not doing it out of the goodness of its metaphorical heart.

[the Karl Marx of Music]

I wouldn't. But I think there's a legitimate ground for limiting where one can smoke, considering the fumes can be hazardous for others as well.

[Invader Zim]

Smoking is awesome and it makes you look cool in front of your friends. Win win.

But seriously, smoking is a real bastard. Don't get hooked, or you'll be as weezey, out of breath and as rockingly cool as me on my 20 rollies a day.

[Ele'ill]

cure cancer

[The Feral Underclass]

That's if there is a cure to be found.

[Emmett Till]

I think its only fair to allow columbian coca farmers a bunch of chemical spray sorties through the Marlboro offices though.
Maybe let them foster civilwar in the boardroom by handing out weapons and money.

Well yeah! And Native Americans would want to come along, here we have an evil monopoly crushing an organic fair trade product, Native American Spirit Tobacco, which I used to see at liquor stores, and haven't seen much of lately.

I recall back when Bolivia was under a military dictatorship, a popular graffiti inscription on bathroom walls in Berkeley bars was "boycott Bolivian cocaine"!

Now of course it is a fair trade product, hopefully organic too. And the Columbian legally challenged cooperatives that export it to America are Third World too, albeit with not very good politics.

[Emmett Till]

Based on your judgement,I would assume that you didn't pay as much attention to what I said about cheap (or free) rehabilitation being available for smokers.This would certainly help addicts recover from their poisonous habit.I believe that the simplest way to alleviate the social ill of smoking is to cease and prohibit the import or growth of tobacco.You also immediately applied a slippery slope to my argument,accusing me of rightist tendencies and claiming that my beliefs would likely include the death penalty and totalitarian punishments.I support neither of these,believing that community service (to avoid the provocative term 'convict labour') would not only deter people from crime but would also assist national development.I also staunchly oppose the idea of bail,believing it to be a bourgeois tool for the rich to avoid prison.

That was Stalin's attitude as well, he was real big on "community service" for offenders.

And what about the poor, who do often manage to come up with bail somehow, their bail usually being lower? And who are much more likely to be smokers? In fact, bail bondsmen deal almost exclusively with the poor.

Giving the poor no chance at all to avoid jail time or the chain gang when arrested for smoking seems harsh. Why not substitute a more moderate punishment for smoking? Like flogging!

Glad you oppose the death penalty for smoking. That at least avoids the problem of deciding whether condemned prisoners should be allowed a last cigarette by the firing squad.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Presumably if you wished to 'eradicate' smoking, then legislating or whatever against it would be a start, since that is after all the principle.

While I'm not going to express an opinion on this topic, this wiki has some useful info on smoking bans currently in place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans

This is coming from a non-smoker who lives in a country with smoking bans at appropriate levels of government. One cannot smoke in indoor public spaces, nor can one smoke in workplaces. In some lower levels of government, including municipalities, anti-smoking bylaws are stricter, such that one cannot smoke in outdoor public spaces; in effect, one can smoke only within the confines of a personal residence or a guest accommodation suite.

[Galbatorix994]

That was Stalin's attitude as well, he was real big on "community service" for offenders.





And what about the poor, who do often manage to come up with bail somehow, their bail usually being lower? And who are much more likely to be smokers? In fact, bail bondsmen deal almost exclusively with the poor.





Giving the poor no chance at all to avoid jail time or the chain gang when arrested for smoking seems harsh. Why not substitute a more moderate punishment for smoking? Like flogging!





Glad you oppose the death penalty for smoking. That at least avoids the problem of deciding whether condemned prisoners should be allowed a last cigarette by the firing squad.


In the specific case of smoking,I would advocate the confiscation of all tobacco and possibly a fine.Repeated offenses would likely be punished by minor community service (i.e. Helping clean the streets for a few days,probably 3 or 4 at most) alongside the penalty of the first offence.You are right to say that prison is too harsh a punishment for smoking,there's no denying that.Proper convict labour should only be used to punish serious crimes.To elaborate on bail,I see no justification for someone bring able to spend money on staying out of prison (even in only temporarily).To me,it seems like an extremely capitalistic concept.

[The Intransigent Faction]

one can smoke only within the confines of a personal residence or a guest accommodation suite.

I don't know about where you are, but even then, house fires caused by cigarettes are a major contributor to fire fatalities in North America. Obviously, those fires can hurt more than just the smoker. So, what are we to do when those fires happen? Do we put the onus entirely on a smoker's personal irresponsibility? That's exactly the kind of individualistic logic employed by right-wingers. Now, I'm not suggesting we police everyone's homes to make sure they don't smoke indoors, but it's not something anyone should encourage as the better option by legal means or otherwise.

[Comrade Jacob]

Still gunna smoke, no amount of anti-smoking campaigns will stop this mofo.

[Emmett Till]

I don't know about where you are, but even then, house fires caused by cigarettes are a major contributor to fire fatalities in North America. Obviously, those fires can hurt more than just the smoker. So, what are we to do when those fires happen? Do we put the onus entirely on a smoker's personal irresponsibility? That's exactly the kind of individualistic logic employed by right-wingers. Now, I'm not suggesting we police everyone's homes to make sure they don't smoke indoors, but it's not something anyone should encourage as the better option by legal means or otherwise.

Smoking should be banned because of .... house fires? That's reaching.

This kind of house fires happen by and large due to the combination of cigarettes with alcohol and other drugs, so banning alcohol and ramping up the drug war would actually be a much "better" way to solve that problem. Hopefully not even here on Revleft is there anyone for that!

How about banning automobiles? The number of people killed in auto accidents is orders of magnitude higher than the number of people dying in fires caused by smoking while drunk.

By the way, lately the health professionals have quietly admitted that the hysteria over second hand smoke is largely hyped up, as an excuse to stop people from smoking. Second hand smoke is dangerous for people with asthma and so forth, but it's only a serious health problem for people with normal lungs if in really high concentration, like in a bar or a gambling casino, or in a confined space like an airplane cockpit. The basic solution for second hand smoke is better ventilation, which costs capitalists money, unlike whipping up witch hunts against smokers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't know about where you are, but even then, house fires caused by cigarettes are a major contributor to fire fatalities in North America. Obviously, those fires can hurt more than just the smoker. So, what are we to do when those fires happen?

Point acknowledged.


Do we put the onus entirely on a smoker's personal irresponsibility? That's exactly the kind of individualistic logic employed by right-wingers. Now, I'm not suggesting we police everyone's homes to make sure they don't smoke indoors, but it's not something anyone should encourage as the better option by legal means or otherwise.

Like I said, I am not expressing an opinion on this topic, and it seems to be more about smoking in indoor public spaces, workplaces, or outdoor public spaces than about smoking in a personal residence or a guest accommodation suite.

[Emmett Till]

Free and accessible health care.

Ultimately it is your own choice. But for those who wish to quit there needs to be free access to help, support, medication and counceling so they can.

On top of that more money/dedication should be expended in research of prevention and treatment of health risk behavior.

Within capitalist society this won't actually happen. Smokers expend more money on taxes and insurance as well as being generally cheaper when it comes to overall per person health care costs.

Actually, smokers are *more* expensive per person health care costwise. Cancer and heart disease are expensive to deal with.

But simply campaigning against smoking is almost free, whereas the other stuff you talk about all costs money. So that's why you have the great current day anti-smoking campaign pretty much worldwide.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Smoking should be banned because of .... house fires?

Nope.


Now, I'm not suggesting we police everyone's homes to make sure they don't smoke indoors, but it's not something anyone should encourage as the better option by legal means or otherwise.

Saying "Hey, inside your house might not be the best place for that," is not the same as banning. ;)

As for automobiles...sorry, but that's just a terrible analogy. There are serious reasons *not* to ban cars that don't apply to cigarettes.


By the way, lately the health professionals have quietly admitted that the hysteria over second hand smoke is largely hyped up, as an excuse to stop people from smoking. Second hand smoke is dangerous for people with asthma and so forth, but it's only a serious health problem for people with normal lungs if in really high concentration, like in a bar or a gambling casino, or in a confined space like an airplane cockpit. The basic solution for second hand smoke is better ventilation, which costs capitalists money, unlike whipping up witch hunts against smokers.

Really high concentration, yes...or prolonged exposure. Presumably, "normal lugs" are fully-developed, otherwise healthy, adult lungs. Also, according to the CDC, "There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke." That doesn't sound like an "admission of hyping it up". Given the track record of information about the harms of smoking and what the tobacco industry has done with it, one would not be remiss to count on the worst-case scenario, anyway.

[Emmett Till]

Nope.



Saying "Hey, inside your house might not be the best place for that," is not the same as banning. ;)

As for automobiles...sorry, but that's just a terrible analogy. There are serious reasons *not* to ban cars that don't apply to cigarettes.



Really high concentration, yes...or prolonged exposure. Presumably, "normal lugs" are fully-developed, otherwise healthy, adult lungs. Also, according to the CDC, "There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke." That doesn't sound like an "admission of hyping it up". Given the track record of information about the harms of smoking and what the tobacco industry has done with it, one would not be remiss to count on the worst-case scenario, anyway.

CDC expresses the Official Position For The Public, I'm referring to recent research the docs know about and the general public doesn't. The idea that there is no risk-free level of exposure goes against basic physics, borders on homeopathy.

Actually, there is now scientific proof that the danger of second hand smoke is hyped. In recent years, there is now far less exposure to second hand smoke to the general public than in the past, something which can be and has been easily measured, nicotine derivative blood levels, due to the anti-smoking campaigns. I saw a website for that which I could track down, the average levels of nicotine derivative in UK, once a smokers' paradise, are now about a third of what they were a couple of decades ago.

And the level of lung cancer among non-smokers has, instead of dropping, greatly increased!

http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20150910/nonsmokers-account-for-rising-proportion-of-lung-cancer-cases-studies-find

The explanation that, er, well, that's mostly a different kinda lung cancer, is pretty feeble. How those "environmental and genetic factors" responsible could have changed over recent years is not explained.

[PhoenixAsh]

Actually, smokers are *more* expensive per person health care costwise. Cancer and heart disease are expensive to deal with.

But simply campaigning against smoking is almost free, whereas the other stuff you talk about all costs money. So that's why you have the great current day anti-smoking campaign pretty much worldwide.

Nope. This has been calculated. Smokers die 10 years earlier. Even given health problems and the costs of heart and lung disease during life smokers average lower health care costs because of the cost of services in the last 10 years of life.

Quick search for link as I am time limited today grant you this horrible Forbes article that references that:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/

[PhoenixAsh]

And NY times article
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html?referer=&_r=0

[Luís Henrique]

We won't eradicate smoking.

Smoking will wither away. :grin:

Luís Henrique

[cyu]

Oh no, not more flaccid jokes ;)

Smoking is already gone - if you think you still see smoking, your eyes are playing tricks on you - just a little harmless fun between friends ;)

[Blake's Baby]

How about, 'stop producing tobacco'?

If I wanted to eradicate smoking, which I don't.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

the only way i know how, gonna suck down as many coffin nails as i can and polish myself off young, thereby eliminating at least one smoker from the population

[CyM]

No campaign to eliminate lung cancer can work without a campaign to convert all smokers to vapers. End the war on cigarettes and admit we've forgotten that the point was ending cancer, not prohibiting vices we disagree with. No more nanny state, harm reduction for people's addictions while fully accepting those addictions.

[Comrade Jacob]

Still gunna smoke, no amount of anti-smoking campaigns will stop this mofo.

Well, I've stopped lol

[CyM]

Well, I've stopped lol
Good for you, that doesn't give you the right to decide what drugs others are allowed to pump into their bodies.

[Blake's Baby]

If you had to grow your own tobacco, would you still smoke CyM?

[Abdullah Tshabal]

Some nations outright ban tobacco advertising. With the lack of advertising/promotions for tobacco, there are less potential consumers and lost revenue for businesses. Case in point, South Africa, who has some of the most aggressive anti-tobacco legislation in the industrialized world. Even walking around with a Camel T-shirt is grounds for a sizeable fine.

[Blake's Baby]

And the number of people smoking in SA is...?

[motion denied]

The country I live in also bans tobacco ads. The packs even come with graphical images of dead babies, suffering children, impotence, necrosis, cancer etc with a saying that basically goes: "this shit is bad and you will die because of it".

People couldn't care less.

[Abdullah Tshabal]

About 11 million or 1 in 5. The head count has gone up from ~9 million in 1993, but that's because in the 22.5 years since, the national population has increased from some 25 million to 55 million. Compared to today, a third of people in ZA smoked. The percentage is actually still lowering. Other factors should also be considered as to what causes the tobbaco usage rates to drop (Such as the changing religious demographics in ZA).

I think there should be a "Don't smoke this shit" printed on each stick. :lol:

[Luís Henrique]

Smoking will wither away. :grin:

In a puff of smoke.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The country I live in also bans tobacco ads. The packs even come with graphical images of dead babies, suffering children, impotence, necrosis, cancer etc with a saying that basically goes: "this shit is bad and you will die because of it".

People couldn't care less.

I have indeed seen people saying, "necrosis I already have two, please bring me one with a miscarriage, I don't have one of those".

Luís Henrique

[CyM]

If you had to grow your own tobacco, would you still smoke CyM?
I'd buy it from my weed dealer.

Don't kid yourself. Prohibition does not work. All it would do is put me back to cigarettes since ecigs are a high tech product and the black market that would inevitably fill the gap is not a good environment for that kind of innovation or quality.

Congrats, you just decided cancer is better than having to deal with a vice you don't like and chosen conservative paternalism instead of scientific rationalism.

[JaffaRed]

Nothing wrong with smoking tobacco/weed or with drinking alcohol in moderation. The poison is in the dosage. There should be education against excessive and harmful use, but no prohibition. There should be accessible and high-quality health care to deal with its problems and to help people who want to quit.

Capitalists love to punish the victims of their own rotten system - i.e. imprison junkies. and even "regular" workers who smoke weed. These poor people need help and rehabilitation, not punishment.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The country I live in also bans tobacco ads. The packs even come with graphical images of dead babies, suffering children, impotence, necrosis, cancer etc with a saying that basically goes: "this shit is bad and you will die because of it".

People couldn't care less.

Every time I'm at the gas station, though, the impotence row has been barely touched. I guess men here are more comfortable with the idea of lung cancer than a flaccid dick.

[GLF]

If I had my choice it wouldn't be "eradicated" at all.

People should be free to do to their own bodies what they want as long as they restrict it to themselves.

Fascists on the other hand probably would, and Hitler wanted to. Along with alcohol, smokeless tobacco, and just about everything else that is "bad for muh people".

[Heretek]

I'd buy it from my weed dealer.

Don't kid yourself. Prohibition does not work. All it would do is put me back to cigarettes since ecigs are a high tech product and the black market that would inevitably fill the gap is not a good environment for that kind of innovation or quality.

Congrats, you just decided cancer is better than having to deal with a vice you don't like and chosen conservative paternalism instead of scientific rationalism.

What are you on about? First, he asked if you would smoke if you had to grow it yourself, and that was glossed over. Are you saying you'd grow it, give it to your dealer, then buy it from him? Second, Blake is referring to a socialist society in his argument, at least as far as I read it. And in that society, there would be no "buying" of anything, much less dealing in products no one actually wants to produce.

How does "grow it yourself" change into "paternalistic me knows best, here have cancer?" Where is his rejection of rationalism?

[CyM]

What are you on about? First, he asked if you would smoke if you had to grow it yourself, and that was glossed over. Are you saying you'd grow it, give it to your dealer, then buy it from him? Second, Blake is referring to a socialist society in his argument, at least as far as I read it. And in that society, there would be no "buying" of anything, much less dealing in products no one actually wants to produce.

How does "grow it yourself" change into "paternalistic me knows best, here have cancer?" Where is his rejection of rationalism?

Nope, sorry. Our one experience with a planned economy shows that anything that the plan cannot provide will be provided by a black market.

Banning any commodity will only create a vacuum that must be filled. And capitalist economics will fill that vacuum and power the rise of your bureaucracy.

[RedScarf]

Smoking is the illusionary happiness of an oppressed people. The best way to eliminate it is to help those who smoke reject the illusionary sun they circle but to instead revolve around theirselves, the true sun.

[motion denied]

The good feeling after smoking is not at all an illusion. It does calm you down and make you feel good.

[Art Vandelay]

If I can't smoke, it's not my revolution.

[GLF]

Yep, I also smoke. It seems as though most communists do smoke. Heavily. Though that could just be my imagination.

[Bala Perdida]

Eradicate smoking by introducing hallucinogens. I probably spelled that wrong

[Heretek]

Nope, sorry. Our one experience with a planned economy shows that anything that the plan cannot provide will be provided by a black market.

Banning any commodity will only create a vacuum that must be filled. And capitalist economics will fill that vacuum and power the rise of your bureaucracy.

What "planned economy?" Who here is advocating a return to the USSR? A communist society would be one of freely associating producers. Without a state or bureaucracy. Or capitalists at all. There would be no "banning" of anything. There is no need to. No one will produce things they don't want to

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

I have always been heavily opposed to smoking, personally; whenever either one of my parents lights up I always just leave the room and open the windows once they've stopped. I do not feel I should be subject to someone else's bad habits. I don't think I'd ban smoking, but heavily promote not smoking; I don't see why people are opposed to the promotion of anti-smoking, because smoking is scientifically bad for you. If you want to debate scientific rationalism vs. paternalism, the scientific rational side would surely say "smoking is bad for you health and others around you, therefore it should be condemned".

Due to some genetic illnesses I'll likely inherit, I will likely have a signficant portion of my life shortened anyway. I'm also not a hypocrite as I also criticise people for eating badly or drinking alcohol, to their annoyance; rational science knows that these things contribute to worsening health, so I've got no problem with annoyingly pointing out the fact that smoking, drinking and eating junk food is a shitty decision to make in light of all the evidence to the contrary.

I do understand the smoking and drinking have historically been outlets to relive pressure for the oppressed and the working classes, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't promote healthier forms of relief. Hell, even smoking weed through a water bong or vaporiser is preferable to any of the former three, even if it is still unhealthy. Fuck smoking (but not smokers).

[CyM]

Precisely. And the best way to push quitting smoking is a provaping campaign. All bans on vaping indoors or on ordering vape supplies online should be lifted, and people should be actively encouraged to switch to vaping. Which is hundreds of times safer due to the lack of the main cause of lung cancer: tar.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

Well, I don't necessarily see getting people hooked on tar-free nicotine as good, but as a solution to a slightly healthier society I wholly support substituting vaping for smoking, whether vaping with nicotine or using a vaporiser to smoke weed.

Smoking is a big issue, but what about alcohol? I wouldn't ban that since history has shown that banning it would only make it worse, but it's a great contributer to liver illnesses, heart illnesses and blood-related illnesses. Even with all the anti-drinking campaigns and anti-smoking campaigns people still drink and smoke. As CyM mentioned, vaping could provide a potentially safer alternative to smoking cigarettes or cigars, but there isn't some kind of "safer alcohol" unless you just mean weaker alcohol.

What would the solution to this issue be?

[Heretek]

Precisely. And the best way to push quitting smoking is a provaping campaign. All bans on vaping indoors or on ordering vape supplies online should be lifted, and people should be actively encouraged to switch to vaping. Which is hundreds of times safer due to the lack of the main cause of lung cancer: tar.

Really? Vaping is so much better? I thought you already said that a black market will arise to fulfill demands and strengthen "my" bureaucracy? Regardless of the effect on the lungs, drugs like nicotine and marijuana, even in their "pure" states they influence the process in which the brain perceives and transmits chemicals, potentially permanently altering and hindering the brain. Lesser evilism is not a valid strategy, in health or politics. That is why we reject parties such as the CPUSA and their support of the democrats and the Democrats themselves.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

There's a world of difference between political support and campaigning for better health. Lesser evilism in politics is bad because as communists we do not want more equality or more freedom; we want equality, and we want freedom. The democrats nor the CPUSA will give us that. If a population is largely addicted to nicotine already however, then it's nothing more than idealism to say that we can just go straight from smoking to non-smoking (especially in the stressfulness of capitalism). Vaping and vaporising are better than cigarette smoking or spliff smoking; political lesser evilism and lesser evilism in health are totally different.

[Heretek]

There's a world of difference between political support and campaigning for better health. Lesser evilism in politics is bad because as communists we do not want more equality or more freedom; we want equality, and we want freedom. The democrats nor the CPUSA will give us that. If a population is largely addicted to nicotine already however, then it's nothing more than idealism to say that we can just go straight from smoking to non-smoking (especially in the stressfulness of capitalism). Vaping and vaporising are better than cigarette smoking or spliff smoking; political lesser evilism and lesser evilism in health are totally different.

By this logic, the two are exactly the same. Because what you're saying is, if a population is addicted, there need to be "baby steps" away from that addiction. (Into another addiction and debilitation). So where workers are largely Republican, or reactionary, or whatever flavor of right, they cannot just "jump" to communism. They have to be "weened off" it first, so they don't get too much freedom or equality at once. It's idealism to think they will suddenly accept such a change, especially in the environment of capitalism.

That is a line of reformists. I don't know and I frankly don't care what other communists think, I want health in addition to freedom and equality. Not "more health, more freedom, more equality." Vaping will not give that. Like exchanging a malevolent tyrant for a benevolent one still lands you under the yoke of a tyrant. To advocate one affliction for another is a mistake.

I don't care in the end what everyone else ends up doing, as long as they do it themselves. Forcing someone else to provide for your addiction or suffer the consequences of your impairment is simply another form of oppression. I will not suffer cancer for your smoking, and I will not suffer violent death because you couldn't pay attention to the road. I will not suffer for your addiction, and neither should anyone else.

[CyM]

You won't suffer cancer. And since the cancer risk no longer exists with vaping, nonvapers can shove the talk about suffering due to our habit. Having a stateless society also means weaning yourself off the nanny state.

[Klaatu]

Remove nicotine out of cigarettes. If caffeine can be removed from coffee, nicotine can be removed from tobacco. Keep smoking legal, but make nicotine illegal.

[Red Red Chile]

No point trying to eradicate smoking if people's lives are so shitty. Make people's lives better and they don't need to turn to drugs. Simple.

It might be a little reductionist to explain drug abuse away as a symptom of 'shitty life'. In fact, that's a terrible, terrible argument. I'd wager that the rich and glamorous abuse drugs more than any other class.

Crime might be largely attributable to drug dependency - because poor addicts cannot afford their addictions - but not drug use.

[Heretek]

You won't suffer cancer. And since the cancer risk no longer exists with vaping, nonvapers can shove the talk about suffering due to our habit. Having a stateless society also means weaning yourself off the nanny state.

You haven't passed health yet, have you? Or you work for a tobacco company. Regardless, second hand smoke in cigarettes can cause major health problems and death in some cases. Weed smoke can cause surrounding people to get high as well, fucking with their behaviors. And regardless of the cancer, I have already said that the drug itself, nicotine or marijuana or whatever, alters your brain chemistry and perception. These effects are potentially permanent, and damaging. I can continue to talk about the risks to my own health because they still exist. Someone gets high and decides to do something stupid, like grab a gun and dick around with it, their judgment is impaired and other people are more likely to get shot who don't need to than otherwise.

Why the hell do you keep going back to some insistence on the state? I'm not some liberal, and I'm not some Stalinist. Maybe you're one of the psycho-trots that believes everyone else is a Stalinist traitor or a fascist. But the language you use is very similar to american libertarians, so maybe you think that leftists are all for "big government." I never mentioned the state. Explicitly said the state would be nonexistent. And then you made some bullshit conclusion I was talking about planned economy and state capitalism! Why the hell would there be a bureaucracy if there is no place for one to even exist!?

[Quail]

It might be a little reductionist to explain drug abuse away as a symptom of 'shitty life'. In fact, that's a terrible, terrible argument. I'd wager that the rich and glamorous abuse drugs more than any other class.

Crime might be largely attributable to drug dependency - because poor addicts cannot afford their addictions - but not drug use.

How do you explain the fact that a much higher percentage of addicts have a history of abuse than the general population? Addiction is a dysfunctional coping mechanism.

There was also the famous experiment on rats, where unhappy rats were highly likely to get addicted to drugs when given the chance, whereas happy rats were more likely to leave the morphine(?) alone.

I could also point to the fact that the majority of people who use drugs don't actually go on to be addicts. Why is it that some people become habitual (weed/tobacco) smokers and others don't? Why is it that some people try heroin or cocaine and enjoy the experience, but don't go on to be regular users? If you have nothing to escape, you don't need drugs like an addict does.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

By this logic, the two are exactly the same. Because what you're saying is, if a population is addicted, there need to be "baby steps" away from that addiction. (Into another addiction and debilitation). So where workers are largely Republican, or reactionary, or whatever flavor of right, they cannot just "jump" to communism. They have to be "weened off" it first, so they don't get too much freedom or equality at once. It's idealism to think they will suddenly accept such a change, especially in the environment of capitalism.

That is a line of reformists. I don't know and I frankly don't care what other communists think, I want health in addition to freedom and equality. Not "more health, more freedom, more equality." Vaping will not give that. Like exchanging a malevolent tyrant for a benevolent one still lands you under the yoke of a tyrant. To advocate one affliction for another is a mistake.

I don't care in the end what everyone else ends up doing, as long as they do it themselves. Forcing someone else to provide for your addiction or suffer the consequences of your impairment is simply another form of oppression. I will not suffer cancer for your smoking, and I will not suffer violent death because you couldn't pay attention to the road. I will not suffer for your addiction, and neither should anyone else.

You seem to be quite bad at reading comprehension, so let me fill you in. We will not need to "ween" people off Republican/Tory ideology and right-wing politics, if we can show them they're wrong. How can we do this? Show them that communism is good and that it works, just like we can show smokers that tobacco smoking is incredibly bad for you. People turn to hateful individualistic ideologies unconsciously as a result of their environment; if you're brought up in a competitive system where you are oppressed and are brainwashed into believing you should only look out for no. 1, then you will likely be duped by the right and will blame other nationalities, other genders or other sexualities for your problems. That same stress that leads to hatefulness leads to addiction, whether that be cigarettes or heroin. Just like right-wing ideologies and religious superstition, the addiction is derived from suffering, so if we ever did enact a large-scale socialist revolution there would be less demand for addictive substances. Until then, we can do nothing more than educate people on why smoking is bad, or religion is bad, or that Republicanism/Toryism is bad.

Vaping is not some panacea that will end the problems of nicotine addiction. But you don't get heavily addicted to Republicanism physically, nor do you get addicted to Christianity or Islam. A physical, biological addiction is much more suited to so-called "weening off", especially while the conditions for it being in demand still exist.

[Rudolf]

Someone gets high and decides to do something stupid, like grab a gun and dick around with it, their judgment is impaired and other people are more likely to get shot who don't need to than otherwise.



hahahaa reefer madness. You've never smoked weed nor been around stoners have you?

[Heretek]

You seem to be quite bad at reading comprehension, so let me fill you in. We will not need to "ween" people off Republican/Tory ideology and right-wing politics, if we can show them they're wrong. How can we do this? Show them that communism is good and that it works, just like we can show smokers that tobacco smoking is incredibly bad for you. People turn to hateful individualistic ideologies unconsciously as a result of their environment; if you're brought up in a competitive system where you are oppressed and are brainwashed into believing you should only look out for no. 1, then you will likely be duped by the right and will blame other nationalities, other genders or other sexualities for your problems. That same stress that leads to hatefulness leads to addiction, whether that be cigarettes or heroin. Just like right-wing ideologies and religious superstition, the addiction is derived from suffering, so if we ever did enact a large-scale socialist revolution there would be less demand for addictive substances. Until then, we can do nothing more than educate people on why smoking is bad, or religion is bad, or that Republicanism/Toryism is bad.

Vaping is not some panacea that will end the problems of nicotine addiction. But you don't get heavily addicted to Republicanism physically, nor do you get addicted to Christianity or Islam. A physical, biological addiction is much more suited to so-called "weening off", especially while the conditions for it being in demand still exist.

In the environment of capitalism, it is already shown and proven how bad the myriad of drugs are. Yet people still do it. Addicts dont stop being addicts because they suddenly own the means of production and are somehow enlightened to their habit and gain the desire to end it. We have consistently for the last century or two shown that capitalism is bad, both "morally," and in the interests of the workers. This is more idealistic nonsense. If defeating capitalism was as easy saying "look, it bad fo u!," we would already be there. A fight must actually be fought, not some club talk over tea. I can sit and point out all the failures of capitalism to some rightist, but at the end of the day, they will continue to oppose communism. Some rightist can point all the failures of communism to me and how capitalism works, doesn't mean I'll buy any of their shit.

This "education" of their mistakes is nothing more than the weening off approach. "Eventually we'll rise up, and since we told all those Tories that they're bad, they'll be receptive to our revolt."

[Heretek]

hahahaa reefer madness. You've never smoked weed nor been around stoners have you?

Hahaha you've never seen your aunt blow half her face off cause she was dicking around and held the gun the wrong way, have you?

Regardless of my idiot aunt, why would you want something to dull your urge lash out, and if you're here, specifically against capitalism?

[Red Red Chile]

How do you explain the fact that a much higher percentage of addicts have a history of abuse than the general population? Addiction is a dysfunctional coping mechanism.



I think it's rather irresponsible to equate the despair of a rape victim to the everyday experience of a working class person. Abused people typically suffer some kind of post traumatic stress which indeed can require self medication.


There was also the famous experiment on rats, where unhappy rats were highly likely to get addicted to drugs when given the chance, whereas happy rats were more likely to leave the morphine(?) alone.

There's the experiment where they put the rat in a cage with a block of cocaine and food and water. The rats will forgo the food and water for long periods of time and eventually suffer a seizure.


I could also point to the fact that the majority of people who use drugs don't actually go on to be addicts. Why is it that some people become habitual (weed/tobacco) smokers and others don't? Why is it that some people try heroin or cocaine and enjoy the experience, but don't go on to be regular users? If you have nothing to escape, you don't need drugs like an addict does.

That all really depends on personality type and other variables. If drugs are a only a way to escape pain what is your explanation for the rampant drug abuse among musicians and celebrities? Are rock stars too unhappy? Is all the money and sex with groupies too much for them to cope with?

[Quail]

I think it's rather irresponsible to equate the despair of a rape victim to the everyday experience of a working class person. Abused people typically suffer some kind of post traumatic stress which indeed can require self medication.
I think it's irresponsible to assume that "the despair of a rape victim" and "the everyday experience of a working class person" are mutually exclusive categories. Capitalism and patriarchy create structures which enable abuse. The official statistic is something like 1 in 4 women have been raped, but I'm inclined to believe the proportion is even higher. That's not even taking into account other forms of abuse and social exclusion that people face. Levels of drug abuse tend to be higher among marginalised groups of people.


There's the experiment where they put the rat in a cage with a block of cocaine and food and water. The rats will forgo the food and water for long periods of time and eventually suffer a seizure.
That is, unless the rat has access to somewhere to play and make little ratty friends. Happy rats were much less likely to use the drug.


That all really depends on personality type and other variables. If drugs are a only a way to escape pain what is your explanation for the rampant drug abuse among musicians and celebrities? Are rock stars too unhappy? Is all the money and sex with groupies too much for them to cope with?
Drugs aren't only a way to escape pain, rather my point was that people who have pain they'd like to escape are more likely to become addicts. I don't know what it's like to be a rich and famous person, but I do think that living in public comes with its own unique pressures, especially for women. The pressure to conform to a certain image must be pretty intense, especially with all those magazines which will crucify female celebrities for the slightest hint of a roll of fat.

[Rudolf]

Hahaha you've never seen your aunt blow half her face off cause she was dicking around and held the gun the wrong way, have you? so your auntie was ridiculously irresponsible and you blame weed for it? lol




Regardless of my idiot aunt, why would you want something to dull your urge lash out, and if you're here, specifically against capitalism?

If i lashed out all the time i'd be in jail for burning the jobcentre to the ground. You think some random individual lashing out is useful? The whole point is collective action.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

In the environment of capitalism, it is already shown and proven how bad the myriad of drugs are. Yet people still do it. Addicts dont stop being addicts because they suddenly own the means of production and are somehow enlightened to their habit and gain the desire to end it. We have consistently for the last century or two shown that capitalism is bad, both "morally," and in the interests of the workers. This is more idealistic nonsense. If defeating capitalism was as easy saying "look, it bad fo u!," we would already be there. A fight must actually be fought, not some club talk over tea. I can sit and point out all the failures of capitalism to some rightist, but at the end of the day, they will continue to oppose communism. Some rightist can point all the failures of communism to me and how capitalism works, doesn't mean I'll buy any of their shit.

This "education" of their mistakes is nothing more than the weening off approach. "Eventually we'll rise up, and since we told all those Tories that they're bad, they'll be receptive to our revolt."

I'll not make a lengthy reply since regardless of what I say you aren't tuned in to the same wavelength. In capitalism, the stressful conditions exist to warrant stress-relieving addictive drugs like nicotine - if I can promote something that's slightly better under the current system to help improve health, I will. You also seem to think that if we ever overthrow capitalism that somehow all those people who were addicted will stop being addicted magically - this is not the case. Vaping can be a less dangerous way to relieve stress while the demon nicotine still possesses you. There is literally no way to equate political ideology and physical addiction to a drug in terms of the "weening off" or "lesser evil" approach, as I have said.

[CyM]

Not to mention Marx and Engels were roaring drunks and I will not accept a Marxism that tells me the leisure society we are building will ban drugs instead of developing safer methods.

[Red Red Chile]

I think it's irresponsible to assume that "the despair of a rape victim" and "the everyday experience of a working class person" are mutually exclusive categories. Capitalism and patriarchy create structures which enable abuse. The official statistic is something like 1 in 4 women have been raped, but I'm inclined to believe the proportion is even higher. That's not even taking into account other forms of abuse and social exclusion that people face. Levels of drug abuse tend to be higher among marginalised groups of people.



Noone is suggesting that they are mutually exclusive. But that does not mean they are mutually inclusive either.


That is, unless the rat has access to somewhere to play and make little ratty friends. Happy rats were much less likely to use the drug.

Rubbish. Drug seeking behavior takes over after exposure to the point where environment does not matter. It's not about being a 'happy' or 'sad' rat. Drug abuse occurs because it exploits the brains reward mechanism by tricking it into being happy when it has no reason to be. Humans(and rats) are pleasure seeking organisms - when you are high on coke you are happy. That is the chemical purpose of the drug.

It might be true that the decision to expose oneself to drugs has a lot to do with class circumstances or unhappiness in life. But after exposure it effects everyone more or less the same.

[CyM]

Wrong. The rat park experiments thoroughly disproved that tory theory. Rats in cages too small to move, in the dark, row after row. Present them with two identical bottles of water, one laced with morphine. You've got mass addiction on your hands fairly quickly. Take them out of the cages, put them in a "rat park" enclosure wide open and filled with social interaction, toys and wheels and even grass, and they will all dump the habit.

This experiment shattered the drug problem approach. We don't have a drug problem. We have an existential crisis as a result of capitalism, and drugs are the other opiate of the masses.

That being said, humans are conscious, and intelligent creatures will still look for a small thing to take the edge off. Because emotions and psychology are far more complex, and we are one of a small number of creatures that seeks for joy, and the only one that seeks for it in such diverse ways.

Liberate that, and it will not be sober. Much of it will be fucking high as a kite off all sorts of different drugs you couldn't dream up, and whatever you want to partake in, you can.

Now drink your coffee, eat your chocolate, wolf down your red meat, whatever it is that you're fucking addicted to.

And let me enjoy mine.

[Red Red Chile]

Wrong. The rat park experiments thoroughly disproved that tory theory. Rats in cages too small to move, in the dark, row after row. Present them with two identical bottles of water, one laced with morphine. You've got mass addiction on your hands fairly quickly. Take them out of the cages, put them in a "rat park" enclosure wide open and filled with social interaction, toys and wheels and even grass, and they will all dump the habit.

Wrong. Those rat park experiments used morphine, not cocaine. What's more, they could never be replicated - suggesting a contaminated experiment or fraud. Google 'Environment is not the most important variable in determining oral morphine consumption in Wistar rats'.


We don't have a drug problem. We have an existential crisis as a result of capitalism, and drugs are the other opiate of the masses.

Gross simplification. A term like 'existential crisis' works better in application to the general human condition - that of never being fully satisfied, living in futility etc. It's way too neat to explain drug use as 'escaping capitalism'. I know this is a communist forum but it's rather tiresome reading every complex form of behavior reduced to capitalism.

[Quail]

Noone is suggesting that they are mutually exclusive. But that does not mean they are mutually inclusive either.
I never said or even implied that they were. Living in a capitalist society can be traumatic and/or stressful for a multitude of reasons.


Rubbish. Drug seeking behavior takes over after exposure to the point where environment does not matter. It's not about being a 'happy' or 'sad' rat. Drug abuse occurs because it exploits the brains reward mechanism by tricking it into being happy when it has no reason to be. Humans(and rats) are pleasure seeking organisms - when you are high on coke you are happy. That is the chemical purpose of the drug.

It might be true that the decision to expose oneself to drugs has a lot to do with class circumstances or unhappiness in life. But after exposure it effects everyone more or less the same.
Let me check I'm not misunderstanding you. Are you trying to argue that regardless of circumstances, if people take something like heroin or cocaine and enjoy it, they're going to keep on doing it and become an addict because we are "pleasure-seeking organisms"?

[Rafiq]

Humans(and rats) are pleasure seeking organisms

There is no comparison between humans and rats. Rats have no sense of consciousness, they therefore are unable to articulate their addiction, they simply are addicted. Their addiction is not really juxtaposed to any miserable sobriety, it is purely a matter of eventual physical dependency, as well as the stimulation of certain physical reflexes that draw the rats toward the drug. The difference however is that there is no element of desire, the rats are one with their prerogatives, they do not have to articulate these prerogatives either consciously or subconsciously, they are like machines, as they do, so they are. If you put a rat in a maze, and you put a wall between what the rat wants, and the rat himself, the rat will almost immediately give up when he finds out that the object of his desire is on the other side of the wall. Only a human will insist on this object, knowing very well it is outside of their grasp, continually desiring it, wanting it, and so on.


when you are high on coke you are happy. That is the chemical purpose of the drug.

Red Red Chile, I guarantee, has never met a person in his fucking life who has ever been addicted to hard drugs.

No, while high on heroin, or something else, you are in proximity, satisfied, the rest of your life is drowned out and at that point absolutely nothing matters except the lala land you find yourself in. And it is scary to retreat from this lala land, once you are in it, THAT becomes YOU, and YOUR LIFE. There is no middle ground, eventually, because so much neglect and little care is allotted to your real life, that eventually it seems like there is nothing to go back to. That is quite different from feeling whole as a person. As it is with all things, because you are a philistine, because you have a reactionary, anti-democratic conception of what you call, FROM NO POSITION WHATSOEVER "humans", what you fail to take into account, in the course of drug/alcohol addiction, is how this experience relates to the person in question. Meaning, it isn't reducible to any direct feeling in the brain, because the only reason you articulate this as a 'good', pleasurable feeling, is because you are juxtaposing it to what is obviously the continual state of spiritual pain and suffering you are experiencing while sober. Because death drive underlies the basis of human existence, it is an insistence upon repetition. That means, ones immersion in everyday life, IS like a drug, that you are addicted to - heroin, cocaine, among other drugs, provide the user a sense of escape from this continual process of one's engagement with their life - waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night, doing their job, more specifically, drug use is nothing short of an alternative to the drug addiction we call capital accumulation, the desire for more money. They provide users with a sense of freedom insofar as MONEY no longer becomes its own ends, i.e. they do not want money because "it feels good" to have money, they could not care less about this - instead, their desire for money, is totally subsumed by another kind of desire - to seek the experience of the drug, its chemical effect, and so on. But the dimension of this desire, is absolutely irreducible to a set of chemicals and whatever - the chemistry merely refers to the experience of doing it. For example, sexuality is the ultimate example of this. No matter what you are fucking, ultimately, the pleasure you are going to get from sex (or masturbating), is going to have more or less the same chemical effect. But the sheer variance, historically, in sexual taste, proves that sexuality, or the desire for it, is irreducible to the pleasure one gets from sex, because how this "pleasure" is facilitated, and how it relates to the consciousnesses of the subject, is what is of prime importance.


the general human condition

The "general human condition" he sais. WHAT GENERAL human condition can be abstracted from the PARTICULAR expressions of the human condition throughout the course of history? There is none, because there is no such thing as a "general human condition" outside the use of unscientific abstractions - abstractions which are unscientific, because rather than being empirically located in a single basis of existence, it is a general, over-reaching conclusion drawn from empirically observable phenomena ONLY as it relates to particular circumstances. Everything that it means to be human, is articulated within the context of the social order humans are immersed in. That means, EVEN IF how humans articulate, their feet, in two modes of production is similar, it is not because of a "general human condition", it is because what they have in common is that their feet relates to their conditions of life, which are entirely different, in a similar way, but NOT in the same way, because it is related to a different totality. Drug addiction, like religiosity as you attempt to say in a previous thread, has absolutely nothing to do with some abstract human condition in general, but relates to specific conditions of human life. That means, even if thus far there has always been drug addiction as an epidemic throughout everyday society, that does not demonstrate that drug addiction is a problem stemming from a "general human condition", it only means that each respective society, for reasons that are answerable only to their own inner logic as societies, in its own particular way generate the problem of drug addiction en masse. '


it's rather tiresome reading every complex form of behavior reduced to capitalism

"Reduced", he sais, as though there is a substrate of behavior that is outside the context that defines the conditions of human life itself. There is no humanity "outside of capitalism" for problems that occur in its context, even if similar problems existed in previous modes of life, because everything that it means to be human, is facilitated and exists under the context of capitalism and its various contradictions. The notion that we are "reducing" complex behavior to anything, is quite a fucking accusation, coming from someone who is literally reducing THIS SPECIFIC COMPLEX BEHAVIOR to the fact that "humans are pleasure seeking animals", and that "it's just the chemicals, bro". You are in no position to accuse anyone else of reductionism, because you have reduced the complex phenomena of drug addiction, in a way that is so juvenile and actually despicable for anyone who knows anyone who has gone through such a painful and soul-crushing experience, to "da chemicals, bro, humans are pleasure seeking, they just want the chemicals". Of course, it does come to a point where it is physical dependence that keeps people on drugs, but it's not even that simple: THIS PLEASURE, felt in the most filthy places, asbestos ridden abandon buildings, tattered couches of friends, cold alleyways at night, is a SLITHER of fucking life for these people, it is ALL they have. When one becomes an addict, they don't want to "go back" to the real world, because the real world IS a piece of fucking shit place, full of people who do not actually, properly cares about them, where everyone is alien from them. Drugs are not simply an escape - they are, for the addict, a FREEDOM from the conventions of everyday life, because these conventions are unfulfilling, alien, and have done NOTHING for them, where drugs have. So it's hard to go back to "everyday life", when you realize what a jerry rig, what a sham the cult of money, capital is. In tune with barbarous misanthropy of the haughty and arrogant bourgeois scum, you fail to realize the 'spiritual' (not supernaturally, but that dimension that defines you), i.e. deeper implications in consciousnesses of drug addiction, that reproduce the addict's depiction. Little is different from this, then any other kind of escapism, except this one is especially physically fatal and dangerous. Quite convenient for you, who is at this point a self-admitted bourgeois ideologue just waiting to either be restricted or banned, to claim that this refer to some "general human condition", which is "too complex" to be reduced to capitalism. Red Red Chile is under the pretension that he is speaking outside the context of capitalism, i.e. that he is so historically transcendent, that his own very conscious arguments are made from the standpoint of a "general human condition" outside of the ONLY CONTEXT that defines his life, i.e. that he can somehow abstract HIMSELF and HIS arguments from the context of capitalism in order to say that they are "too complex" to be "reduced" to capitalism. Cute, Red Red Chile, whose soul is trans-historic, is outside of capitalism when he makes such statements, outside of the context we call capitalism. Tell me, where does your identity, your positions, ideas, personality, how does it add up that somehow, these were wrought outside the context of capitalism? We should assume that Red Red Chile, if he was living in the Indus River Valley civilization, would have the same ideas, and same positions that he does now. No, bro, totally reasonable assumption you have there.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

If humans could be reduced to simple pleasure-seeking robots operating soley on biological impulses located in the "pleasure centers" of the brain, why do so many addicts spend their time and energy trying to get over their addiction? Why would an addict ever chose AA over their addiction? All problems aside with these kinds of organizations (and they are very problematic - I am familiar with some of their dubious ideological assumptions), the very existence of institutions built by addicts committed to overcoming their own addiction shows that they're more than just a neurological "pleasure center". They wouldn't be there on their own free will introducing themselves week after week, recounting the last time they did X to Y out of anger or in a drunken rage, they'd be at a bar getting drunk.

For that matter, wouldn't we just spend our lives farming and smoking opium? It sounds like fun to spend one's whole existence in some altered state of consciousness as high and blissful as a kite. If you're the Pavlovian rat, and you find some button that hits your reward center, wouldn't you just spend all eternity pressing that button over and over again? We don't do this.

[Red Red Chile]

I never said or even implied that they were. Living in a capitalist society can be traumatic and/or stressful for a multitude of reasons.


Let me check I'm not misunderstanding you. Are you trying to argue that regardless of circumstances, if people take something like heroin or cocaine and enjoy it, they're going to keep on doing it and become an addict because we are "pleasure-seeking organisms"?

There's a high likelihood of it, yes. 100% of the time in rats, much less so in humans, I'm sure. There's no way of testing on humans obviously because of legal and moral problems. But humans can 'delay gratification' or say no to happiness in the short term. We are still pleasure-seeking organisms, but the way we do it is very complex.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Hahaha you've never seen your aunt blow half her face off cause she was dicking around and held the gun the wrong way, have you?

Regardless of my idiot aunt, why would you want something to dull your urge lash out, and if you're here, specifically against capitalism? you're asking why people would want help coping with the collective shittiness of our lives
no words, man

[Quail]

There's a high likelihood of it, yes. 100% of the time in rats, much less so in humans, I'm sure. There's no way of testing on humans obviously because of legal and moral problems. But humans can 'delay gratification' or say no to happiness in the short term. We are still pleasure-seeking organisms, but the way we do it is very complex.

Okay. So what about people who have morphine or diamorphine in hospital as a painkiller? Why don't they rush out and try and score some on the black market as soon as they get discharged? I had morphine when I gave birth and it's a pretty wonderful drug, but that didn't make me start abusing opiates as soon as I got home. I've also used cocaine a few times, but I'm definitely not a cocaine addict - am I some kind of medical marvel? No, because the vast majority of people who use drugs don't go on to become addicts.

For example, "it is estimated that about 23 percent of individuals who use heroin become dependent on it." (Source) (http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin)

What makes those 23% different from the 77% who can apparently take heroin without becoming dependent on it? If your theory were true, and humans are just pleasure-seeking animals - since heroin is a very pleasurable drug, it would stand to reason that far more than 23% of people who used it would become addicted.

The thing is, to some people the pleasure from taking a drug is the only pleasure they can get. These are the people who are more likely to become addicted. The warm fuzzy opiate high is an illusory happiness, but it's better than no happiness at all. Some people get pleasure out of actually living their lives, and might find the potential risks of taking drugs (the hangover/come down, the possibility of losing their job, etc) outweigh the benefits. These people are unlikely to become addicts.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I would like to ask RRC again - why would addicts form and participate in "anonymous" groups on their own free will if they were fated to merely seek pleasure? Aside from the fact that they are fairly dreary affairs, they're clearly not getting their fix while going to an AA meeting. In fact, what they seek is social recognition for the progress they've made in combating their addiction.

Why would people ever quit something on their own? There's nothing more miserable than a long term smoker trying seriously to quit. Yet they do it anyways. The point is even though people like pleasurable things, their understanding of pleasure and how they set their priorities is itself socially determined in a system of common beliefs and norms. The point is people think rationally about what would make them happy, they don't just do whatever immediately triggers a positive emotional response.

[John Nada]

Wrong. Those rat park experiments used morphine, not cocaine. What's more, they could never be replicated - suggesting a contaminated experiment or fraud. Google 'Environment is not the most important variable in determining oral morphine consumption in Wistar rats'.That study noted the strain difference may have been a contributing factor. And morphine's a stimulant in rats anyway. Besides, mice and rats, particularly those strains breed for lab studies, have questionable relevance to humans. They're generally sickly and used because it's cheap and easy to work with in the Taylorist style lab that arose in the 50s-60s.

The "rat park" experiment is exceptional in two ways. One, it questions not just the individual rats, but turns it around to the researcher and the environment created. Two, it's more in line with observations in humans. Imperialist soldiers in Vietnam regularly used heroin to a point of addiction, yet quit as soon as they were moved from a semi-feudal warzone back to the US. Pain patients regularly use opioids to the point of physical dependency, yet quit with no signs of mental addiction out of the hospital.

And the environment works other way around too. There's impoverished communities like in Appalachia, Native American reservations and project housing complex that witness 50+% addiction rates when the "normal" rate is 10% at most. What could possibly be responsible for this besides the environment created by capitalism?


Gross simplification. A term like 'existential crisis' works better in application to the general human condition - that of never being fully satisfied, living in futility etc. It's way too neat to explain drug use as 'escaping capitalism'. I know this is a communist forum but it's rather tiresome reading every complex form of behavior reduced to capitalism.Capitalism is a mode of production that is for all practical purposes is pervasive worldwide. The productive forces to make fun drugs on a scale that could get everyone on the planet perma-high did not exist in previous modes of production, like feudalism, various non-European modes of production or ancient societies. The very technology to mass produce in a pure, concentrated form amphetamines, opioids, coke, tranquilizers, dissociative anesthetics, ect. did not exist before capitalism.

Part of what helped funded the rise of capitalism was selling liquor, tobacco and opium to colonized nations. The Triangular Slave Trade kidnapped slaves to make tobacco and sugar for rum, turned around and sold liquor and tobacco to the oppressed classes and nations, and repeat. The opium and later heroin trade in Asia gave the colonialists all the gold and silver in exchange for a hit. If anything, drugs are the epitome of imperialist-capitalism.

We have no way as of yet to test whether changing the mode of production from capitalism to a more egalitarian form reduces addiction. However, in much of Asia addiction dropped significantly after revolutions against the semi-feudal despotism arising from imperialist-capitalism. For example, China went from 20% of males addicted to heroin to it nearly being eliminated. Yet as soon as the Dengist capitalist "reforms"(basically neoliberal austerity) were carried out you now have not just heroin but meth and ketamine addiction becoming widespread, in spite of having just as harsh laws and a very pervasive police state, if not more so. You could argue it was because of harsh laws, but that doesn't explain why Iran, Saudi Arabia, modern PRC, Russia(another country experiencing a horrific addiction epidemic arising after the austerity of counterrevolution) and the US still have very bad drug epidemics, in spite of having harsh sentencing up to life imprisonment or even the death penalty for drug offenses.
There's a high likelihood of it, yes. 100% of the time in rats, much less so in humans, I'm sure. There's no way of testing on humans obviously because of legal and moral problems. But humans can 'delay gratification' or say no to happiness in the short term. We are still pleasure-seeking organisms, but the way we do it is very complex.Sugar and sweeteners are more addictive in rats than IV coke: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17668074 And the researchers noted a small percentage of rats could actually get addicted to coke. Had to force them. This is usually the case.

Why do Native American Reservations have high rates of addiction? Are they and other impoverished communities somehow more "pleasure seeking" than the general populous? It seems that for some strange reason the most pleasure-seeking of humans in the US happen to be in places that are damn near 3rd-World.:confused:

[Rafiq]

But what about the rockstars, celebrities, all of whom have grossly alienated and quite shitty lives, who - despite their wealth - live totally unfulfilling lives, who also do drugs? Why doesn't their money magically absolve them from being immersed in all the antagonisms of life in capitalism, the prostitution of their soul, identity by capital?

Don't people, despite their social condition with is not measured by wealth, upon making money simply live in a vacuum outside the misery of life in capitalism?

-RRC

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

And the environment works other way around too. There's impoverished communities like in Appalachia, Native American reservations and project housing complex that witness 50+% addiction rates when the "normal" rate is 10% at most. What could possibly be responsible for this besides the environment created by capitalism?

...

Why do Native American Reservations have high rates of addiction? Are they and other impoverished communities somehow more "pleasure seeking" than the general populous? It seems that for some strange reason the most pleasure-seeking of humans in the US happen to be in places that are damn near 3rd-World.:confused:

This is really the worst implication from views like RRC's. If we're addicted by our nature, that means that people in places like reservations are somehow naturally more inclined to addiction than others. Basically, the implication is that Native Americans must be neurologically hardwired for this kind of behavior in a way that others aren't. Aside from the numerous dangerous implications of such a belief, there's the fact that there are obvious historical conditions for such realities, and that these historical conditions map on perfectly with the historical emergence of these realities. Is it not relevant that the high rates of addiction started after their social organization was destroyed wholesale by the settler culture and replaced with systematized poverty? Instead of building a view that implies a kind of racial essentialism, we need to understand how people are shaped within social conditions, and how these social conditions themselves change with the historical unfolding of the society.

Also of note is the Native American response to the high rate of addiction. They, as rational agents, noticed what was happening to themselves and members of their community, and have built institutions and other mechanisms to counter addiction. Were people hardwired to make these kinds of choices, they would not build institutions to counter addiction.

[Rafiq]

But Red Red Chile, the great cynic he pretends to be, can just sit back and go "Heh, humans, they're just pleasure seeking animals", the zoologist himself who, by merit of his divine soul, has transgressed humanity and now looks down at us "humans" and how "Heh, that's just what humans do bro, that's how it is".

What a sick and degenerate society we live in - this is literally how people think. The only thing more disgusting is that there are self-proclaimed Leftists who think this way. A "human experiment" he said - is not possible for ethical/moral reasons. Think about what he is saying. The peripheral human, by the bourgeois subject, is so animalized, so devoid of basic consciousness and access to the enlightenment value of universal reason, that in his mind it would be possible to run such an experiment on humans, if only you would create a 'human habitat' that is equivalent to rat park. The notion of a human rat park, is genuinely fucking disgustingly stupid. It would never work, for the simple reason of basic human inter-subjectivity. Rats do not protest in their non-existent consciousness to being caged. Rats do not relate to the humans caging them, there is no relation of power between human and rat - rats are little more than small machines. But this shared space of consciousnesses between the human test-subjects, and the people testing them, already makes the notion of such an experiment laughable, whether the test subjects know they are being tested or not. The idea that you can form "experiments" that relate to social questions is pure stupidity. You can run experiments to see how people's bodies will react to certain chemicals, you can do all sorts of things of such a nature, but in no way is it possible to abstract yourself from inter-subjective space to the point where you could run a "human experiment" that relates to social questions you yourself are already a part of.

Frankly if I were in charge here, Red Red Chile would literally be banned for Freudian slips like this. I mean can any of you imagine how reactionary the implications of this pathology are, how sick, poisonous and thoroughly anti-democratic, rabidly degenerate it is? This is what I mean sometimes when I talk about defending the 'christian ethical legacy' against pagan wisdom. Wisdom is reactionary, wisdom speaks of "humans" in such a way, but the Christian legacy that is being eroded, that culminated into atheism, speaks in consideration, on behalf, and directly involving of the community constituted by humans themselves, so that it is unthinkable that one could abstract themselves and speak of 'humans' and 'what humans do'.

[Sewer Socialist]

This is really the worst implication from views like RRC's. If we're addicted by our nature, that means that people in places like reservations are somehow naturally more inclined to addiction than others. Basically, the implication is that Native Americans must be neurologically hardwired for this kind of behavior in a way that others aren't. Aside from the numerous dangerous implications of such a belief, there's the fact that there are obvious historical conditions for such realities, and that these historical conditions map on perfectly with the historical emergence of these realities. Is it not relevant that the high rates of addiction started after their social organization was destroyed wholesale by the settler culture and replaced with systematized poverty? Instead of building a view that implies a kind of racial essentialism, we need to understand how people are shaped within social conditions, and how these social conditions themselves change with the historical unfolding of the society.

Also of note is the Native American response to the high rate of addiction. They, as rational agents, noticed what was happening to themselves and members of their community, and have built institutions and other mechanisms to counter addiction. Were people hardwired to make these kinds of choices, they would not build institutions to counter addiction.

This is actually something I heard a lot growing up in a racist white household in a city with a relatively large maybe population.

Indians are genetically predisposed to addiction, they said, so they live in poverty, spending all their government checks on drugs. There's nothing we (white people) can do but pity them, maybe try to have some charities, have government agencies take their abused children away.

Sorry to repeat that filth, but this is indeed the racist logical conclusion of that horrible hypothesis. Likewise, that horrible hypothesis is the conclusion of the logic of racism.