But it really makes sense only if you assume that relying on anecdotal data that illustrates humans’ dearth of natural abilities at statistical analyses is ‘good sense’.

As a species we’re sucktastic at accuracy in pattern recognition. From an evolutionary perspective, false positives (thinking the sound you heard was a predator rather than the wind rustling in the trees that it actually was) are favored over false negatives (thinking its the wind when its really a predator.) So we see false patterns smashingly well. This is the reason that remedies like kerosene on a sugar cube are suggested… because most of the time when you do that, people get better. And we preferentially remember the times it worked over the times where it didn’t.

So its like using Galen’s description of a remedy he proffered: “All who drink of this remedy recover in a short time, except those whom it does not help, who all die. Therefore, it is obvious that it fails only in incurable cases.”

The point is that just because you haven’t seen someone harmed by a treatment, that doesn’t mean its safe and just because a person got better after a treatment that doesn’t mean its effective. In context of the OP’s full post I would then suggest that a logical drug policy would be to study the repercussions of decriminalizing (and/or legalizing) each drug rather than just saying: it was criminalize for a bad reason, lets make it free at every corner grocery.

And until the 60′s no one in my family ever used a seatbelt… and no one had any obvious negative side effects from not using them.

Or to quote Roger Brinner: The plural of anecdote is ‘Not data’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Etymology

FYI: You have no free speech “rights” on private property such as this site (and if you think you do you have a poor understanding of the Constitution). If the site owners asked me to leave, I’d go without them having to issue an ISP ban to keep me out and wouldn’t even return through a proxy to be a troll or anything. They could delete everything I’ve posted and I’d have no recourse. But they haven’t (yet, lol) so I’m still here fucking around. “Fuck” offends prudish busybodies. Who do you think “retarded” (used pejoratively) offends? Would a “less retarded” use of the word be something like “Hey Ketchup, let’s fuck?” Here’s a tip: Investing oneself into one’s online persona too deeply will result in elevated blood pressure from the stress caused by taking the pixels too personally. Perhaps a dollop of Paregoric is in order?

Incidentally, I wouldn’t restrict anyone’s right to spout uninformed speculative opinions about drugs or the motivations people have for using them even if I could, but when those people actually begin to act on their ignorance then it’s more than mere speech and I respond in kind. You propose restricting other people’s right to self-determination by arbitrarily labeling drugs according to your uninformed opinions (i.e., this one is ok to decriminalize but that one isn’t). As the stridency of such ignorance increases so does the intensity of my response, which has been very mild so far in this case since your statements were not militant or extreme either.

But ignorance is not the same as stupidity. We’re all ignorant of quite a bit, but it’s curable with a bit of studying. Stupidity is forever. Which one are you? BTW, there are no such thing as “unalienable rights” when you get right down to it, so by “right to self-determination” I really mean “the power to make my personal choices stick.” No one gives us things like that; if we’ve lost them then we have to fight for them back in the face of strong and sometimes violent opposition. I’m more used to dealing with people who say things like casual drug users “ought to be taken out and shot” (an infamous quote from former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates; with cops like that, who needs gangsters?).

An elitist pick-and-choose attitude (this drug is ok, that drug is not) is a result of taking sips of the War on (people with) Drugs kool-aid and is one reason the U.S. has disproportionate sentencing for exactly the same molecule depending on the form it’s in (cocaine vs. crack) and why you can get a legal ‘script for a highly addictive and potentially fatal drug like Xanax for anxiety but can’t legally consume non-addictive and non-lethal cannabis in any form for any reason in most localities yet. Well fuck that noise. Yeah, I said it! And I’ll say it again if I have to, lol. People are suffering and dying and being caged in vast numbers for nothing more than greed and bullshit, and all you can think of as a response is “don’t say fuck”!?!? Stupidity, ignorance, or knowledge; the choice is yours.

Condiment: And calling something “so retarded” is such a brilliant and enlightened way to show me the folly of my ways. Nice one!
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Anyone who is over 12 and insists on shouting F*** on posts like these is making a completely retarded use of the word.

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Village Idiot: “And “4-letter words?” Are you, like, 12? “Fuck” is emphasis.”

And “retarded” is like more “emphasis.”
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Village Idiot: “Now stay the fuck out of my head with your arbitrary notions about molecules, mm’kay?”
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On the contrary, you can stay out of my free speech rights (and everyone else’s) to say anything I wish about drugs or anything else.

The only genuine, sustainable pharmaceutical cure for heroin addiction is ibogaine, which also cures addictive behavior in general for a large percentage of those who use it therapeutically. Oddly enough, it was banned long before almost anyone heard of it, so I think the pharmaceutical companies discovered it and decided they didn’t like how well it worked. Still, there are underground clinics in NYC and other cities (plus legal ones in Mexico) that are staffed by doctors and last time I checked charge about $1500 for several days of treatment for heroin and cocaine addicts (compare that to the cost of conventional rehab that rarely works).

Ibogaine works best for opiates because it fits into the same receptor sites and so the addict kicks the habit without going through the hideous withdrawal symptoms normally associated with that class of drugs (although they will be laying on the floor tripping for a few days since it’s a psychedelic sedative, but that part is integral to the treatment since addiction is in our head). William S. Burroughs wrote of something called “apo-morphine” that supposedly cures opiate addiction, but I haven’t heard anything else about it and so I don’t know if there’s anything to it.

As bad as kicking opiate addiction is, it won’t kill someone. The only drugs that have withdrawal symptoms sufficiently severe to kill someone trying to quit cold-turkey are alcohol, Valium, and Xanax (and possibly other benzodiazepines). Incidentally, they all work by inhibiting brain function in various ways.

Liquid cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic as late as 1980 – my spouse had it applied before a sinus procedure. I’d guess it is probably still used for this, accounting for the Schedule II listing.