<p>My best friend in my childhood is an addict. I haven’t spoken to him since his last OD when they thought he wasn’t going to pull out of it. He’s been in and out of prison/juvey since he was ~14. Every time I think he has his life together, he relapses. </p>
<p>Cnp, your friend is a very, very rare exception. The vast, overwhelming majority of people who do pot will never do anything harder than alcohol. The high that you get from pot is so much different than the high that you get from heroin. It’s not a “stronger” or “better” high like the “gateway” theorist people want you to believe. </p>
<p>Hmmm. I just keep thinking that it is possible that MOST drug addicts smoked pot before trying harder drugs but MOST pot smokers never become addicted to opiates.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with the sentiment that people who use heroin have a death wish. People who use heroin, like all of us at some time or another, made a bad decision to try something that had profound consequences. Most likely at a time in their life that they were unlikely to consider the long term outcome. Continuing to use it is, well, an addiction. Once that ball starts rolling, it is unlikely to stop. Saying that they have a death wish seems dismissive to me.</p>
<p>Nearly half of the US adult population has admitted to smoking weed at some point in their lives. That’s not even counting those who won’t admit it.
I’m sure you could find quite a lot of things that most heroin users have done before trying drugs that, also, half of Americans have done.
Maybe we should say riding a roller coaster is a gateway to drugs. </p>
<p>I agree with Niquii that there are just some people that have an “addictive” personality. I’ve taken adderall, vicodin, and a host of other pills both prescribed and not prescribed (no, not for the high, for the pain) and I haven’t the slightest desire to use them again when I’m feeling OK. I think I got incredibly lucky because addiction runs in my family (4 of my 6 uncles are alcoholics and one died from alcohol and drugs). </p>
<p>Having studied 1 addict extensively and in the process of writing a book about him, I agree with the addictive behavior aspects discussed above. I know of only 1 person who hasn’t tried pot and none who haven’t had a drink, yet most do not become addicts. Whether it is due to psychological or genetic factors is unclear. Especially in the case of teenagers, it often isn’t clear whether drugs have caused their psychological issues or the issues resulted in their addiction.</p>
<p>Overall, it looks like they are being overprescribed, given the rise in abuse of opiod prescription painkillers fuelled by availability (presumably recreational users using the leftovers from friends’ or relatives’ prescriptions). For example, four times as many Americans have tried prescription painkillers for recreational use compared to those who have tried heroin.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about my nephew in reading this thread. He’s in his mid-20s and has had a hellish addiction problem for more than 10 years. I think he started self-medicating with alcohol when he was 14-15, found pot easy to obtain, then moved on to prescription opioids (legally obtained from an MD with questionable ethics), and then went to heroin when he couldn’t get the legal drugs any longer.</p>
<p>I say “self-medicating” because he is easily the most highly-strung person I know. As an infant, he was often inconsolable. If you tickled him once, you’d never do it again because he would shriek with pain or rage. There is something off in his nervous system, and he found relief in using drugs to take the edge off of being his usual self. </p>
<p>This has broken his family’s heart. In typical fashion, he’s done stints in rehab, has been arrested several times for possession or driving infractions, couldn’t graduate from college despite being extremely bright, was unemployed or very under-employed for long periods, etc. He could not have had better or more loving parents. And there but for the grace of God go all of us whose children are not addicts.</p>
<p>Of course, people with chronic pain may be the indirect victims of the abusers, because a patient who keeps asking for more prescription painkillers fits the profile of an abuser or one who is giving the drugs to an abuser, so physicians may become suspicious. People with chronic pain who use such drugs frequently may also become more vulnerable to dependency and addiction.</p>
<p>Yes of course, ucb. My earlier comment was about the mismanagement of chronic pain, but your psots were about the abuse of these meds, I am assuming you mean by non pain patients. I am not sure why you are conflating the two. I was merely making an point that because of the abuse of these meds, the victims are at times the chronic pain patients who cannot get adequate relief due to the risks of the meds, and perhaps the risk of prescribing too many. Thre have been pain specialists arrested for “overprescribing” when they may have been well meaning drs trying to treat their pain patients.</p>
[quote]
And ther are those whomight argue that pain management is often poorly done because of the underprescribing of adequate pain Rx.<a href=“hate%20the%20absence%20of%20post%20#s!!”>/quote</a> . Perhaps you missed my point.</p>
<p>@eptr Regarding my “death wish” remark, it wasn’t meant as dismissive. I meant it seriously. Given that heroin is absolutely known to everyone to be intensely addictive, I think that a person who chooses to use it must at some level be deeply self-destructive. </p>
<p>My H had a major surgery last year. In the years leading up to it, docs acknowledged his pain levels but didn’t treat it. They refused to give anything more than a mild muscle relaxant. Large quantities of ibuorofen were consumed, alternating with naproxen. </p>
<p>He sucked up the pain, but quality of life was pretty rough. It wasn’t until discovering the benefits to medical marijuana thatche could get some relief.</p>
<p>The irony - after the surgery, gave several prescriptions for heavy duty stuff and even 6 months later, still prescribing opiates. He rarely takes those. Side effects are unpleasant. </p>
<p>I think the trend is for docs to err on the side of less pain meds. They are worried patients will become addicted. </p>
<p>Not every person with chronic pain gets relief from surgery. Some also do get addicted to the prescriptions. It is a tough situation. </p>
<p>I am just glad we live in a state where he had access to med marijuana. It has helped him far more than harmed him. </p>
<p>And he is not addicted to it. He probably drank more alcohol to ease the pain prior to discovering it. Alcohol kills more people every year than heroin, by the way. </p>
<p>"Regarding my “death wish” remark, it wasn’t meant as dismissive. I meant it seriously. Given that heroin is absolutely known to everyone to be intensely addictive, I think that a person who chooses to use it must at some level be deeply self-destructive. "</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about that. There are people who have used heroin, stopped and gone on to other drugs who aren’t necessarily self destructive.</p>