"Can't" is one four-letter word I don't like to use.
I don't know too much about crack, but I do know that in Great Britain, heroin addiction is managed effectively in many cases. Heroin is not totally illegal there, last I heard. An addict may register with the government and will receive a meager ration of diacetyl morphine. Enough to stave off withdrawal symptoms in an addict, but not enough to get a hardcore user high.
As far as crack goes, I've actually met a man who appeared to be a crack adict. He was a well-educated white guy who spoke the English of well-educated people. He was trying to convince me to go buy some crack with him. Apparently, he didn't have enough money to buy enough rocks for himself. I talked with him for a while but ended up passing on his proposed adventure, much to his chagrin.
I don't think it's the drugs themselves that make a taste for them unmanageable so much as the fact that one must go through the black market to obtain them. If cocaine were legal, there would be no such thing as crack. In fact, Queen Victoria was rather fond of cocaine lozenges from what I've heard. They were popular for relief of sore throats and gentle stimulation of the mind. They were mostly sugar. Cocaine was still legal at the time.
Because opium, heroin, and cocaine are all illegal, the only forms of those drugs likely to be found on the streets are those which can be transported internationally with the lowest risk and highest profit margin for black marketeers. That means most illegal opium will be made into heroin and most cocaine that makes its way into poor communities will be made into crack. In other words, the War on Drugs created crack and junk-laced street heroin.
I'm sure that someone addicted to opium or coca could function perfectly well if such substances were available at every corner pharmacy. Much the same way as every smoker is able to function properly because tobacco is universally available to adults.
In the case of those addicted to the point of non-functionality, rationing is the best way to control such an addicition. Dosage can be gradually tapered if an addict has the will to take the necessary steps to recovery. Really, a true addict doesn't take drugs to get high so much as to maintain normalcy.
So while many drugs are dangerously addictive and potentially lethal if taken in certain dosages with a certain frequency, the drugs themselves are not to blame. I myself have used cocaine on a few occasions (and I would do it again), but I am certainly not an addict. If these drugs and their botanical progenitors were legal, we wouldn't have the underground drug culture as we know it, and we wouldn't have junkies as we know them.
In general, the "addictive" drugs we know of are no more harmful than alcohol (when purity is guaranteed). Plenty of people have recovered from alcoholism, and plenty of people have kicked the cocaine or heroin habit. It's not easy, and it may require special intervention. But for every addict that has to admit defeat and seek help, there are at least a few who continue to live as junkies and keep their jobs. Some can manage it, some cannot.
There is no universal rule of "it can't be managed" in this domain. It's highly subjective and highly personal.
I don't know too much about crack, but I do know that in Great Britain, heroin addiction is managed effectively in many cases. Heroin is not totally illegal there, last I heard. An addict may register with the government and will receive a meager ration of diacetyl morphine. Enough to stave off withdrawal symptoms in an addict, but not enough to get a hardcore user high.
As far as crack goes, I've actually met a man who appeared to be a crack adict. He was a well-educated white guy who spoke the English of well-educated people. He was trying to convince me to go buy some crack with him. Apparently, he didn't have enough money to buy enough rocks for himself. I talked with him for a while but ended up passing on his proposed adventure, much to his chagrin.
I don't think it's the drugs themselves that make a taste for them unmanageable so much as the fact that one must go through the black market to obtain them. If cocaine were legal, there would be no such thing as crack. In fact, Queen Victoria was rather fond of cocaine lozenges from what I've heard. They were popular for relief of sore throats and gentle stimulation of the mind. They were mostly sugar. Cocaine was still legal at the time.
Because opium, heroin, and cocaine are all illegal, the only forms of those drugs likely to be found on the streets are those which can be transported internationally with the lowest risk and highest profit margin for black marketeers. That means most illegal opium will be made into heroin and most cocaine that makes its way into poor communities will be made into crack. In other words, the War on Drugs created crack and junk-laced street heroin.
I'm sure that someone addicted to opium or coca could function perfectly well if such substances were available at every corner pharmacy. Much the same way as every smoker is able to function properly because tobacco is universally available to adults.
In the case of those addicted to the point of non-functionality, rationing is the best way to control such an addicition. Dosage can be gradually tapered if an addict has the will to take the necessary steps to recovery. Really, a true addict doesn't take drugs to get high so much as to maintain normalcy.
So while many drugs are dangerously addictive and potentially lethal if taken in certain dosages with a certain frequency, the drugs themselves are not to blame. I myself have used cocaine on a few occasions (and I would do it again), but I am certainly not an addict. If these drugs and their botanical progenitors were legal, we wouldn't have the underground drug culture as we know it, and we wouldn't have junkies as we know them.
In general, the "addictive" drugs we know of are no more harmful than alcohol (when purity is guaranteed). Plenty of people have recovered from alcoholism, and plenty of people have kicked the cocaine or heroin habit. It's not easy, and it may require special intervention. But for every addict that has to admit defeat and seek help, there are at least a few who continue to live as junkies and keep their jobs. Some can manage it, some cannot.
There is no universal rule of "it can't be managed" in this domain. It's highly subjective and highly personal.
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