> I believe addiction is a disease, but treatment is elusive.
Treatment is elusive because it isn't possible in the traditional sense.
The phenomenon is the exploitation of two things: the vulnerability of humans to chemicals, and the inability of communities to protect their free spaces from the outcomes of humans abusing chemicals.
Free spaces are a sacrifice zone. Legalisation of addictive drugs, at scale, will destroy what we value as community.
What if we make treatment basically consist of some sort of genetic or other biotechnological intervention that essentially tweaks the vulnerability? Can't be worse than a jail + thousands of never-terminating under any circumstance collateral penalties.
Someone elsewhere in this HN discussion compared the support of people destroying themselves with drugs to being like providing hospice (palliative) care.
If we legalised all drugs, we would need to protect our communities, not abandon our communities to people destroying themselves.
Treatment is elusive because it isn't possible in the traditional sense.
The phenomenon is the exploitation of two things: the vulnerability of humans to chemicals, and the inability of communities to protect their free spaces from the outcomes of humans abusing chemicals.
Free spaces are a sacrifice zone. Legalisation of addictive drugs, at scale, will destroy what we value as community.