From: dolan@nrlmry.navy.mil (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: drugs
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:26:47 GMT

Swan Wulfgur writes from South Africa:

> Do you always insult those whose opinions differ from your own,
> particularly when theirs are backed by scientific evidence and yours by
> heresay and anecdotal evidence?

Sorry, another correspondent who cannot read has broached my mailbox.
Granted, with your return address, English may not be high among your
skills inventory, so perhaps a bit of refreshing is in order.

The quoted "scientific evidence" was not original research, it was a
"review of published research".  In case you haven't been paying attention,
80-90% of all published research is utter BS, published for the sake of
publishing in a publish or perish universe, research done by those who
don't understand proper research methods, can't do the math, and are
peer reviewed by equally unqualified dottards.

I don't make that up on my own. I took my training in the calculus of
probability theory from a PhD statistician hired by the US National
Institutes of Health to help doctors design legitimate cancer research
protocols, who told me the same about the research MDs try to do there
without competent mathematical help.

In such a miasma of bad research, it is quintessentially easy for a
writer with a not-so-hidden agenda to pick and choose only the research
that supports that agenda.

> So if a researcher does a properly controlled study and the results
> don't agree with your opinions then they are self-serving?
                        ^^^^^^^^

Learn to differentiate opinions from experience.

If someone told you the sky was green, and quoted much published
research to that effect, would you stop believing your eyes, or trust
your experience to the contrary. I've heard for years from the foolish
and self-indulgent fuzzy thinkers of the net how safe recreational drug
use is. I have only to walk out on the street, read the newspaper, or
read reputable medical and mental health journals to find that the
opposite is true, and I can repeat that experiment daily if I lose
faith in its reliability.

>> I spent 23 years married to a substance abuse therapist. The
>> constant litany of murders, knifings, brain damaged patients,
>> robberies, and lives spent in squallor she had to convey would
>> depress a hyena.

> Now who is being one-sided?

So far, only those who appeal to "published research" to deny the
evidence of their senses, available anywhere you care to look.

> If you worked with alcohol addicts would you assume all alcohol
> drinkers were doomed to a similar fate?

Sigh.  Innumeracy again.

Statistics apply _only_ to large numbers of cases.  They have _no_
relevance to the individual case.

I know this is very hard to understand, but a person making the choice
to use recreational substances of abuse isn't protected by statistics,
unless those statistics read "zero". The only statistic that matters is
"what is the worst case scenario FOR ME if I use this stuff, and is it
worth the candle of momentary pleasure for the chance of that worst
case possibility?" Any other analysis is non-sane.

Statistics matter only when dealing with society as a whole, and again,
the analysis must be "what is the worst case scenario FOR SOCIETY if it
chooses to indulge the cravings of the recreational drug proponents by
legalizing drugs?"  The answer being a manyfold worse disaster than the
disaster of trying to deny self indulgence by force, the latter choice 
is the sane societal choice.

> A substance abuse therapist is the WORST place to go for factual
> information on any drug, legal or otherwise!

Only to one who seeks protection in the gobbledegook other drug
proponents publish, and wishes to avoid encountering any personal
evidence that his/her own choice to use drugs might turn out to be
incredibly inconvenient, whatever the "odds" to the contrary.

> You also seem to be a proponent of the 'It's not my fault, drugs
> (pornography, satanism or whatever) made me do it' philosophy.

Too late, the drug-impaired illiteracy list has already been posted on
this issue. You can have an honorable mention, though, since the path
to your site is probably pretty slow.

> The important question is: What percentage of all drug users were
> involved in murders, knifings, robberies, became brain damaged or spent
> their lives in squalor?

Nope, the important question To The Potential User is: "If _I_ take
this drug, do _I_ risk ending up one of those 'low statistical
likelihoods' bumming change on the street?" No other question is
important in the individual case.

To society, the important questions are: "Will rape, murder, and other
violent crimes; the number of functionally unemployable; and the number
of completely dysfunctional likely go up or down if a larger fraction
of society is operating drug impaired?" and "Do we the taxpayers want
to pay the added costs of taking care of these crimes and impairments
if the worst case scenario turns out to be the actual result of
recreational drug legalization, or is it cheaper to pay for the known
problems of drug interdiction as the smaller risk?" and "What is the
benefit TO SOCIETY of more widespread drug use, and does it outweigh
the worst case risks?"

>       Alcohol is a Drug       Caffeine is a Drug      Nicotine is a Drug
>                               Are you Anti-Drugs?

Those drugs among others, yes.

Kent, the man from xanth.
"The Birthright of humankind is the stars!"
--
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