I do not mean to be rude, but the reason why you're feeling no empathy is because you assume that drug addiction is a choice that people make, turning away from better and brighter options and choosing the short road to an early death.

It isn't. It's generally a result of inability to deal with life, a job, trauma from their past etc. It is a result of social systems which allow people to sink to the point they need an escape. Look at any mental ward, most of the inmates (if allowed) will smoke. Same with various anon groups, smoking/coffee etc are almost encouraged as an alternate addiction to the one that will put them in a grave far earlier.

Addiction is a crutch, a way of escaping from something else.

The work by Carl Hart on addiction provides a lot of proof that when given social interaction and ways to reintegrate with society, addicts can and do have the fortitude to get off drugs. And that most drug addicts are fully functional, and drugs are a way for them to cope with the stresses or lack of control in their life.

http://www.drcarlhart.com/

To fix a problem, you first have to understand it. That does not require sympathy or empathy. That is basic science and it's based on evidence. That the DEA is freaking out over krokodil is because they don't understand that drug abuse in the US is a factor of the social situation people find themselves in. At least for the classes of people that will use a cheap and dangerous drug (not to put too fine a point on it, predominately black). It would not be unexpected that because of the supposed danger, users found with krokodil may end up with far harsher sentences than heroin users. Soaring African-American incarceration rates again?

Funny how we never see videos like this over oxycodone or cocaine abusers, or housewifes who will pop whatever prescription they can get their hands on. They are no less addicted, but it's a nice, clean, acceptable addiction that allows them to stumble on through life. Is that EIA?

Prescription Thugs trailer

What sucks ass is that because so many people DO abuse pain killers, it's becoming harder and harder to find a doctor that will prescribe them when they're needed and are the proper treatment out of a fear of being labeled a drug dealer.
My long term doctor just retired. I've been on heavy pain medications for over a decade for chronic back pain, and I have never abused them. The office has told me they have other doctors to take over his patients (lucky me, we have a severe doctor shortage here), but that they will NOT prescribe pain medication. This leaves me in a position where I've tried almost every non-medicinal treatment (PT, acupressure, acupuncture, chiropractors, heat, cold, etc) to no effect and I'm about to be deprived of the one treatment that works to make life bearable for me because other people abuse it.
It's like they are TRYING to force me (and others) to move to the black market and take more dangerous street drugs because some people do that after taking prescriptions.
That sucks ass.

Side note, I'm also a legal medical marijuana patient. That may have something to do with my not ever abusing my medications.

@RedSky

here is what i don't get.
how is it the governments business what i ingest in my own body for whatever reason?

may be it is for the relief of pain.
may be it is to alleviate stress or mental anguish,and even,in some cases,mental illnesses.
or maybe i just want to get high.

i realize you have already addressed the hypocrisy and horrible execution of,what basically comes down to a social issue,but how is this the governments business?

the science is in and weed has been proven to be fairly harmless,even in abusive situations.

the biggest problem america faces today,which includes booze and smokes,is prescription pain medication.which is basically heroin addiction,but since pain pills do not hold the stigma of heroin,it is not been addressed in any substantive way.oh..this country is arresting people in droves for selling and carrying but almost nary a PEEP in the form of education.

so why is government stepping into my business?
something i engage in at home,bother nobody and keep to myself.yet i am still deemed a criminal.yet my crime is a victimless crime.

if i drive my car,or operate heavy machinery while high,that is a different story and the law should be applied exactly as it is with booze for the exact same reasons.

the state should get out of my house and stop telling me which intoxicants are "state approved",because,quite frankly..i dont give it a shit.

this archaic and destructive social policy needs to go the way of the do-do.it serves no purpose any longer,and the massive propaganda campaign that was initiated by henry anslinger at the behest of big textile in the fucking 40's should not be given even the remotest credibility by todays standards.

people like their hooch.no matter what form it takes and the government has zero business dictating which "hooch" we choose.

I don't see it. In small doses you'll really only get the stimulant effect and not so much the hallucinogenic effect. May as well get a legit(ish) prescription for adderall.

Tobacco: 229875
Alcohol: 65678
Drunk Driving: 22204
Drug Abuse: 16423
Prescription Drug Overdose: 9852
..........
Gun related: 8,561


Dishonest use of numbers. the "gun related" tallys the number of people killed by gun violence ie people shot and killed intentionally by other people, it does not include suicide (about 20k dead a year) or accidental shootings (about 700 dead a year)

Secondly, lets look at these other causes of death: Lets see, all of these, except drunk driving, is people KILLING THEMSELVES, unintentionally. Theres a pretty big difference. Drunk driving is ILLEGAL, and nobody is arguing that it would be a good idea to have more of it. And you know, its not like we're trying to get more people killed by tobacco, for instance, in fact, lots of people are working on trying to lower the number of deaths from all these other things, but just because more people die from alcohol or tobacco use, ten to fifteen thousand murder by guns a year doesnt really count??

Secondly, people are on the whole not actually working to get guns BANNED, but to implement restrictions, perhaps in the same way owning and driving a car has its restrictions. Cars, you see, are not banned. But there are RESTRICTIONS. Does anyone feel there arent enough cars around?. No. But there are restrictions. You need a drivers license. you need to follow some traffic rules. Similar things could be implemented for guns. It would be a start.
Another place to start is gun CULTURE, which is probably the intent of this video, changing people minds about guns.

Heres a challenge to your statistics: The number of people SAVED by guns. We always hear of the elusive situation of a bad criminal breaking in to kill your family, but luckily dads an NRA member and chases the bad guy away with a trusty old gun. How often does shit like that ever actually happen?

So, lets start a list shall we?

1. Incorrectly secured gun
2. Incorrectly secured gun
3. Incorrectly secured gun(s)
4. Legally owned gun(s) that were registered. Due to a series of errors, the shooter was not stopped.

2015 deaths so far in the USA:

Tobacco: 229875
Alcohol: 65678
Drunk Driving: 22204
Drug Abuse: 16423
Prescription Drug Overdose: 9852
..........
Gun related: 8,561

When you break it down, this is fucking low brow propaganda to scare people into banning something without a true understanding of how that will affect their other freedoms.

http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm.....if you want some facts instead of this crap.

And the average cost of this is just short of $1,000,000,000. So people wonder why their prescriptions cost so much.

How do they know what prescription to wrap on this little rodent?

I wear corrective glasses and am colour blind. I get about just fine with imperfect colour vision but would have a horrible time without my prescription glasses.
I think the prescription glasses cost is more justified as the lenses are unique to the wearer, whereas he enChroma lenses seem to be 'off the rack' from what I could tell on their website, I could be completely wrong however.

I wouldn't mind testing out a pair to see the difference, but from what I understand they simply enhance the difference between the hues you have difficulty distinguishing rather than actually improving your vision in any way.
For people like the Dad in the vid the price tag might be worth it, judging by his reaction, so it's all subjective.

I had never heard of these -- I'm still a bit baffled as to how they could possibly work. I'm not colorblind myself but a good friend is red/green colorblind, I'll have to see if he knows about them.

Assuming $400 is an accurate price, it still really doesn't seem that expensive to me. I'm pretty extremely nearsighted -- roughly minus 8 -- and my glasses (with frames) already cost almost that much just because my prescription is on that far end of the bell curve. Without glasses I can't see a damn thing more than 3-4 inches in front of my face, so I basically *need* them no matter the price.

Actually, I remember having a reaction somewhat like this guy when I got glasses for the first time ("holy crap! I can see *leaves* on trees!"), and my eyes were much better then than they are now...

I can't speak to Canada's system, but I can weigh in on Medicare quality of care. My Grandmother, the woman who raised me, was diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 70's. Since I was helping to take care of her at the time, I got to see what I have to look forward to in my later life.

Consistently we had to wait for treatments to be approved and she was often delayed for patients that were not on Medicare. Additionally, every single therapy or quality of life aid was scrutinized beyond belief.

As an example, the doctor gave her a prescription for an oxygen tank and delivery system after they removed part of her lung that was not responding to chemo. Medicare refused to cover it without an 'oxygen saturation level test'. This 'test' was horrible. She had to try to breathe without the machine for multiple minutes, struggling and gasping for air. It was fucking brutal to watch, but the people that Medicare sent to verify didn't give a shit. They basically told me that if her saturation wasn't low enough after 15 minutes, she couldn't be covered for the machine. I couldn't take it, so I told them to fuck off out of her house and paid out of my own pocket for the rental.

These are just some examples, there were others before she died that made it quite clear that Medicare is not quality care. It's basically the bare minimum they have to give you to keep you alive. So this video comparing Canada's care to Medicare doesn't reassure me in the slightest and it's almost certainly an unfair comparison to their system. I can tell you I am dreading making the swap to Medicare in 20-25 years, let alone being forced into something similar sooner. As far as ACA, I don't really care. It's probably good for people who don't have good jobs or who are unemployed, but I will be more than happy to hang onto my extremely good insurance provided through my employment.

Sure lucky760, I'll do Splenda, since some varieties of Coke Zero have Splenda in them.

First off it is important to note that the majority of the anti-sweetener "science" has been done by one man: Dr. Joseph Mercola. Now, watch out here, because his name is deceptive. You see, Mercola is an osteopathic physician. Osteopathy is a form of pseudoscience that believes that all pathology can be solved by manipulation of the bones and muscles. There is little science to back up these claims because they are clearly insane and worthy of ridicule. So, much like his doctorate, the claims he makes against sweeteners are pseudoscientific. A number of his beliefs are: that AIDS is not cause by HIV but by psychological stress; that immunizations and prescription drugs shouldn't be prescribed but people should instead buy his dietary supplements; that vaccinations are bad for you and your children (a belief which is the cause of recent outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and mumps); and that microwaves are dangerous machines that irradiate their products (they do, but not with the kind of radiation he is thinking of). Since he made a movie called Sweet Mistery: A Poisoned World, he has been at the forefront of anti-sweetener rhetoric. If you watch the movie, note how hilariously bad it is at actual science; the majority of the "evidence" is people claiming side effects after having ingested something with a sweetener in it (anecdotes are worth nothing in science except perhaps as a reason for researching further). So, you have a movement against something seen as "artificial" by a man who is not a doctor, not a scientist and is clearly lacking in the basics of logic.

Now, Splenda. Created by Johnson and Johnson and a British company in the seventies, it's primary sweetener ingredient is sucralose. The rest of it is dextrose, which as I have said above, is really just d-glucose and is safe for consumption in even very large quantities. So really, we are asking about sucralose. Sucralose is vastly sweeter than sucrose (usually around ~650 times) and thus only a very small amount is needed in whatever it is you are trying to sweeten. The current amount that is considered unsafe for intake (the starting point where adverse effects are felt) is around 1.5g/kg of body weight. So for the average male of 180lbs, they would need to ingest 130g of sucralose to feel any adverse effects. This is compared to the mg of sucralose that you will actually be getting every day. The estimated daily intake of someone who actually consumes sucralose is around 1.1mg/kg, which leaves a massive gap. Similarly to aspartame, if you tried to ingest that much sucralose, you would be incapable due to the overwhelming sweetness of the stuff.

There is some evidence that sucralose may affect people in high doses, but once again, this is similar to the issues with aspartame, where the likelihood of you getting those doses is extremely unlikely.

The chemistry of sucralose is actually way too complicated to go into, but suffice it to say that unlike aspartame, sucralose is not broken down in the body at all and is simply excreted through the kidney just like any other non-reactive agent. The reason that it tastes sweet is because it has the same shape as sucrose except that some of the hydroxy groups are replaced with chlorine atoms. This allows it to fit in the neurotransmitters in the tongue and mouth that send you the sensation of sweetness without also giving you all of those calories. Once it passes into the bloodstream it is dumped out by the kidneys without passing through the liver at all.

In sum, if sweeteners were bad for you, they wouldn't be allowed in your food. Science is not against you, it is the only thing working for everyone at the same time. The reason sugar has gotten around this is because we have always had it. If you want to be healthier, don't drink pop, drink water or milk (unless you are lactose intolerant, then just drink water). Don't drink coconut milk, or gatorade, or vitamin water. Assume that when a company comes out with something like "fat free" it really reads "now loaded with sugar so it doesn't taste like fucking cardboard." Assume that when a company says something is "natural" it is no more natural than the oils you put in your car. IF you want to live and eat healthy, stay on the outside of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles. All of the processed food is in the aisles, not on the outsides and the companies know that you don't want to miss anything. Make your food, don't let someone else do it. And never, ever buy popped popcorn, anywhere, the mark-up on that shit is insane.