Drugs and Addiction

Some students are surprised at some of our comments about drug use and addiction. Mainly, that's because the goal of a War on Drugs is to make extreme statements that terrify people into not doing them. As with any war, there is very little concern as to the truthfulness of the statements, since the goal of war is to win, not to be completely truthful. For example, people might be used to hearing that one or a handful of times using a hard drug, like heroin or cocaine, will more or less automatically turn a person into an addict. It isn't that simple. It is not uncommon for people to use these types of drugs a few times and then not use them again or use them occasionally without becoming chronic users. There are plenty of studies that have investigated this more rational perspective on drug use and addiction. Here is one web address to support our comments about this, for those who are interested:

http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/mediaguide/heroinmyths


Here's another link from a Parliament of Canada Senate Committee presentation by an expert on drug addiction from Simon Fraser University regarding the myth of drug-induced addiction:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/ille/presentation/alexender-e.htm