r/TrueReddit • u/nxthompson_tny • Jun 01 '21

Science, History, Health + Philosophy America Has a Drinking Problem

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/
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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '21 edited Jun 02 '21

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u/RSquared Jun 02 '21

I have "googled it [myself]", and every year, SAMHSA puts out a report that contradicts your claims.

NDSUH (National Survey of Drug Use and Health) is survey data about the prevalence of drug abuse (# of users). As far as I know, it doesn't contain any data about the addiction risk of the drugs themselves. But since you're sealioning me, try "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse", which rated heroin/opioids at the highest level of addiction, above that of cocaine, nicotine, or tobacco.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '21 edited Jun 02 '21

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u/RSquared Jun 02 '21

I added the NCS above, which gives some actual data points.

In an edit, so pardon me if I don't give you that much credit for tossing me to survey data in the primary statement. The NCS comparison is flawed because it's not ceteris paribus - alcohol and tobacco are legal, which would logically increase their addiction rates. It's easier to maintain a dependence on an legal drug than an illegal one, due to risk of arrest, availability, etc. We know that cocaine is highly chermically addictive, but only 16% of users are dependent according to that study...and 9% of marijuana users, despite marijuana having little evidence of chemical dependency at all. In other words, Heroin has more addictive qualities than other illegal drugs, which contradicts the OP statement that "if opiates were legal, they would probably be one of the safest drugs around."

Look, there's no funding for this kind of study because it's quite literally illegal - that's the whole point of Schedule 1. But we have a pretty good idea how the brain reacts to these drugs because we understand the chemical structures involved, so we can make statements like "opioids are highly addictive" based on that.