Psychopathology and Drugs

[Mole]

Actually, we are not. This is a legal designation that properly belongs to school staff, babysitters, scout leaders, and others in whose physical custody parents leave their children for a time. That transfer of authority never happens here. This means our responsibility to give good advice to our younger members and to maintain a wholesome environment for them may be a moral one, but isn't a legal one. Actually, we should provide the same to our members of all ages.

This is true, as you so often are, Coriolis: our responsibility is not a legal one but a moral one. And I for one think the moral responsibility is more important than the legal one.

And I for one think we should rise above the moral squalor of justifying the criminal use of drugs to young teenagers.

It's true we can't be taken to Court for justifying the criminal use of drugs to young teenagers, but we can be convicted in the court of our conscience.

 

[Coriolis]

This is true, as you so often are, Coriolis: our responsibility is not a legal one but a moral one. And I for one think the moral responsibility is more important than the legal one.

And I for one think we should rise above the moral squalor of justifying the criminal use of drugs to young teenagers.

It's true we can't be taken to Court for justifying the criminal use of drugs to young teenagers, but we can be convicted in the court of our conscience.

So your objection to any discussion of illegal drugs is exactly that - that they are considered illegal?

 

[vannawilde]

Drugs and alcohol mask anxiety and depression, and mental illness.

So those suffering from anxiety, depression, or mental illness instinctively know they are damaged and damaging and they seek to hide it from others, and even from themselves.

And being so damaged they seek to recruit others, particularly young teenagers on Typology Central, in order to normalise damage.

And behind it all is a huge international business, with its own vast untaxed cash flow, and relentless propaganda.

If drug use were decriminalized or legalized the rate of untaxed cash flow would slow. If people could legally obtain drugs from pharmacy, the drugs would also be pure and use would be monitored. Your mentality towards illegal drug use is backwards and is only perpetuating the problem.

 

[Mole]

So your objection to any discussion of illegal drugs is exactly that - that they are considered illegal?

The criminal use of drugs is politically correct. And it is true I am politically incorrect, I am so politically incorrect I refuse to use the mbti jargon. Gosh, I am almost as politically incorrect as a cartoonist. After so much incorrectness, what forgiveness?

 

[Mole]

If drug use were decriminalized or legalized the rate of untaxed cash flow would slow. If people could legally obtain drugs from pharmacy, the drugs would also be pure and use would be monitored. Your mentality towards illegal drug use is backwards and is only perpetuating the problem.

We have decriminalised marijuana, we have free injecting rooms with a qualified medical attendant to inject anything from heroin to steroids.

And we lead the world in our successful campaign against cigarettes and nicotine. And the tobacco companies are very unhappy with us. Fortunately we are sovereign nation and have taken on the tobacco companies and beat them. And so we find it easy not to kowtow to political correctness.

Cigarettes are not only damaging to our physical health but also to our psychological health, and heroin, ice, and cocaine are even more damaging. And as this is a psychological site, I emphasis the psychological damage. And the first rule in psychological care is do no damage.

 

[Mole]

Body and Psyche

We are all familiar with care of the body but we seem less familiar with care of the psyche.

Like the body the psyche grows and develops, paralleling the growth and development of our brain. And our brain reaches its full development at about 22 years of age.

Our physical growth takes the form of development windows where we have an opportunity to develop that is not repeated. So if we fail to develop in an appropriate window, we are hampered in our subsequent development.

And although our brain is fully grown only by about 22 years of age, the brain remains adaptable throughout life. So we have the possibility of psychological growth throughout life.

So the first rule of psychology is do no harm. Unfortunately Typology Central is a psychopathic institution where members routinely seek to harm each other psychologically. And this seems normal as it reflects the manners and mores of American society.

And Typology Central does not encourage psychological growth rather it sidelines us into a jargon, the mbti jargon, which we repeat over and over.

Mbti jargon offers us a respite from psychological damage, but at the cost of psychological growth.

Mbti is like religion: the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions, which only demands we remain infantile, and forego our psychological growth.

 

[Lark]

So your objection to any discussion of illegal drugs is exactly that - that they are considered illegal?

I'm extremely reticent to comment in threads like these because unlike the current zeitgheist or social norm I dont use drugs, other than a select set of prescription drugs and I'm not over the moon about that, I've never used drugs, I dont consider caffine or alcohol to be drugs and most people who I know who are actual drug users, whether they are dependent addicts or dabblers, would not consider them be drugs either and laugh at the constant liberal media or adolescent referencing of those habits to rationalise other ones.

I think the point has entirely been lost that the substances being discussed ARE illegal, usually not for no reason, and I see no reason why the discussions about purity vs. adulteration, supply chains, crimes and consequences can be set to one side as a sort of singular externality which would not exist where all substances legalised for sale by mega big pharma corporations (which is what the inevitable outcome of legalisation would be, Weeds did this well in an imaginary, fictional universe, although the experiences of so called legitimate businesses such as medicine man in the US in states were decriminalisation has taken place have been the same, those enterprises, which are not hoods, pushers and neighbourhood dealers, are only building businesses for sale to big pharma or big tobacco and alcohol).

Anyway, I know most drug users are not going to care whether they get their substances from a people trafficker or McDonalds, the whole legalisation debate is about will police, social services, addiction clinics, counsellors, parents, concerned family members or anyone and everyone else let them alone to experience their preferred altered state, a not too deep thinking hedonism which sees no negative consequences, or none that cant be minimised and rationalised away so that point itself is even moot, no personal health consequences, no societal consequences, no intergenerational consequences.

The illegality of these substances is largely tied to these denied consequences, that's a reality, there are principles of harm and significant harm that any properly constituted legal, societal authority can not ignore, that long wants public order and the rule of law to continue. Now you can say that you just dont care about that, which is grand, there's going to be plenty of people who do say that, or something after the fashion of that, or perhaps dont say that but whose behaviour tells a very different story from what they say, but that remains the case whether you want to accept it or not.

 

[Lark]

We are all familiar with care of the body but we seem less familiar with care of the psyche.

Like the body the psyche grows and develops, paralleling the growth and development of our brain. And our brain reaches its full development at about 22 years of age.

Our physical growth takes the form of development windows where we have an opportunity to develop that is not repeated. So if we fail to develop in an appropriate window, we are hampered in our subsequent development.

And although our brain is fully grown only by about 22 years of age, the brain remains adaptable throughout life. So we have the possibility of psychological growth throughout life.

So the first rule of psychology is do no harm. Unfortunately Typology Central is a psychopathic institution where members routinely seek to harm each other psychologically. And this seems normal as it reflects the manners and mores of American society.

And Typology Central does not encourage psychological growth rather it sidelines us into a jargon, the mbti jargon, which we repeat over and over.

Mbti jargon offers us a respite from psychological damage, but at the cost of psychological growth.

Mbti is like religion: the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions, which only demands we remain infantile, and forego our psychological growth.

Mole there's a lot of the personal cliches in this post about MBTI, typology central etc. which are as easily attributable to your own posts and style, for instance what you say about jargon, you've got your own patterns which choose in a pretty disciplined fashion to remain bound to and only very slowly relinquish or grow out of and when you do deny and change to begin with.

Its a shame because even when I think you've got good points to make, like the point of this thread, which I think could as easily have been framed as why isnt there the skepticism or doubts about narcotic dependency that there is readily about other things, such as politicians integrity, and were does that popular cultural sanctioning and disdain come from? On a forum? In the world?

But when you return to the same old schtick and routine no one feels that motivated to listen. Just saying.

 

[Lark]

The criminal use of drugs is politically correct. And it is true I am politically incorrect, I am so politically incorrect I refuse to use the mbti jargon. Gosh, I am almost as politically incorrect as a cartoonist. After so much incorrectness, what forgiveness?

I'm sorry Mole you're not making sense, I'm picking up on the fact that you feel you've struck a highly unpopular note and feel ambivalent about that, so you're pin balling around points about political correctness, I dont see cartoonists as particularly politically correct or incorrect BTW so that point makes no sense, you also have to ask what politics and whose correctness when you start to bandy about that shit too.

So far as forgiveness goes I dont know what your point is at all.

 

[Coriolis]

The criminal use of drugs is politically correct. And it is true I am politically incorrect, I am so politically incorrect I refuse to use the mbti jargon. Gosh, I am almost as politically incorrect as a cartoonist. After so much incorrectness, what forgiveness?

So if the use of illegal drugs were politically incorrect, you would support it? I'm finding it hard to understand your reasoning here.

 

[Mole]

So if the use of illegal drugs were politically incorrect, you would support it? I'm finding it hard to understand your reasoning here.

If the criminal use of drugs were politically incorrect, of course I would not support it.

The problem I have with political correctness is that is used to cover our gross desire for drugs, and worse, political correctness is against free speech. And guess what, political correctness takes offence.

Political correctness started off as an ironic saying of the Left actually directed at the Left themselves, and so was kosher. But now politically correctness is used by both the Left and the Islamists to attack free speech and liberal democracy.

 

[Coriolis]

If the criminal use of drugs were politically incorrect, of course I would not support it.

The problem I have with political correctness is that is used to cover our gross desire for drugs, and worse, political correctness is against free speech. And guess what, political correctness takes offence.

Political correctness started off as an ironic saying of the Left actually directed at the Left themselves, and so was kosher. But now politically correctness is used by both the Left and the Islamists to attack free speech and liberal democracy.

So what exactly, then, is your view on the use of drugs currently considered illegal, and what are your reasons for that view?

 

[Mole]

So what exactly, then, is your view on the use of drugs currently considered illegal, and what are your reasons for that view?

I have had some experience in Australia with the criminal sale of drugs.

For some users drugs become addictive and this destroys the addict and causes suffering to their family.

Also the criminal use of drugs feeds the criminal sub-culture, the mafia, the bikey gangs, and the middle-eastern gangs. And the criminal use of drugs corrupts law enforcement, and corrupts the bureaucracy, it corrupts lawyers and accountants, it corrupts banks, and casinos are used to launder the large untaxed cash flow. But worse, it corrupts popular culture, and popular culture is the most many teenagers know.

What I think is not noted is that drugs remove our natural sexual inhibitions, particularly in teenagers. This is immediately attractive to teenagers but at a price. And the price is the psychological failure to negotiate their desire and their inhibitions. There is a window where we can learn to negotiate our desire and inhibitions, but when the window closes, we can't open it again. So we remain immature our whole life. It's a life sentence.

 

[Coriolis]

I have had some experience in Australia with the criminal sale of drugs.

For some users drugs become addictive and this destroys the addict and causes suffering to their family.

Also the criminal use of drugs feeds the criminal sub-culture, the mafia, the bikey gangs, and the middle-eastern gangs. And the criminal use of drugs corrupts law enforcement, and corrupts the bureaucracy, it corrupts lawyers and accountants, it corrupts banks, and casinos are used to launder the large untaxed cash flow. But worse, it corrupts popular culture, and popular culture is the most many teenagers know.

What I think is not noted is that drugs remove our natural sexual inhibitions, particularly in teenagers. This is immediately attractive to teenagers but at a price. And the price is the psychological failure to negotiate their desire and their inhibitions. There is a window where we can learn to negotiate our desire and inhibitions, but when the window closes, we can't open it again. So we remain immature our whole life. It's a life sentence.

A reasonable and well-articulated response, though I will disagree with the notion that at some point it becomes too late to "grow up", as it were. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows someone - perhaps several someones - who took years, even decades to learn these lessons, often learning them the hard way. It is probably more difficult when one is older, and has become set in unproductive habits, but it is never too late.

As for illegal drugs: it seems, then, that you object to the illegality not on the general principle of it being good to follow the law, but rather because of all the negative side-effects of their being illegal - criminal activity, gangs, corruption, etc. All things that would go away were drugs legalized. Then we would be left with the primary problem of abuse and the harm it does to people directly. Do I understand you correctly?

 

[Mole]

As for illegal drugs: it seems, then, that you object to the illegality not on the general principle of it being good to follow the law, but rather because of all the negative side-effects of their being illegal - criminal activity, gangs, corruption, etc. All things that would go away were drugs legalized. Then we would be left with the primary problem of abuse and the harm it does to people directly. Do I understand you correctly?

As you know I support liberal democracy. So naturally I support those who follow the law democratically arrived at.

However if we believe a particular law is unjust we can try to change that law, and if we fail to change it, we can take part in civil disobedience.

An important part of civil disobedience is openly accepting the penalties of the law for the disobedience.

We know many here boast about breaking the law, but are reticent about civil disobedience and accepting the penalties of the law.

So I think we might well question their bona fides and ask what is the purpose of their criminality.

 

[Mole]

A reasonable and well-articulated response, though I will disagree with the notion that at some point it becomes too late to "grow up", as it were. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows someone - perhaps several someones - who took years, even decades to learn these lessons, often learning them the hard way. It is probably more difficult when one is older, and has become set in unproductive habits, but it is never too late.

Natural Selection has selected us to have a long gestation period and an even longer period of dependancy. In fact a dependancy lasting 22 years.

During our gestation and dependancy we have windows of opportunity where we can physically develop and learn psychologically.

A classic window of opportunity is the natural learning of language. A window of opportunity opens for us at a very early age where we can learn a new language simply by being exposed to native speakers. But once that window closes, quite early, we can no longer naturally learn a new language, but can only learn a new language by the sweat of our brow, and never as well as a native speaker.

During our gestation and dependancy there are many windows of opportunity for physical and psychological learning, and these windows inevitably close.

So the use of drugs in young teenagers on the cusp of puberty, where a window opens for psychosexual development, the use of drugs short circuits this psychosexual development. And once this window of psychosexual development closes it can't be opened again.

 

[Coriolis]

As you know I support liberal democracy. So naturally I support those who follow the law democratically arrived at.

However if we believe a particular law is unjust we can try to change that law, and if we fail to change it, we can take part in civil disobedience.

An important part of civil disobedience is openly accepting the penalties of the law for the disobedience.

We know many here boast about breaking the law, but are reticent about civil disobedience and accepting the penalties of the law.

So I think we might well question their bona fides and ask what is the purpose of their criminality.

So you would respect drug users more if they approached penalties received as acts of civil disobedience? You saved me the trouble of asking specifically about this aspect. The side issues of related criminal gang activity and police corruption would remain, though, as long as drugs are illegal. Is there a way to handle this?

Natural Selection has selected us to have a long gestation period and an even longer period of dependancy. In fact a dependancy lasting 22 years.

During our gestation and dependancy we have windows of opportunity where we can physically develop and learn psychologically.

A classic window of opportunity is the natural learning of language. A window of opportunity opens for us at a very early age where we can learn a new language simply by being exposed to native speakers. But once that window closes, quite early, we can no longer naturally learn a new language, but can only learn a new language by the sweat of our brow, and never as well as a native speaker.

During our gestation and dependancy there are many windows of opportunity for physical and psychological learning, and these windows inevitably close.

So the use of drugs in young teenagers on the cusp of puberty, where a window opens for psychosexual development, the use of drugs short circuits this psychosexual development. And once this window of psychosexual development closes it can't be opened again.

At best your conclusion here is an unsupported generalization. I highly doubt that it applies to all drugs now considered illegal, and all adolescents. What happens unfortunately often, though, is that some blanket one-size-fits-all pronouncement is made because people are too lazy or perhaps mistrustful of each other to allow for a response that accommodates the reality of individuals.

Also, humans are not really dependent until 22 years. That is a myth of modern society, which tries to keep children from growing up rather than encouraging youth to take on adult responsibility as they are able. Another one-size-fits-all perspective.

 

[Mole]

Also, humans are not really dependent until 22 years. That is a myth of modern society, which tries to keep children from growing up rather than encouraging youth to take on adult responsibility as they are able. Another one-size-fits-all perspective.

The facts of biology are that the brain is not fully grown until about 22 years of age. And it is the prefrontal cortex that is the last to fully grow.

And the prefrontal cortex enables us to think critically, it also enables us to control our natural emotional responses.

In our consumer society teenagers are flattered and courted by those who want them and their parents to buy. So naturally teenagers think they are the equal of adults, when they are not.

We only have to watch the teenagers here to see they can't control their emotional responses, nor can they think critically, but at the same time they have high self esteem.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

This is simply parochial. No one gets arrested on this Continent of Australia for possessing marijuana. And this Continent has no problems in integrating African-Americans into our society.

The USA contains only 4.4 percent of the world's population. Yet parochial Americans think it is the whole world. Yet 95.6 percent of the world is not American.

Who would guess this is an international site?

No, I do not support drug use for those under the age of 18 especially, but I also think it is unwise before 24 because of the impacts on neurological development, but I do think the social costs of making it illegal are worse especially on vulnerable communities and punitive actions for these kinds of offenses make the problems worse and increase costs on the society both in terms of finances and in terms of the social costs of having people's future employment prospects being curtailed. There are other social costs as well:

http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/uploads/cms/documents/abf_rl_summer_2010.pdf

These issues are important especially in America because it is a much more mixed society than Austrailia with a much larger population:

Demographics of Australia - Wikipedia

Demography of the United States - Wikipedia

 

[Mole]

No, I do not support drug use for those under the age of 18 especially, but I also think it is unwise before 24 because of the impacts on neurological development, but I do think the social costs of making it illegal are worse especially on vulnerable communities and punitive actions for these kinds of offenses make the problems worse and increase costs on the society both in terms of finances and in terms of the social costs of having people's future employment prospects being curtailed. There are other social costs as well:

These issues are important especially in America because it is a much more mixed society than Austrailia with a much larger population.

Perhaps we should try and get this in perspective as 28.2% of Australians were born overseas according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

And I must admit I find it hard to believe that more than 28.2% of Americans were born overseas.

And while we have a successful and generous migrant program in that we settle migrants into Australia and grant them citizenship, Americans do not settle and grant citizenship to 11.4 million illegal migrants in America, according to the American Department of Homeland Security.

The contrast between Australian migration and American migration is stark.