[LMB] OT: legalization

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Kennedy" <kevink45 at hotmail.com>
To: <lois-bujold at lists.herald.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:11 AM
Subject: Re: [LMB] OT: legalization


>
> Me neither. And I've always been too durned cheap to get drunk on a 
> regular basis. I'd rather buy books,
>
>> I don't understand the appeal of making oneself sick.

There's are a few missing dimensions in most discussions about alcohol and 
mood-changing/judgment/reflex-degrading pharmaceuticals--different people do 
NOT have the same degrees of susceptibility and addictiveness, often people 
are using them for self-medication whether consciously or not, and one's 
situation as regards work/stress/etc. are also involved.  There was heavy 
drug use among GIs in Vietnam, their lives consisted of periods of boredom 
mixed with sudden attacks and with going out on missions.  The heroin 
available there was very high purity, and US officials feared there would be 
an epidemic of drug addicts returning with the end of the war.  That didn't 
happen, though, while there were a few, most of the soldiers who'd been 
massively abusing drugs in Vietnam, quit using the illegal ones cold turkey 
as soon as they got on the plane taking them back home permanently to the 
USA...