A Conversion

I reposted my article on Heroin at Classical Values and within minutes I had this reply by reader Bob Sykes:

In the past, I have often thought you were somewhat of a crank on drug legalization. But your link this morning to Dr. Shavelson is a revelation.

I have a brother in-law who is a long-term drug addict and who is suicidal. He has never gotten any meaningful treatment for his problems. And I now see somewhat that his pain must be severe.

I am sending this link to my sister.

Thank you.

bob sykes January 14, 2011 8:02 AM

Which prompted Eric of Classical Values to give his own thoughts: What if they made disease illegal, and jailed the sick?.

As I noted in another comment, at some point it was decided to label opiate drugs as "pain killers" and declare that "real" pain consists only of physical pain. A moral line was therefore drawn between emotional pain and physical pain, and it was deemed "immoral" to medicate emotional pain. This in turn led to treating people who medicated their emotional pain as common criminals.

There is more. Go read the whole thing.