What is a drug?

Fox News: Nick Carter: I am drug free but alcohol addiction is ‘still a problem for me’

FOX411: How long have you been sober?

Carter: This is the thing: I am completely 100 percent drug free. I have, on occasion, been having drinks. The thing about it is, I still realize that it’s an issue, and it’s still a problem for me. It’s something that’s not easy. I still have to go to therapy. I still have to get to the bottom of the reason why I have resorted to alcohol.

No, Nick Carter, you are not 100% drug free. You will never be 100% drug free. Nobody will. It is possible that you have given up consuming one or more specific drugs. That’s an entirely different thing.

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45 Responses to What is a drug?

  1. ShelbiCummin says:

    Alcohol, when used alone, is “involved” in far more emergency department visits than every illegal drug combined. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control): “In the single year 2005, there were more than 1.6 million hospitalizations and more than 4 million emergency room visits for alcohol-related conditions.” A study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in 2012 suggests that as many as 50 percent of emergency room visits could be alcohol-related. In New York City for instance, nearly 74,000 people visited hospitals in 2009 for alcohol-related reasons, compared with just 22,000 in 2003.

    http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm/

  2. claygooding says:

    As Pete stated,,it is impossible to be drug free,,even chocolate has a drug in it that effects your mind and then there are 950 different sources of caffeine in your local convenience store while sugar,also a mind altering(sense of contentment)drug,abounds in more foods than not.
    Well,,the government is closed down and Obama Care lives,,except there is a glitch in the start up at the sign-up sites. I cannot figure out for the life of me if Obama Care is actually a good deal or a bad deal,,there is so much smoke from both sides it is impossible to verify all the harms or the goods the act does. After one look at the paper stacked up that is the written bill it boggles the mind just how long it would take to read it with a reference library available to explain any legal or medical terminology that stumped the reader. One aid reported it took him 8 nights of 5 hours of reading it but he still didn’t understand parts of it,,what good is that?
    It is getting the same way with marijuana reform,,there is so much science coming out,science that shows more than enough proof of medical applications for cannabis that the plant is becoming unbelievable. And the prohibs keep digging up buried corpses and displaying them like newborns.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Chocolate not only has a drug as an ingredient, that drug is anandamide AKA the bliss molecule AKA exogenous tetrahydrocannabinol.

      My caffeine habit has become so hardcore that it has to be practically pure before I can even drag my sorry ass out of bed. It takes a full gram to jump start my day.

      P.S. don’t ever snort caffeine. Take my word for it that it’s just not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. Well unless you’re a masochist. Then it just might work well for you.

    • Windy says:

      Re: Obamacare
      “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.” — Alexander Hamilton (not one of my favorite Founders, because he favored a strong central government, exactly the kind of government that creates such “voluminous” laws)

      The CBO says this ACA* is going to cost the government (we taxpayers) trillions more than what we were told. Additionally, in my State it is going to negatively affect nearly 700,000 families. I do not see any good coming from a program that REQUIRES single men, couples who have decided for sterilization, same sex (male) couples or couples who are beyond the childbearing years to carry insurance which contains coverage for maternity expenses. All of those people will see huge increases in their premiums.

      * The Affordable Care Act is anything BUT affordable for most young and part time employed people, and the fine for not buying it will be more than a years premiums for the first year with two year refusal to buy adding other punishments (like taking away one’s driver’s license, etc.). There are other problems as well but I’ll stop with now.

  3. divadab says:

    “Medical Pot is a Sham – Here’s WHy” – column in the Globe & Mail. Have at it:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/medical-pot-is-a-sham-heres-why/article14612526/#dashboard/follows/

    The most odious prohibitionist propaganda. Utterly ignorant. But she ends thus:

    “Even so, public support for medical marijuana is overwhelming. Nobody wants to see other people suffer. And if your ailing mom thinks a hit will ease her crippling arthritic pain, then what’s the harm? It’s probably no worse than gin. Medical marijuana may be a sham, but it’s also relatively harmless. You can get the munchies just thinking about it.”

    Pretty humorous, there, she said munchies.

  4. Jean Valjean says:

    Nick Carter is just being a typical member of the uninformed public. It’s not really his fault that the government and society in general makes this black and white distinction between certain random drugs.

  5. DdC says:

    “I should mention that DMT is an endogenous neurotransmitter. Yes, DMT, the most powerful of the hallucinogens occurs in the human brain as a normal part of metabolism. It also is a Schedule I drug, so you’re all holding and this might be the basis for some kind of case. To just show what absolute poppycock all this nonsense is: People Have Been Made Illegal!”
    ~ Terence McKenna

    From Chocolate to Morphine
    Dr. Andrew Weil
    Everything You Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs.

    No Bad Drugs:
    The Newservice Interview: Dr. Andrew Weil

    Dr. Andrew Weil of the University of Arizona College of Medicine states, “There is not a shred of hope from history or from cross-culture studies to suggest that human beings can live without psychoactive substances.” Bees drop to the ground after having nectar from certain orchards. Birds get drunk off berries and then fly into windows. After cats sniff certain plants they swing at imaginary objects. Certain range weeds will make cows shake, twitch, and stumble back for more. Elephants purposely get drunk on fermented fruits…”

  6. Servetus says:

    Nick Carter is what happens when prohibition infects people’s minds. The disease turns the brain into a necrotic mass of gangrenous sewer sludge.

    Unable to view alcohol as a drug? Well, you may be a victim of prohibition.

    Other symptoms of a prohibition complex include:

    1. Tendency to objectify tribal morality using symbols, totems and chemical substances

    2. Outgroups distinguished by differing choices of consciousness altering substances

    3. Contempt for modern science, new medical discoveries, and cosmopolitan lifestyles

    4. Inbreeding, resulting in victims living their entire lives with their heads up their own asses

    5. Tolerance for racism, injustice, violence, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and other war inducing behaviors

    Consider the prohibitionist demented and dangerous. Approach with caution. Notify authorities immediately if a prohibitionist is detected in your neighborhood.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      Fortunately if you know a couple of simple tricks it’s easy to confuse the sycophants of prohibition and keep them distracted.

  7. War Vet says:

    According to Trent Reznor: ‘You are the Perfect Drug’.

    Of course, many of us are looking for a new drug . . . one that won’t make us sick, crash our car or make us feel 3ft. thick.

  8. DdC says:

    California Industrial Hemp Farming Act Becomes Law

    Iowa Prosecutes Dying Cancer Patient for Pot
    It’s not enough for the state of Iowa to persecute a dying cancer patient for his medical marijuana grow. Prosecutors want to bankrupt his wife, jail his kid, imprison his friend and put his elderly parents on the streets while the state seizes their house, too.

  9. Francis says:

    Thurgood Jenkins: “I don’t do drugs, though. Just weed.”

    Nick Carter: “I am completely 100 percent drug free. I have, on occasion, been having drinks.”
    .
    One of those statements is funny, but actually makes complete sense when understood in the proper context. And one of them is completely asinine.

  10. N.T. Greene says:

    Classic “I don’t do drugs anymore but I drink” rhetoric. No, sir, alcohol is a “socially acceptable” drug, but a drug nonetheless.

    And my personal recommendation is to ditch that for weed. I know this is an off-the-cuff comment, but… seriously. Might make you more creative or something.

  11. DdC says:

    In my era everybody smoked and everybody drank
    and there was no drug use.
    — x DEA Chief Thomas Constantine, July 1, 1998

    The Virtues’ of Ganja

    “In the later times, some shall speak lies in hypocrisy commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.”
    (Paul: 1 Timothy 1-4)

    • Jean Valjean says:

      “In my era everybody smoked and everybody drank
      and there was no drug use.
      – x DEA Chief Thomas Constantine, July 1, 1998”

      a perfect example of Servetus’ point #2:
      “Outgroups distinguished by differing choices of consciousness altering substances..”

      No doubt this separation of outgroups (Us/them, black, hispanic, hippie, student etc)was the way DEA blood suckers like Chief Constantine justified the denial of their human rights.

  12. Servetus says:

    Kevin Sabet Alert

    Kevin is up to his old tricks at CNN.com. He seems really bent on his golden ratio of 20% of all users of X purchase 80% of X, vis a vis addiction. He thinks he can automatically apply the social habits of drug X to drug Y, despite vast differences in the chemistry of X and Y. And he recycles the rest of his arguments, minus any scientific validity concerning X, Y, Z, et al.

    Kevin isn’t just any prohibitionist. He’s a prohibitionist evangelical, proclaiming his faith in the evil of some drugs to the masses. He’s getting pummeled in the comments, as usual:

    http://tinyurl.com/nngdq2h

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Holy unsubstantiated Batman! It’s the Prohibitionist!!

      Yes Robin, and he’s up to his old tricks again! Using “the children” as political pawns while regurgitating bald faced lies, half truths, and hysterical rhetoric!! To the Batmobile, and hurry!!! We must protect Gotham City!!!!

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        I do want to apologize. I didn’t recall posting that one here so recently. But it was updated, so a little bit new and improved.

        But I don’t think that anyone can argue with the assertion Kev-Kev is just perfect as the weaselly little girly man whose “secret” identity is The Prohibitionist. Somebody get out your cartoon drawing kit and make it happen!

  13. Servetus says:

    Birds of a feather flock together. SAM collaborator Patrick Kennedy is pursuing not only an everlasting drug war, but war with Iran as well. A peace negotiator he is not.

    Despite efforts by the executive branch to negotiate a peace settlement with Iran, Kennedy and other well-known political losers are sabotaging peace negotiations in support of a quasi-terrorist group known as MEK. The politicos might at least have waited a bit to see if things could work out with Rouhani. Here is the list of villains:

    The stars of the rally included former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Rhode Island Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy; and former chairman of the Republican National National Committee Michael Steele. They had one uniform message: stop Iraq from cracking down on MEK members and halt the Obama administration from carrying out talks with the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani.

    • Jean Valjean says:

      and all of them, dems and repubs, take their orders from bibi. i wonder what would happen if he ordered an end to the csa, after all israel is far ahead of the feds on cannabis reform.

  14. claygooding says:

    There must be close to a dozen cancer research papers that have stood up too peer reviews,any one of which should have removed cannabis from schedule 1 so more research could be done.
    I wonder if cannabis will get the credit for curing America’s biggest cancer problem,,the war on marijuana.

  15. DdC says:

    If the fed shutdown goes on, there is one way Obama could assist those thousands on furlough. Simultaneously sticking it to the war mongering GOPerverts and Blue Dawg fascists. Remove cannabis as a schedule#1 narcotic, including Hemp. We bailed out CA, why not the country!

    Bill Maher: Why conservatives REALLY fear California

    • N.T. Greene says:

      I wish I saw more MA lovin, but then I remember how broken we are economically.

      Though you can thank former Gov. Mitt Romney for the prototype of Obamacare that has existed in this state…

  16. Frank W says:

    We all know that no law enforcement agency is affected by the shutdown. Makes you wonder if the Police State is more powerful than the US gov’t.
    Me, I don’t wonder at all.

  17. darkcycle says:

    FEDS SIEZE SILK ROAD: http://tinyurl.com/p2obsyt

  18. The DEA, An ‘Utter Failure’ By Obama’s Own Admission, Will Stay Open No Matter What by: Jacob Sullum http://tinyurl.com/kuhugdq

    DEA has been trying to rack up brownie points as evidenced by all the press of late about how they are saving the country from itself. What they can’t shake is the perception that they are no better than their counter parts at the NSA in the trampling of human rights and our constitution.

    These guys should be the first to go in a government shutdown instead of all the human services.

  19. DdC says:

    The DEA Thinks Medical Records Don’t Count as “Private”
    Source: VICE – BlackListedNews.com

    If last month’s revelation that the the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been keeping a database of phone logs since 1986 wasn’t bad enough, here’s further proof of the intrusiveness of the agency’s tactics: a lawsuit being fought between the DEA, Oregon, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hinges on the fact that the drug warriors believe they should have easy access to the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) database and have been acting on that belief, even though it contradicts state law. In plain English, the DEA says that if your medical records are shared with a pharmacy—something that happens routinely thanks to the PDMP—you lose the right to assume that that information is private, even if lawmakers in your state disagree with law enforcement.

    The basis for the DEA’s legal argument is the third-party doctrine, the precedent the government leans on if it wants to look into your credit card charges, your utilities bills, your emails, or anything else that you have shared with someone else. The Fourth Amendment protects you against “unreasonable search and seizure,” but increasingly, in an era where the vast majority of our private communications go through a third party, law enforcement is expanding the definition of what a “reasonable” search is..continued

    LEAP ‏@CopsSayLegalize u2b
    Send this to your parents:

    Now for the rest of this week’s bad cops

    Toke of the Town ‏@TokeOfTheTown
    Marijuana smuggler busted swimming into California from Mexico

    California Industrial Hemp Farming Act Becomes Law ecp

  20. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    I feel compelled to give a tip of the pin to the Marijuana Policy Project. Within the last several months they’ve been doing an absolutely marvelous job of stirring up the shit.

    The ancient platitude that correlation doesn’t prove causation is certainly true. But it’s also just as true corollary is that causation does produce correlation. My point is that not too long ago and right around the time when I first noticed that the MPP had started to kick ass and take names was around the time that the MPP hired Mason Tvert.

    If not Mr. Tvert then whoever is responsible for figuring out how to turn a local billboard or advertising signs on buses into nationwide publicity is just a mother loving genius. Who cares that the Indianapolis 500 promoters pulled their ad before the car race? That billboard produced nationwide exposure and debate…and the MPP probably got their money back.

    Portland buses to carry advertisements that back legalizing marijuana
    The ads, which claim the drug is safer than alcohol, draw high pitched squealing like stuck pigs sharp criticism from anti-drug groups.

  21. strayan says:

    What is a drug?

    there are no drugs in “nature.”…As with addiction, the concept of drugs supposes an instituted and an institutional definition: a history is required, and a culture, conventions, evaluations, norms, an entire network of intertwining discourses, a rhetoric, whether explicit or elliptical…The concept of drugs is not a scientific concept, but is rather instituted on the basis of moral or political evaluations: it carries in itself both norm and prohibition, allowing no possibility of description or certification – it is a decree, a buzzword. Usually the decree is of a prohibitive nature.

    Derrida, J. (1993). The rhetoric of drugs. An interview. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 5(1): 1-25.

    The truth is that no single uniform feature is found in all the substances called drugs that differentiates them from all the substances called nondrugs, except that all drugs have been called drugs by somebody. http://goo.gl/K9zLf

  22. N.T. Greene says:

    It’s sort of funny. Except… it’s not. We speak about addiction in relation to drugs a lot — but not so much otherwise. We don’t talk much about compulsive gambling (which is a source of revenue on one end and a sinkhole on the other), or any compulsions really. Except for that “crazy addictions” show or whatever that appears to be quite scripted (bathing in bleach? I doubt you could take that for more than a few days without serious damage)… we tend to talk about addiction and drugs as an almost singular unit.

    If we were to, you know, factually… sever the two and observe addiction as its own psychological and physical phenomenon, we would realize that:

    1. anything is potentially addictive;

    2. there are varying degrees of addiction and/or severity;

    3. almost everyone has some sort of attachment that could fall under the general definition of addiction (or compulsion at this point): church, infotainment, sports, internet, video games, chocolate, stupidity, eating fast food, drinking soft drinks… there are as many “addictions” as there are people really;

    4. ignoring the concept of supply and demand in instituting prohibitions is not only ineffectual, it may in fact paradoxically increase demand and “addiction” rate;

    5. not everyone with an addiction needs to be freed from it (quite the contrary, some compulsions may have health benefits and the like… we tend to call these “good habits”);

    6. in this culture, illegal drugs likely have among the smallest pool of problematic addicts — we have legal substances that kill magnitudes more people than illegal ones yearly, in any state with a lottery there are likely folks spending themselves close to oblivion to sustain a habit, stupid folk can fill their heads with TV dinners and MTV’s Teen Mom on a nightly basis and on demand…

    I sort of lost track of where I was going with this. Someone care to help me out and/or edit/expand/destroy?

    • strayan says:

      See Peele:

      The measure of addictiveness is how absorbing, compelling, and harmful to the person an involvement is. Nothing else matters. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/addiction_b_1874233.html

      The problem with the DSM-5 approach is in viewing the nature of addiction as a characteristic of specific substances (now with the addition of a single activity). But think about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): People are not diagnosed based on the specific habit they repeat — be it hand-washing or checking locked doors. They are diagnosed with OCD because of how life-disruptive and compulsive the habit is. Similarly, addictive disorders are about how badly a habit harms a person’s life. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/addiction_b_2725195.html

      • N.T. Greene says:

        FYI: my bit came off the top of my head in a state of sleep deprivation.

        …how is it that I still work at a gas station? My degree may be in English, but… clearly I have a working brain…

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          but… clearly I have a working brain…”

          Well there you go. Acknowledging the problem is the first prerequisite to dealing with it.

          Perhaps you could write a letter to Calvina Fay or Kev-Kev and see if they’ll share their secret of how to turn off that annoying brain. It might have to come out, but I’m sure the surgery will be covered under the ACA.

  23. primus says:

    This harmonizes with my assertion that there is no such thing as addiction. Behaviours dubbed ‘addiction’ are, in other circumstances, survival skills. We survived as a species because of these skills which are now viewed as ‘bad’ because they no longer appear to be needed. For another example, let us use food; in former times, when starvation was a realistic possibility, people ate all they could when food was available and their fat allowed them to survive the lean times. Now, with food available in vast quantities at all times, this characteristic is leading to high levels of obesity. Is food bad? No. Is eating bad? No. Is it very understandable why we overeat? Yes. Is obesity bad? Yes. Are the overeaters immoral? Bad? Evil? No. Why then are we so critical of our fellow humans who exhibit ‘addictive’ behaviours? They are not ‘bad’, merely acting as their biological drives direct them.

  24. ShelbiCummin says:

    Dismissing the case, Judge Kelleher said it was foolhardy to have driven after smoking cannabis. But he said: “It is unusual that the only complaint by Garda White was the wipers. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. I dismiss the case.”

    The judge added: “He should not have been driving but I do not find he was unfit to drive, on the evidence.”

    Earlier in the hearing, Judge Kelleher said that the fact that Mr Ryan had smoked cannabis was not enough in itself to make out the case for the prosecution on being incapable of having control of the car.”

    http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/judge-joint-smoker-in-control-of-car-245085.html

    • Windy says:

      Tonight, in my county, my granddaughter’s brother-in-law (her husband’s brother) was in a car accident which killed his girlfriend (a very nice, quiet young woman, pronounced dead at the scene). He was the driver, racing another car, and he “admitted to smoking marijuana” before the race (according to the article on the local paper’s website).

      He’s going to spend a few years in prison for negligent homicide/DUID after he gets out of the hospital (he’s expected to survive) and goes on trial. He’s a pretty nice kid, himself, just young enough to be stupid on occasion; he should NOT have been racing, especially on what is the most dangerous road in our county (lots of fatal car accidents and serious injury accidents on that road, more than any other road in this county), this is a tragic situation for his girlfriend’s family and for him and his family. It causes me sadness and at the same time, guiltily thankful that it was not one of my granddaughters in that car with him, as the youngest one used to have a crush on him and they did spend a lot of time together until he started dating the girl who died tonight.

      Sorry, ShelbiCummin’s post triggered this post, really OT for the most part, just needed to let it out.

  25. Windy says:

    Here it comes. This was posted to a new event page on facebook at 4:20 AM today:

    Deadline for written comments November 8
    OLYMPIA – The three state agencies responsible for drafting recommendations to the Legislature on medical marijuana today published their timeline and announced a process for the public to provide written comment.

    more info here:
    http://www.liq.wa.gov/pressreleases/agencies-announce-timeline-drafting-recommendations-medical-marijuana

    Facebook page for those who wish to keep up with this:
    https://www.facebook.com/events/533392710076644/?

  26. TINMA says:

    Even if he gave up ALL drugs including alcohol , he still would be drug free due the drug war Kool-Aid he drinks

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