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Views and interviews on addiction

Are addicts addicts?

by Nick Shackel

I think it would be fair to say that, insofar as people think about it at all, most people think that being an addict is a property some people have. Just like people can be tall or friendly or wealthy, people can be addicts. Some people even think that being an addict is an essential property of some people— that is to say, it is a property that they cannot lose without ceasing to be. This seems to be the view of Alcoholics Anonymous, who hold that even though an alcoholic can cease drinking, they can never cease being an alcoholic.
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The Fiction of Affliction in Addiction

by Julian Savulescu

Walter argues that addiction is:

1. a disorder of self-control that comes in degrees. It is essentially pathological self-control, like compulsive hand-washing, where the addict has limited control in some circumstances but not enough self-control.

2. a mental disease.

Bennett Foddy and I have argued that while addicts may have poor self-control and act imprudently, poor self-control and imprudence are not diseases. They are features of the human condition. People become addicted to all sorts of things: heroin, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, sugar, sex, the internet and food. What is common to all these addictions is that involve the reward system. Heroin may be more potent at activating this system than sugar, but they all act in a similar way. There are differences in degree, not kind.

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Is “playing God” just a meaningless phrase?

In a
recent piece for Prospect magazine, Philip Ball denounces the “playing God” objection, often made
against some proposed uses of biotechnology, as a “meaningless, dangerous
cliché”. More specifically, Ball mentions the objection in relation to Craig
Venter’s creation – already discussed on this blog – of the first microorganism
with a wholly synthetic genome. Though many people from the press have raised
the “playing God” issue in their coverage of Venter’s achievement, “no one”,
Ball writes, “seems in the least concerned to enquire what this phrase means or
why it is being used”. 

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Are addicts responsible? Leverhulme lecture 25/5/10

Professor Walter Sinnot-Armstrong gave a Leverhulme lecture last night on the question of addiction and responsibility.  Click on the image or the link below to download or view a pdf of his presentation. "Are addicts responsible?" Listen to the podcast

Chillin’ with the Texas Board of Education

The Texas Board of Education recently approved changes to the state's high school social studies curriculum. The Board also has responsibility for reviewing and approving textbooks for use in Texas schools according to whether they meet its curriculum standards, so its move will effectively force textbook publishers to revise their presentation of American history. The curriculum revisions are controversial because many observers believe that they are motivated by, and reflect, an extreme conservative view of American history.

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The hammer or the nail – are addicts morally responsible?

In a case that is probably echoed daily across this country and many others, an amphetamine addict Michael Hunter was jailed yesterday for attacking a friend with a hammer. The judge noted that

"amphetamine had clearly affected
Hunter’s mental health, but he highlighted the fact that he had been
responsible for two unprovoked attacks using weapons."

The judge alluded to the question of responsibility and the influence of addiction. Are addicts morally responsible? Should drug addiction excuse or mitigate blame for actions taken under their influence?

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Today we lost the drug war

What does synthetic biology mean? Quinn Norton argues it means the end of the drug war: synthetic biology might be able to do the wonderful things (as well as the dangerous things) envisioned by Venter and others, but it definitely can produce drugs. It is also much easier to produce chemicals than fix the environment or make bioweapons. As Quinn notes:

"It’s still hard to grow drugs in medium. But the whole point of this
project is to make it easier. Who will be motivated to put in the work
to make it happen? Especially if it’s so bad for organized crime? Drug
addicts, frankly. You think they look like street junkies with DTs, but
a fair number look like scientists, because they are. Drugs will
finally be p2p, and governments and drug lords alike will find out what
it’s like to be media companies and counterfeiters in a world of
lossless copying and 100Mb pipes. Junkies will be victims of their
success, and if we don’t get serious about treating addiction instead
of trying to fight chemicals, it’s going to look a lot more bloody and
horrid than the RIAA’s lawsuit factory. This is just one vision of what
this kind of disruption looks like when people get a hold of it."

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