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Comment by ziknard | Hacker News Reader

Addiction is a failure of education.

If our schools were better, and more honest, we would explain the biology of addiction well enough that no one who understood the lessen would become addicted.

The lesson is simply this: Any pleasurable experience results in a normal and natural down-regulation by the body of the receptors that are responsible for that experience.

It is impossible to repeat the same dose (whether drug, food, roulette wheel, or skydiving) and have an equally intense experience until enough time has elapsed that the receptors have been up-regulated back to their original levels.

The hallmark of addiction, "chasing the dragon", is therefore pointless and quickly becomez harmful.

The other important lesson, of course, is that quality control is essential. Variations in the drug (concentration, impurities, improperly attached bungee cords) are solely responsible for the non-dragon-related dangers.

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By this logic, no emotional arguments should work because they are logically incorrect, right? (This is your first point)

However, since you seem to like logic, let us take it to the extreme - Can you do anything you like? Because, the thing you like will become your dragon.. (This is your second point)

Drug impact variations can also happen because of the state of your body. Hence nothing can be done and should be done (Third point).

Now I am wondering if I am responding to a robot :(

One of the defining aspects of addiction is the inability to stop doing the harmful act despite knowing it's harmful.

> we would explain the biology of addiction well enough that no one who understood the lessen would become addicted

This is such a misunderstanding of how humans work. Knowing that something will hurt you has never, in the whole history of humanity, stopped some people from trying that thing. And many of the people who do things that they know will hurt them are the exact ones who pushed further than others.

> If our schools were better, and more honest, we would explain the biology of addiction well enough that no one who understood the lessen would become addicted.

Are you asserting that no nurses, doctors, or social workers are affected by addiction? All would have learned its mechanisms during their professional education.

> The lesson is simply this: Any pleasurable experience results in a normal and natural down-regulation by the body of the receptors that are responsible for that experience.

This lesson is reductive and dangerous. It ignores that some responses are stronger than other responses and that some of those strong responses are stronger than conscience willpower.

I was taught this in school, as well as all of my classmates. And I, and many of them, have still had struggles.

While I agree that education would reduce addiction, it would not cure it as you’ve suggested.

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