The Politics of Addiction

You can like or enjoy lots of things. You can can also be addicted to almost anything.

The difference between really enjoying something and being addicted to something is the answer to the question: "Do I sometimes, or even often, neglect my day-to-day responsibilities - be they self-appointed or thrust upon me - to engage instead in this thing that I like."

Basically that and that alone.

Some of the people who drink are addicted to drinking alcohol. Some are not. Some who smoke are addicted to smoking. Some are not.

Your specialists in various fields can come out with all sorts of qualifications about "addiction" - alcohol addiction, nicotine addiction and so on. Any dependency on a substance is secondary to the addiction. For example, you can be addicted to watching TV, gambling, work.

And as for "substance abuse" - what a dodgy expression. It has the same structure as the expressions "child abuse" with an entirely different intent. Hello substance. Are you abused? No. I am being used in exactly the way I was designed to be and for my intended purpose. I think "self abuse by substances" might be better, but clumsy.

You use language to think with. To the extent that your constructions are inadequate or inappropriate representations of reality, so will your thinking processes and conclusions reached be equally suspect. Listen to the language used and it will be a good indication as to whether you are going to put any faith in the speaker's conclusions and subsequent advice.

And then, to make things even clearer (to me) or befuddle those I have just mentioned, the "addiction gene" has been isolated and identified.

I have seen expert opinion reported as stating that it is fine to target smokers, because they can choose otherwise.

Well, yes. They can give up fairly easily if they are "merely" enjoying what they are doing. If they are addicted, they can switch to a different target for their addiction.

Fair enough.

But if they are addicted and if they do (therefore?) possess the addiction gene in their makeup and if they do switch their addiction, who's to say whether that target too will be now or later subjected to the same restrictions, media-generated peer pressure, carefully edited facts, etc that smoking is at the moment.

So yes. It is not like skin colour as such. You can switch your target of addiction. But you remain addicted.

And for those people, restrictions placed on the target(s) of their addiction are restrictions that have a genetic base.

I thought in our PC world we did not discriminate on genetic grounds.

A congenital addict, outside in the rain and wind of winter having a smoke or a person with one colour of skin sitting in the back of the bus.

Be honest, and admit the agenda all ye who sit in judgement backed by laws.