DavidNelson comments on Silver Chairs, Paternalism, and Akrasia - Less Wrong

36 Post author: dclayh 09 April 2009 09:24PM

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Comment author: DavidNelson 10 April 2009 08:22:44AM 9 points [-]

Heroin/opiates are a bad example. Addicts with a steady supply or chronic pain patients are able to go years without skipping a day. I can't track it down right now, but I read a study a few years ago from some European county where they decided to try just giving a group of addicts all the heroin they wanted. The majority used every day, held down jobs, stayed out jail, and were relatively healthy. Of course government spending money to give addicts drugs was an outrage., so the program got shut down early.

Hallucinogens would be a better example, there would be no way to function in society if you were constantly on one.

Comment author: glenra 12 April 2009 08:28:58PM 2 points [-]

The book Licit and Illicit Drugs points out that one of the founders of Johns Hopkins was a heroin addict. Being a doctor, he was able to take it in pill form for many years and nobody was the wiser in terms of his productivity.

Comment author: ciphergoth 10 April 2009 07:42:50PM *  2 points [-]

There's been more than one such experiment - this Google search finds results about one in Liverpool but mention others in Sweden and other countries.

Comment author: gjm 10 April 2009 07:33:56PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for improving my poor choice of example :-).