A Few Short Points

A number of small points. My thanks to contributors who have expressed opinions on the Jacubs controversy. I am glad if I have stimulated some previously silent readers into speaking.  The comments are important, and can quite easily be dominated (in the absence of the intelligent and thoughtful) by various bores and show-offs. Please speak out in future, rather than leaving the forum to those who come here to write, but not to read.

 

I have nothing further to say about ‘addiction’, especially to ‘Olav’, who seems to have missed the point entirely.  My reasons are simple:

I consider my simple point made, that *all* the advocates of this fiction, either explicitly or implicitly,  rely on the claim that the ‘addict’ is ‘compelled’ or ‘forced’ or in some other absolute way left with no choice about continuing with his habit. If this were not so , then the policies which are based upon ‘addiction’ would not make sense. Why excuse a criminal from punishment, and treat him as a victim, if he had a choice over his actions? The voting public would not for a moment tolerate this sort of thing if they did not believe that ‘addiction’ equalled compulsion.

 

Among smaller audiences, where the voters are not listening, and the 'addiction' faction are confronted with knowledgeable, logical critics who point out that the claims of ‘compulsion’ are not tenable, its subtler advocates are prepared to concede that it is not in fact a compulsion at all. In which case, of course, the whole grandiose and indulgent structure of ‘treatment’, methadone and the rest, employing thousands, filling the pockets of drug manufacturers and various pseudo-scientiifc practitioners,  is unjustified. But as long as the admission is not made in a major forum, or widely understood by the voters, the ‘addiction’ industry continues as before.

 

But if such a suggestion *is* made on a major public forum (such as ‘Newsnight’) they will furiously shout it down and seek to smear the person who dares to make it. The use of the expression ‘disease’ to describe something which is obviously not one,  and the pretence that brain-scans and ‘withdrawal symptoms’ prove anything about ‘compulsion’ ,  when they plainly don’t, are just side effects of this fundamental contradiction. In most modern arguments you can fool the mob by assuming that most journalists are conformist and incurious, and by asserting that ‘science’ is on your side, most especially when it is not, as it is not in this case.

 

Intimidating dissent with mass abuse also helps.  As to why individual scientists and doctors decide to serve this fiction, their motives must be examined just as much as the motives of those without such qualifications.  I point out here once more, that (as in my positions on ‘ADHD’, ‘Dyslexia’, ‘antidepressants’ and drug legalisation) I have absolutely no personal material interest. I simply tell the truth. So why do I constantly risk the sort of abuse and vilification which I receive for pointing out the logical and factual fallacies on which these things are based? I could easily continue in my chosen trade if I never mentioned any of them again.

 

A contributor  asks for ‘incontrovertible evidence that I have tried to "hijack this site’s audience, when they could never have achieved that audience by their own efforts" or "trying to piggyback on my audience ".’

 

If this contributor thinks that this stricture applies to him, then I bow to his judgement. He should know his intentions better than I. As it happened, I didn’t have this particular person in mind when I wrote those words.

 

I note that the same contributor, who is always claiming to be some kind of guardian of the truth, and amusingly equates himself with a strict teacher of the old school, recently asserted that I ‘won’t brook any dissent from his (my) opinions’.  This claim is so outright, obviously, visibly untrue that I have not acted upon it. But he would still be wise to correct his own contributions in future, as sharply as his old Latin teacher once corrected his.

 

Somebody says I should have provided links to the articles I appended at the bottom of my previous posting, rather than the articles themselves. I am not sure that such links exist, as they mostly date from quite long ago. And many people never actually follow links, and the material in these articles had a direct bearing on the accusations made against me. The texts come from the Associated Newspapers Library. In any case, nobody is compelled to read anything I post here. Complaints about length, and lots of words, are just silly. If you don't want to read it, don't.