Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

.
Suggested Answers To The First Short Quiz


Question 1

How many “Bibles” on addiction has Prof. Emeritus David Courtwright written over his career?

Answer 1

Four – “The Age of Addiction” (2019), “Forces of Habit” (2001), “Addicts Who Survived: An Oral History of Narcotics Use in America (1989) and “Dark Paradise” (1982).

Unless you count the new vastly-expanded versions of “Forces of Habit” (2009) and “Addicts Who Survived” (2012).

Question 2

Have most drugs been used historically by governments in order to maintain order or social control? For example -- (A) opium to numb Chinese coolies? (B) wine to numb Roman soldiers? (C) gin to numb the English working class after the advent of the industrial revolution? (D) cigarettes included with the K-rations of World War II U.S. soldiers? (E) alcohol in India causing Gandhi to campaign against it?

Answer 2

Yes; (A) Yes; (B) Yes; (C) Yes; (D) Yes; (E) Yes.

BTW this list which was published in one of the “Reference Materials” items, is very curious because it omits Vodka and Russian peasants.

Because, inter alia, Russia has always suffered down through the ages the highest per capita alcoholism rates in the world.

Not only under the Tsars. But also under the Soviets.

[For example, the latest country ranking by the World Health Organization of alcohol content consumption per capita places 5 members of the old USSR (and its predecessor, the Russian Empire, forged by Peter the Great in the 15th century) in the top 6 – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Lithuania - with only Romania breaking in at No. 5.]

And it is no wonder that such alcoholism persisted under Joe Stalin who killed 12 million peasants during his failed attempt to collectivize Russian agriculture (it is widely reported that Stalin confided to Winston Churchill at Yalta that 10 million peasants had been killed in that effort).

So is killing 10- to 12-million workers any big deal for a communist dictator???

Of course not!!!

[For example, Chairman Mao killed many more workers than that during his "Great Leap Forward" and many more workers than that during his "Cultural Revolution"!!!]

As the consummate “central planner” Stalin simply got out his note pad and calculated how many city dwellers would have to be sent to Kazakhstan to become farmers in order to make up the agricultural shortfall from killing all those millions of peasants.

The answer???

15 million since the new “farmers” might not be quite as efficient as the killed peasants had been!!!

BTW, Joe Stalin came from Soviet Georgia.

So why is this important???

Most of us know that with the defeat of the Ottoman Turkish Empire by the Brits as part of World War I, Turkey launched a campaign of genocide against its Armenians 1914-1923 from which the survivors fled to what became Soviet Armenia just east of Turkey and south of Soviet Georgia.

What most of us forget (or never knew) is that Istanbul was formerly known as Constantinople, named after Roman Emperor Constantine (who legalized Christianity in 313 AD) and the capital for many centuries (330 AD - 1453 AD) of the Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Greek Empire, aka the Byzantine Empire) -- and that following its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, its Greek inhabitants had continued to live there.

Until the genocide against the Armenians was also directed against the Constantinople Greeks (and Greeks living throughout the rest of Turkey) whose survivors were forced to flee to Joe Stalin’s Soviet Georgia.

By the 1930’s, the population of the “Constantinople Greeks” (and other Greek refugees from Turkey) living in Soviet Georgia had increased to 5 million.

So Joe Stalin forcibly relocated the now-5 million “Constantinople Greeks” (and other Greek refugees from Turkey) from Soviet Georgia to Kazakhstan to become farmers and “patted himself on the back” that now he only had to forcibly re-locate 10 million Russian city dwellers for the same purpose.

Question 3

Is there a big difference vis-à-vis social control between such SUBSTANCES and mere ACTIVITIES such as distracting “the masses” with sporting events? For example -- (A) the Roman gladiators? (B) America’s gladiators, primarily from our inner-city ghettos, who perform in the NFL/NBA/etc.?

Answer 3

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 4

Is Coca Cola a combination of caffeine and kola, the two most-massive stimulants known to pre-industrial cultures?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

Are today’s most-powerful synthetic drugs (starting with LSD which was worshipped by the Hippies of the 60’s and the Flower Children of the 70’s) inventions of the U.S. military to kill as quickly as possible (now instantly) the pain from battlefield wounds?

Answer 5

Yes -- with the possible exception of LSD.

LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) was first made in 1938 by Albert Hofmann, a Swiss scientist, from lysergic acid, a chemical from the fungus ergot.

However, it does NOT appear that anyone “has followed the money” to ascertain who was funding Hofmann’s research.

Nevertheless, if it was funded by one of the many governments that were already engaging (or would soon engage)* in what became World War II, it was NOT successful because more-traditional pain-killers were used throughout WW-II and LSD appears never to have been used as a battlefield pain-killer.

[* Japan’s “Rape of China” really began with the 1931 invasion of the Province of Manchuria, home of the Manchus who had ruled China from 1644 to 1912 - Italy “kicked off” World War II in Europe with its invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 – Germany “annexed” (“invaded” per Rogers & Hammerstein) Austria 3/12/1938. And non-state actors, such as the anti-Nazi movements led by Winston Churchill (“father of the tank”) and Charles de Gaulle were already quite active by 1938 and both could have written William Manchester’s “The Arms of Krupp” (LittleBrown 1968) whose thesis was that virtually all of history’s wars have been decided by which side had the superior weapons. And who knows what FDR might have been doing by 1938??? Wouldn’t one hope that he had been taking every possible precaution to protect Americans???]

Question 6

Would Aristotle (whose greatest contribution to philosophy was his concept of “The Golden Mean”) argue that virtually every “vice” is a “virtue” if enjoyed in moderation? [Consider, for example, “workaholics” and “nymphomaniacs.”]

Answer 6

Yes. Indeed, he did so argue.

Question 7

So how does a government attempt to control the excessive use of substances or excessive engagement in activities that can be harmful if taken beyond Aristotle’s “Golden Mean”?

Answer 7

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 8

Are libertarians correct that every human being has the right to kill her/him-self in any way s/he sees fit??? And “freedom” includes the “freedom” to harm yourself???

Answer 8

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 9

Or are there social costs to such destructive behavior, not only in terms of the public education that has now been wasted on the addict but also in terms of the medical costs of caring for the addict? Not to mention the cost to others, such as being killed by drunken drivers?

Answer 9

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

BTW re the cost of public education of an individual who is then lost to society, that cost was constantly cited by the old Soviet Union for refusing to permit Jews to emigrate for many decades prior to its collapse in 1991. [However, the old Soviet Union nevertheless refused emigration of Jews for whom the cost of public education was offered as a ransom.]

Question 10

Indeed, wasn’t “Prohibition” (the constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages 1920-1933) spearheaded by wives who wanted to protect themselves and their children from a substance that would corrupt and incapacitate their husbands/fathers?

Answer 10

Absolutely!!!

Question 11

Does Prof. Courtwright record that the first legislative attempt to control addiction was The Harrison Narcotics Act (effective 3/1/1915) which merely required that a nominal tax be paid on, and records be kept of, coca- and opium-based narcotics? And that the intent was to keep such narcotics within legitimate medical channels?

Answer 11

Yes.

Indeed, Prof. Courtwright reports that this policy had been pushed by American diplomats for quite some time before America decided to lead by example.

Question 12

Is it really possible to regulate effectively destructive behavior that exceeds Aristotle’s “Golden Mean”?

Answer 12

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 13

In other words, haven’t “pleasure seeking” and “pain avoidance” been long-since programmed into the human brain?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

And isn’t the “limbic” area of the brain, which deals with emotions and memory, what has been essential as the brain learns to associate “pleasurable” experiences with survival and “painful” activities with danger/death?

Answer 14

Yes.

Question 15

And for those of us who are dog lovers, do even the youngest puppies seem to have an inborn “computer ap” (what us Old Geezers would call an “instinct”) that fears, and reacts instantaneously to, any hissing sound, anything overhead, etc.? And doesn’t a dog’s old “wolf instincts” crave the safety of a cave where you can only be attacked frontally? Which is why you should avoid eye contact from a frontal position with many breeds, since such eye contact is the prelude to a “fight to the death”?

Answer 15

Yes – Yes – Yes.

Indeed, a 6-week-old puppy of any breed can, GUARANTEED, be “house broken” within 24 hours!!!

Just buy a metal crate at any pet store and throw a blanket over it so that your puppy immediately recognizes it as her/his “cave.”

Then lock her/him in the crate except for those brief moments when you lead her/him “on leash” into the yard (or wherever you want her/him to “whizz” or poop) and then lock her/him right back in the “cave.”

The secret???

Every dog breed, no matter how far removed from the wild, still has an over-powering “wolf instinct” NOT to “dirty” its “cave”!!!

And 24 hours is all it takes to train your dog WHERE s/he should do the “dirtying.”

Question 16

But back on point, aren’t individual human beings always going to crave certain substances or activities, even if a particular individual craves work or craves ice cream -- both of which are examples of activities/substances which can be addictive?

Answer 16

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 17

Does it help to provide non-prescriptive pain killers (e.g., aspirin, Tylenol) that have virtually-no addictive qualities?

Answer 17

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 18

Does it help to try to restrict the supply of pain killers that are notoriously addictive?

Answer 18

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 19

Does it help to try to ignore addictive behavior in order to prevent something else that is very dangerous -- for example, providing free “clean needles” for addicts in order to curtail the transmission of AIDS?

Answer 19

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 20

Does it help to try to control cravings with such substances as methadone and buprenorphine?

Answer 20

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 21

Won’t “human nature” always be susceptible to new SUBSTANCES even if education re old substances is maximized -- for example, vaping just when we thought that tobacco had been substantially discredited?

Answer 21

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 22

And won’t “human nature” always be susceptible to new ACTIVITIES when their historical fore-runners are still running rampant -- for example, computer “gaming” destroying young lives at home while resorts with casinos (Las Vegas – Monte Carlo – etc.) are still the most-popular “vacation” destinations?

Answer 22

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 23

And won’t there always be a “crusade” against the newest threat?

Answer 23

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 24

For example, did the New York Times run an editorial on 4/21/2018 entitled “An Opioid Crisis Foretold” which lavishly credited our author, Prof. Courtright, as an oracle with his “Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America” (Harvard U Press 2001)?

Answer 24

Yes.

Question 25

And who is to say that we won’t have fads based on imports of long-standing addictive substances that have been confined historically to limited areas -- such as betel nuts from Papua New Guinea (think Juanita Hall’s “Bloody Mary” character in Rogers & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific”), ganja from Jamaica, mescal from Mexico, etc.?

Answer 25

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 26

Aren’t the famous “12 step” programs effective for creating a human resolve to refrain from destructive behavior?

Answer 26

Yes.

Question 27

BTW, can such programs be dangerous in the case of opioids and heroin because a “back slider” can be overconfident of dosages without realizing there has been a loss of the body’s tolerance? Whereas recent abstinence is NOT a “risk factor” for relapsing alcoholics and marijuana users?

Answer 27

So Prof. Courtwright reports.

Question 28

In other words, do studies “show recent abstinence to be a fatal risk factor” which “has contributed to the rise of fatal prescription opioid and heroin overdoses, which together claimed more than 24,000 lives in the United States in 2013”?

Answer 28

So Prof. Courtwright reports.

Question 29

And, as a “coming attraction” for the Second Short Quiz, how have addictive substances (such as “crack” cocaine) affected America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste on which we focused for our June 3 meeting last month?

Answer 29

Stay tuned!!!