---
title: 'Drug Addiction as I see it'
published: true
date: '16:54 03/12/2019'
text_class: text-justify
taxonomy:
    category:
        - blog
    tag:
        - depression
        - drugs
visible: false
author: 'Dan Percival'
hero_image: false
---

[center]![Depression Is Not A Choice But Suicide Is](help.jpg "Depression Is Not A Choice But Suicide Is")[/center]

The post [Depression Is Not A Choice But Suicide Is](http://danpercival.com/blog/depression-is-not-a-choice-but-suicide-is) deliberately presented depression choices in a simplified way. There are [biological](http://danpercival.com/blog/the-lateral-habenula) and social causes of depression. If we disregard social cures for the moment (a topic for another post perhaps), what other way out is there for a person struggling with depression? The standard treatment, antidepressants, does seem to work for 30 to 50 percent of patients but whether it’s a placebo effect or not is [debatable](https://aeon.co/essays/the-evidence-in-favour-of-antidepressants-is-terribly-flawed). Not forgetting that antidepressants have nasty side-effects. What choice then for someone who’s been struggling for a long time with depression and not getting better? It’s not only suicide as I wrote before. There is a bigger elephant in the room. **DRUG ADDICTION**. If illegal street drugs are ready available and cheap, then this choice presents itself as a much much easier way out because there are a number of illegal, addictive drugs that work like magic to relieve depression.

Depression can be seen as a response to the "pain of life". We live in a very broken world. How we got to this place is beyond my scope so let’s just say this is the current state. I was surprised to see the large number of homeless people in the US when I went there in my youth. And I don’t think it’s become any better now. Recently I watched a documentary on Meth addiction in a Fresno, a city called the [“Meth capital of the US”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhyumdiVtw). To me, it really hit home the fact that self-medicating is a way out of depression that is so much bigger than suicide. Meth is by far the most potent dopamine booster. Freud mistakenly thought that another dopamine booster, cocaine, was a safe cure for depression when he was introduced to it (and [wrote a book](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/payngv/a-brief-history-of-freuds-love-affair-with-cocaine) about it). Cocaine is much less potent than meth. I have a friend who tried meth once, he does have episodes of depression and gushes about how meth made him feel (i.e. euphoric).

Moods are a balance between the reward and anti-reward centers in the brain  - read [the biology of depression](http://danpercival.com/scratchpad/the-habenula-darkness-disappointment-and-depre) posted elsewhere on this site. The reward center uses dopamine as it’s main neurotransmitter. The balance towards the positive can be made by boosting the reward center or damping the anti-reward center.  Since every addiction seems to involve dopamine boosting, (even [opioids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDVV_M__CSI)),  boosting the reward center is not a good way to self-medicate one’s way out of depression. In my mind, what Portugal is doing by decriminalising the use of drugs and seeing addicts for what they are, depressed people trying to medicate their way out, is the right way to go. Arrest the drug pushers but offer help and medical assistance to the addicts.

_Side note: Nicotine and alcohol boost dopamine by 2X, cocaine by 3.5X and meth by 12X._

I must admit that I was influenced by a book by Johann Hari, ([Chasing The Scream](https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-Opposite-Addiction-Connection/dp/1620408910)). It chronicles the start of the drug war, a war that many have admitted has failed. It’s time for something else.