China's Controversial Brain Surgery To Cure Drug Addiction

kkleiner writes "A small handful of doctors in China are using a highly controversial procedure to rid people of drug addiction by destroying a part of patients' brains. The procedure involves drilling small holes into the skulls of patients and inserting long electrodes that destroy a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This area, often referred to as the "pleasure center" of the brain, is the major nucleus of the brain's reward circuit. Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?" The practice has been officially banned, but apparently continues nonetheless.

Comments

21st Century Lobotomies

[Anonymous Coward]

They worked out so well last time.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Charliemopps]

They did work out well in the past. It's easy to call treatments of the past barbaric without perspective. Often those treated with labotomies would have spent the rest of their lives in strait jackets or worse if not for the treatment. If your drug addiction is going to kill you in the next 6 months is this treatment really that terrible? Granted, governments always take this sort of thing too far "he's addicted to MMOs!" etc...

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Anonymous Coward]

21st Century Lobotomies are mostly pharmacological and some are just as irreversible as the surgical.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[ntropia]

...and they were worth the Nobel Price for the invention!

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Sulphur]

They worked out so well last time.

An example was Oscar Levant.

The barber said he was going to open a butcher shop : "You mean you are going to close this one?"

"Elizabeth Taylor should get divorced and settle down.'

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oscar_levant.html

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I would like to see studies of these people to see, years down the road, if they felt it was worth it.

That's the real answer, like asking people with anomalous genitalia if they were happy with their gender assignment surgery they had as babies. Overwhelmingly they were not, while those who didn't have it, also tellingly, weren't running around "Damn I wish my parents had had that done to me!"

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[dreamchaser]

How can they be happy about it if their pleasure center is gone? At best they'll just be cruising through life without taking any real pleasure from anything.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Kjella]

They did work out well in the past. It's easy to call treatments of the past barbaric without perspective.

Not to mention the basic ideas of lobotomy are very much alive, I knew a guy with very severe epilepsy attacks. I think the surgery he had was something like this:

Multiple subpial transaction

This is used when it's not possible to remove the part of the brain that's causing the seizures. The surgeon will make a series of cuts to help separate the damaged part of the brain from the surrounding area. This stops seizures from moving from one part of the brain to other parts of the brain.

He was in his 30s and that enabled him to finally move out of his parent's house, get a bit of education and a driver's license. It didn't come without downsides but overall he was much, much better off than before.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[sjames]

In the sense that they were rendered nearly catatonic, yes they no longer needed a strait jacket. Based on the results measured with the rose colored glasses off, a 2x4 to the back of the head was much cheaper, carried fewer risks and had just as much chance of a cure as the lobotomy.

The part that puts it over the edge from treatment of desperation to act of barbarism though was the lack of deliberation and evaluation before applying the procedure. They would literally line patients up and the 'surgeon' ,who often had never met the patient before ,with his icepick (literally, an icepick) and mallet would lobotomize a dozen in a single session. Patients were lobotomized for everything from depression, mania, and psychosis to persistent acting up in class (that is NOT an exaggeration).

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[EdIII]

Well, in this case, the patient is just doing it to themselves depending on the situation.

What I understand about meth and brain chemistry is that over time a meth addict is saturating the pleasure center of their brain. The structures that pick up the neurotransmitters actually become damaged or less effective over time.

This is why a lot of meth addicts will say the only way they can feel happiness is with the drug. Recovered meth addicts often complain that they have very serious issues feeling happy anymore.

How long that takes to heal, I dunno.

The end result of disabling the pleasure center may be inevitable. At least doing it in the beginning may be a way to get them stop completely and literally save their lives and increase the overall quality from a health standpoint alone. They may become emotionless, but can still live otherwise.

Just my two cents. I'm not a doctor. Just know some very unfortunate recovered drug addicts that have more in common with Vulcans now than humans.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[DL117]

Which drug are you referring to here? The SSRIs, which increase feelings of well being and lower inhibitions, without impacting cognition? The benzodiazepines, which are short acting and are a mild sedative without long term effects? Those are the most commonly prescribed psychoactive drugs, and comparing them to lobotomies is like comparing a piece of apple pie to a chunk of rat poison.

If you're thinking of anti-psychotics, those are quite over prescribed, but you'd be overdramatazing the point in a Godwin-like manner.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[gweihir]

They worked out so well last time.

Indeed. And when you look at the history of the lobotomy, you find a piece of immoral scum that did not have any good theory and destroyed countless people, including outright killing many of them. Not better than any slasher "surgeon" form the dark ages of medicine.

So, no, this is _not_ worth it. In fact, destroying the pleasure center probably will have you suicide in no time as life has lost all joy. You can do that directly and get better value for your money.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[oggiejnr]

A Hemispherectomy is occassionally used to treat very serious epilepsy. Resorting to brain surgery is usually done only in young children as the brain has an ability to reroute most of the affected functionality. In adults this does not happen as easily. However when patients are having 1000+ seizures a month and anti-convulsants aren't working it is very effective (assuming the source of the seizures is localised)..

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Squiddie]

Maybe they can be employed as mentats. That would be sweet.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Half-pint HAL]

That's the real answer, like asking people with anomalous genitalia if they were happy with their gender assignment surgery they had as babies. Overwhelmingly they were not,

Where did you get your figures from? Last time I saw any figures, it claimed that 50% were happy within their assigned gender group, 50% weren't. Perhaps counterintuitively, this means the interventions were utterly valueless from a statistical point of view. (Ie the results would have been just as good if there had been no reassignment.)

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Charliemopps]

Hindsight is always 20/20 right? You need to remember that the cases that are most famous today are the spectacular ones. The thousands of procedures that were (at the time) done in secret because they were stigmatized, often lead to a person leading a much better life. Did some doctors go off the rails? Often trying to invent some new procedure to garner themselves fame and glory? Of course, that happens in almost every discipline. But fault the Doctors, the families, the laws lack of understanding... not the procedures. Lobotomies are still used today. Usually with great success. Some day will have the medicine and technology to end this procedure. That will be a great thing. But there's no reason to doom someone to a miserable life simply because you can not understand the unimaginable hell that psychological diseases can cause.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[sgt_doom]

But in China, when they don't workout that well, the subjects are excellent for harvesting organs from. And Cina's organ haresting business is both global and extremely lucrative financially. Just ask David Rockefeller why he takes those yearly trips down to Chile, to that clinic founded by the late Josef Mengele, rumored to have been brought over to South America by David Rockefeller. (Or perhaps they harvest from the local populace?)

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[Half-pint HAL]

The end result of disabling the pleasure center may be inevitable. At least doing it in the beginning may be a way to get them stop completely and literally save their lives and increase the overall quality from a health standpoint alone. They may become emotionless, but can still live otherwise.

Just my two cents. I'm not a doctor. Just know some very unfortunate recovered drug addicts that have more in common with Vulcans now than humans.

The butch^H^H^H^H^Hsurgery has a 47% success rate.

Meanwhile, there's a 60% risk of observed side-effects, with 51% observed personality change. Usually when the occurrence of side-effects is greater than the success rate, the treatment is considered ineffective and people stop.

Of course, that 60% risk is of observed side-effects, and only the most naive doctor would claim that burning out a whole chunk of brain tissue ever has no side-effects....

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[EdIII]

Then as a patient it would be kind of stupid to elect to have the surgery. At no point was I supporting surgery without patient election.

My only point was that from my understanding the pleasure center of the brain was going to die anyways, at least in the cases of meth addiction.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[EdIII]

Being of the type of person who leans more towards 'free will' in this type of discussion

Please don't misunderstand me. At no point was I suggesting this be a forced procedure. It must be the choice of the addict to undergo the procedure with informed consent.

If crimes are committed to support the drug habit, then either prosecute those crimes with appropriate punishments (excluding this procedure), or offer assistance to the addict, which at some point, may include a serious discussion about the procedure itself.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[EdIII]

I've heard the theory that the brain can only produce so many neurotransmitters in its lifetime (pleasurable chemicals), but I was referring to the fact the receptors themselves become incapable of reacting to the chemical regardless of how much is present.

I really wish a neuroscientist would chime in her. I'm just working off experiences I've had with some addicts and information related to me through different channels.

Would be nice to get some confirmation either way.

In any case, I would like to reiterate again, that this must be election by the patient with informed consent. If China is using this as a form of punishment to prevent recidivism, then that is a gross violation of human rights.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[sjames]

The VAST majority of the procedures were as I described. It's only natural, it took less than 5 minutes/patient to do it the barbaric way. Those procedures were done by the man who pioneered the lobotomy.

Lobotomy is a banned procedure in most of the world today. In particular, any surgeon practicing an icepick lobotomy today would go to jail and lose his license for life. You must be thinking of the lobectomy, a very different class of procedures performed for different reasons, and generally after all other forms of treatment fail. While some of those procedures have their controversies, the due consideration given puts even those into the desperation rather than the barbarism category.

Re:21st Century Lobotomies

[mug funky]

i've heard olanzapine described as a "chemical lobotomy", but i doubt the severity of an actual lobotomy was truly understood by people that draw the comparison.

also, olanzapine wears off.

Is it worth?

[XiaoMing]

is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are? Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?

is it worth reading slashdot, if, reading it means reading poorly edited summaries like these? Is it worth reading slashdot, if, reading it means reading poorly edited summaries like these?

Re:Is it worth?

[Cryacin]

I guess the person who wrote the summary was speaking from experience.

Re:Is it worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus here. Stop telling me what I already know.

Re:Is it worth?

[martin-boundary]

is it worth reading slashdot, if, reading it means reading poorly edited summaries like these?

Yes!

Is it worth reading slashdot, if, reading it means reading poorly edited summaries like these?

No!

Re:Is it worth?

[kromozone]

We need to be able to insert username for future submissions on schizophrenia.

Re:Is it worth?

[Camel Pilot]

Perhaps the editors "pleasure centers" for a doing a decent job was damaged in some way?

Lost a Friend Yesterday

[BoRegardless]

Couldn't control his drug issues. His birth mother was addicted.

Now he is gone. Would he have been better served to still be here w/o some "reward center". I don't know. I will never know.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Would he have wanted to live if he never found any joy in living ever again?

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Velex]

Never being able to feel satisfied again? Who the hell would want to live like that? Jesus. At least I was only circumcised so that I'd only feel pain from just my genitals and never pleasure. If my whole world were that way... christ, the things people like you would wish on other people is frightening.

How much moralizing did your friend have to put up with that only drove him to be more addicted rather than accepting he's addicted and choosing treatment. How much stigma was associated with "being committed" in his mind? For that matter, how many shitty, controlling people were in his life that he needed to escape into a drug. For that matter, WHAT drug. Alcohol? Cocaine? Cough syrup? Meth? Heroin? Weed? Ah, I see, it was just... drugs. Because every one I just listed is exactly the same.

At least in the mind of a puritan. I know people who moralize about using tylenol. I'm not kidding. I don't know if that's you, but come on.

If you haven't already, go read I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[GameboyRMH]

if you were circumcised and can't feel pleasure from your penis then something went horribly, horribly wrong with the procedure. That's definitely not normal. I'm circumcised so I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Firethorn]

Maybe Velex is a female and got to undergo the female circumcision? I'm also circumcised and I have plenty of fun with my equipment.

The possibility that the surgery was messed up is still possible, of course.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Black Parrot]

Would he have been better served to still be here w/o some "reward center". I don't know. I will never know.

I read somewhere within the past month that the traditional/popular notion of a pleasure center is not correct. According to whatever I was reading, it's more of an impulse/addiction center, and the pleasure/reward comes from several other parts of the brain working together.

The argument was something along the line that people or apes would repeat actions that stimulate the center, but it doesn't actually cause any pleasure.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Velex]

Yes, something did go horribly wrong. Unfortunately, nobody's cared to understand non-obvious failure modes of that procedure. So, nobody thought that anything could go wrong when they decided to do it, at least not anything non-obvious that can not be corrected by further surgery. It didn't stop it from going wrong, though.

In fact, when I started estrogen HRT (I'm transgendered) I asked my doctor about it just to make sure I wasn't making some awful mistake. His theory was that it was only because it seemed that my brain was female, and he postulated that a female brain might not, to put it in slashdot speak, have the proper device driver for it all to work right. Unfortunately, nobody told my doctor that what happened to me is possible. I'm not even sure I'm faulting circumcision correctly, but what I do know is what I feel, that I'm circumcised, that problem is with the same body part involved in that, and that no other trans person I've met can corroborate my experience. (I would likely still be transgendered and seek estrogen HRT even intact--I believe that because there are intact trans women and I can't figure out what difference it would make anyway in that matter.)

What do I do about it, though? I guess I have to wait until they can grow me a new one from stem cells and replace it. I'm SOL in the meantime. Fortunately, I found other ways to satisfy myself, so all's not lost. I just may never be successful in giving my parents grandchildren.

I'm comparing this to circumcision to hopefully make readers think. Some may agree with circumcision but disagree with this brain surgery and vice-versa.

I only meant to raise the question of what can possibly go wrong and is it worth it to risk the occasional disaster when something less invasive and traumatic, like relaxed drug laws and treatment, might solve the problem just as well or even better.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[LordLimecat]

Losing a friend because he made bad decisions is tragic, and cause for grief. Having a friend lobotomized because the government has decided youre making bad decisions is horrifying, and cause for outrage.

There is a big difference between making bad decisions freely, and having the government decide that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[AdamHaun]

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. There seems to be a shortage of compassion in the comments, so I just wanted to offer my condolences.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[jamesh]

Losing a friend because he made bad decisions is tragic, and cause for grief. Having a friend lobotomized because the government has decided youre making bad decisions is horrifying, and cause for outrage.

There is a big difference between making bad decisions freely, and having the government decide that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions.

There is a grey area here Mr Black'n'White, and that's when your bad decisions hurt and kill other people. And I mean directly, not just like 'you shouldn't smoke because someone else will have to take care of you later on' and 'the hospital couldn't save your mother because they were busy dealing with an overdose', I mean because ice addicts are killing people in their violent rampages and other addicts are robbing people to feed their next hit. That's when it becomes the governments problem.

And the whole definition of addition is that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions because your addiction is making them for you.

I'm not quite sure lobotomy is the answer here, but it may turn out to be the best of the available options.

I wonder if it's possible to just turn off that part of brain for a bit instead of destroying it...

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Guy Harris]

At least I was only circumcised so that I'd only feel pain from just my genitals and never pleasure.

I'm sorry your circumcision was so badly botched. It's probably too late to sue for malpractice, unfortunately.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[VortexCortex]

And the whole definition of addition is that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions because your addiction is making them for you.

Then the answer is not to destroy the brain. It's to destroy the addiction -- You know, that thing that's making people do things. Oh, for fuck's sake, just listen to yourself.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait what?

Did you have a botched circumcision, or did you willfully have your penis removed as part of a surgical transformation into a vagina?

I don't mean to seem callous, but I am amazed the AMA allows doctors to mutilate people, even if they feel like they really need to be mutilated. IMHO there is a huge difference between a male circumcision and a sex change operation gone wrong...

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[arth1]

I'm sorry your circumcision was so badly botched. It's probably too late to sue for malpractice, unfortunately.

In civil law, this is true. But there is no statute of limitation on especially heinous crimes or where there's continuous violations.

It should be rather obvious that performing alterations like this should only be allowed with informed consent, not just in parentis but actual legal consent. This is 2012 (2013 by the time some of you read this) and not the dark ages where we do acts because we should not question the invisible bearded man and his followers, whether their frock is black or white.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Mr. Slippery]

I mean because ice addicts are killing people in their violent rampages

Citation needed.

and other addicts are robbing people to feed their next hit. That's when it becomes the governments problem.

...which is a consequence of prohibition, which drives up prices, and not of the drug itself. How many alcoholics do you see robbing people to feed their next hit? Addicts committing theft is a government-created problem.

And suggesting that the government has the rightful power to forcibly and irreversibly modify the brains of citizens is disgusting and despicable. You should be ashamed of yourself, sir.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[AdamHaun]

Mostly I was talking about the ACs, but let's talk about you. What BoRegardless said was:

Now [my drug-addicted friend] is gone. Would he have been better served to still be here w/o some "reward center". I don't know. I will never know.

This is not a statement of support. It is a statement of confused grief.

After misinterpreting this as fervent support, you proceeded to speculate wildly about BoRegardless's motivations and his late friend's addiction, levy criticism based on that speculation, and recommend that he read a story about being trapped in a hellish existence where death is the only escape.

In response to a person who just said that his friend had died. Yesterday.

The article is talking about a surgery that is performed only in China, only for research purposes, and only with worldwide condemnation. The only debate outside of China is whether the results of that research should be published in respectable journals.

Your comment did not address that debate. It will have zero effect on what happens in China. The only thing it does is attack and belittle someone who just lost a friend. In your zeal to put on a show of righteousness on the internet, you are stepping all over the real human being who is (metaphorically) right in front of you.

To say that this lacks compassion would be an understatement.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Threni]

Might as well give it a go if they're Chinese. They weren't going to use the pleasure centre part of their brains anyway.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[sjames]

He wouldn't have enjoyed it and depending on how bad the side effects were, he might not have even remembered most of it..

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[budgenator]

Sure your not confusing circumsision with castration?

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[JonySuede]

Ice (4-Methylaminorex) was not present for really long on the black market as it tended to kills users quite quickly, you must me talking about meth or mdpv but even those do not make peoples go berserk unless they stay up for more than a week.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Velex said she is transgendered, not transsex. That means she was born with the male genitalia (which suffered a bad circumcision) and male hormones, but feels better at being a female, so she started taking female hormones, but never surgically transformed her genitalia into that of a woman.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[arth1]

That's not true at all. There is no statute of limitations on murder, but go tell all of the people molested as children who can't have their molesters prosecuted that there is no limit.

It really is true that for especially heinous crimes there is no statute of limitations.
However, for individual cases there can be a question of whether it was an especially heinous crime or merely a terrible one. If the alleged victim to all outward appearances leads a normal life, the crime might have been terrible, but not especially heinous. This is left up to the judge to decide, and he should always let any doubt fall in favor of the accused. "Mere" rape or killing usually isn't considered especially heinous. Murder and especially brutal rape or torture is.

There's also the question of laches, where the victim delayed unnecessarily in bringing suit or evidence. If there is no apparent valid reason for why a person waited from the age of 18 until the age of 35 to turn evidence, there is a problem. Unfortunately, it is up to the accusor/victim to justify the delay. If he or she cannot do so, the case risks being dismissed due to laches, not the statute of limitations.

IANAL, YMMV etc.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[ThatsMyNick]

Reforming people for their crimes by putting them in jail is not a bad solution at all. It is better to put them in the jail for the real crimes they have committed (the violent rampage, robbing, negligence etc), instead of lobotomizing them.
 
You might as well suggest hanging them for being drug addicts, instead of lobotomy. It would be more humane to kill them.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[fnj]

This is 2012 (2013 by the time some of you read this)

Bulletin. December hath 31 days.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Trillian_1138]

Undoing some moderation, but wanted to chime in. I'm also a trans woman, and circumcised. As far as I can tell, my penis always worked fine. (Where 'fine' = 'got erect, ejaculated, functioned well enough for me to deposit sperm.') So far as I can tell, my being trans is unrelated to how well my genitalia does or doesn't function. Let me know if this responds to what you were curious about - I'd be happy to chat more.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[arth1]

Bulletin. December hath 31 days.

Yes, but not every /. reader reads /. every day. Unlike some fora, which perhaps you may be better acquainted with, posts here don't roll off and disappear after a day, and readers can do things like go away for the holidays and come back and read posts that are several days old.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[LordLimecat]

Right, and being locked up or punished because of what you have done is what we call "justice". Actually taking someone's cognitive abilities away? Did you miss the point of 1984, or Clockwork Orange? These kind of things should cause a reflexive horror, and for good reason. To die a conscious and aware man for your crimes is better than that the government decide how you should think.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[LordLimecat]

Because the one freedom that should be held untouchable above all others is the freedom to think. Destroying that, making someone something that theyre not, is sickening.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[cheekyjohnson]

The problem with waiting for the drug addict to commit a crime is the future innocent victim of the crime.

The problem with waiting for you to commit a crime is the future innocent victim of the crime. You might commit a crime in the future, so you must be punished now!

What you are saying is it's OK for a few innocent people to die and for a lot of others to have a constant feeling of living in a shitty society in order to let a few drug addicts be who they are.

I don't know what he's saying, but what I'm saying is that I vastly prefer freedom over safety. Have your TSA and drug war

What you are saying is that the freedom of a drug addict is worth more than the life of an innocent person.

I believe the freedom of everyone is worth more than the lives of a few innocent people. I'm willing to accept a few casualties, and indeed, no matter what you do, there will be casualties. That's why I'm against the TSA, the Patriot Act, and all that other nonsense that trades essential freedoms for security.

But what you're advocating for is that people be punished just because they might commit a crime in the future. Apparently you don't care about the innocent people affected by your decisions or that this is a ridiculous amount of power to give the government.

I think human sacrifice is not acceptable.

Then why are you advocating for punishing people and permanently altering them just because they might commit a crime in the future?

But if you're so obsessed with security at all costs that you'd go to such lengths, why not just make everyone live in padded rooms?

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[quantaman]

Would he have wanted to live if he never found any joy in living ever again?

Speaking for myself (who doesn't have a drug addition), hell yes.

Sure it's a reduced quality of life from ideal, but it's still life. Besides, there's a reason it's referred to as the "pleasure centre" and not the pleasure centre, the brain isn't that neatly divided, I'm sure they can still feel some kind of pleasure, and have other forms of satisfaction in life, but that particular reward mechanism won't function (at least not in the same way).

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[quantaman]

How much moralizing did your friend have to put up with that only drove him to be more addicted rather than accepting he's addicted and choosing treatment. How much stigma was associated with "being committed" in his mind? For that matter, how many shitty, controlling people were in his life that he needed to escape into a drug. For that matter, WHAT drug. Alcohol? Cocaine? Cough syrup? Meth? Heroin? Weed? Ah, I see, it was just... drugs. Because every one I just listed is exactly the same.

At least in the mind of a puritan. I know people who moralize about using tylenol. I'm not kidding. I don't know if that's you, but come on.

If you haven't already, go read I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

So someone comes on ./, tells how their friend died yesterday, and your response is to make a bunch of baseless assumptions about what happened and essentially blame them for their friend's death?!?

Dude, could you get any more classless?

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[quantaman]

Losing a friend because he made bad decisions is tragic, and cause for grief. Having a friend lobotomized because the government has decided youre making bad decisions is horrifying, and cause for outrage.

There is a big difference between making bad decisions freely, and having the government decide that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions.

When did we make the jump to the government forcing this surgery on people? Everything I saw in the article suggested people were volunteering (and paying for) the procedure.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[subreality]

What does the government have to do with it? I'm under the impression that this is people freely choosing to undergo the procedure to free themselves of their addictions.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[pbjones]

sorry for your loss.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[MysteriousPreacher]

Unfortunately a lot of doctors, in the name of science and scientifically guided moral righteousness, support mandatory circumcisions of male babies. It's not just religious nutjobs who support this.

Bullshit. It's a Jewish tradition that became the norm in America. It's the tradition, mixed with religion, that drives people to try to find rational reasons for docking baby penises. You may as well be saying that the Kallam Cosmological Argument is recounted in the name of logic and reason. Blanket circumcision for reasons of health is no more justified than removing toe nails to prevent the many disorders that can come from them. It's tradition. Parents don't realize the impact, and they want their kid to have a "normal" penis.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Patch86]

There is a lot of evidence for the fact that penile sensitivity is reduced by circumcision. Some studies come out the opposite; at a quick glance of the sources, I tend to trust the "it does" camp more than the "it does not", but I don't think that can count as a proper meta-analysis...

If you were circumcised as a child, you will probably never know what the difference was. In which case, if the former is true- bad luck and all that; perhaps have sympathy on your own sons.

If you were circumcised as an adult, then your experiences would be intriguing to hear about. I've read articles from people who were circumcised as adults swearing that their sensations have been reduced; but again, hardly a proper study there...

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[bill_mcgonigle]

There is a big difference between making bad decisions freely

The trick with brain modification is that the person who makes the decision isn't the person who has to live with the decision.

[Begin the quibble between 'person' and 'personality']

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[bill_mcgonigle]

if you were circumcised and can't feel pleasure from your penis then something went horribly, horribly wrong with the procedure. That's definitely not normal. I'm circumcised so I know what I'm talking about.

You probably don't know that there are two different kinds of pleasures, one from the parts you've got left and one from the part that went missing.

From the ladies' perspective, they can get a different pleasure from men who know the additional techniques available to them. I'm unaware of any who dislike this additional kind of pleasure but in all the world perhaps some exist.

But certainly one kind of pleasure is far superior to zero kinds of pleasure!

What I wonder is whether these Chinese patients will miss the pleasure they've lost or be blissfully [sic] unaware of it.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Psyborgue]

You lost a friend because he was told his entire life that he was powerless over a disease he was born with and had to rely on a fictional deity to make his decisions for him. Societal stupidity killed your friend and nobody has learned from it. Your solution is to remove the ability to feel any pleasure whatsoever. Sorry, but death is preferable to that existence. If somebody ever removes my ability to feel pleasure I hope somebody kills me.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Psyborgue]

You're judging a group (drug users) by individual's actions, implying they are all the same and are collectively guilty of crimes before they even commit them. You reduce human beings to robots, denying them any personal responsibility. It's not the government's business what a person puts in their body. It's their business if they hurt others directly, and the motive for such action, whether chemical or otherwise is utterly and completely and totally irrelevant. Drugs do not make people do things. The may provide some motive, but they cannot force a person.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Half-pint HAL]

Unfortunately a lot of doctors, in the name of science and scientifically guided moral righteousness, support mandatory circumcisions of male babies. It's not just religious nutjobs who support this.

Bullshit. It's a Jewish tradition that became the norm in America. It's the tradition, mixed with religion, that drives people to try to find rational reasons for docking baby penises. You may as well be saying that the Kallam Cosmological Argument is recounted in the name of logic and reason. Blanket circumcision for reasons of health is no more justified than removing toe nails to prevent the many disorders that can come from them. It's tradition. Parents don't realize the impact, and they want their kid to have a "normal" penis.

He said they do it in the name of science, not because of science, just like the crusades were in the name of God and not because God actually told the Pope to go and slaughter a bunch of foreigners.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[MysteriousPreacher]

The difference is that God told them to do it. Luke 19:27.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Half-pint HAL]

The government allows it to happen though -- they've banned it as a medical intervention, but they allow it under research. Are the patients paying? That's not how research is supposed to work, in which case the doctors involved should be dragged over hot coals. But even if the patients are "freely choosing", what does the doctor say to them? What is the advice? A doctor who believes in his methods is very persuasive, and something as iffy as brain-burning requires that the doctor really genuinely believes in what he's doing. In fact, I'd say that they'd have to be so personally invested in the efficacy of their treatment that they would be massively predisposed to talking the potential patient into doing it. In such cases, I don't personally believe anyone that has ever met the doctor can truly be considered to have "informed consent", in much the same way that exposure to persuasive press articles can poison a jury to the point that we have strong laws controlling the reporting of criminal cases before trial.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[jamesh]

You're judging a group (drug users) by individual's actions, implying they are all the same and are collectively guilty of crimes before they even commit them. You reduce human beings to robots, denying them any personal responsibility. It's not the government's business what a person puts in their body. It's their business if they hurt others directly, and the motive for such action, whether chemical or otherwise is utterly and completely and totally irrelevant. Drugs do not make people do things. The may provide some motive, but they cannot force a person.

I think we're talking here about cases where the person has done things (assault, murder, robbery) and blamed the addiction and where nothing else has worked to try and 'cure' them. I didn't mean to make the assertion that "you're on drugs therefore you are going to kill someone so we'd better start removing pieces of your brain", although I guess I should have clarified that better. Slashdot needs an append function.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[AK Marc]

It's 2013 now, and I'm just getting around to reading it for the first time now.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[Half-pint HAL]

Nope. The pope just wanted piece in Europe and there were too many warriors here. So he sent them eastward to kill and be killed. Politics, not religion, was the driving force. God's name was just a convenient excuse.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[MysteriousPreacher]

Sure, if the Pope was commanding an emotionless and thoughtless robot crusader army. While popes were notorious power players, it's silly to think that the verse I cited (and many others) didn't influence the motivations of the crusaders. Regardless of how the Bible overall is to be interpreted, the ease at which brutality can be justified should give Christians pause for thought. It's not as the verse I cited was some kind of Nostradamus-like vague word salad. Here are the Prince of peace's words:

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Doesn't matter that one could find plenty of other verses to prohibit the wanton slaughter and sackings that took place. It's pretty difficult to categorically say that one verse overrides another.

Politics almost certainly steers the course, and religion provides the fuel. In the absence of religion, I'm sure some other ideology could take its place. This isn't just blaming religion for all of life's ills, yet we can't ignore the danger of ascribing divine will to these iron age fables.

Re:Lost a Friend Yesterday

[AK Marc]

There is a big difference between making bad decisions freely, and having the government decide that you are no longer fit to make your own decisions.

Wait, are we talking about medical procedures or the government throwing people in jail for victimless "possession" crimes?

I wouldn't mind losing part of who I am

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to a real problem a change in personality wouldn't be such a problem, but losing dopamine forever? Never to feel positive emptions again ever? I don't care who you are that's not worth it. Surely the reason people get addicted to begin with is they don't have enough dopamine and serotonin in their life for whatever reason.

Re:I wouldn't mind losing part of who I am

[SternisheFan]

I've heard that drug/alcohol abusers are all 'self-medicating' themselves, unknowingly trying to do what proper medication can achieve. We know so much more of how the brain works today, when properly diagnosed, and in conjunction with recovery programs, the odds of getting a normal life back are far higher than what they used to be. To paraphrase a Dr. McCoy quote, "Drilling holes in peoples heads is not the answer."

Re:I wouldn't mind losing part of who I am

[Firethorn]

've heard that drug/alcohol abusers are all 'self-medicating' themselves, unknowingly trying to do what proper medication can achieve.

Some, not all, I think. And 'proper medication' can't address everyone's problems yet(perhaps never).

But yes, the general answer is an individualized course of medical treatment is the most effective solution to these sorts of things. Surgery very rarely required.

Re:I wouldn't mind losing part of who I am

[newcastlejon]

If it's going to end in suicide they might as well just go back to doing bullet lobotomies.

Re:I wouldn't mind losing part of who I am

[c0lo]

When it comes to a real problem a change in personality wouldn't be such a problem, but losing dopamine forever? Never to feel positive emptions again ever?

That would be against one of the unalienable human rights as exemplified about 235 years ago (remember the "pursuit of happiness"?)

Been There?

[Jane Q. Public]

"is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are? Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?"

I suspect that OP might have already had such an operation...

Lobotomy strikes back...

[niksakl]

I suppose the surgeons were lobotomised prior to the surgery to handle the stress better, right?

Cue the Cybermen in 3.. 2.. 1..

[Nefarious Wheel]

Ready yourselves. You will be upgraded.

Seriously editors

[thegarbz]

FIX THIS SHIT!

There's no more nice way to say it. This isn't a case of leaving the unit off a measurement, a simple typo, or even the ever so common case of a grammatical mistake a 10 year old could pick out.

This is YOU timothy not bothering to read 111 words that you put in the summary, let alone edit them.

Know what happens to me when I go to work and don't do any work, worse still I embarrass the company I work for? I get fired.

Re:Seriously editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Fix what shit?

Re:Seriously editors

[scubamage]

You must not be part of the US Congress. They can ignore their jobs and get raises!

Re:Seriously editors

[Tablizer]

a grammatical mistake a 10 year old could pick out....This is YOU timothy not bothering to read 111 words that you put in the summary...

Leave him alone, he's just had a lobotomy in China.
   

Re:Seriously editors

[arth1]

The valuable ad revenue continues to flow,

What? Slashdot has ads other than slashvertisements?
I guess I learn something new every day....

Re:Seriously editors

[fnj]

People DO make errors, you know. Even copy editors. It would probably make more sense to urge that submissions pass by two independent editors, than to castigate one editor for making errors.

Re:Seriously editors

[rastos1]

This is YOU timothy not bothering to read 111 words that you put in the summary, let alone edit them.

What are you talking about? My understanding is that the editors were replaced by a script ages ago. Literally. The stories are voted on in firehose and whatever exceeds a hardcoded threshold gets posted on the front page. Why bother with any human intervention at all?

Serious question

[Firethorn]

The story sucks, but I have to wonder. We do some radical brain surgeries at times just to fix problems with seizures. At least in the long term addiction carries a higher incidental rate of death, lowered quality of life, and such than seizures.

So I guess I'd have to say 'it depends'. I'd view it a bit the same as stomach stapling for weight loss -

I'd need to know a heck of a lot more about the details of the surgery - primary effects, dangers, side effects, success rates, etc...
Does it result in an unmotivated zombie, because there's no longer any reward for doing so much as life maintenance tasks? Can they still feel pleasure? Is it only being used on the most serious 'mental' addiction cases? I added mental because this wouldn't solve physical addictions to things like heroin, I think, but might help solve addictions to gambling, stealing, etc...

Going by the article, it seems to only stop addictions 10% better than traditional methods, and is still well under half. 60% have serious side effects, so I'm going to go with 'nope, not worth it, keep looking'.

As for 'losing who you are', well, even just day to day life you change. I'm not the same person I was a decade ago. Technically I'm not the person I was yesterday. If somebody wants to change, it might be worth it.

Re:Serious question

[ClioCJS]

I'm not convinced that addition has greater death than seizure.

Re:Serious question

[Velex]

I'd view it a bit the same as stomach stapling for weight loss

Agreed, but because I think it's the completely wrong approach and that it completely ignores the root cause. It's like using circumcision to treat urinary tract infections. There are plenty less-traumatic and less-invasive ways of achieving the goal. At least there may be a way to undo a stomach staple that I haven't cared to learn about. If things go horribly wrong after that piece of brain is flushed down a garbage disposal, how do you ever get it back? Or is suicide the option left for whoever you may wish this upon?

It probably isn't appropriate to bring circumcision into this thread, because brain surgeries like this are a whole world more revolting and horrific.

Would you want to be upgraded into a real-life Cyberman because somebody disagreed with one of your habits?

Perhaps the true horror here is the complete lack of empathy I find in comments like yours.

*sigh* I let myself be trolled by yet another Slashdot troll story.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

It probably isn't appropriate to bring circumcision into this thread, because brain surgeries like this are a whole world more revolting and horrific.

I think I agree. Circumcision surgery is both less talked about and not nearly invasive enough for a comparison in my head. At least a stomach stapling requires cutting you open, and deals a bit with 'addiction'(to food in this case) and behavior modification(you can no longer eat the same as you did before with a stapled stomach). But I also look at it in the case of other brain surgeries - stopping seizures, for example. So I look at an example of brain surgeries, and and example of behavior modification surgery. It's not perfect, but I spent less than 5 minutes on it.

In many cases stapling involves removing a portion of the stomach - the only way to undo it is to stretch the stomach to allow it to grow back to it's former size.

Or is suicide the option left for whoever you may wish this upon?

The only reason I'd consider having this surgery as 'routine' is if it worked on a high percentage basis, with low side effects that were generally outweighed tremendously by the benefits, and even then I'd restrict it to cases where the addict is basically committing slowish suicide by their continued behavior.

Perhaps the true horror here is the complete lack of empathy I find in comments like yours.

I don't have much empathy at all. Come to me with a problem and I'll try to find a solution, not 'feel for you' about it. It's a family trait.

I am empathic enough that I seriously considered their probable quality of life before/after the surgery, the alternatives, etc... It's just that in my way of thought I have to express it logically.

Because off the extreme nature of the surgery, the only way I'd approve of it is if it's the only effective method found to enable extremely dysfunctional people to live (mostly) functional lives.

Like I said - it would have to have a high success rate, low rate of serious side effects, and at least have 'most' of the people who have it go latter in life 'It might of sucked in many ways; but I'm glad I had it done, because otherwise I'd have been dead by now'.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

As for 'losing who you are', well, even just day to day life you change.

Agreed. If you cure yourself of an addiction, by whatever means, I'd say that you've made a pretty large change in who you are.

Re:Serious question

[reasterling]

"addition" killiing people sense 2+(-1).

Re:Serious question

[cbnewman]

This.

For example, Michael J Fox had an ablative procedure (thalamotomy) to treat his parkinson's disease. We don't really do that procedure anymore because deep brain stimulation has gotten better, but this article is extremely light on details and the write up (particularly by the OP) is needlessly sensationalized.

Re:Serious question

[betterunixthanunix]

At least in the long term addiction carries a higher incidental rate of death, lowered quality of life, and such than seizures.

Yes, let's lobotomize people who are addicted to drugs like this commonly used stimulant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

it seems to only stop addictions 10% better than traditional methods

I wonder if "traditional methods" include this utterly worthless crap:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_step_program

I also wonder how much better this lobotomy approach is than traditional methods other than 12 step programs...

Re:Serious question

[Renraku]

This is like treating your kid who bites their nails by having their nails surgically removed. It doesn't address the WHY of addiction, it simply removes one aspect of it. I'd wager that people who are cured of their addiction by this method are also cured of things like pleasure, joy, motivation, etc.

But I'm sure America will adopt it soon enough. We're more interested in punishing people for drugs than treating the cause behind those drugs.

Re:Serious question

[ortholattice]

Instead of using the electrode to destroy the nucleus accumbens, what would happen if instead they stimulated it? Could that provide neural impulses similar to those the drug produces, eliminating the craving? Or is some other deeper stimulation possible to achieve this?

What would the ethics be if a person could be brain-stimulated to be in a state of euphoria on demand, or even continuous euphoria, without the physical addiction or woozy systemic effects of drugs? Suppose it didn't interfere with productivity (or even increased it)?

Re:Serious question

[fnj]

I wonder if "traditional methods" include this utterly worthless crap: [12 step program]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but in this case it's a patently unfounded, and probably bigoted, opinion. I have multiple extended-family members and acquaintances who have been helped, and continue to be helped. Almost certainly some would not be in my life any longer if not for the program. So I sure hope you don't put your belief into effect by influencing people away from the program.

Re:Serious question

[quantaman]

Going by the article, it seems to only stop addictions 10% better than traditional methods, and is still well under half.

Would be interesting to see which people are helped, do we even really know what causes some people to become addicts while others have no problem with recreational use? There could be different mechanisms at work for different people.

Re:Serious question

[betterunixthanunix]

Well, if praying to deities (or doorknobs, or trees, or to the group itself) helped your family members overcome their character defects, great! On the other hand, the fact that the 12 steps begin by telling people they have no hope of self control is probably the reason 12 step programs are amongst the least successful approaches to substance abuse treatment.

Re:Serious question

[tibit]

I somewhat agree. I don't consider an alcoholic who can't ever drink again to be "cured" in any way, shape or form. A normal, non-addicted person, can simply drink in moderation like everyone else. Yet every "recovered" alcoholic I speak to tells me they must abstain from any alcoholic drinks, forever. The (lack of) logic of such a "cure" is mind boggling to me. A recovered addict, to me, is someone who can enjoy life just like anyone else, simply not having the obsession about alcohol, drugs, or what the heck ever.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

Yes, let's lobotomize people who are addicted to drugs like this commonly used stimulant:

Yes, I forgot to put 'serious' in there. I'm well aware that most of us are addicted to something. I'm talking more about the people who are so desperate they're willing to suck dicks to get their next fix.

As for the 12 step program, I agree, but the reported success of the Chinese for treating addiction makes me think that if it's included, it can't be the only treatment tried before it's judged as a failure - the overall success rate of non-surgical intervention is too high.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

but in this case it's a patently unfounded, and probably bigoted, opinion.

I've read in multiple places that AA, at least, sucks and has a lower success rate than people trying to quit on their own, much less less professinal help.

But further research shows that while it's not as good as professional help, those who enter the program voluntarily find it to be a good resource.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

This is like treating your kid who bites their nails by having their nails surgically removed.

What if your kid's nail biting habit is so bad that they're biting their fingers off, not just the nails? I state in the post that the results aren't good enough for the side effects, it's just that I'm more one to worry about the effects than the procedure itself. If we had some magic brain bit that we could use to cure addiction without side effects, why not push it?

Given that the butten isn't particulary effective at the 'cure' part, but is highly effective at the 'serious side effect' part, I'm firmly on the 'don't do it' side.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

because deep brain stimulation has gotten better

This is something that was dropped during the editing - whether it'd be possible to electrochemically stimulate/shut down the center on a temporary basis, a sort of reversable surgery, as an alternative?

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

what would happen if instead they stimulated it?

Heh, careful, you might get wireheads from Niven's "Known Space". Highest high possible, wireheads will do anything to get voltage to run the system, and since electricity is generally very cheap most quickly starve to death from running the system to the point that they neglect bodily functions. The high is so high they don't notice starvation/dehydration symptoms.

The rest of your questions are good, if unknowable without experimentation. But your first paragraph reminded me so much of Known Space I had to mention it.

Re:Serious question

[Renraku]

We CAN cure addiction. In many different ways. America just fucking sucks at it because we'd rather send people to jail for having drugs than treat them for addiction. More money in it, I guess.

Anyway, there are a couple of different GOOD treatments, but none of them will work unless the addict wants them to work. Truly wants them to work, not just because they ran out or because they're broke.

One is replacement therapy. You can move off onto something like Suboxone (not mentioning methadone since it is literally worse than the drugs you could be addicted to and takes months to get off of), and then taper down the Suboxone. It works by filling the receptors that opiates stimulate. You don't get high, but your cravings go away...even if you continue your drug use, you don't get much pleasure as the Suboxone binds to the receptors better. Some countries say 'fuck it' and give people access to the drug of their choice, since the social effects are the worst parts of addiction anyway. Sure they might eventually die earlier or harm themselves, but that's their choice if they want to.

Another is hallucinogen therapy. We're making advances in treating people with ibogaine, MDMA, ketamine, etc. With some psychotherapy thrown in, you can help the brain to rewire to make the cravings less intense...this is best if combined with something like Suboxone therapy.

If someone really wants to quit, they can. It isn't THAT difficult with medical treatment. What really sucks is as soon as you say you want to quit, you get treated like a criminal and no one has any sympathy for you whatsoever. If you tell your doc they won't say 'oh okay let me taper your meds' they'll just tell you to go to a pain clinic which will be seeing new patients in about seven months, and they can help out. Sorry I have to drop you as a patient because wanting to get clean is drug seeking behavior.

Addiction is a complex social and medical issue. We've made very few concessions on the social side, but we've almost got the medical side completely cleared up.

Re:Serious question

[Firethorn]

We CAN cure addiction.

As you and the AC mention; the addict has to WANT them to work.

Addiction is a complex social and medical issue. We've made very few concessions on the social side, but we've almost got the medical side completely cleared up.

This can occasionally happen, but there's lots of very helpful programs and people out there. Heck, I'm in the military and know people can self report at any time. Well, up to the point they're ordered to a mandated drug test. Once you self-report, you could pop for the drug test and they can't do jack. Of course, continuation of service depends upon successful completion of the program. Lots of companies have such programs.

The problem is, as you say, dealing with them until they WANT to break the habit. Until then they can be quite the drain, depending on circumstances. That's where jail comes in - drug addicts are actually generally not incarcerated for drug use. They're incarcerated for the associated crimes - theft, burglary, public intoxication(assault and such), etc... At this point possession alone is generally fines and parole.

Re:Serious question

[fnj]

I don't have to do research. I have seen the positive results.

Re:Serious question

[betterunixthanunix]

I don't consider an alcoholic who can't ever drink again to be "cured" in any way, shape or form

That there are two categories of people -- those who abuse and become dependent on alcohol, and those who do not -- is itself a myth that has become widely accepted because of twelve step programs. There are some people who are simply never able to maintain the self control needed to drink responsibly; there are others who can develop that self control with the assistance of a psychologist; and there are some for whom alcohol abuse and even dependence is temporary and who overcome it on their own. The twelve-step philosophy begins by excluding everything except the first group, but tells people who are in the second and third groups that they, in fact, are unable to develop any self control. That is one of the reasons twelve step programs are so unsuccessful: they start by ruling out any possibility of a person actually changing for the better.

Yet every "recovered" alcoholic I speak to tells me they must abstain from any alcoholic drinks, forever

Then you have not met people who abused alcohol in college, then grew up and stopped abusing alcohol. I knew someone in college who used to get drunk every day, who was skipping his classes and generally headed down the wrong path; then he became interested in joining the NYPD after school, and found that he was indeed capable of having one beer in a night and that a bottle of whisky did not have to completely consumed in one sitting. Keep in mind that drinking to the point of neglecting responsibilities meets the clinical definition of alcohol abuse; yet that same person stopped abusing alcohol on his own. In AA terminology, he is a "dry drunk" -- in other words, despite the fact that he is not abusing alcohol anymore, despite the fact that he cleaned up his act and is living a healthy life, he is still not "recovered" according to the twelve steps (should you point out this obvious logical fallacy, you might be told that he was never really an alcoholic at all, despite meeting the clinical definition of alcohol abuse).

The (lack of) logic of such a "cure" is mind boggling to me.

Well, what else would you call it if a person once had a condition that negatively affected their life, and does not have that condition today? If a cancer is in remission for five years without any medical treatment, we call it a cure. If a person once abused alcohol but has since stopped, and is able to not abuse alcohol without having their hands constantly held, how is that person not cured?

A recovered addict, to me, is someone who can enjoy life just like anyone else, simply not having the obsession about alcohol, drugs, or what the heck ever.

I think you are looking at the problem the wrong way. It is not a problem for a person to lack the discipline needed to drink in moderation; the problem is when a person who lacks that discipline decides to start drinking, even though they know they will be unable to stop themselves. One does not need to drink alcohol to enjoy life. Let's put it this way: I know a rabbi who has an allergic reaction to alcohol, so he drinks grape juice instead of wine for religious ceremonies (and he is just as happy during festive holidays as all the people around him who can drink).

Again, the definition of substance abuse is a pattern of behavior where someone uses a substance in a way that is dangerous or to the point where they are neglecting their responsibilities (e.g. their job, their family, etc.). If the only way for a person to not abuse alcohol is to not drink at all, then that person is cured by not drinking at all. That is a fairly extreme case, of course; most people can learn to use alcohol in moderation and to develop habits that ensure they do not abuse alcohol (in the case of my friend in college, he simply needed a clear goal in life). If a person stops abus

Re:Serious question

[tibit]

I think you are looking at the problem the wrong way. It is not a problem for a person to lack the discipline needed to drink in moderation; the problem is when a person who lacks that discipline decides to start drinking.

Well, duh, the cure would include changing whatever is needed to restore the discipline. Whether it's possible or not I have no idea, of course, but that's what a cure would mean to me. If you talk only about remission of clinical symptoms, that's a fairly narrow definition. Quality of life is a bit more than remission of clinical symptoms. Now I don't say that you can't live a good life without ever having a drink, but I don't see why someone who would have a drink and then couldn't stop should be considered cured. It's like saying "yeah, you're cured from pneumonia, but you have to wear a respirator for the rest of your life"...

A small handful...

[ls671]

"A small handful of doctors in China are..."

Is "small handful" common usage in English?

Re:A small handful...

[queazocotal]

Even with the size of chinese doctors, I imagine one would be a large handful.

Re:A small handful...

[retchdog]

uh... yeah.

Re:A small handful...

[Anonymous Coward]

The imperial "small handful" is equivalent to a Chinese handful.

Re:A small handful...

[ls671]

handful
Noun

        1. A quantity that fills the hand.
        2. A small number or amount: "one of a handful of attorneys".

In the context of the phrase, small was implicit since it obviously didn't fit in the hand. I would simply have written "handful".

A "small handful of sugar" would work although...

Re:A small handful...

[retchdog]

you mean ``would work though."

and let me help you on your quest to optimize away redundancy in the english language:

``I assumed he lived in a smaller place right now than the house he is going to buy.": `right now' is redundant as `now' would be sufficient.
``I don't boot that often myself": `myself' is clearly redundant.
``and the OS will cache hard drive content in RAM (buffers/cache)": obvious.

Re:A small handful...

[ls671]

I ain't got no nothing towars a "quest to optimize away redundancy in the english language" ;-)

I was merely pointing the fact that some words have more than one signification and that handful is one of them.

Thanks, Minitrue!

[Goaway]

The practice has been officially banned, but apparently continues nonetheless.

Of course, we're not going to let that stop us from calling it "China's", as if it were some kind of official and mandatory procedure.

Re:Thanks, Minitrue!

[Firethorn]

Given that it's going on in a military hospital with the approval of the state for a limited research run, I'm for attributing it to China.

The deeper questions are:

[tiqui]

Are you truly who you think you are when you are addicted to drugs?

Are the pleasures a drug-affected brain feels to be equated with other forms of pleasure?

It would be one thing to wipe-out part of a healthy brain (thereby permanently altering it) like this but it might be another matter to make such a permanent change to a brain that has already had permanent, and negative, changes made by "modern chemistry". Of course, the presence of any pre-existing damage from drugs also raises questions of true consent. Not sure how I feel on this one, but given that this is on brains already affected by drugs the morals and ethics are a bit cloudier than they might otherwise be. Personally, I find the idea of depriving a person of the ability to experience pleasure both creepy and dangerous. Should we expect future headlines about "zombie" violence in China?

Re:The deeper questions are:

[Stickerboy]

Which drugs are we talking about here? Some drugs, like meth, are "modern chemistry." Other drugs, like opium, alcohol, caffeine, weed, shrooms, etc, etc are as old as the hills.

For that matter, who are we to judge what form of pleasure somebody may experience or not? It also calls into question the term "addicted." What constitutes addiction, and when do we determine "addiction" is bad? SSRI-class drugs are highly addictive; I know that firsthand from quitting. They tell me sex is addictive, but I'm on slashdot so I wouldn't know lol. Cheesecake can be addictive, and so can caffeine.

Are we performing this horrific procedure on people simply because our own lives are miserable and we don't like that somebody found a way to be happy? Or is this a person who is unable to support themselves? Would this person be able to support themselves if not for whatever habit we want to correct by completely annihilating their ability to feel pleasure of any kind?

I agree with your conclusion. Creepy and dangerous.

Yes, this surgery is creepy and dangerous.

However, when you veer off into talking about addiction in general, you start conflating two very different phenomena: dependency and addiction. Dependency is the fact that if you stop using the substance in question, you will experience adverse effects. Stop drinking caffeine after you've become dependent, and you'll experience headaches. Etc. Addiction is a primary neurological disorder stemming from the way the reward/pleasure centers of the brain are wired. Addiction is not necessarily tied to a specific substance; more than likely, if an addict experiments around, there are multiple behaviors and/or substances that can fill their craving just fine.

There's a very simple litmus test that can tell you when a person needs to stop. Substance abuse is separated from mere dependency by the continued use of said substance despite clear harm or impairment from its use. A cigarette smoker that is tied to an oxygen tank because of COPD. A cocaine abuser that has cardiomyopathy and heart failure. An drinker that continues to drink despite brain damage and liver failure. These are more extreme but easy to think of cases of abuse in which they should have stopped a long time ago or gotten treatment.

Re:The deeper questions are:

[JonySuede]

Are the pleasures a drug-affected brain feels to be equated with other forms of pleasure?

Sorry about your lost, you mention his mother was addicted at his birth so he certainly had extremely poor capacity for intrinsic pleasure and probably happiness, seek relief in the fact that it is better to be dead than to be constantly suffering.
However you asked a question so let me answer it with my experience. Yes they can be equated (neurotransmitters are neurotransmitters ) and they can also be mixed with other pleasure, example: to me nothing from running 10 miles to skydiving can equate the pleasure I felt when fucking a girl I loved while on 2C-B, MDMA and cocaine; it surpass any pleasure, any rush I had experience otherwise. The thing is I did not to make an habit of it (or anything else that release great quantity of dopamine for that matter) else everything would have lost it's fun.
Now if you are talking about happiness: stability, power over your environment, and emotional fulfillment are a much better sources than what is produced artificially by SSRIs and "shopping therapy" and cie...

Re:The deeper questions are:

[swalve]

SSRIs are not addictive.

Re:The deeper questions are:

[babywhiz]

I guess I should RTFA, but how does Chantix target only the smoking addiction? How can Chantix be modified slightly to target other addictions? Seems to be way safer than scraping a brain.

I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, I wouldn't Godwin myself like this.

But isn't China now starting to get into the exact same "horrifying human experiments" thing ol' Adolf was big on? Only this time using what are currently considered "countrymen" for the task, rather than a group the government considers less-than-human and is actively attempting to exterminate?

Or is that who they're ACTUALLY experimenting on in this case?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[MrHanky]

Most of the West, the U.S. included, was big on this kind of "experimentation" (i.e. lobotomies as a kind of medical treatment) a few decades ago. No need for Hitler here.

On a positive note, much of our current knowledge of how the human brain works comes from destruction of various kinds, either from intentional and misguided treatment or from strokes. The side effects are often interesting.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[GameboyRMH]

Yep the rest of the world only stopped with the eugenics, forced sterilizations and routine lobotomies because Hitler made them uncool.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't "China" - it's renegade Chinese doctors.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

The first transorbital lobotomy was performed in 1946, one year after Hilter's death.

Lobotomies stopped being routine in the 70's.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[justin12345]

No need to Godwin yourself. Checkout what the Canadians were up to (with a little funding from the CIA): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron#Project_MKULTRA

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Then submit the story and stop whining like a bitch.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Internetuser1248]

The worst thing about this is that it is totally uneccesary. There was a study in the '60s that showed that targeted therapy in combination with psychedelic drugs can cure addiction with a very high success rate (compared to other methods) and almost no side effects. After lsd was made illegal research stopped but recently people have continued the program with ibogaine. The research is still far too preliminary for conclusive results but the fact that a potential treatment exists makes brain surgery even more inadvisable.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Runaway1956]

This is possibly the single worst thing that the Nazis did. They turned the world away from eugenics, because they were so cold hearted and calloused toward an entire race.

In and of itself, eugenics is a good thing. I would love to see it advanced. The research could lead to the cures for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, possibly even make our entire race stronger and smarter. The possibilities are endless.

But, because eugenics were so horrible abused by one group of people, against another group of people, we refuse to even look down that road.

I don't suppose that science will advance on that frontier unless and until a significant portion of mankind has left mother earth. I just hope that by then, the researchers haven't forgotten the atrocities committed by the nazis. The memories must be preserved, or mankind risks repeating those same atrocities.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[girlinatrainingbra]

Oh, that's scary what Cameron did, especially considering that "he had been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 1946â"47." Seems like the counterpoint to "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." It's more like he took the Nazi's inhumane human experimentation as inspiration for his kooky and secretly carried out experiments (the patients did not know they were being experimented upon) rather than as a warning of the level of depravity that can be reached by man's inhumanity to man.
.
This is the kind of example that shows how ordinarily mundane the evil of the Nazis, the syphilis experimentation in Tuskegee, and these secret mind experiment crapola really was. There was no evil evil mastermind with a grand evil plan (well, except for Hitler, that was a grand plan, eh?), just ordinary people doing awful and evil things.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[the_B0fh]

Funny how everything turns into Apple's fault, because Intel, Samsung and other companies don't manufacture in China.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[sjames]

Everywhere there was an eugenics program, it was abused For all of the potential benefits, it seems that as a species we just can't seem to find an ethical path through eugenics, so we need to leave it alone until we can handle it. Hitler just showed us the extremes of what was happening elsewhere already.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Ira Sponsible]

Explain the reelection of George W. Bush and Barack Obama then.

In the last few elections, it's been worse than just picking the lesser of two evils. It's more like having to choose between Satan and Cthulu. You know you're screwed either way. One will only corrupt you and steal your soul, the other one will drive you insane, turn you into a gibbering eldritch abomination and unravel the fabric of reality. I voted for the minor third party candidate Kodos. Who did you vote for?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Runaway1956]

Granted, it was abused. But, most other abuses were far less horrifying than what the Nazis did. Some of the abuses in the US were pretty bad, but they could have, and should have, been addressed, fixed, and allowed to advance. Without the catalytic effect of the Nazi's programs, I'm half sure that is what would have happened.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Eugenics is still being practiced. It's called abortion. Millions are voluntarily offing their offspring. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a major proponent of eugenics as a primary means of reducing the black population, among several other undesirable classes. She is now worshiped by many.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[mikael]

What worries me is that the input and out signals to that portion of the brain will get rerouted elsewhere ... perhaps to the pain center of the brain.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Tagged_84]

and help from accidents like iron rods going through someone's head and surviving Phineas Gage

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[the_B0fh]

Then call everyone out. The letter OP mentioned had nothing to do with Apple at all. To link it to Apple just means you're seriously biased and believe that all the evils of the world is Apple's fault.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[sjames]

Abortion is not eugenics. It is a procedure that may be used for eugenic purposes, but that's not common today as far as I know.

Do you also believe that everyone who uses a condom is practicing eugenics?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Immerman]

Can't find it offhand, but there was an interesting TED talk a while back by a fellow who had received repeated ECT treatments. I forget the details, but the gist was that he had been a respected professor until he suffered a mental illness that sent his life spiraling into oblivion. When all the less radical treatments failed, ECT managed to fix the problem and he was able to rebuild his life. No argument that there have been some horrible abuses in the past, but it does seem that there are situations where it is in fact the best option available. As with *any* neurological treatment though, I think the consent of the patient is absolutely crucial - forcibly altering someone's mind without their consent seems to me to be about the worst form of rape imaginable.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[sjames]

The abuses were not as horrendous in the U.S. as they were in Hitler's Germany mostly because in the U.S. forced sterilization was used where Hitler would use a gas chamber, but they were still rampant and were carried out with few if any questions asked for years. Not coincidentally, the procedures were almost inevitably carried out on the poorest members of society.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hairyfeet]

Actually I'd say they learned from the Japs, after all the Japs made the crazy Austrian look like a humanitarian when it came to human experiments. The worst part is unlike the Nazis we let most of the monsters left in Japan walk to get their data whereas with the Nazis we mainly went after the eggheads making rockets and jet engines, not the guys doing human testing.

as for TFA we tried that kind of stuff before, it was called a lobotomy, made the symptoms go away alright and left a broken doll in place of a human being. We are talking about obliterating the pleasure center of the brain so they will NEVER feel pleasure again, i bet a good 70%+ end up committing suicide in 5 years or less. Hell it would be more humane to just take them out back and treat them with a 45cal to the back of the head.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[swalve]

They were doing lobotomies before that.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hairyfeet]

"Well I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs, well I believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart...hey wait a minute, there is one guy controlling both puppets!"...Bill Hicks. The man has been gone more than 20 years and its even more true now than it was back then.

I urge all of those who think "If only my party got control things would be better" to watch the truth about voting and ask yourself some simple questions like : How many decades have been people voting for less government intrusion? less war? Less handing out billions to third world thugs? hell how many years have we been complaining and voting about the horribly broken borders? the corruption? the influence of lobbyists?

At the end of the day you can NEVER change a corrupt system by working within that system, why? Well the answer is obvious, its corrupt! That would be like handing a petition to some corrupt police force demanding they stop taking bribes...why would they care what you think? Like pro wrestling its all kayfabe and thanks to the revolving door between the corps and government today's senator will be tomorrow's lobbyist so by voting him out all you are doing is giving him a pay raise while letting someone else get a shot at the money!

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[KingAlanI]

I'm tempted to agree with you on that.
Eugenics does seem logical, although perhaps too coldly logical.
Many things work better in theory than in practice. Is it actually possible to separate eugenics from racism and other such irrational bigotry? Ironically, purging inconsequential characteristics weakens the gene pool. Also, why would homosexuality evolve?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[oursland]

Lack of GOOD alternatives.

The political landscape is dictated by who has money, usually money coming from external sources with political interests.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[disambiguated]

I'm not in favor of forced sterilization, but at least the person would have other reasons to go on living.

But I must be missing something here, because shouldn't the question be:

Is it worth it to cure addiction if you utterly destroy everything that makes life worth living?

How could any rational person think this is a good idea?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Smauler]

I agree. The 16 year old girl who has sex with her 15 year old boyfriend should be sterilized, and part of her brain should be destroyed.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Smauler]

The trouble with asking a question about eugenics is this statement : If your parents had access to the technology to filter out the gene you are looking to filter out, and decided to, you would not be alive today.

Most people stop and think about it at that point.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[loimprevisto]

Replying to remove accidental moderation...

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hawkinspeter]

Great idea! There's no chance that a court will make a mistake and punish someone only to find out later that the woman had lied about what happened.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Vintermann]

It's no coincidence that the Nazis bought eugenics into disrepute. If they hadn't done it, someone else would have done it. Because eugenics is inherently corrupt.

The thing is, the presumption with eugenics is that you know which genes are good or bad. But owing to our nature, as big selfish sacks of genes, there is no decision we are less objective about. Me setting myself up as judge about which of other people's genes are good and bad is simply corrupt, nepotism of the worst sort (and a literal sort, too: the word came from a pope who gave favors to his nephews, possibly illegitimate sons).

There's no getting away from it, either. Even if there should come an alien race or an AI or something, which for some reason had no personal stake in which genes survived, why should we listen to them? They would still make a value judgement in deciding what traits are desirable or not, and there's no plausible reason we should defer to that.

If you let yourself do transparently selfish and hypocritical stuff like making value judgments on other people's genes, of course it becomes easier to do it in other ways too. Once you've elevated yourself to judge and jury of humanity already, what's stopping you from making a few other horrible decisions? Eugenics and nazism are fundamentally related. You have to be evil to justify eugenics, and if you justify eugenics you turn evil. Your alternate history world with eugenics but no nazism is a self-contradicting pipe dream.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[cheekyjohnson]

Who cares if the brains of innocents could be ruined!? We're talking about child molesters! For the children, it must be done!

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[ultranova]

Yep the rest of the world only stopped with the eugenics, forced sterilizations and routine lobotomies because Hitler made them uncool.

But even that's passing. Eugenics is slowly creeping back into vogue, this time paired with the idea that fitness equals your bank account balance. Combine that with the "hardness is cool" -meme and it wouldn't surprise me if we saw mass sterilization programs again in our lifetime.

Between that, energy crisis, climate change, surveillance society, supervolcanoes with overdue eruptions, the constant near-misses of large asteroids, globalization, etc. etc., we shouldn't perhaps be so surprised that end-of-the-world scenarios get ever more popular. Something's gotta give.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[ultranova]

Is it worth it to cure addiction if you utterly destroy everything that makes life worth living?

How could any rational person think this is a good idea?

Well, if the purpose is to punish the sinner and terrorize the potential sinners, then irreversible zombification certainly works better than mere prison sentences, and is thus rational. After all, it's not like locking up pot smokers is intended to help them, but to destroy their lives as thoroughly as possible.

Expect this to become a new weapon in the War on Drugs in the West, too.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TFAFalcon]

So can we also chop off the hands of convicted thieves and rip out the tongues of white collar offenders? Those guys are also likely to repeat their offenses, so we should make it more difficult for them.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TFAFalcon]

But if you think about this it's actually a pretty lousy argument. It makes your conception the most important fact in history. Think how many other IFs you could justify just to make yourself happen. 'If your mother hadn't been raped, you wouldn't have happened. If your father hadn't had one of his balls shot off you wouldn't have happened. If Hitler hadn't existed your parents wouldn't have met. If Nagasaki hadn't been bombed the celebration of the end of the war would have been a day later so you wouldn't have happened,.......' Once you start thinking like that EVERYTHING that happened becomes a good thing, since it resulted in the miracle of YOU. So why not look at it without such selfish thought. If your parents filtered out that gene, they would have had the child without that gene. That's it.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TFAFalcon]

But how do you define consent when the patient is mentally ill? With many disorders, getting them 'stable' requires quite a few drugs. So what makes that consent any different from drugging up your annoying roommate and asking him if he wants some electroshock therapy. ('Yeah sure, whatever you say giant squirrel.').

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TFAFalcon]

Why not let it be up to the parents. Let them make up any value judgements on their own genes. And if they decide their genes are 'defective', they can always adopt.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[ultranova]

In and of itself, eugenics is a good thing. I would love to see it advanced. The research could lead to the cures for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, possibly even make our entire race stronger and smarter. The possibilities are endless.

The possibilities are almost nonexistent, actually. In order to alter a population significantly without it backfiring horribly (see dog breeding for a good example of backfiring), you need extremely advanced genetics to determine who can safely breed with whom, at which point it's a lot easier and safer both technically and ethically to just use gene therapy.

This is, of course, all ignoring the social framework needed for eugenics. After all, simply telling people not to breed is not going to be effective unless somehow enforced. Whether that force comes from outright violence or extortion ("no welfare for you unless you let us mutilate you"), it carries a horrible price even for those who are not themselves victimized.

So no, eugenics is not a good thing. It's inherently evil due to harming people and the entire society for empty promises. It would likely still be evil even if it could actually fulfil those promises, but it can't. And talking of it as "in and of itself" to avoid thinking of all it implies is downright dishonest.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[ultranova]

Hell it would be more humane to just take them out back and treat them with a 45cal to the back of the head.

That's probably the point.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hawkinspeter]

Thinking about it; everyone who has hands is a potential child molester - let's lobotomise everyone with hands!

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hairyfeet]

Why Slashdot can't add a simple "are you sure?" is frankly beyond me, hell there are plenty of rinky dink sites that have an "are you sure' dialog box, surely it wouldn't be that hard to simply have the mod give a simple "yes/no" before applying their mod.

But anybody who thinks they can "fix" a corrupt system by working within that system needs to ask themselves one question...why haven't we had any major political investigations since Abscam? the closest we ever got was the repubs having a fit over Willy getting a BJ, yet we see all these frankly blatant bribes such as the one on the committee deciding what rules ISPs should have to follow leaving her post...to go work for Comcast after she railroaded a pro ISP rulebook through, why no investigations? Hell we had a president outright lie to the American people and give false statements that led us into a war! Yet there is NO investigations at all? Why?

The answer is simple, its because BOTH sides are as crooked as snakes! Both sides take insane amounts in money, gifts, and cushy lobbyist jobs when their term as a "servant of the people" is over so the whole thing is as kayfabe as pro wrestling, they pick topics to get the people riled up over ignorant shit and then they go to dinner together...paid for by a lobbyist of course. That is why bitching about who is president is a joke, it would be like wanting to hunt Ronald down to complain when you got a bad burger, the POTUS is now more of a figurehead than the British queen, the real power is the corps behind the throne writing the laws and controlling the money supply.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TheCarp]

There is another huge problem with Eugenics.... put aside all the ethical issues and that.... no person can live long enough to impart a consistent vision on such a program.

Realistically starting a Eugenics program you are looking at starting with people (running the program), at LEAST in their 20s, but, more likely in their 30s and 40s in the senior management.

The thing is, each generation takes a year to produce, then really, if youthful vigor is all you care about, you are looking at a good 15 to 20 years before you get a really good idea which ones are interesting and can start feeding them back into the program.

Assuming this is someones lifes work, thats 2 or 3 cycles max. A proper eugenics program.... which is fundamentally not terribly different from animal breeding programs, don't produce real fruits within 2-3 cycles! In those time frames you are really just culling from the "wild" population.

Any true breeding program (yes I am going there), would take many more generations than that, something like the Bene Gesserit of Dune, who, I think demonstrate how a breeding program could progress without the use of any unethical techniques. (which is not to say that they even attempted to achieve that, but that they provide a blueprint).... by tracking breeding throughout a population and encouraging pairings (often by providing concubines with specific genes to men who poses desirable genes)

SO while one could certainly START such a system with a number of conspirators, it would take many generations and would have to outlive its creators....leading to a problem.... the cycle on which the program shows results that are input to the decision making process is approaching the lifespan of the decision makers.

Its relatively easy (conceptually, it takes significant space and work as it needs to churn through generations upon generation of individuals of various lines) as long as generations come at a reasonable rate to observe. Breeding your own species however, is a significant challenge for this reason, amongst others (humans are a pesky animal)

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[TapeCutter]

The practice has been officially banned

So no, not worth a Goodwin.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Phrogman]

I read a story recently (from a respected source) but can't recall the details. It involved a long series of experiments on the effects of radioactivity on humans. They were conducted by the US Army on American civilians without their consent. The article mentioned trucks rolling up to a children's playground in a particularly poor black neighborhood and spraying the kids and adults who were present with a radioactive liquid of some kind, then driving away. Other forms of testing were conducted all around the US, usually on very poor people.
When we look at foreign countries we revile, we point out their inhuman abuses as justification for our hatred or dislike of them. When we ourselves here in the west (I am Canadian, not American) carry out similar abuses of people, we just cover them up and refuse to believe *our* government could do that sort of thing.
Western Democracy is often just a more civilized face painted over the same barbaric and inhuman practices we revile in others.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Half-pint HAL]

But I must be missing something here, because shouldn't the question be: Is it worth it to cure addiction if you utterly destroy everything that makes life worth living

Exactly. But not only have you destroyed the concept of enjoyment entirely, you've also failed to convert the otherwise-incurable into a productive member of society, because most learning relies on the reward process. If there is no reward, there is no motivation to learn (except where failure causes pain).

How "human" is someone without the nucleus accumbus? Would we recognise ourselves in them, or would their behaviour evoke an uncanny valley response?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

ECT does in fact work really well in the short term... there's good evidence for that.

There are two deal-breaking problems, though.

1) ECT potentially causes brain damage. For many, many years, nobody did a proper study to check on this. When they finally did the study (long-term followup with neurocognitive testing and a good control group), guess what... it supported the hypothesis that ECT causes brain damage. So much for what my idiot professors told me in school.

2) The effects of ECT are short-lived, and there is *no* evidence that maintenance ECT (giving it every 1-2 months for a period of years) is either safe or effective. Again, nobody bothered to do a study of maintenance ECT for many years, and when they finally got around to doing one, guess what? Efficacy was no better than medications.

Why anyone would think that an anecdotal story about "ECT turning my life around" was scientifically interesting, or worthy of a TED talk, is beyond me. Then again we *are* talking about the f*cking TED talks, which seem to be a magnet for self-important bullshit artists.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[Handpaper]

Wasn't Phaedrus, was it?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[eugene ts wong]

I agree. I can't respect any opinions or suggestions that don't factor in the corruption of government. I'm amazed that people still think in terms of left and right, or liberal and conservative. What difference do their views make, if they are trying to screw us over?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[flyneye]

Most people in the U.S. that I know personally, feel oppressed, thus my curiosity about China.
Lawless war zones are not prerequisite to oppression. I suppose you could count D.C. as fulfilling that criteria, when you stop to think about it.
It really was government oppression rather than crime, that I was talking about. Compare what we had to what we got if you are able to.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[nbauman]

There has been a revival of ECT for severe, incurable depression, especially with the risk of suicide, and it's always with the consent of the patient. The problem is, it's always associated with memory loss. The recent treatments have less memory loss than the older treatments, but if you have ECT, you're going to lose long-term memories.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMct075234
Clinical Therapeutics
Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression
Sarah H. Lisanby, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2007; 357:1939-1945
November 8, 2007
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMct075234

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[eugene ts wong]

Moderators, please mod him up as informative. Here is the take away paragraph.

Early data suggests that a period of approximately two years of intermittent treatments may be required to attain the goal of long-term abstinence from narcotics and stimulants for many patients. The majority of patients treated with Ibogaine remain free from chemical dependence for a period of three to six months after a single dose. Approximately ten percent of patients treated with Ibogaine remain free of chemical dependence for two or more years from a single treatment and an equal percentage return to drug use within two weeks after treatment. Multiple administrations of Ibogaine over a period of time are generally more effective in extending periods of abstinence. It is noteworthy that twenty-nine of the thirty-five patients successfully treated with Ibogaine had numerous unsuccessful experiences with other treatment modalities.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Lets just hope that no one decides that you should be sterilized, or your head drilled and you pleasure removed. When people usually think of these things, its always someone else who is deserving. What happens, like it did in Germany, It would end up some government functionary would decide you would benefit from such a change, because they did not like your attitude, habits, political or religious affiliation or maybe race. There would be a rule, some criteria for deciding who. Like we have problems with the no-fly lists, your name might just end up on the list of those to be, "Bettered".

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[ChrisMaple]

the POTUS is now more of a figurehead than the British queen

Obama effectively gave GM to the auto unions in blatant opposition to the law. Few people have either the nerve or the intention to act in such an evil manner, certainly not John McCain. Consistent votes in the correct direction would prevent that, but the balance has been a slowly leftward direction for about a century.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[fluffy99]

Lobotomies were very popular because they turned a violent, unpredictable patient into a tractable, easy to manage patient (or prisoner). The impact to mental acuity and the resulting stupor were just considered a tradeoff. Often it allowed an unstable patient to return home instead of remaining in a psychiatric hospital.

Nowadays, we just dope them with drugs like Topomax. Having done foster care for a while, I can say it was very common to see troubled kids put on mood altering drugs to make them easier to manage as it was cheaper than getting them the psychiatric help they actually needed. It's also troubling to see just how many kids are on psychiatric drugs, even though side effects such as rage, extreme depression, paranoia are not unusual. The Sandy Hook shooter being one such example. People complain that he should have gotten mental help before it reached that point - he did, they just doped him up and made it worse!

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[theArtificial]

Because eugenics is inherently corrupt.

If you take a step back, isn't any system devised by man? I don't consider mathematics invented by man, the explanations yes, but I think the facts are truths found in natural the world.

The thing is, the presumption with eugenics is that you know which genes are good or bad. ... They would still make a value judgement in deciding what traits are desirable or not, and there's no plausible reason we should defer to that.

Good and bad are moral arguments, with genes there are desirable and undesirable traits. I'll give you a real scenario. Both parents were (unknown) carriers for cystic fibrosis, and after their daughter was born it was apparent she wasn't well. There are tests for this, if I understand your reasoning its undesirable and immoral to deem this trait anything other than beneficial. To this person it is all they've ever known, but compared to their peers their life is different will most likely be shorter. Interesting, when we do it with animals it's A Good Thing(tm). To highlight this, look at the impact of dogs throughout history, many breeds exist because of desired traits. Similar breeding exists in beef production and egg producing chickens, poultry production using birds bred for larger breasts etc. Do you abstain from pet ownership, meat, and dairy products on moral grounds and look upon all those who do not as "bad"? Why is seeking out potential mates with extreme genetic disorders "good"?

If you let yourself do transparently selfish and hypocritical stuff like making value judgments on other people's genes

We do it all the time, why are certain physical features found attractive? It's not crazy talk to consider someone from Brazil if you're into asses. If you like blue eyes, perhaps Northern Europeans are more your flavor? Not to say skin deep valuations aren't without their flaws, say the morning after you've been to a club...

Eugenics and nazism are fundamentally related

Eugenics and selective breeding have been around longer than Nazism. Human tribalism existed (and continues to thrive) since time began, and despite our best efforts there is no escaping human nature.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[mug funky]

you're talking shit.

care to find out how many women get the magical catch-all genetic screening on their foetus before offing it?

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[AK Marc]

If genetic screening isn't being done before the abortion (only done in cases where diseases are suspect with mainstream doctors), then it isn't eugenics. Also, note how many children the average abortion-getter ends up having. If it's more than two, then they reproduced more than average (last I hard, the US was at just under 2 births per family).

Abortions are popular because they are much much cheaper and easier than the alternative. And I find it funny that those who make such wild accusations (the liberal Planned Parenthood is a racist organization) are in the groups that are more likely to be explicitly racist. If Planned Parenthood was such an evil and racist organization, why is it not openly suported by the KKK and other racist groups?

No, it sounds more like the racists trying to turn the argument around and failing.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[AK Marc]

THey don't see it as bad as we do. Coincidentally, they see our system as worse than we do. Would you rather have a government that owns all the corporations, so the rich own everything, run the government, and keep the poor people down, or a government that's owned by the corporations, to the same effect? It doesn't seem like a big distinction to anyone other than those who live in China or the US, and both prefer their system to the other.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[flyneye]

Let us just remember OUR government has only been that way since the Republican/Democrats "Repubmocrats", jacked the system about a century ago and has been downhill ever since.
It would've been nice to see China develop without the governmental philosophy of of a Russian convict.

Re:I'll auto-Godwin myself

[hairyfeet]

TARP and the bailouts were started under BUSH not Obama, Obama just did what he was told just like Bush did. Oh don't get me wrong they can throw a little more scratch to their friends, see Cheney and the energy bill or how "green" tech was a codeword for cutting checks for Obama's buddies, but a good 90% of the actual policies are written at the fed from the likes of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and all the other old money banksters. There is a REASON why Goldman Sachs got 125% on the dollar when the housing bubble popped, its because they controlled the ones who write the checks and have since the fed was ramrodded into existence 100 years ago.

More not less

[AndyKron]

What we need are long electrodes into the brain to STIMULATE the pleasure centers.

ethics, schmethics. it's just outsourcing!

[retchdog]

Dr. John Adler, professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Stanford University, collaborated with the Chinese researchers on the publication and is listed as a co-author. While he does not advocate the surgery and did not perform it, he believes it can provide valuable information about how the nucleus accumbens works, and how best to attempt to manipulate it. “I do think it’s worth learning from,” he says. ” As far as I’m concerned, ablation of the nucleus accumbens makes no sense for anyone. There’s a very high complication rate. [But] reporting it doesn’t mean endorsing it. While we should have legitimate ethical concerns about anything like this, it is a bigger travesty to put our heads in the sand and not be willing to publish it,” he says. cite.

Re:ethics, schmethics. it's just outsourcing!

[retchdog]

yeah, i'm familiar with that. sickening, to be sure, but it seems different, in that it was (probably) already done by the time we learned about it.

this is complicity from square one. i dunno, it just seems different to me.

A natural experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

From the time I was 12 until the time I was 48, I spent most of every day thinking about sex, and wanting it desperately, and sometimes even getting it. Then one day my sex drive...faded. I couldn't get it up any more, I couldn't get it off any more, and underneath all that, I didn't care about it so much any more. That incessant, gnawing hunger was gone.

I miss it terribly.

I've been to my doctors, and they've poked and prodded, and run this test and that test, and prescribed this pill and that pill, and with time and the right pills, some of it has come back, but it's not like it used to be.

I never got all that much sex, but it turns out that wanting it, and sometimes getting it, was a big part of what kept me going. Now that it isn't there, I've had to rethink some pretty basic things, like why I get up in the morning, and why I bother to do my job, given that I can't get what I really want any more.

Re:A natural experiment

[Krishnoid]

Now that it isn't there, I've had to rethink some pretty basic things, like why I get up in the morning, and why I bother to do my job, given that I can't get what I really want any more.

Futurama made this point as well. I'd think you have to reconsider:

• whether its presence was always simply masking the absence of other motivations, and that the issue was always there, just hidden
• how the presence or absence of involuntary physiologically-based wants/needs fundamentally advises your life choices, which you're already coming to grips with
• if, in the absence of that want, you now have the freedom to choose your own motivations/wants based on other criteria -- e.g., longer-term goals, personal principles, developing different or deeper skillsets, or anything else.

Your statement made me wonder if there's a parallel to be drawn with people who experienced actual chronic hunger due to physiology, emotional state, or environment, and at some point had that hunger quenched.

Good luck, and I hope you figure something out that gets you and your motivations back in sync.

Re:A natural experiment

[ColdWetDog]

How many times do we have to tell you that THIS IS NOT /b/?

What is the difference?

[fred911]

You can cure thievery by cutting off hands.

Re:What is the difference?

[TheGratefulNet]

yeah, well, that only works once.

Re:What is the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't it be twice?

No news

[srwood]

This has been tried for years even in the USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateral_cingulotomy The only scientifically validated results are for treatment of depression.

DPU's

[HippopotamusX]

Near the beginning of World War II, psychologist Erich Fromm stated in Escape from Freedom that the nature of a dictatorial state was to amass the greatest number of depotentiated social units.

"we also lose part of who we are?"

[Vinegar Joe]

What if they were treating pedophiles instead of dopers?

Re:"we also lose part of who we are?"

[Tanuki64]

I doubt the church, especially the catholic church would like it.

Re:"we also lose part of who we are?"

[arth1]

What if they were treating pedophiles instead of dopers?

As long as the individuals can give informed consent without pressure, I'm all for that option, whether it's treating pedophilia, gourmandism or religion.

If someone wants to stay a pedophile, that should be their choice. Note that pedophile is not a synonym for child abuser.

Not impressed by the results or the ethics

[eye_blinked]

The success rate is not impressive and neither are the side effects. DBS at research stage is just as effective with fewer side effects because there is no wholesale destruction. Even conventional treatment has a good success rate and without these risks. This is nothing but unethical research in universities and hospitals performed by ambitious and unethical people experimenting on human beings. Add quack cash doctors exploiting desperate people and the disgusting mix is complete. Better article here: http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/13/controversial-surgery-for-addiction-burns-away-brains-pleasure-center/

Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

Meanwhile, in America, they do surgeries to remove a part of BABIES' PENISES.

Pot, kettle, and all that shit.

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

The functioning is certainly altered, since that "skin" contains the most sexually sensitive parts of the penis. Also, phimosis is irrelevant -- it is a rare condition that can be treated without such amputation anyway.

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point!

China: Surgery to destroy the pleasure centre of a consenting adults brains to eradicate drug addiction.
versus
USA: Ritualistic mutilation of the genitalia of infants (no serious functional damage) for aesthetic/religious reasons.

Even ignoring the difference in scale of the two practices you have to admit that China is looking a lot more civilised on this front.

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

Actually, circumcision does cause serious functional damage -- since it reduces man's capacity for sexual pleasure, you can say it is ultimately very similar to that Chinese brain surgery. Also, it is connected to over a hundred deaths every year.

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

In the wee hours I'll meet you down by Dun Ringill, oh, and I'll take you quickly by Dun Ringill.

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

Actually, most man who "know both ways" confirm it.

...circumcised men ... were more likely to report frequent orgasm difficulties after adjustment for potential confounding factors [11 vs 4%, ORadj=3.26; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.42–7.47], and women with circumcised spouses more often reported incomplete sexual needs fulfilment (38 vs 28%, ORadj=2.09; 95% CI 1.05–4.16) and frequent sexual function difficulties overall (31 vs 22%, ORadj=3.26; 95% CI 1.15–9.27), notably orgasm difficulties (19 vs 14%, ORadj=2.66; 95% CI 1.07–6.66) and dyspareunia (12 vs 3%, ORadj=8.45; 95% CI 3.01–23.74).

Re:Meanwhile, in America...

[Stormwatch]

Oops, I think I quoted the wrong study, should have been this one.

METHODS: Ninty-five patients were investigated on erectile function by questionnaire before and after circumcision, respectively.

RESULTS: Eighteen patients suffered from mild erectile dysfunction before circumcision, and 28 suffered from mild or moderate erectile dysfunction after circumcision (P = 0.001). Adult circumcision appeared to have resulted in weakened erectile confidence in 33 cases (P = 0.04), difficult insertion in 41 cases (P = 0.03), prolonged intercourse in 31 cases (P = 0.04) and improved satisfaction in 34 cases (P = 0.04).

CONCLUSIONS: Adult circumcision has certain effect on erectile function, to which more importance should be attached.

Ketamine?

[oliverthered]

Did he try Ketamine to stop, yes it really does work

Wow

[WGFCrafty]

I think most of us can agree we would rather feel the extreme highs and lows from addiction, than nothing at all.

Re:Wow

[fnj]

I think most of us can agree we would rather feel the extreme highs and lows from life , than nothing at all.

I think it works better this way.

Re:Worked for the Kennedy Family

[Anonymous Coward]

"violent mood swings" according to your link.

To answer the last two questions...

[jtownatpunk.net]

Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?

If the part that's lost is the scabby, rot-mouth tweaker who steals power tools to pawn for $20 to get that next hit, sounds good to me. It hardly sounds like this procedure is so precise, tho. Like trimming fingernails with a chainsaw. And the success rate is just shy of 50% in their very limited study. I'd want high 90s before I'd consider letting some Dr. Nick stick wires in my brain.

Fortunately, my only addiction is tasty food and that's socially acceptable in America.

Re:To answer the last two questions...

[loufoque]

You should try joining the Cybermen

Wouldn't Stop Me

[m0ntar3]

I would continue to drink, drug, use porn, eat, and smoke shit BECAUSE I had the surgery. Roots of addiction are not in the body; they're in the mind.

Nothing new here

[BrettTheBrat]

This is nothing new. There is always someone willing to force their will upon others and play god. Lobotomy was given in the past for mental illness. They are basically taking the pleasure center of the brain out. Try having intercourse after that. We can do that in Arkansas already, where is my Dewalt drill and a paddle bit, BillyJoBob has been in the wacky tobacco. Nothing about this story is good. We should let everyone have as many drugs as they want. The ones who OD leave, the ones who don't, well they get to stay. People in pain, I can understand, I run around singing "We are all on legally prescribed substances, never getting enough!" People in pain are not fakers, and after 40 years I couldn't take it anymore. I needed relief, the issue is the medications are habit forming and cause withdrawal. If I didn't have it I would be both in pain and withdrawal. So am I an addict now and need my brains stirred around with a swizzle stick? I chose to do these drugs and the thing is some people cant handle that fact and have no apathy towards others. So everyone that takes drugs is bad. People that take pain medication do NOT get high from them. They take them to balance the pain against the medicine. If they took more then their normal dose yes that would be them getting high.

lol

[slashmydots]

Why would they need a surgery that likely makes them never be happy again? They already live in China. That's pretty redundant.

Re:lol

[loufoque]

China is actually a pretty good place to find pleasure.

Abuses

[betterunixthanunix]

Perspective? Lobotomy began with extremely careful scraping of the brain, meant to do the absolute minimum damage possible. Then some greedy quack in the USA took it to a ridiculous extreme, turning a nice young lady into a wheelchair-bound mess because her stuck-up family was worried about their social standing, and that soon degenerated into a procedure that should have been called a crime against humanity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transorbital_lobotomy

If your drug addiction is going to kill you in the next 6 months

There are no certainties about that sort of thing, but there is a certainty about the sort of brain-damaging lobotomy described in TFA: it is irreversible and destructive.

Re:Birth control?

[redog]

Finally a cure to world hunger!

Stupid

[ceoyoyo]

Why does everything have to be "part of who you are!!!"

My wisdom teeth were part of me. I'm glad they're not anymore. An epileptic's seizures are part of who he is. Most are pretty happy when they're suppressed.

The real question is, is being cured of addiction worth not being able to feel pleasure anymore, especially if its the only option? If that's actually what the surgery does. This IS slashdot.

is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing t

[Csar]

After surgery, their brain probably won't produce a level of gamma waves — those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory — never before reported in neuroscience.

Hardwiring Ludovico's technique

[Turminder Xuss]

Surgery saves all that time with the eyedrops.

Re:Hardwiring Ludovico's technique

[LordLimecat]

Glad Im not the only one who immediately thought of that. People read these dystopian books and suppose that its just hypothetical. No, there really are people who think the government is justified in any and every means that it can use to maintain ironclad order.

$4,800 x 1,000 = $4.8 million

[nbauman]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119393867164279313.html

Cut away!

[Kylon99]

You know, the more you cut the more you can cure. Eventually you can remove every brain disease if you cut out the entire brain. What an idea!

Also, I have this 100% weight loss program people should check out...

China's?

[unix_core]

So if this was a handful of doctors performing an illegal practice in another large country, lets say the US. Would the headline read something like "America's controversial brain surgery..."?

Re:China's?

[Endovior]

Yes, actually. It's not like these are criminal doctors, breaking the law like some shady purveyors of fraudulent and harmful 'alternative' medicine. When that happens, it gets different headlines, and is treated differently; the doctors involved get fined, stripped of license, jailed, or punished in some way, and that's the end of it. No these aren't criminals at all; they have an official exemption from the Ministry of Health to continue performing the procedure for 'research' purposes (but with sample groups an order of magnitude larger than is normal for this sort of study). It's like if the FDA banned something, but then turned around and started semi-secretly passing out research exemptions to continue use of the banned treatment, and the 'research' groups were mostly just running the procedure as a normal treatment option, instead of as a proper clinical trial (with the associated procedures and controls required to make such trials meaningful). Accordingly, if such a thing were to occur, and then be leaked, with a drug or surgery that actually was harmful, then the headline would be justified; it would be the same kind of situation.

Paging Tom Cruise?

[KingAlanI]

I wonder if this is a $cientology anti-psychiatry rant.

or injuries

[KingAlanI]

or physical injuries to the head, but the point is the same - part X of the brain is damaged, subject's function Y is impaired, so part X is related to function Y

following the wiki link

[KingAlanI]

Perspective? Lobotomy began with extremely careful scraping of the brain, meant to do the absolute minimum damage possible. Then some greedy quack in the USA took it to a ridiculous extreme, turning a nice young lady into a wheelchair-bound mess because her stuck-up family was worried about their social standing, and that soon degenerated into a procedure that should have been called a crime against humanity:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transorbital_lobotomy

That wiki link redirects to the Lobotomy article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy#Notable_cases mentions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy which seems to fit your description - is that what you meant?

Re:following the wiki link

[betterunixthanunix]

Yes, Rosemary Kennedy is a famous example of an abuse of lobotomy. Her case was particularly cruel, because the doctors did not stop cutting into her brain until she was unable to speak coherently.

Does this mean 500 fewer people are addicts?

[OrangeTide]

"Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?"

Being an addict destroys who you are as well. Ideally an individual would need to choose between fighting addiction for the rest of their (potentially short) lives. Or suffering a surgery that will likely leave a their personality altered to be “mildness oriented" and potentially eliminate sex drive and motivations. Ethically the experiments are a disaster of course. A 1000 people? That's just crazy for an experimental treatment. If you can't get heroine users off the junk they don't live too long anyways, so I'm sure plenty of people involved tried to rationalize it that way.

As far as I know, nobody in the US has even attempted to cure addiction. Lots of treatments for addiction, it's big business really. But around here, specialists generally agree that once an addict, always and addict. The only thing that can be changed if they are an active user. What is intriguing is the idea itself that addiction can potentially be cured, even if if it was initially approached in a wrong headed and unethical way.

China...

[GNUThomson]

Now even Vulcans are made in China. Yikes!

Sociopath doctors?

[sco08y]

Dr. Wang Yifang, Mr. Mi’s surgeon and head of neurosurgery at No. 454 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army in Nanjing, said he’d performed the ablative surgery about 1,000 times to treat schizophrenia mostly, but also to treat depression and epilepsy. Michael Shulder, president of the American Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery was astounded at the number, telling the Journal the amount was “completely off the charts” and that even 10 would be considered “highly controversial.”

Is the real problem that China has sociopathic nuts who are surgeons? Not all sociopaths get their kicks from killing people, after all.

in my view

[argStyopa]

"Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?"

Having 'lost' a few friends to chemical addictions over the years, it's fairly obvious that losing a part of themselves or changing their personality forever really isn't something they're concerned about in the first place.

Re:I disagree.

[Steauengeglase]

The big problem isn't a slippery slope, the big one is that it becomes a hammer in search of a nail.

Back in '31 my state started a sterilization program to specifically weed out "idiocy, imbecility, feeble-minded[ness] or epilepsy". Of course that was a front for the real purpose, slowly sterilizing the black population (after passage, the bill's sponsor was very happy to admit that it he looked forward to a day that there would be no black people in South Carolina).

As time went on and slow genocide went out of style it became jumbled. Through the 60s and up until the 80s female employees, black or white, were regularly screened for any traits that would have made them undesirables.

"So Margaret, you have heterochromia, too bad, your hysterectomy is at noon; sorry, we ran out of retards to spay and we can't afford to lose funding (and you can't afford to lose your job). Too bad, so sad."

ECT isn't generally for psychosis

[caveat]

It's almost exclusively used for major major MAJOR depression that's totally unresponsive to every other treatment - you certainly aren't healthy, but you're oriented in the spheres of person, place and time when you give your informed consent. It's probably a reverse cause though; I think (and Wiki agrees) it has shown some effectiveness in psychosis and schizophrenia but when you're loony like that you can't give consent so they can't zap you...it isn't the 50s anymore.

Different from the usual totalitarian solution.

[hessian]

A small (7.62 mm) hole is made at the base of the skull, eliminating the patient's need to ever disagree with the State again.

Re: about ibogaine, its not a panacea either

[almechist]

Moderators, please mod him up as informative. Here is the take away paragraph.

Early data suggests that a period of approximately two years of intermittent treatments may be required to attain the goal of long-term abstinence from narcotics and stimulants for many patients. The majority of patients treated with Ibogaine remain free from chemical dependence for a period of three to six months after a single dose...

Sorry, I do have points, but... No can do, on the upmod. If you spend some time on any of the sites that are genuinely run by and for addicts and ex-addicts, you will find many, many personal stories posted by sometimes desperate addicts who have actually tried ibogaine therapy. The basic message seems to be, no, it does not work, with actual results that are a far cry from the way the drug has sometimes been portrayed in the media and in the few very limited and suspect studies done to date. Ibogaine is in the same category as so-called "ultra-rapid detox" type treatments, which is to say that while it does have its true believers, the vast majority of those who actually undergo the treatment don't see anything remotely like the promised results. Most discover this to their chagrin only after spending huge amounts of money. The sad truth is, there is currently no overnight and/or one-time procedure that will cure addiction. Of course there isn't, it's an extremely complex and still imperfectly understood condition with causes deeply-rooted in both personality and brain chemistry. So like the mythical free lunch, there simply is no such thing as a miracle cure for addiction, and I don't see much hope there ever will be.

Rat Park & The Pleasure Trap

[Paul Fernhout]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
====
Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980), by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself.[1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can."[2]

To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, an 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16â"20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters.[3]:166 The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment."[1] Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments.

The two major science journals, Science and Nature, rejected Alexander, Coambs, and Hadaway's first paper, which appeared instead in Psychopharmacology, a respectable but much smaller journal in 1978. The paper's publication initially attracted no response.[4] Within a few years, Simon Fraser University withdrew Rat Park's funding.
====

Thus I now joke that the USSR needed to guard its physical borders to keep people from escaping, but the USA needs to guard its medicine cabinets...

Of course, different drugs affect different neurotransmitters, so crack cocaine may have different results in such a situation than opiates like morphine.

Perhaps a bigger issue affecting most people who will read this is overcoming "The Pleasure Trap" related to junk foods:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
"Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation -- and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."

Re: about ibogaine, its not a panacea either

[eugene ts wong]

Hi. Thanks for the feedback.