You might as well say "There is science to anthropogenic global climate change, it is studied climatologically" or "There is science to "gun violence prevention", it is studied medically". My point is that not all "science" is equal, and a LOT of it is "advocacy research" wherein the "scientists" apply for grants and know that if their "research" provides certain kinds of "results" they will continue to receive grants, otherwise, not so much. If you think that isn't true, well, you're living in a dream world. And "addiction research" is one of those fields. From what I've read, the total massed "scientific" knowledge regarding "addiction" and "treatment" for it has resulted in such scientific treatments being equally as "effective" as people quitting on their own. How can that be "science"? Because if you did, you'd have to admit that the whole concept of "addiction", and how it is applied, and how it is "treated" "scientifically" is bogus. There is no agreement ("consensus") on exactly what addiction is, nor how to "treat" it. See: Liberty University's new "digital addiction detox center".
Sorry but I am not accepting your premise. The information I have seen suggests addiction is very real and produces real reactions within the brain. Do you think people are faking withdrawal symptoms? Maybe we will have to agree to disagree here unless we want a long drawn out debate on addiction studies.
Yes, of course. The corollary that you fail to see, as borne out by the statistics is that when someone DOES want to quit, they can quit on their own just as effectively as when they are under "scientific" treatment.
I have not seen evidence of that either in specific addictions or addictions in general.
That's very simple. Here's your quote (emphasis mine): "Society has decided to make certain drugs illegal because of how it affects the brain, the health benefits, and because of bad decisions people make when using the drug." You didn't say "some of the reasons", you clearly stated that the reasons certain drugs are illegal is because of their physical and psychological/social consequences, and nothing could be further from the truth. Again, see: alcohol and cannibis, tobacco and vaping, etc.). Those medical/psychological/social cost/benefit reasons are NOT how those decisions are made by lawmakers, and anyone who claims they are is lying.
I don't think you can claim to know why every lawmaker and voter decided what substances to regulate and how to regulate them. The health affects of certain drugs are very well known and I think you would be hard pressed to prove that didn't play a role in anyone's decision to outlaw them. You think the dangers of crystal meth are made up and that lawmakers are outlawing it because some pharmaceutical company thinks it competes with their drug? Again, it depends on the drug in question since a blanket statement would not be accurate for every instance so I am speaking in general terms here.
Some people think sugar is a "drug" that is enormously harmful to individuals and has huge costs to society and have scientific evidence to support that claim re brain chemistry and total body physiology and thus conclude that it should be banned except as "naturally occurring" in the natural amounts in whole foods. With enough money and/or "enthusiasm", scientific justification for a LOT of substances being harmful can be confirmed by "research". You seem either very naive about that fact, or are deliberately avoiding the flaws in your arguments regarding the justifications for treating certain "addictive" objects/substances in the variety of ways they are or aren't treated.
We can play semantics if you want. Expand the definition of the word drug. I am not sure why you are bringing in sugar to the question because I was never making the case for which drugs should be legal and should be illegal.
[/quote]You mean the same way video games are harmful? Or watching TV is harmful? Or exercising "too much" is harmful? Who funded the studies that you are basing your conclusions upon? What journals were those studies published in? Please provide links to what you believe are the three strongest studies proving that "pornography" is harmful.[/quote]
Let me see if I can find any of the previous sources I have come across. (I couldn't find ones I had cited before but here are some others) I will try to avoid ones that are religious (unless sources are cited) since you might find those too biased. I am a little hesitant though and I will tell you why. Whenever I have gotten into a debate about the harmful effects of pornography with someone they appear less interested in the objective truth of the matter and more interested in justifying their usage. A frequent reply is "i use it and I turned out ok." Now to be clear, I am not making a moral judgement. Also I should include the disclaimer that this is not a settled science in that there is some conflicting scientific data and there is much more that can be studied on the subject, however therein certainly a body of valid scientific data that supports that pornography is harmful.
https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Top-10-Effects-of-Porn-small.jpg - A graphic but each bullet point has a reference to the source.
http://www.projectknow.com/research/porn-addiction/http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/10/14/5-ways-porn-affects-brain.htmlhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050060/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/watching-pornography-damages-mens-brains/But if you really have evidence that porn causes people to do bad things to other people, then you would support the legislation that is being proposed all across the country, almost exclusively by Republicans, to block people form accessing it, and maybe even support their hypocrisy in making the law to prevent such harm allow people to be harmed by the porn-crazed merely paying a $20 fee.
Already answered. I do not support it because it would be a violation of the first amendment and it wouldn't be effective.
Funny though how you can just arbitrarily claim all these studies on drugs, addiction, and porn to just be junk.