“It is terrifying,” said Alvaro Mendes, an outreach worker in Rio Branco from the state of Acre’s Harm Reduction Association, the NGO that first detected the drug. “The majority of first-time users become addicted on their first contact with the drug. Most of them go seven to 10 days without sleeping, without eating. They start to go into a process of degeneration. After months of use … they go into a state where they look like zombies, wandering … in search of pleasure.”
That was written in this morning’s Guardian. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. How many times have we been falsely informed that some drug is instantly addictive, only to later discover that much depends on thee immediate circumstances of the user? I really am beginning to wonder about the Guardian, with reporting of this low standard. Where is the fact checking? Talking to a bunch of people who confess to not knowing what they are talking about doesn’t count as an investigation in my book. “Starting to look like zombies wandering around in search of pleasure” is a good description of much of the population of our consumer culture, including pretty much everyone who watches Big Brother.