"Any spare change?" (minimal spam please)

[JSPCHIEF]

C Elegans

Fair enough. Social Darwinism is not the right word for it. It was your term first anyway. Regardless, you're arguing semantics.

And I'll also give you that I "do not (k)now anything about evolutionary science and mechanisms." I may not go so far as to say I know nothing, but I'll concede that I'm far from an expert. It doesn't preclude me from having an opinion.

[jopperm2]

Do you think it would be more beneficial to have more money put into University-based R&D? I personally prefer it to anything else in the medical field. Also, as I have said before, the fraud I was referring to
is not related to medicare.

[C Elegans]

[QUOTE=JSPCHIEF]Fair enough. Social Darwinism is not the right word for it. It was your term first anyway. Regardless, you're arguing semantics.

And I'll also give you that I "do not (k)now anything about evolutionary science and mechanisms." I may not go so far as to say I know nothing, but I'll concede that I'm far from an expert. It doesn't preclude me from having an opinion.[/QUOTE]

The difference between non-fact based beliefs based on political ideology and scientific models, is not merely semantics. I asked you a question and you replied - I cannot help if you do not have sufficent knowledge to answer my questions correctly. Try to use Google or a dictionary if you feel unsure what a term means.

If you know very little or nothing about evolutionary science and mechanisms, then you cannot have opinions based on evolution. You have referred to "Darwinism", "evolution" and "survival of the fittest" as arguments for your opinions. Since you clearly do not now the meaning of the terms you use, but instead use them incorrectly, your opinions now stands without arguments save your personal fanasies. What is the point of having an opinion that is based on fantasy concepts?

[JSPCHIEF]

I fail to see how this answers CE's question. You are taking carefully-chosen ambiguously hypothetical scenarios and positing them as reasoning. Indeed, there are species that have become extinct, but I don't see what this has to do with compassion. There is really nothing in the fossil record that suggests extinction of a species is the result of compassion. To the contrary, discoveries of burial mounds from the Palaeolithic period and before suggest quite the opposite, that early humans cared for the sick and the deformed. If we are dealing with qualitative data, there is considerably more evidence to suggest that compassion has in fact aided human survival.

My point was, I can't explain why we haven't evolved past it. I can't explain why we haven't evolved past a lot of things. If I could, I'd likely be off making boatloads of money lecturing on it, rathering than arguing on a gaming site. The fact we haven't evolved beyond it does nothing to prove wheether or not we need to.

Have you ever actually studied, in depth, History, Anthropology, Economy or Philosophy? No offence intended, but it sounds to me as though you are largely informed by anecdotal hearsay and the likes of individuals such as Ayn Rand.

In depth no. I have a mild interest in history, and in the past had a mild interest in philosophy (I grew tired of endless debates between people trying to change each other's inflexible views).

How *very* convenient on your part.

Certainly. The fact that someone stole everything these poeple had 100+ years ago does not excuse them for doing nothing to improve their lot in life since IMO. What is the statute of limitations on milking history for excuses to over-produce, spread disease, and and live on land that is unliveable?

And I can't help but wonder how many times the privileged will blame the poor for their situation as a way of justifying their own exploitative, self-indulgent behaviour.

I can't help but wonder WTH you're talking about. Who am I exploiting?

I'm deeply cynical about mankind, but human society is not that black and white. Perhaps in your environment it is acceptable, legitimate, and even desirable, to be a grasping egotist. However, there exist countless examples indicating that we are as much capable of "good" as we are of "evil." That you choose to focus on the selfish and the greedy is simply an apathetic and convenient attempt to justify your position.

And you choose to focus on the kind and caring to justify your position. Pot, meet Kettle, you're both black.

[JSPCHIEF]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]The difference between non-fact based beliefs based on political ideology and scientific models, is not merely semantics. I asked you a question and you replied - I cannot help if you do not have sufficent knowledge to answer my questions correctly. Try to use Google or a dictionary if you feel unsure what a term means.

If you know very little or nothing about evolutionary science and mechanisms, then you cannot have opinions based on evolution. You have referred to "Darwinism", "evolution" and "survival of the fittest" as arguments for your opinions. Since you clearly do not now the meaning of the terms you use, but instead use them incorrectly, your opinions now stands without arguments save your personal fanasies. What is the point of having an opinion that is based on fantasy concepts?[/QUOTE]

First, I don't need to back an opinion with scientific fact. I'm sure there are plenty of religions that would agree.

Second, While my use of these terms may not fit the definition in the dictionary, most people still understand it the way I meant it. I can't help it that most of the world has the same misconceptions of what Darwinism really means. I also think you know exactly what I mean, even though you have the knowledge to determine that my definition of Darwinism is not the one in the textbook you read last semester. Your eagerness to point out my wrong use of the terminology seems to indicate it.

Even if I take out the terms that you claim I've used incorrectly, it doesn't change my opinion.

All I know is, I was able to rise from the ashes to become a successful human being. The fact that it took so much hard work and mental fortitude has formed my views on people that want my help. I'm not willing to give up what I've worked so hard for simply because I feel sorry for them. If you live in America, and are reliant on social welfare for any extended time, you're a loser in life.

[fable]

[QUOTE=jopperm2]Do you think it would be more beneficial to have more money put into University-based R&D? I personally prefer it to anything else in the medical field. Also, as I have said before, the fraud I was referring to
is not related to medicare.[/QUOTE]

Then let's focus on this welfare fraud you speak of. Where is it? Welfare itself has been whittled down to next to nothing since it was first instituted, and again is the subject of strange allegations that never seem to be backed up by numbers--only by politicians who say things such as "We all know that welfare is the biggest money sink that..." Fill in your the dots as you wish. About disability I know less, but I would suggest that in an extremely neo-con country where people get elected by throwing out terms such as "rampant welfare fraud" that you get hard, clear facts--just as in a liberal nation such as the US was in the 1960s, questioning the success of welfare would have been intelligent.

I wouldn't think that government money should be spent on university-based R&D. Remember, the pharmaceutical companies often do the best, most intensive research in-house. And who would be involved in the selection ans screening processes for rating university applicants? Who chooses what drugs would be researched? And how would the supposedly religious convictions of people like Bush color the research programs? (You can bet they would.) Here, I tend to think the best approach is one in which the federal government carefully monitors the pharmaceutical industry to make certain it maintains the highest standards. I would also hope that the feds would prevent too many mergers, which the government has permitted ever since Reagan got into the White House, so as to prevent the formation of monopolies--which are never in anybody's interest, except the monopolies, themselves--but at this point, that move to maintain a degree of healthy competition and diversification doesn't seem likely.

[dragon wench]

My point was, I can't explain why we haven't evolved past it. I can't explain why we haven't evolved past a lot of things. If I could, I'd likely be off making boatloads of money lecturing on it, rathering than arguing on a gaming site. The fact we haven't evolved beyond it does nothing to prove wheether or not we need to.
In depth no. I have a mild interest in history, and in the past had a mild interest in philosophy (I grew tired of endless debates between people trying to change each other's inflexible views).

Which indicates you have very little on which to actually base your opinions.

Certainly. The fact that someone stole everything these poeple had 100+ years ago does not excuse them for doing nothing to improve their lot in life since IMO. What is the statute of limitations on milking history for excuses to over-produce, spread disease, and and live on land that is unliveable?

I do not disagree that in certain cases the victim chip can be overused. However, we are not just talking about history here, imperialism remains with us today. As far as living on land that is unliveable, may I remind you that most indigenous peoples lived in very fertile and abundant areas until European colonists came along and grabbed it for themselves.

I can't help but wonder WTH you're talking about. Who am I exploiting?

Perhaps nobody personally, but you are living in a wealthy nation that has derived much of its power and resources by exploiting poorer countries. And yes, I realise that living in Canada, I am in the same situation. However, I try to minimise my own impact by my actions, and I don't stick my head in the sand pretending I bear no responsibility for my country's actions. We all, collectivily, must acknowledge the role that we play.

And you choose to focus on the kind and caring to justify your position. Pot, meet Kettle, you're both black.

No, I did not, actually. I was simply pointing out that human society is far more complex than you portray it to be.

[jopperm2]

As far as welfare fraud goes, I'll have to get some more source material before I can comment and not sound like an idiot.. I'll reply probably thursday as I'll be out of town for 2 days on my anniverary trip. I agree that politics does get in the way of truth though, I'll say that much.

As for as PharmCos doing the R&D, do you think that profit is too much of a guiding factor? Would they release a cure for cancer that costs next to nothing if cancer treatments are very profitable? I'm not sure that they wouldn't, but I'm not entirely sure they would. I'm not positive about the selection of candidates as you have asked BTW. I'm not set on this idea, but just wanted to run it by you.

[C Elegans]

First, I don't need to back an opinion with scientific fact. I'm sure there are plenty of religions that would agree.

So do you want us to view your opinions as a kind of personal religion?

Second, While my use of these terms may not fit the definition in the dictionary, most people still understand it the way I meant it.

No, I don't think so. Incorrect language use is not necessarily the most widespread. You may think everybody is as ignorant as yourself, but I can assure you that at this message board, there are very many knowledgable people from all around the world.
On the contrary, the very idea of language is communication, and communication is more efficient when we use the same definitions. If everybody would use their own fantasy-definitions of existing worlds, just as you did in your previous posts, communication with language would be meaningless.

Even if I take out the terms that you claim I've used incorrectly, it doesn't change my opinion.

The problems is that it is no longer clear what is your opinion. Since no valid arguments remain, all I can derive at this point is "Poor people are poor and deserve to die because I say so."

All I know is, I was able to rise from the ashes to become a successful human being. The fact that it took so much hard work and mental fortitude has formed my views on people that want my help. I'm not willing to give up what I've worked so hard for simply because I feel sorry for them. If you live in America, and are reliant on social welfare for any extended time, you're a loser in life.

Maybe so, good for you, but what about the millions of sub-Saharan children who were born with HIV? The babies who are sold as sex-slaves because their families cannot support them? Please suggest how they could rise from ashes.

[JSPCHIEF]

Which indicates you have very little on which to actually base your opinions.

None less than what you're trying to use to debunk it. The fact that I don't have that answer isn't any more damning than the fact that you don't have the answer either. You can't prove that Deity X exists, but that doesn't mean he doesn't. I can't prove that Deity Y doesn't exist, but that doesn't prove he does.

I do not disagree that in certain cases the victim chip can be overused. However, we are not just talking about history here, imperialism remains with us today. As far as living on land that is unliveable, may I remind you that most indigenous peoples lived in very fertile and abundant areas until European colonists came along and grabbed it for themselves.

I understand that they were pillaged by imperialists in the past (for the hundredth time). But if your family quenched your thirst by drinking from the same pool of water for ages, then one day that pool was dried up, how long would you return to that pool to lick the dirt? It's not their fault that the land they live on sucks, but it's not mine either. I don't send winter coats to people that live in the arctic either...but they are smart enough to create their own warmth.

Perhaps nobody personally, but you are living in a wealthy nation that has derived much of its power and resources by exploiting poorer countries. And yes, I realise that living in Canada, I am in the same situation. However, I try to minimise my own impact by my actions, and I don't stick my head in the sand pretending I bear no responsibility for my country's actions. We all, collectivily, must acknowledge the role that we play.

And that's how the world works. The strong rise above the weak, the smart outhink the stupid, and the good-looking guy gets the good-looking girl. I'm a realist, you're an idealist. If I believed that your idealogies had a reaslistic chance of working in this world, I might be more inclined to have the same views. I'd like it if every time you lost your wallet, you'd get it back with the money in it. But here in the real world, you usually don't get the wallet back, and if you do, it almost never has the money in it.

[JSPCHIEF]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]
Maybe so, good for you, but what about the millions of sub-Saharan children who were born with HIV? The babies who are sold as sex-slaves because their families cannot support them? Please suggest how they could rise from ashes.[/QUOTE]
What are the people that are giving birth to these children doing to stop the spread of AIDS? What are these AIDS infected adults doing to insure they don't reproduce, thus bringing more AIDS into the world? Why are these families having children if they can't support them and are forced to sell them as sex slaves?

Or what would the world be missing if those millions of sub-saharan all died tommorrow?

[fable]

[QUOTE=jopperm2]As far as welfare fraud goes, I'll have to get some more source material before I can comment and not sound like an idiot.. I'll reply probably thursday as I'll be out of town for 2 days on my anniverary trip. I agree that politics does get in the way of truth though, I'll say that much.[/quote]

Not a problem, and enjoy celebrating your anniversary. My best to your spouse.

As for as PharmCos doing the R&D, do you think that profit is too much of a guiding factor? Would they release a cure for cancer that costs next to nothing if cancer treatments are very profitable? I'm not sure that they wouldn't, but I'm not entirely sure they would. I'm not positive about the selection of candidates as you have asked BTW. I'm not set on this idea, but just wanted to run it by you.

This is a giant can of worms: to what extent is profit ever too much of a guiding factor, and especially when it concerns industries whose activity has a major effect on our lives and their quality? Are yearly federal subsidiies nececssary to support the farming industry as they currently do? To what extent has the federal government allowed economic concerns to completely walk over environmental ones in city pollution standards, the structuring of green zones, and the pullbacks of restriction on logging old growth timber? Profit should be a basic question. The idea of business without this, at least on a large scale, is laughable. But just where do you draw the line as government and say, "This is enough, the negatives are beginning to outweigh the benfits"?

I do think pharmaceutical companies have rightly been condemned for going after the gold, and for (at times) focusing R&D attention on mainstream drugs that will rake in profits. They have countered, with some reason, that it's the money they make on the big name, big sell items which fuel their R&D for the drugs that aren't regularly used. They have also been condemned for making drugs into a marketable commodity, with large amounts of money spent on advertising agencies and television commercials; and for paying more attention to the competition than to the business of they're supposedly in.

But here, the federal goverment might play a stronger role by forbidding the broadcast of drug advertising on television--something which no administration has done, because the pharaceutical lobby is heavily funded, and as a result has gotten many willing ears in Washington. Regulation in any case means increased funding, something which Bush has refused to do. In fact, he's stripped a number of governmental agencies meant to observe and regulate the use of governmental funds (among other matters) down to nothing--which of course, has increased the likelihood of fraud immensely.

Specifically to your cancer question: if cancer treatments were more profitable to the industry, then I strongly suspect they would cost less. The problem here is that we're dealing with many different kinds of cancer in distinct areas of the body. Creating a new treatment targeting one kind of cancer would not necessarily help with any other (although there's a likelihood it could be adapted to do so). However, who then makes the choice which kinds of cancer treatments need to pursued by a pharmaceutical company? And what of all the treatments for terminal illnesses that simply don't have any general use, and cost a huge amount of money as a result?

EDIT: By the way, you might want to download and try out SimHealth. It's an interesting if understandably simplistic method of displaying some of the balancing issues inherent in designing a national health care system, which was a priority during the first year of the Clinton administration. The developers take no sides; they offer a series of the most prominent proposals at the time, and leave you to adapt them, or create your own, and see how each affects health care and the health care industry in the US.

[C Elegans]

For example: People pour money and food into starving countries in Africa trying to save these people, and the result is that they do nothing themselves to adapt to the situation. If we left these people to the mercies of nature, they would be forced to figure out that they either have to live somewhere where they can produce their own food, or reduce reproduction to make what food they have adequate, or they will die. It's certainly a cruel thing to say, but if you're starving, yet you're not smart enough to adapt to the situation, then you are a weak link. If these people died, it would be no loss to the human population. They drain our resources, while adding nothing.

While this is a perfect example of the political ideology Social Darwinism, I do hope you recognise by know that it has nothing to do with evolution and Darwinism. If I understand your reasoning correctly, you mean that:

1. Native populations in Africa or America had did not have as advanced killing technologies as the white man, when the white man colonised these areas.
2. Killing technology equals evolutionary "fitness" and is thus desirable as a heritable trait.
3. Those people who today are poor due to Western exploatation and Western induced wars, are "weak" because they are are not smart enough to adapt to their situation.
4. Thus, these people do not have equal right to survive than we have, we who were lucky enough to be born in rich countries.
5. Thus, the individuals right to survive is based on A) historical events that they themselves did not choose and B) lucky coincidence. Sounds like a very poor and superficial moral philosophy and/or political view.

Two questions regarding the parts of you post that I have bolded:

1. What has "being smart" to do with anything? How is "being smart" going to save you when you are born with HIV in an area with no clean water? Is "smartness" a desirable trait? Do you believe that you are smart? Do you believe that you are smarter than the 10% of the world's population who are starving to death in this very moment?

2. You claim those people drain "our" resources, what is your view of property? Is the US "your" country? Is your house "your" property? If I steal your house, does it become my resource then? Are you "draining" me if you have claims on it after I have stolen it?

I believe we're turning into a society of leeches. It's no longer a mindset of "band together for the common good". It's a mindset of "I'm a human so I'm entitled to everything that every other human has, regardless of what I've done to earn it". The weak ones are the people that have nothing to offer in return for what society has given them.

Your reasoning is that "I was lucky enough to be born in a rich country so I am entitled to continue to exploit less lucky people".

I don't necessarily believe that compassion has always been a weakness. Like I said in the end of my previous post, I believe there was probably a time when we were at the perfect balance between compassion and cruelty. If you think of it as a scale, then in the early stages of mankind, the scale tipped heavily towards cruelty, barbarism, etc. Now I believe it has not only balanced, but is tipping in the other direction. Ideally, we'd live in a perfect world when the scale tipped completely to the side of compassion. But history has shown time and again that the cruel survive as well or better than the compassionate. There's a reason socialism seems idealogically perfect but is realistically impossible. Humans aren't capable of being "ideal". The world needs to hold a certain amount of cruelty, so that humans are driven to survive, and ultimately thrive.

Firstly, the history of humankind is not a simple scale between cruelty and compassion, they ingredients of romantic novels is fiction - history of humankind is far more complex and involves interaction with an ever changing environment. A "perfect balance" is only perfect at a certain point of time: did you understand anything of what I wrote above about genetic variance? Do you realise that humankind will not survive for long if only those who are well adapted to a certain culture in a certain point of time, are selected for? Did you for instance know that humans on the African continent have larger genetic variation than the rest of the world's population? Do you realise that if the population in Africa die, mankind risks inbreeding and genetic inflexibility which decreases survival probabilites when climate changes?

Do you realise that the idea of "strict adaptation" is not evolutionary successful in the long run? Many features are trade offs - cancer and limited life span, for instance, perhaps verbal language ability and psychosis disorders.

Let me ask you this: According to your personal religion, what would happen if you got your will? If all presently poor and sick people died out - how would the world develop then?

[dragon wench]

None less than what you're trying to use to debunk it. The fact that I don't have that answer isn't any more damning than the fact that you don't have the answer either. You can't prove that Deity X exists, but that doesn't mean he doesn't. I can't prove that Deity Y doesn't exist, but that doesn't prove he does.

Unlike you, however, I am not attempting to argue an opinion by presenting hearsay as a valid point.

I understand that they were pillaged by imperialists in the past (for the hundredth time). But if your family quenched your thirst by drinking from the same pool of water for ages, then one day that pool was dried up, how long would you return to that pool to lick the dirt? It's not their fault that the land they live on sucks, but it's not mine either. I don't send winter coats to people that live in the arctic either...but they are smart enough to create their own warmth.

Oh good, more simplistic, hypothetical scenarios

And that's how the world works. The strong rise above the weak, the smart outhink the stupid, and the good-looking guy gets the good-looking girl. I'm a realist, you're an idealist. If I believed that your idealogies had a reaslistic chance of working in this world, I might be more inclined to have the same views. I'd like it if every time you lost your wallet, you'd get it back with the money in it. But here in the real world, you usually don't get the wallet back, and if you do, it almost never has the money in it.

Yet further simplistic dogma and hypothetical scenarios.

[C Elegans]

What are the people that are giving birth to these children doing to stop the spread of AIDS? What are these AIDS infected adults doing to insure they don't reproduce, thus bringing more AIDS into the world? Why are these families having children if they can't support them and are forced to sell them as sex slaves?

Many people in the Subsaharan region do not know that HIV is sexually transmitted. Also, getting many children is the only chance to survive. If you don't get any children, you know that you are dead by 25. If you get 10 children, maybe 4 of them survive and can perform work need for survival. You do realise that people in the sub-Saharan regions can't apply for a job, do you?

Or what would the world be missing if those millions of sub-saharan all died tommorrow?

Genetic variance, I explained it in 2 of my previous posts. Also, since genetic variation is so large in Africa, there are groups of people with special genetic immunisations etc that scientists study in order to develop treatment for diseases that are common in the Western world.

[C Elegans]

[QUOTE=jopperm2] A lot of the R&D is done through universities, I wonder if government money could be fed into those and make things more cost-effective.. Perhaps CE would have some insight in this, though not from a US perspective. [/quote]

Oh my, my opinions about the pharmaceutical industry and tax-funded governmental research could fill a PhD thesis...but I try to keep it relevant to this discussion.

1. Development of new drugs is horribly expensive today, and would be so regardless of who made the research. We are talking millions of dollars here for one single new medicine. The development costs are the main reason why medicine is so expensive. But:

2. The industry does not necessarily put their efforts at developing the most efficient, safest and most cost-effective drugs for the consumer. Instead, drug research is a constant balance between minimising risk and maximising profit, which means that drug development is going considerably slower that it would do if risk minimising were not so much in focus. (It's a long story why it is this way, but it's based on the fact that a majority of resources go into making slightly different versions of already existing drugs, and relatively little go into investigation of principally new mechanisms. So it doesn't matter that the emplyers are trained in academia - when you start working in the industry, you simply have to work according to another strategy, which can be described as reinventing the wheel again and again since the research is done according to special models)

3. The industry will only research what it think is cost-effective, in a way they think is cost-effective, which is a severe limitation. Besides, they manipulate their results frequently and cover it up with aggressive marketing. Governments on the other hand, should not be allowed to regulate funding based on their political ideologies. A horror example of this is the current US situation regarding stem cells and drug-abuse. Embryonal stel cell research is halted due to the religions views of the current administration. Drug-abuse and treatment research is halted because only labs that follow certain govermental plans, are getting funds. For instance, only certain words are allowed, and some scientific terms have been exchanged for politically acceptable terms.

So, my opinion is that JopperM is incorrect in his belief that governmental funding of research would make drugs significantly less expensive to the patients, and Fable is incorrect in his view that the industry is currently producing high-quality research and cost-efficient medicine. So what is the solution?

For the US, I see no solution unless you restructure the entire system. In Sweden, we used to have a very good system, but that is disappearing now.

It used to work this way:

Medical research was funded with tax money. The goverment however was not involved in how this money was disposed. Instead, there is a Scientific council consisting of scientists from all disciplines, and all grant applications are sent to this council. The Council decide the distribution of money based on scientific merit. When applications from your own university is assessed, or from your collaborators, you cannot participate in the process.

Apart from the Medical Science Council, there is also the Swedish equivalent of the FDA. The Swedish FDA is split in two parts - one responsible for drugs and pharmaceuticals, one responsible for clinical health care issues. You cannot hold a position in the Medical Science Council at the same time as in the FDA, and you cannot have any affiliation with the industry if you have a position in the FDA. In the US, people who are working for and in the industry can also sit in the FDA which mean they can approve of their own drugs. This is impossible in Sweden.

Another way of distributing money is also that the government fund universities based on international scientific merit (there are globally accepted quantifications system to judge this) and the university then takes in an independent committee to assess how much money each lab group should have. That was done at my university a couple of years ago, and then the most merited international scientists in each field were invited to visit and have hearings with the lab groups in their respective fields. The international committee then ranked the different lab groups, and the university distributed funds according to the ranking. (The idea with this hearing was that not only published research should be taken into account, but also future potential)

The Swedish model was what made Sweden world No 2 in medical research, although it's a very small country with only 9 million inhabitants. However, this system is now disappearing because the goverment wants to spend money on middle education rather than research, so funding has been cut in half over the last few years. Lack of funding forces labs to turn to the industry for money, and that is the end of free science

Almost all major discoveries in medical science (as in all science) comes from basic research (contrary to applied research, which is what the industry is doing). Currently, the only light in this dark death of free science is that the pharmaceutical industry is showing increasing interest for the academic way of conducting science. (My own lab is currently involved in a very risky gambling situation where we try to put pressure on politicians...I will know the result in a few months. Who knows, I may have to move to Japan or someplace where free academic science is still supported. )

[Xandax]

Somebody seriously needs a huge dose of reality, that is all I can say, and I truely it is recived someday.

[Moonbiter]

This thread has truly gone bananas. I'm pasting this from yesterday's LA Times. Bear in mind that the article describes a city of only 400 000 people.

COLUMN ONE
Norway's Heroin Lows
The model welfare state is a prime market for the rising Afghan opium trade. Mounting overdoses and ruined lives are the result.

By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer


OSLO — She said she only smoked heroin, but there were needle bruises on her neck. She said she loved her boyfriend, but she stood on a corner and offered herself to others. She said she was a girl, but then remembered she had become a woman. She said she wanted to quit, but she knew she wouldn't.

Across town in a brick chapel, Father Jon Atle Wetaas lighted three votive candles. "These are for peace and reflection," the priest said. "We never know what we'll meet out there." Then he and a nurse loaded a camper with clean needles, medicine and coffee and drove the streets searching for some of the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 heroin addicts that shadow this Norwegian port city.

They came upon the woman on the corner, a shattered 18-year-old desperately looking to fill her empty syringe. Her name was Katrin Nygard Helgeland.

"I try to quit," she said, her face pale in the autumn half-light. "I get depressed, and I run away inside myself."

Clean and tidy Oslo, the capital of a nation with one of the highest standards of living and some of the best social programs in the world, is one of Europe's heroin havens. Three years ago, it recorded more overdoses than any other major European city. Now, after a two-year decline in drug deaths — in part because of the war in Afghanistan, which interrupted the production and distribution of heroin — the number of overdoses is rising.

The trafficking routes leading to this city of stiff winds and North Sea oil money have reopened, and Norway is again a prime destination in the international drug network. Opium smuggled out of Afghanistan and turned into heroin is ferried by Albanian and Serbian gangs through Bulgaria and Romania before being distributed across Central and Northern Europe. In one raid this year, Oslo police confiscated nearly 150 pounds of heroin — double the previous largest seizure, in 2001.

"We think the flow of heroin will increase," Police Chief Anstein Gjengedal said. "It's very well organized."

The United Nations recently announced that despite the presence of U.S. and international troops, opium cultivation in Afghanistan increased 64% this year, growing into a $2.8-billion business.

Alarm over the drug problem in Oslo has led to a police campaign to push hundreds of addicts out of a park at the main train station. The move dispersed them throughout the city and provoked an outcry from neighborhood storeowners. Two factors that contribute to the problem are the low number of addicts seeking treatment in rehabilitation facilities and Norway's failure to widely distribute methadone until the late 1990s.

"There's a war in Oslo at the moment," said Ole Martin Holte, director of the medical camper program for addicts run by the Franciscan Aid agency. "There was less heroin in the streets during the Afghan conflict. Prices went up to 400 to 450 kroner [$66 to $74]. It's down to 200 to 250 [$33 to $41], and today the heroin is purer, which leads to more overdoses."

Kirsten Eeg, a social worker with the Church City Mission program, said, "The addicts are scattered, and they can't take care of one another as they did at the train station. Now, it's one death here, another there. It takes a longer time to find people and get help. Overdoses will go up."

The heroin scourge has been creeping through Oslo for decades. It surfaced in the late 1960s in the park near the palace and spread along the cobbled pedestrian mall until it landed at the plata, the park adjoining the train station. What began as a druggy counterculture movement of "flower power hippies," Eeg said, evolved into a population of medical and psychological outcasts that is testing Norway's sympathy for the downtrodden.

The plata had become a sinister yet fabled hangout for teenagers wanting to experiment with heroin and for prostitutes, who could sometimes be seen lifting their skirts to insert needles near their hips. "It was attracting boys who bought drugs and went home," said Gjengedal, who estimated that Oslo had about 60 street-level dealers. "It was turning them into users and creating other crimes. We had to move against it."

Heroin is smoked throughout much of the Continent. But Norway, with its history of secret heavy drinking to skirt temperance campaigns, is known for intravenous drug users seeking stronger highs. This binge mentality, social workers say, increases the risk of overdose because addicts frequently mix alcohol and depressants with heroin. Over the decades, the problem has spread beyond Oslo, and the government estimates that Norway has about 14,000 addicts.

In 1990, the nation had 75 overdose deaths. Government statistics show that the number of fatalities rose dramatically — to 270 in 1998 and 338 in 2001. The amount of heroin coming out of Afghanistan fell in 2002 and 2003, and the number of Norwegian deaths dropped to 210, then 172.

The decline also was attributed to less potent heroin and street-level medical and shelter services, such as those run by Franciscan Aid and the Church City Mission. In another attempt to limit overdoses, Oslo is expected to open a "public injection room" next year, where addicts can shoot up under the supervision of nurses.

Even though the number of heroin deaths is increasing, it's too early to determine if that's part of a trend. In 2003, Oslo had 53 overdoses. By October of this year, there were 64. Authorities attributed 11 deaths during an 18-day period in May to a powerful batch of heroin — another indication that purer Afghan drugs are reaching the market.

The problem tarnishes Norway's image as a country of splendid fjords and forests. The United Nations has for the last four years cited Norway as having the highest quality of life in the world. It is an egalitarian society sustained by high taxes and North Sea oil tracts. The literacy rate is 99%, and social and medical programs are all-encompassing.

Gaunt, willowy addicts gathered on a recent day near the 7-Eleven on Karl Johans Gate in east downtown. Dealers threaded the sidewalks. Girls whispered propositions. Needles were counted, little packets of powder crinkled. A big man with a samurai haircut and wild eyes, known on these streets as a mercurial prince of the dispossessed, walked through the crowd yelling and looking for a score.

The police kept watch, and so did private security guards recently hired by stores not far from the train station and the construction site for Oslo's new opera house.

"Norway has become a police state," remarked Said Rouiha, a Moroccan native whose head twitched as he waited for a dealer amid passing tourists and office workers. "Since they closed the plata, it is more dangerous for us. Around here you can get whatever you want. Hashish. Heroin. Marijuana. Methadone. You get it all. I've been smoking 14 years. Many, many of my friends died for overdoses and poisoned heroin. I gave some of them CPR."

He paused and scratched heroin residue from his lips. When asked how he ended up here, he gave a slight laugh and looked away. "I worked construction, you know. I married a nice Norwegian woman, and she converted to Islam. We had a son. He's 11. Then I got into this, and I can't stop."

Across the street, Tor Nilsen worked behind the counter in one of Norway's oldest paint stores. "We used to have 110 customers a day," he said, glancing out the window toward the sidewalk. "Now we're down to 15 or 20. We used to have five employees. Now it's just me. The customers aren't coming down here anymore. They're scared.

"Look at this street. Sometimes I think they're shooting a drug movie with the hundreds of addicts out there."

The paint store opened in the 1850s. It will close for good in December. The pizza shop on the opposite corner shut down weeks ago. The Oslo merchants association estimates that business has dropped 25% for shop owners in the areas around the train station. "It's not nice to see the town like this," Nilsen said.

The Franciscan Aid camper crisscrossed the drizzly streets. Marte Jorstad, an emergency room nurse, was at the wheel, and Wetaas sat in the back near the medical supplies and coffee. Each month, the camper's staff hands out 12,000 to 15,000 clean needles to the addicts along its route, which includes the ferry docks and the Old Town financial district.

During their time working together, Jorstad has disinfected arms left raw and scabbed from needle tracks, and Wetaas, a broad man with a pink face, has tried to comfort the wobbly addicts who appear at the camper door. The other day, they stopped along the outside walls of Trinity Church, which has become a shooting gallery for intravenous drug users since the plata closed.

The camper left the church and stopped at Grev Wedel Plass. A man overdosed here not long ago, Jorstad said as she walked by empty benches and bare trees. On the corner, wearing a white ski jacket, tight jeans and a swollen lip, Katrin Nygard Helgeland waited for men in cars to offer her money for sex. Her welfare check had run out, and she needed a fix.

She mentioned that the heroin on the street was stronger these days and that prices had come down. Another car drove by slowly, followed by another. Men in suits walked past. Helgeland's father was an addict, and she said her mother had beat her hard. By the time she turned 18, she had been in more than a dozen foster and state homes.

"I used to work this corner," she said. "I have a boyfriend now, and I love him very much. I don't have enough money. I don't want to do this, but I can't stop."

[Chanak]

"Let them eat cake" is what comes to my mind looking over some of the posts on this thread. Compassion is not a flaw; it actually has its merits. A cavalier attitude towards the situations of others only reflects upon a worldview that is jaded, and leads the possessor of such to commit the evils they claim lead them to such an outlook.

If one were the person suffering, through no choice nor doing of their own, one might think differently. Or perhaps if one ran into a personal disaster that left them bereft of the smugness and indifference they claim towards others in their suffering and misery, one might sing a different tune. I seriously doubt they would continue being smug about suffering in general. That this happens to the haughty is a lesson of the past: remember, the same one who, when commenting on what the poor and downtrodden should do with their miserable lot was liberated of her head by the very ones she lorded so arrogantly over.

I also get the sense that some here think that having compassion for others = coddling addictions or overlooking personal blame for a sorry situation. This accusation is in my eyes a patently absurd one. Drawing on some ridiculous examples of hare-brained ideas or intentions gone wrong fails to paint the entire picture with the same brush. I would remind anyone who claims to be a "realist" to bear in mind that nothing in this world can be perfect...nor can every program designed to help those in need be 100% fraud or abuse free. The answer I see sometimes is a revolting and repugnant one to the thinking mind. Unlike creatures who exist innocently and without the blessing/curse of rational minds, humans are saddled with a responsibility for their own actions. Those who don't practice it and claim to be above such will reap the reward of their own carelessness. History is full of such examples.

[Xandax]

[QUOTE=Chanak]<snip>
If one were the person suffering, through no choice nor doing of their own, one might think differently. Or perhaps if one ran into a personal disaster that left them bereft of the smugness and indifference they claim towards others in their suffering and misery, one might sing a different tune. I seriously doubt they would continue being smug about suffering in general. That this happens to the haughty is a lesson of the past: remember, the same one who, when commenting on what the poor and downtrodden should do with their miserable lot was liberated of her head by the very ones she lorded so arrogantly over.
<snip>
[/QUOTE]

Yes - I would bet that loosing ones job would convert many of the "people on wellfare = automatical looser" speakers.
I'd like to the see the normal person that can save up enough to get by years of unemployment including medical, foods, housing and what else. And when looking at the way the world economy has flucturated for quite a while - magnified by 9/11, War in Iraq and similar - it is very likely that many people find themselves withouth work whom has had steady work for a long time.

A (large) dose of reality would be good for many people.


Also I came to thinking - that such people mention that inhabitans of (for instance ) 3rd world countries need to do something to improve their situation withouth aid look kindly to immegrants that flock into their country. Although I think that is likely not the case.