Think about that a little harder.

It's pretty good. I'm not all that interested in drug talk and the potential drama of following them on a journey to kick their habits is mitigated by the blase attitude they have about it (even if the words they use are harsh and the stories occasionally harrowing, there's no urgency to it), but they are intelligent and interesting guys talking honestly about subjects that you don't hear about often, so it has held me as a listener.

Though I think Pauly's Wook Patrol podcasts are even better, for the sheer unpredictability and pithy format of them:

https://soundcloud.com/coventry-wook-patrol

(Episode 2 - "The Joker as the Tahoe Lot DJ" would be a good starting point. Episode 16 is also great.)

Think about whether a woman would marry a man who openly admits to being addicted to crack.

Depends


Gives "Shaniac" a whole new light.

Sort of reminds me of the old "no offense but...(something offensive)".

How big of a megalomaniac do you have to be to truly believe you can say with certainty exactly how each and every person in the world can or can't use drugs?

It takes guts to admit something like this publicly. I don't think I'd have it in me. For that reason alone I think it's poor form to **** on someone putting himself out there like that, regardless of how you feel about his choices.

I guess you could say I am passionate about the idea of contributing to a more complete level of dialogue on drug use/addiction. It was tough to write, and I'm not sure "why" either, but I generally think it's important to expose stigmas and try to establish a broader baseline of understanding and eliminate old, useless ways of thinking.

I was grateful that many in the poker community understood what I was trying to do in the piece, and I think that's attributable to the following: a) poker players have themselves had to overcome stigmas related to the profession before being accepted by society b) poker players have a lot of experience with vices and we are reckoning with those in various ways c) poker players are generally open-minded and think outside the box.

It didn't occur to you she might also be a crackhead?????????

best of luck shane.

I enjoyed the piece -- and I understood what you were trying to do with it. I'm not sure that I completely agree with you though. I've known a lot of crack smokers, and very few of them had much success controlling their use, though it does tend to lend itself to binge use, so they can often convince themselves it isn't a problem for quite long periods.

But while I was reading it, I was reminded of an earlier piece you wrote, where you ended up in a psychiatric hospital in Amsterdam? At the time, you attributed the hospitalization to pot smoking. Could it be that there was crack involved then, and you were keeping quiet about it because of the stigma?

Finally, watch out for the Zookeeper.

The hilarious part for me was going " what the hell does this guy look like?"..so I clicked here and then I thought. " how many of these pictures is he high in?"
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...s=bs&form=QBIR

wow, kids don't do Drugs, CRACK is WACK!!!

The thing is you can replace smoking crack with drinking alcohol in the above paragraph and it would also be true for countless people. Do I think smoking crack is worse? Absolutely. I guess I just don't feel like it's my place to draw a line past something as destructive as alcohol but before crack and say that's where the line is. Crack is harder to use in moderation, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to do so.

That's the crux of the matter. The reason hard drugs are stigmatized is because more often than not they're highly addictive and ruin lives. I don't see the utility of hard drugs having a spokesperson to represent the minority contingent who have successfully integrated them into a functional lifestyle.

I really don't see how you can classify stigmatizing regular crack use as an "old, useless way of thinking."

Even if we take what you say as true (crack can be used in moderation), what use does this provide? Do we really want people thinking they can start semi-regularly taking crack and it's no big deal?

I'm not sure which way I stand on this and I am willing to consider an alternative opinion, but I'm curious as to what your response is. What benefit does it provide to change popular opinion on crack usage?

The majority of people in the US use hard drugs. Whether or not they integrate them into a functional lifestyle, idk.

"I wouldn't do X, so you guys shouldn't do Y."

STRONG ARGUMENT BRO!

Majority? Lol. I'd put it at maybe 5% if we're counting teenagers and up and discounting weed.

I guess you have never been to florida. Pharmaceutical drugs are basically heroin. The number of old 60+ people that are addicts are going to be way higher than 5% lol

Hard drugs? Retirees smoking crack? Lol. I've been to Florida once.

Is anyone actually surprised? 7:36 in this video tbh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HElxVlHJzko

I don't think I ever said, "crack can be used in moderation." I also didn't write the piece to normalize the drug or make my behavior acceptable.

But I do think it's counterproductive to think about crack as some kind of mythical, addictive, overly powerful drug. I think creating a more finely-tuned basis for critical thinking is important so people don't illogically condemn users of one drug vs. another.

If someone was trying to tell you that poker is the same as blackjack, you'd try to clarify the difference.

And to whoever asked--no, I had never tried smoking coke before the psychotic breakdown...What found me in the hospital on and off for 6 months was experimenting with psychedelics, which don't have a reputation as "hard drugs" but imo have equal or greater potential to cause mental devastation.

And to clear up a misconception that seems to be the result of documenting a longstanding but basically sporadic habit into one article--I never smoked crack while playing poker, never smoked crack in Vegas. For most of my time in the game from 2005-2012, I would guess I indulged an average of 4x a year. Last year, as I describe in the article, I did it more.

Maybe I did too much last year (although, again, I never smoked in or near any poker environs--it's more useful to look at it like someone who got too drunk too many times last year). And maybe that's why I chose to share--to get in front of a potentially harmful relationship with the drug before it gets the best of me. I just choose to not be unapologetic for my behavior, because I don't think it's fundamentally much different than seeking out a high drinking, gambling or ****ing.

If I had taken a more classic approach and presented a "cry for help" this would be all be interpreted much differently. But I am unapologetic, because I consider drug use of all kinds to be a normal function of human consciousness. The distinctions we make between drugs tend to be ambiguous, sometimes arbitrary, or, worse, often based on fictitious stigmas and prejudices that have come to represent the truth.

Having a hard time comprehending how obnoxious you'd have to be to go online sleuthing into my life for evidence of having smoked crack---when I'm right here, happy to give you any amount of info you want.

People making suggestions about my wife or how the drug is likely to have affected unrelated aspects of my life...I guess I consider that inherently rude when I'm available to truthfully address any of your curiosities.

What stigma assigned to crack cocaine is fictitious?