You misunderstand me. I don’t think I know better than doctors. Far from it. What I want from a doctor is information and informed choice, not a gatekeeper who makes decisions for me. As a group, physicians have been slow to adopt the patient-centered informed choice mentality that, for example, nurse practitioners and midwives have more thoroughly adopted.

The fact that you’ve doubled down here on calling patients idiots for being somewhat distrustful of the typical arrogant physician attitude confirms what I’m saying.

If I was going under anesthesia for a planned procedure, I would not drink or use drugs beforehand. If it was an unplanned emergency, I guess it would depend on the circumstances, but you are citing an extreme circumstance. If someone is actively high at the time they end up in the emergency department, well, that’s bad luck and it might be wise to disclose since the staff will figure it out pretty darn quick anyway. Same if you are a severe alcoholic or opiate addict. That’s not what I’m talking about, though. I’m talking about when doctors or nurses ask you about it as a lifestyle question.

You know as well as I do that the health care system classifies people in terms of their risk factors and then use that profile to make decisions about you. Once classified as a “drug user” in your chart, many doctors and nurses will treat you differently. They may or may not “care” from a moral perspective, and we know that they won’t tell family or police, but that won’t necessarily stop them from denying you necessary pain relief or deprioritizing you in triage. That’s the actual concern.

There is absolutely no reason to tell a doctor if you use cannabis or engage in moderate alcohol use or occasionally use cocaine, LSD, or psylocibin. If you are prescribed a medication that has an interaction with a recreational drug, the doctor can simply tell you that. They don’t need to know if you use that drug from time to time. Only you, the patient, need to know that so you can avoid the interaction. More extreme forms of drug use are a different story, of course.

Edit: Let me add one other overarching point. I think people are sick and tired of having doctors make decisions for them. I don’t need a nanny. I need information about risks and benefits in order to make an informed choice. Doctors rarely do that. Instead, they decide what should be prescribed, or not prescribed, regardless of the patient’s wishes. I know the reason is fear of liability, but here we are nonetheless.

I used to trust HCPs, but I know many of them now and have heard them shit-talk and judge their patients for mental health issues and drug use (among other things). I would NEVER, EVER tell a doctor or nurse about any form of drug or alcohol use now, or any kind of anger issues that could possibly be interpreted as aggressive. Especially not in a hospital where everything gets recorded in an electronic chart and may be used against you in the future. Fuck that.

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The Middle East is strategically important, so the West can’t just ignore it. But it doesn’t make sense to get emotionally involved in what happens there. The protests against Israel do not make sense to me given the wider context in the region.

I know it isn’t a popular position right now, but I believe the Israelis are correct in their assessment that Hamas needs to be thoroughly crushed. True, it is only a short-term remedy because Iran will simply fund another generation of jihadis, but it may give Israel another decade or two of relative peace. Hamas only wants one thing and that is to destroy Israel. Hezbollah is similar and also needs to be crushed and Lebanon liberated, but that is a more difficult job that’ll have to wait. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are so thoroughly entrenched in their ideology and, more importantly, in a black market economy, that they will never become legitimate state actors.

So, how does the situation with Iran and their proxies get resolved? Peace processes have been tried for decades only to be scuttled by extremists. The West has sanctioned the hell out of Iran and yet they are still able to supply their proxies with tens of thousands of rockets. Protesters say that Israel needs to give the Palestinians their own state and then the hostilities will end. Yes, that’s a nice goal, but I don’t believe for a second that Iran will stop fomenting violence against Israel no matter how many concessions the Israelis make to the Palestinians. Does anyone, in their heart of hearts, truly believe that Iran will ever stop funding terrorism against Israel and the West as long as the Ayatollahs are in charge? Will any amount of justice for Palslestine appease the Ayatollahs? I don’t think so.

I hate to say it because war is the worst way to solve conflicts, but I suspect that the Middle East will remain a violent stalemate until the Ayatollahs are removed from power.

When I’m in bed, my cat will walk up to the side of the bed and meow. I reach down to stroke her and she walks away. Then she comes back and meows again. So I reach down to try to pick her up. Walks away again. Okay, so she wants me to follow her, right? Maybe she’s hungry, wants to go outside? So I get up. But then she doesn’t go anywhere except the foot of the bed. Then she let’s me pick her up and put her on the bed. But then she quickly walks to the end of the bed and acts like she’s going to jump down. Then I have to make a big production of making a spot for her, patting the bed and speaking soothingly. Then she lies down. This little game happens every night. She has me trained.

Trudeau is our Biden. He’s an old news incumbent and he’s got to go if we want any chance of beating snide Skippy. Trudeau cannot possibly have missed the way Biden bowed out and made way for new blood, and how that has energized the left and moved the needle with swing voters.

The same thing could happen with the NDP, if Singh would bow out. Of course, if they both pull a Biden, it might split the vote even worse. So, I guess we’d better hope that the NDP ditches Singh, but that Trudeau, unable to bear the thought of living in an empty house without Sophie and the kids, desperately clings to power like a madman.

Oh man, reading your comment just gave me 90s vibes. That was the peak when atheism was quite controversial. Nowadays, it is a bit weird if someone does practice a religion. Religious beliefs are not an innate trait, but a choice, at least in the West. We should be actively discouraging people from being religious in the same way we discourage misogyny, racism, etc. I’m very uncomfortable with some of the comments in this thread that suggest that discouraging the wearing of religious symbols is some form of crypto-racism. Religion is a completely different category and we need to be able to criticize it harshly and relentlessly without the suggestion that it is a type of racism.

Cute. And yet…I AM A MEAT ZOMBIE. MUST EAT. NOM NOM NOM.

Yes, agreed, electoral reform is definitely a sore point.

This is true of most politicians. They know that getting elected is not really about policy, but rather about capturing the sentiments of the population. When Trudeau was elected, the country was sick of the dour Harper et al brand and wanted a younger, hipper PM with a hope-and-change message. Now that Trudeau has run through his idea list, and Canadians are unhappy with the economy, Poilievre just needs to reflect that sentiment. You hardly ever hear him talk about actual policy because he knows that concrete ideas can be attacked. Riding the wave of resentment is the successful strategy for him, so he rarely says anything beyond criticizing Trudea. I’m pretty sure that the Liberals are resigned to losing at this point, and one gets the sense that Trudeau is just tired. And Freeland is smart enough to keep her powder dry and wait until we get sick of Poilievre in turn.