Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Where do you draw the line?

SubliminallyOveranalyzed - 30-8-2015 at 10:56

If it's ok in principle, for the government to say, you cannot consume drugs because it will do you harm, then why is it not also ok to make things like over-eating, for example, a crime/punishment and/or legal issue as well (which by the way, kills A LOT more people EVERY year than all illicit drugs combined), or skydiving, skiing, surfing, state's/parishes or territories with no helmet laws for motorcycles, etc., etc., this list could easily go on and on(you get the point).......

So where do you draw the line? Simply where one CHOOSES to draw the line, is that the criteria?

Well if so, then a drug war is not about harm reduction in ANY way.

What then, is the real intent of a drug war?

What actual purpose is being served?

Just a thought

TheAlchemistPirate - 30-8-2015 at 11:07

The difference between overeating and *MOST* illegal drugs is
1. It is not nearly as detrimental to your health as meth,cocaine,heroin, etc. Though things such as marijuana are much different and shouldn't be treated any differently than normal tobacco smoking.
2. Drugs are very expensive, and will force you to buy more and more of them. Combine that with the state of mind they put you in, and that can destroy societies in a matter of months.
3. Drugs are rather hard to make, and combined with the ignorance of our politicians, set the stage for gangs and cartels to form, which do much damage on their own.
That isn't to say that the drug war is a bunch of caring,passionate figures who sincerely want the best for us and our freedom. I typically compare it to anti-terrorism.

aga - 30-8-2015 at 11:15

Drugs operate in the cash economy, and are not under the control of the Government.

The big problem for the Controllers is that the black economy is HUGE and can afford armies, weapons, etc.

This poses a serious Domestic and Foreign threat to both Income and Security.

Any notion that your government gives a shit whether you live or die is a fallacy.

So long as enough living people donate money to them, it's all fine with them.

This is not a remark aimed at the USA government : all governments are the same.

Some people try hard to force their government to be Good.

Sadly Money talks, hence things like the Monsanto Act.

[Edited on 30-8-2015 by aga]

chemrox - 30-8-2015 at 15:13

Maybe the drug war in the US is another run at annexing Mexico. US destroys their social structure with gang warfare, supplying weapons to both sides, and when they're on their knees US steps in with offers of higher standards of living for the majority of them and takes over. The aggregate standard of living in the US decreases further but Trump and Hillary don't care. They revel in their riches and take credit for giving pittances to the poor who are now the vast majority of Amexican citizens.

ziqquratu - 30-8-2015 at 15:59

Sorry, TheAlchemistPirate, but I'm going to take issue with your points!
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  

1. It is not nearly as detrimental to your health as meth,cocaine,heroin, etc. Though things such as marijuana are much different and shouldn't be treated any differently than normal tobacco smoking.


How much of the detrimental effect is due to the drug, and how much to social factors? Heroin, for example, is actually quite a non-toxic drug, with few long term side effects - UNLESS you're forced to buy impure heroin of unknown potency from a black market source at inflated prices and practice unsafe behaviours like non-sterile injection and reuse or sharing of needles. Likewise, many other drugs - ecstasy, many common hallucinogens, even stimulants other than (meth)amphetamine - tend to have few significantly detrimental acute or chronic effects on health which can be attributed purely to their pharmacology.
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
2. Drugs are very expensive, and will force you to buy more and more of them. Combine that with the state of mind they put you in, and that can destroy societies in a matter of months.


Please provide examples of societies which have been destroyed, let alone ones which have fallen apart in a matter of months, because of the cost of drugs. Drugs have always been around, and probably always will. Animals get high! Also, how much of the expense is due to the black market factor? Most illicit drugs which also have medical uses - such as morphine or amphetamine - are VERY cheap when prescribed. They'd probably be even cheaper if mass produced for recreational consumption.
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
3. Drugs are rather hard to make, and combined with the ignorance of our politicians, set the stage for gangs and cartels to form, which do much damage on their own.


Most common illicit drugs are very easy to synthesise from scratch (methamphetamine, ecstasy, etc) or are easily prepared from easily produced precursors (cocaine by extraction, heroin from morphine, LSD from ergotamine). Certainly the stage is set for criminal exploitation, but that's mostly because they're NOT difficult to prepare if you have access to the reagents needed.
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
That isn't to say that the drug war is a bunch of caring,passionate figures who sincerely want the best for us and our freedom. I typically compare it to anti-terrorism.


Something along the lines of largely ineffective theatre? I'd agree with that. But perhaps even more insidious, since many of the negative effects of drug use can be blamed on criminalisation, rather than on the effects of drug itself.

As to the original post, the idea of "drawing the line" is always going to be a complicated issue, but I think regulation is only a small (albeit important) part of any change (excluding, of course, significant changes like decriminalisation of drugs, which of course is a critical step!). Ensuring that drug use (or overeating, or whatever) is treated as a health issue (meaning efforts towards effective education, harm minimisation and effective treatment - as opposed to imprisonment or treatment as punishment - when required) would probably go a lot further to solving problems than the criminal systems we have in place. Likewise, social change - which on highly contentious issues like this will probably only come through generational change - towards safe use, harm minimisation and seeking treatment when needed will be similarly important.

As to the war on drugs itself, I think it's a misguided - although maybe genuine when conceived - attempt to solve a perceived problem, which has since spiralled out of control. Yes, they should have learned from previous attempts (prohibition); yes, they should by now have realised it's ineffective and harmful; and yes, it's long since become a weapon which politicians are either happy to wield (some cynically, some because they genuinely think it's the right thing) or are scared to criticise.

The war on drugs is NOT about harm minimisation - it's about drug minimisation, the same way "abstinence only" sex education is about sex minimisation. This is because many people (or at least many people who have loud voices) believe that drug use (or sex, or whatever) is a moral, rather than a health, issue, and so ANY drug use is bad, no matter if it's safe or not.

BromicAcid - 30-8-2015 at 16:47

You might find this thread interesting:

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=20...

The interesting thing about talking about narcotics is that I believe it is impossible to have a logical discussion on the subject. Opinions on the subject tend to be concrete one way or another, even those I have spoken to that claim to be neutral, on investigation, are only neutral through the eyes of the individual. Convictions are steadfast because, in spite of any scientific evidence, people have had their own first-hand experience and to divorce oneself from that experience and to look at <b>all</b> the facts with an open mind... well... we're not machines and it would be fallacy to assume one could do such a thing.

Someone who has watched a family member suffer through addiction will be viewing the world through a different lens than someone who remembers partying with friends and no amount of discussion on the internet, no matter how well reasoned, has but the slimmest chance of changing hearts and minds.

I mention all of this simply because whenever passions run high the chances of a flame war run high as well.

To compare illicit drug use to eating is certainly a false equivalence; eating is necessary for life, an act performed from birth. Illicit drug use is usually a choice and certainly not necessary for life.

The lines have been drawn steadily over the years, based mostly on cultural momentum (though you may debate the cause of that momentum). You compare risk taking (skydiving, skiing, etc.) with drug use but high-risk sports have been banned, base jumping is popular in some circles but there are plenty of places where it is banned because the risk is too great. You bet you can ban a sport, just like you could ban a food that carries too much risk (you're not going to get Casu Marzu here in the states). Plenty of things get banned all the time, drugs are not an exception.

That being the case your conclusion about the drug war not being about harm reduction is not quite as justified as you may have intended it to be. The mob rules and it swings both ways, look at the leaps and bounds that marijuana regulation has taken in the states. Personally I am against illicit drugs, I <b>have</b> seen my family torn apart by them because they are addictive and we're only human after all. Drugs can be addictive, but heck, people can become addicted to lots of things. But to me the choice to take dugs is, as I've said before, tantamount to self mutilation.

Zephyr - 30-8-2015 at 17:41

I'm going to take issue with your points!
Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
Sorry, TheAlchemistPirate, but I'm going to take issue with your points!

Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  

1. It is not nearly as detrimental to your health as meth,cocaine,heroin, etc. Though things such as marijuana are much different and shouldn't be treated any differently than normal tobacco smoking.


How much of the detrimental effect is due to the drug, and how much to social factors? Heroin, for example, is actually quite a non-toxic drug, with few long term side effects - UNLESS you're forced to buy impure heroin of unknown potency from a black market source at inflated prices and practice unsafe behaviours like non-sterile injection and reuse or sharing of needles. Likewise, many other drugs - ecstasy, many common hallucinogens, even stimulants other than (meth)amphetamine - tend to have few significantly detrimental acute or chronic effects on health which can be attributed purely to their pharmacology.


I agree with you that hard drugs in part dangerous because of what they are cut with, but that is only a portion of a larger danger. Many opiods are safe in small doses in a medical setting, but with continual use at dangerously high doses, they are extremely detrimental to someones health:
"Repeated heroin use changes the physical structure and physiology of the brain, creating long-term imbalances in neuronal and hormonal systems that are not easily reversed. Studies have shown some deterioration of the brain’s white matter due to heroin use, which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations."
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/heroi...

In regard to impure drugs being the main cause of harm, I would point to the fact that everyday 44 Americans die from abusing prescription painkillers. These drugs have not cut and are safe at low doses.
http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/public.html

MDMA? Safe? Really?!? Studies show that ecstasy use irreversibly lowers serotonin levels, in addition I have talked to several people who have had direct experience with this drug who have confirmed that it detrimentally effects well being and cognitive ability.
Ricuarte GA, McCann UD, Szabo Z, Scheffel U. Toxicodynamics and long-term toxicity of the recreational drug, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine(MDMA, “ecstasy”).

Even Erowid acknowledges that MDMA is dangerous and cognitavely debilitative!
https://www.erowid.org/general/survey/survey_ecstasy_article...
Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
2. Drugs are very expensive, and will force you to buy more and more of them. Combine that with the state of mind they put you in, and that can destroy societies in a matter of months.


Please provide examples of societies which have been destroyed, let alone ones which have fallen apart in a matter of months, because of the cost of drugs. Drugs have always been around, and probably always will. Animals get high! Also, how much of the expense is due to the black market factor? Most illicit drugs which also have medical uses - such as morphine or amphetamine - are VERY cheap when prescribed. They'd probably be even cheaper if mass produced for recreational consumption.


I would say that most communities are resilient enough to withstand the harsh effects of drugs for more than a few months, but I agree that they eventually ruin a society if their use is not restricted.
The correlation between drug use and urban crime, which clearly negatively impacts society, is heavily documented: "Drug-related violent crime soared in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, accompanying the rise of the urban crack markets. As the crack markets waned during the 1990s, levels of violence also subsided."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719901/

An example of a society ravaged (but not destroyed) by drugs is the West Virginian town of Oceana, dubbed Oxyana due to the overwhelming oxycodone epidemic there: http://oxyana.com/trailer.html
Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
3. Drugs are rather hard to make, and combined with the ignorance of our politicians, set the stage for gangs and cartels to form, which do much damage on their own.


Most common illicit drugs are very easy to synthesise from scratch (methamphetamine, ecstasy, etc) or are easily prepared from easily produced precursors (cocaine by extraction, heroin from morphine, LSD from ergotamine). Certainly the stage is set for criminal exploitation, but that's mostly because they're NOT difficult to prepare if you have access to the reagents needed.


Maybe these are easy to produce in developing countries, but here in the US most precursors to illicit drugs are apparently quite difficult to obtain. Maybe you are a much more competent chemist (this isn't my area of expertise) but from looking at erowid making lysergic acid from ergotamine requires heating in liquid hydrazine (rocket fuel), washing with diethylamine, and then heating in a "bomb" (whatever that is) or under nitrogen for many hours. If that is an "easy preparation" and "easily produced precursors" for you, kudos, you are an amazing chemist.

Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
That isn't to say that the drug war is a bunch of caring,passionate figures who sincerely want the best for us and our freedom. I typically compare it to anti-terrorism.


Something along the lines of largely ineffective theatre? I'd agree with that. But perhaps even more insidious, since many of the negative effects of drug use can be blamed on criminalisation, rather than on the effects of drug itself.

As to the original post, the idea of "drawing the line" is always going to be a complicated issue, but I think regulation is only a small (albeit important) part of any change (excluding, of course, significant changes like decriminalisation of drugs, which of course is a critical step!). Ensuring that drug use (or overeating, or whatever) is treated as a health issue (meaning efforts towards effective education, harm minimisation and effective treatment - as opposed to imprisonment or treatment as punishment - when required) would probably go a lot further to solving problems than the criminal systems we have in place. Likewise, social change - which on highly contentious issues like this will probably only come through generational change - towards safe use, harm minimisation and seeking treatment when needed will be similarly important.

As to the war on drugs itself, I think it's a misguided - although maybe genuine when conceived - attempt to solve a perceived problem, which has since spiralled out of control. Yes, they should have learned from previous attempts (prohibition); yes, they should by now have realised it's ineffective and harmful; and yes, it's long since become a weapon which politicians are either happy to wield (some cynically, some because they genuinely think it's the right thing) or are scared to criticise.

The war on drugs is NOT about harm minimisation - it's about drug minimisation, the same way "abstinence only" sex education is about sex minimisation. This is because many people (or at least many people who have loud voices) believe that drug use (or sex, or whatever) is a moral, rather than a health, issue, and so ANY drug use is bad, no matter if it's safe or not.


Personally I am divided on the issue of legalizing hard drugs. I am compassionate for those in there grip who would be better helped if legalized and it would be great to take gangs out of the picture but at the same time I feel it would introduce them to many people who would have otherwise avoided them, because, as mentioned earlier, they aren't great for your health!

I hope we can all agree that simply letting the drug issue fester, without trying to wipe them out drugs, legalize them, or provide more resources to those addicted is a terrible idea.

byko3y - 30-8-2015 at 18:37

Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
"Repeated heroin use changes the physical structure and physiology of the brain, creating long-term imbalances in neuronal and hormonal systems that are not easily reversed. Studies have shown some deterioration of the brain’s white matter due to heroin use, which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations."
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/heroi...

There's much more simple words to describe the phenomenon. It's called "learning". Please don't post the stuff you have no idea about, opiates have been used for centuries without any problems.
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I would point to the fact that everyday 44 Americans die from abusing prescription painkillers.

And do you know how many people die from paracetamol or antibiotics?
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
MDMA? Safe? Really?!? Studies show that ecstasy use irreversibly lowers serotonin levels, in addition I have talked to several people who have had direct experience with this drug who have confirmed that it detrimentally effects well being and cognitive ability.
Once again, MDMA is just as dangerous as antibiotics/paracetamol are. Until you take much higher than normal dose or drink alcohol - you are completely fine.
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I would say that most communities are resilient enough to withstand the harsh effects of drugs for more than a few months, but I agree that they eventually ruin a society if their use is not restricted.

I'm just thinking about dropping this answer and walking away. Because you talk about something YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT. People have been using drugs for centuries, including opiates, mushrooms, cannabis, ayahuasca, salvia, without any problems.
The reason for crime level to rise is drug restriction, not the drug availability. Bans are the reason for most of the drug problems. Mafia was created by ban on alcohol.

For preparation of LSD from ergot alkaloids there's much easier route via POCl3.
Quote:
That isn't to say that the drug war is a bunch of caring,passionate figures who sincerely want the best for us and our freedom. I typically compare it to anti-terrorism.
Terrorists are completely guided and are fonded by governments. The question is only which government fonds a particular group. So talking about anti-terrorism either makes no sense or does not describes the problem.
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
it would introduce them to many people who would have otherwise avoided them, because, as mentioned earlier, they aren't great for your health!
It's not about health, it's about your ability to perform work, to wake up early in the morning, go to the office or to the plant, and to do the work you hate.
Another reason why drugs are banned is because after taking mdma or lsd might start questioning status quo, and that's a great danger for government.
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I hope we can all agree that simply letting the drug issue fester, without trying to wipe them out drugs, legalize them, or provide more resources to those addicted is a terrible idea.
You don't realize the root of the problem, that's why we can't agree.

solo - 30-8-2015 at 19:37


Illegal drugs?.....in my opinion it's a way for the government to tell you what to do some more. If choose to stop eating .... it will kill you , does the government make that illegal .......or is it that the gov. just has no way to make their fair share of the monies being generated by the selling and using of drugs which they deemed illegal?

.....the gov is all about making laws to protect the capitalism and themselves, not about protecting your rights to be free to live your life any way you choose......what is the alternative, do what you want to do, where you want to go , as the song of the Mamas and the Papas gave to us in our generation....still holds true to today's generation.....do your and live yours, and if it offends someone.....they will get over it , save the feds..they want to lock you up.....so much for democracy and freedom......this is how i see it .......solo

BromicAcid - 31-8-2015 at 03:21

Quote: Originally posted by solo  
If choose to stop eating .... it will kill you , does the government make that illegal ......


At least in the states, if you try to stage a hunger strike and are near death they will force you to eat using IV fluids, nutritional paste, etc. If you are just starving yourself for the heck of it you can bet that they will tag you with any of a number of mental ailments and force you to eat and get you therapy to make you think that eating is good.

gregxy - 31-8-2015 at 10:32

The only real question in the war on drugs is:

If "hard drugs" where allowed to be distributed under a tightly regulated system, would there be more people using them than there are now?

If you look into it alcohol and tobacco are quite nasty drugs and high on the addiction scale, yet the majority of the population can manage their use. Millions of others use opiates short term for pain control without issue (and this is without most of them even knowing what a dangerous drug they are taking, if they did know many would not take them).

Drugs ARE devastating communities. But the war on drugs doesn't do much to stop people from using them and turns "lost productivity" into harm not just to the drug user but to many of those around him. Get busted with hard drugs, you are a felon. Good luck getting a job, what are you going to do?

Loptr - 31-8-2015 at 11:09

Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  
The only real question in the war on drugs is:

If "hard drugs" where allowed to be distributed under a tightly regulated system, would there be more people using them than there are now?

If you look into it alcohol and tobacco are quite nasty drugs and high on the addiction scale, yet the majority of the population can manage their use. Millions of others use opiates short term for pain control without issue (and this is without most of them even knowing what a dangerous drug they are taking, if they did know many would not take them).

Drugs ARE devastating communities. But the war on drugs doesn't do much to stop people from using them and turns "lost productivity" into harm not just to the drug user but to many of those around him. Get busted with hard drugs, you are a felon. Good luck getting a job, what are you going to do?


I am not sure of what I am talking about, but wasn't there something about Portugal decriminalizing all drugs?

aga - 31-8-2015 at 11:58

Legalistion under scrutiny (same as booze and tobacco) is the only logical choice, as there is zero control of the drugs, the money, the workers, the quality, the effects on users etc at the moment.

Illegality isn't working at all.

USA Politicians should already know this due to the experience gained in the Prohibition period.

If i were in charge, i'd legalise Theft (and Banking) as well, imposing a tax on activity, same as every other Occupation, however with death being a penalty for non-conformance rather than just a fine or costly imprisonment.

Terry Pratchett said it best in one of his books : "30% per-capita would be acceptable. If not, de-capita is an option" (or words to that effect).

Face the Facts head on : All the nasty stuff happens anyway, whether Legal or Not, and current Controls simply do not work very well.

gregxy - 31-8-2015 at 12:09

After a quick google search.

Portugal did decriminalize hard drugs in 2001. The results seem to be indeterminate. If you read liberal stuff things got better, if you read conservative stuff, they got worse. Deaths definitely went down.
There definitely was not a large increase in new users. There is a surprising lack of information of information (that I can see).

Since the drugs still need to be obtained from illicit sources, I would think there would still be lots of crime associated with them.

I remember reading that legalizing pot in Colorado actually resulted in less use among teenagers.

TheAlchemistPirate - 31-8-2015 at 12:30

It's worth noting the reasons why people don't use illegal drugs. The reason I'm not a drug addict is not because I am afraid of getting caught by the government, not because I can't find/make any drugs, not because I've been shielded from anything related to them and therefore don't know enough to manage to get a high. I don't use drugs because I'm smart enough to avoid getting addicted to something that essentially dissolves your mind and ruins your capabilities for the rest of your life. If hard drugs gave you any real chance to escape and get clean it would be different. The government has proven their ineptitude quite well when it comes to changing an area/culture for the better. These people need help, not jurisdiction.

Loptr - 31-8-2015 at 12:58

Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  
It's worth noting the reasons why people don't use illegal drugs. The reason I'm not a drug addict is not because I am afraid of getting caught by the government, not because I can't find/make any drugs, not because I've been shielded from anything related to them and therefore don't know enough to manage to get a high. I don't use drugs because I'm smart enough to avoid getting addicted to something that essentially dissolves your mind and ruins your capabilities for the rest of your life. If hard drugs gave you any real chance to escape and get clean it would be different. The government has proven their ineptitude quite well when it comes to changing an area/culture for the better. These people need help, not jurisdiction.


You have got to fuel the machine somehow. Otherwise, what keeps this house of cards from collapsing in on itself? ;)

aga - 31-8-2015 at 13:09

Not much is the real answer.

Fortunately Nature tends to find a place to settle, and thrive.

Might be without humans though.

gregxy - 31-8-2015 at 14:09

The only difference between a government and a corporation is that you don't HAVE to buy a corporation's products.

There is no such thing as non-profit, someone always finds a way to line their pockets.

ziqquratu - 31-8-2015 at 18:16

Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I'm going to take issue with your points!


Please do!
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I agree with you that hard drugs in part dangerous because of what they are cut with, but that is only a portion of a larger danger.


I agree - hence why the presence of impurities - including cuts - was only one aspect that I mentioned. Also, the impurities themselves may not be the issue - after all, the dose is likely to be small, or the cutting agents fairly harmless, and thus the damage minimal. Rather, the impurities mean that dose is uncertain, thus increasing the risk of overdose. The social factors are a larger component - including having to interact with criminals (and, in turn, supporting broader criminal activities through drug profits), and the costs of purchasing an illegal substance (which leads to crime). And, of course, the many unsafe behaviours.

Yes, long term use of just about any substance - including food and oxygen - may cause negative physiological changes. And opioids are widely used for long-term pain control without, as I said, significant toxicity. As with all things, it's a risk-benefit consideration, which, I think, was the context of the original point about "drawing a line". And, to be clear, "having fun" is a benefit that must be considered.

You're also correct that people die of overdoses and side effects from prescription drugs. I never said they were harmless - just that many of the harms come from criminalisation rather than pharmacology. Also, many overdoses can be blamed in part on the court's response to users - if users are forced into ineffective treatment and subsequently relapse, they often return to their pre-treatment doses. Often, however, their tolerance has waned and thus they're taking an overdose - and many have died this way. If it was treated as a health issue, however, the users wouldn't be forced into treatment under threat of jail; the choice of treatment would be based on medical research without the need to punish the user; they would be monitored by health professionals throughout and after their treatment; and they would be given information on what to do if they relapse, rather than just being told "don't".
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  

MDMA? Safe? Really?!? Studies show that ecstasy use irreversibly lowers serotonin levels, in addition I have talked to several people who have had direct experience with this drug who have confirmed that it detrimentally effects well being and cognitive ability.
Ricuarte GA, McCann UD, Szabo Z, Scheffel U. Toxicodynamics and long-term toxicity of the recreational drug, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine(MDMA, “ecstasy”).

Even Erowid acknowledges that MDMA is dangerous and cognitavely debilitative!
https://www.erowid.org/general/survey/survey_ecstasy_article...


As much as I hate to lead with an ad hominem, any research on MDMA from the Ricuarte lab is suspect, after the furore surrounding a paper retracted from Science in 2002 (doi 10.1126/science.1074501). Furthermore, the paper you've cited from Erowid is a survey - run by Erowid and, so far as I can tell, never even peer reviewed - which asked users of MDMA how safe they think it is. This is not the same as examining the pharmacological profile of the drug and determining safety. The survey asks what users think; the only way to find out if they're right is by clinical research.

Also, please remember that anecdotes - one, two, or a thousand - are NOT data. No matter how many people THINK it harmed them, unless you have controlled data, you can't say that it did (or that it didn't, mind you). Maybe it was the ecstasy, or maybe it was all the late nights, heavy drinking, loud music, or other drug use! Or maybe they were never harmed at all - they just feel a bit slower because they're getting older!
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  

I would say that most communities are resilient enough to withstand the harsh effects of drugs for more than a few months, but I agree that they eventually ruin a society if their use is not restricted.
[...]
An example of a society ravaged (but not destroyed) by drugs is the West Virginian town of Oceana, dubbed Oxyana due to the overwhelming oxycodone epidemic there: http://oxyana.com/trailer.html


Sorry for breaking this block up, but we'll get to it. One - documentaries are not scientific data. I can't comment, because I don't know the details and lack time to find them, but provide the data which shows excessive rates of use, and how that is responsible for the "ravaging" of the town (and how it is the drugs, and not the criminal factors associated with their use) and we'll talk about it. Two, as stated by byko3y, drugs have been around a long time - I'd personally say that drugs have existed since life began, but in a purely human timeframe, we've got evidence of alcoholic beverages perhaps going back as far as 12,000 years.
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  

The correlation between drug use and urban crime, which clearly negatively impacts society, is heavily documented: "Drug-related violent crime soared in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, accompanying the rise of the urban crack markets. As the crack markets waned during the 1990s, levels of violence also subsided."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719901/


I agree - there definitely seems to be a strong link between drug use and urban crime. But is that because of drugs, or because of the criminalisation of drugs? For example, if heroin could be purchased for one quarter its current price, would desperate users be more able to afford the drug without needing to resort to theft? Likewise, if your pharmacy sold heroin, would there be any need for local gangs to fight over where they sell their heroin?
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  

Maybe these are easy to produce in developing countries, but here in the US most precursors to illicit drugs are apparently quite difficult to obtain. Maybe you are a much more competent chemist (this isn't my area of expertise) but from looking at erowid making lysergic acid from ergotamine requires heating in liquid hydrazine (rocket fuel), washing with diethylamine, and then heating in a "bomb" (whatever that is) or under nitrogen for many hours. If that is an "easy preparation" and "easily produced precursors" for you, kudos, you are an amazing chemist.


You're making an argument from personal incredulity here. OK, cool, it's difficult for you to comprehend. That's fine - car repairs or plumbing are difficult for me. Synthesis of complex organic molecules, however - many of which make LSD look like playing with a Lego set by comparison - is my thing. And I'm not an amazing chemist - I'm a good chemist, with a PhD in the field, but that means little. With the relevant expertise this stuff is not complex - and to be clear, the synthesis of most drugs can be taught to and performed by any capable undergraduate student, and is clearly achievable by motivated novices in their back sheds. Also, import of precursors cannot be more difficult than import of, for example, cocaine. If you can get cocaine into the USA (or Australia, where I am), then a few barrels of precursors - many of which are important industrial chemicals with many legitimate uses - is probably simple (and probably less risky, too). Hard for you or me to obtain, sure, but probably easy enough for organised criminal groups.

By the way, describing hydrazine as "rocket fuel", while accurate, is misleading and unhelpful. Yup, it can be used as rocket fuel, but it's also an extremely useful and widely used reagent for organic synthesis, which can be handled and used safely by any competent person. It's no different to claiming that you shouldn't make aspirin because to do so you need to use acetic anhydride, which is also critical for making heroin!
Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  

Personally I am divided on the issue of legalizing hard drugs. I am compassionate for those in there grip who would be better helped if legalized and it would be great to take gangs out of the picture but at the same time I feel it would introduce them to many people who would have otherwise avoided them, because, as mentioned earlier, they aren't great for your health!

I hope we can all agree that simply letting the drug issue fester, without trying to wipe them out drugs, legalize them, or provide more resources to those addicted is a terrible idea.


The evidence from countries who have partly or largely decriminalised drugs - Portugal and the Netherlands, primarily - shows that drug use tends to decrease - or, at the very least, not increase - following decriminalisation. It's also fairly likely that providing legal access to drugs would do some serious damage to the budgets of organised criminals. And if, as I contend, many of the health problems stem from criminalisation, then the health costs would be reduced as well. We will NEVER wipe out drugs (see above re. 12,000 years of alcohol use). And I certainly agree that we need to provide more resources to the problem - but via the health systems, rather than criminal justice processes we use now.

---

BromicAcid, I accept your comments, and I fully understand the problems associated with overcoming out preconceived notions and world views. That said, I think you do humanity a disservice when you suggest that we are incapable of overcoming our biases and considering the facts with an open mind. If nothing else, I think that most of us are capable of doing so on certain issues - we all have our "sacred cows", so to speak, but for many of us even those can be dispensed with given sufficient reason. But science as a whole does this reasonably well, given enough time. Even if individual researchers go in with a bias, their work will be scrutinised by their peers - many of whom have equally strong opposing biases - and we will slowly move towards a more and more accurate picture of reality.

One thing that I think we should all be able to agree on is that we cannot allow anecdotes and individual cases to drive our responses to issues like this on a societal scale. Of course, we all know that they do - but I think most of us here recognise that responding to anecdotes as if they are data leads to ineffective or counter-productive outcomes. Take, for example, California's insistence on labelling everything that may contain an ingredient that may cause cancer - the warning, which may for some items be absolutely warranted, becomes meaningless because it appears on just about everything! There is no reason that we couldn't perform "clinical trials" to establish effective policy - and it has been done for certain issues. Of course, the political will to do so is lacking, because the public is more easily swayed by anecdote rather than data.

I should also clarify that, when I said the war on drugs is not about harm minimisation, I'm talking about the criminal justice motivations. There are certainly many people - and a growing number of them - who are extremely dedicated to the idea of harm minimisation, and those people often include police and members of the judiciary. But the motivation underlying treating drug use as a criminal - rather than health - issue can only be to minimise use, rather than harm. Compare it with theft - punishing a thief doesn't reduce the harm of the theft; it's intended to deter other potential thieves.

---

TheAlchemistPirate, it is, once again, not that simple. Drug use is not a matter of intelligence. Many people of varying levels of intellect choose to use drugs, do so safely, have some fun, and then give them up and get on with their lives. It is also entirely possible to lead a normal life while addicted to drugs - cigarettes are, after all, a perfect example. Many intelligent, hard-working, highly paid and successful individuals likewise support an ongoing heroin or cocaine addiction.

Then there are all the very many people who become addicted to prescription drugs - used for a legitimate purpose - and then turn to illegal drugs out of desperation once the doctor ceases prescribing the medicine. Or the chronic pain sufferer, for whom prescription painkillers prove ineffective, who might choose a hallucinogen or dissociative to escape from the pain.

Most illicit drugs are pharmacologically relatively benign, even with chronic use - certainly most of them do not "dissolve your mind". Drugs CAN be used safely, and people who choose to do so can overcome addiction - some all by themselves, and many more when appropriate support structures are in place. And, as I said, many more can support ongoing addictions without significant impact on their lives, under the right circumstances.

I fully agree, though, that "people need help, not jurisdiction" when it comes to issues surrounding drug use.

BromicAcid - 1-9-2015 at 06:00

Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
BromicAcid, I accept your comments, and I fully understand the problems associated with overcoming out preconceived notions and world views. That said, I think you do humanity a disservice when you suggest that we are incapable of overcoming our biases and considering the facts with an open mind. If nothing else, I think that most of us are capable of doing so on certain issues - we all have our "sacred cows", so to speak, but for many of us even those can be dispensed with given sufficient reason. But science as a whole does this reasonably well, given enough time. Even if individual researchers go in with a bias, their work will be scrutinised by their peers - many of whom have equally strong opposing biases - and we will slowly move towards a more and more accurate picture of reality.

One thing that I think we should all be able to agree on is that we cannot allow anecdotes and individual cases to drive our responses to issues like this on a societal scale. Of course, we all know that they do - but I think most of us here recognise that responding to anecdotes as if they are data leads to ineffective or counter-productive outcomes. Take, for example, California's insistence on labelling everything that may contain an ingredient that may cause cancer - the warning, which may for some items be absolutely warranted, becomes meaningless because it appears on just about everything! There is no reason that we couldn't perform "clinical trials" to establish effective policy - and it has been done for certain issues. Of course, the political will to do so is lacking, because the public is more easily swayed by anecdote rather than data.

I should also clarify that, when I said the war on drugs is not about harm minimisation, I'm talking about the criminal justice motivations. There are certainly many people - and a growing number of them - who are extremely dedicated to the idea of harm minimisation, and those people often include police and members of the judiciary. But the motivation underlying treating drug use as a criminal - rather than health - issue can only be to minimise use, rather than harm. Compare it with theft - punishing a thief doesn't reduce the harm of the theft; it's intended to deter other potential thieves.


Faked peer reviews prompt 64 retractions
Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Beware the creeping cracks of bias

There are not just crackpot links, these are recent papers and posts from respectable journals and they are not in the minority. Again it is my own personal bias here supplying these links, my bias is that the peer review system is flawed (though it is the best we have till double-blind peer review becomes the benchmark [which will never happen because we don't have the resources for standard peer review with gibberish papers making it past peer review]) so that is the point that I am trying to express. I could be wrong but I don't want to dig, I cherry-pick the papers relevant to my discussion rather than put forth a concerted effort to read both sides of the story. And that is one of the issues mentioned in these papers, with big data and so much information out there, who has the time to look at everything? If your numbers are correlating, correlation may not equal causation, but heck, if you change the numbers just right you might have a paper to publish.

(Warning, anecdote) It seems the standard complaint in the biotech industry is that they are working on a project, the data does not look good (i.e., there is no or minimal effect) and this is the third study that they have run, however there was a blip somewhere that showed this might be promising. You could look at this two ways, the scientists (and people making decisions) are doing due diligence and making sure this blip was a false positive. Or you could look at the fact that they have sunk hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars into this and they are going to massage the numbers until they don't come out empty handed. I think the second of those is the most indicative of the human condition. Not simply bias but outright manipulation.

I agree with the majority of your point save the ability of humans to disassociate themselves from their inherent bias even when they are aware of its presence.

BTW: Where is the thread originator on all of this? One post on the whole forum and this is it?

aga - 1-9-2015 at 08:38

OP's probably blown away by the sheer dazzleaciousness of the forum's replies.

Personally i know where to draw the line : Absinthe. Definite no-no.

Praxichys - 1-9-2015 at 09:08

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
OP's probably blown away by the sheer dazzleaciousness of the forum's replies.

It is kind of great that most tricky arguments here end up as increasingly-larger walls of text, rather than degeneration into illogical reasoning and insults as happens on most other forums. Yeah, we might have our differences, but I really, really like this place.

szuko03 - 1-9-2015 at 09:38

Anyone who thinks that people should have free reign over everything simply because to be alive is to be free are showing their ignorance. Sure those who say that may think the world is like them but I've been to a methadone clinic and taken group, the majority of drug users are NOT at all like the majority of people who frequent this forum. You give the individuals living in society way WAY too much credit as they routinely spew vastly incorrect facts and spread the disease of ignorance through their own community. If given access to everything under the sun they would destroy themselves and take out countless "smart" people with them.

The laws that are in place, be it for firearms or drugs, are needed in this particular point in societies history. Perhaps with technology we can over come the need for some general restrictions but for evidence you need only look to our "energetic forum"as everyone who can read thinks this gives them the "right" to synthesize explosives. Until people can make the informed decision of what they can or can not do without jeopardizing everyone in the process of learning due to a failure to realize their own limitations, we need laws that prevent idiots from killing me or my mother or YOUR mother. Some idiot will retard his way into your life through his "inflated sense of entitlement" because of his ability to read coupled with the internet.

Being on this forum means your different from everyone who isnt and the majority of people you wish to trust with drugs and fire arms probably have an 8th grade education just so you know.

aga - 1-9-2015 at 11:22

Quote: Originally posted by szuko03  
Being on this forum means your different from everyone

I'm not.

TheAlchemistPirate - 1-9-2015 at 11:44

Quote: Originally posted by aga  

Personally i know where to draw the line : Absinthe. Definite no-no.

That's surprising

szuko03 - 1-9-2015 at 11:47

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Quote: Originally posted by szuko03  
Being on this forum means your different from everyone

I'm not.


Way to remove the last phrase that kind of eliminates anything saying we are different in any other aspect other then frequenting the forum...

Your lucky I am accustom to your style of responses or I'd science you up something so amazing youll wish I never scienced to begin with!

aga - 1-9-2015 at 11:52

You'll have an easy time bamboozling me with Science, but to get me Fazed, you'd need to be another alien.

Loptr - 1-9-2015 at 12:37

Quote: Originally posted by szuko03  
Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Quote: Originally posted by szuko03  
Being on this forum means your different from everyone

I'm not.


Way to remove the last phrase that kind of eliminates anything saying we are different in any other aspect other then frequenting the forum...

Your lucky I am accustom to your style of responses or I'd science you up something so amazing youll wish I never scienced to begin with!


I'm actually interested in seeing this. Go ahead, do it. :cool:

What spectacular science awaits us? lol

[Edited on 1-9-2015 by Loptr]

aga - 1-9-2015 at 13:30

React table salt with sulphuric and i'd say Wooo !

Maybe sneeze a bit due to the evolved HCl.

At least it would be someone Doing Something and not just all Talk.

Darkstar - 1-9-2015 at 16:42

If it's huffing HCl gas you're after, just drip some conc. hydrochloric acid over a little dry CaCl2 and viola. No need to waste your valuable sulfuric acid!

ziqquratu - 1-9-2015 at 18:25

Bromic, I am very much on board with many of the claims made in those articles - and the Ioannidis article, although it has been taken out of context by many people who'd like to treat science as "just another way of knowing", is one of the landmark papers on the issues surrounding the quality of the scientific literature. There ARE significant problems in the scientific literature - and whilst the most egregious would have to be outright fraud, the smaller problems like publication bias, p-hacking, and even the whole idea of the "minimum publishable unit" leading to more and more trivial publications, are more pervasive and, in many ways, more troubling. I've personally been involved (as part of a research group, not doing the work myself) in uncovering a fraudulent total synthesis paper, where the methods used by the authors could not possibly have led to the molecule they claimed, and the data didn't support the claimed structure, either. Yet this paper made it through peer review, which should easily have caught the problems. A student in our group spent several months repeating their work and also synthesising the molecule properly, and the refutation is soon to be published in the original journal.

That said, I still disagree with you on the issue of people being able to separate themselves from their biases, and particularly on the ability of science to do so.

As I said, I think we all have issues which we struggle to divorce ourselves from our biases - you, for example, have extremely strong feelings about drug use because of your family history. I, on the other hand, have no horse in the race, so I'm more than happy to step back and consider the best evidence and expert opinion without that emotional baggage. Perhaps in a similar vein, I've seen people injured and fleeced by alternative therapists, which leads to a strong bias against alternative medicine (reinforced by my scientific training). I can get past it, if the evidence is good, but it takes a fairly big push! Perhaps more extreme, I'm a vocal advocate for vaccination, and yet I still struggle when it comes time to take my son in for his flu shot - the bias against taking an action that may (extremely rarely) cause harm is very strong, even in the face of the obvious evidence of safety and the well known risks of a young child actually catching influenza!

Here's the thing, though - I can, if I choose to do so, thoroughly examine the scientific evidence, overcome those biases and come to the most evidence-based conclusion (I should get my son vaccinated, and some alternative therapies have validity for some purposes). I still have the nagging concerns about the injection, and the thought that, even if the alternative is effective, a more conventional treatment probably offers greater benefits, but I can concede the point. I'm sure you do the same on many issues.

Then there are the more deeply embedded problems, such as racism or sexism. We are all, to some degree, racist and sexist, and even if that's true only on an unconscious level, it can still impact our behaviour. For example, it has been well documented that people rate the same resume more highly if the name at the top is John than if it's Jane, or a foreign-sounding name. But, again, if we know that this bias exists, we can easily eliminate it - the person receiving resumes for a company can simply remove the name, replace it with a number and then pass it on to the people who make the hiring decisions. Even for the most deeply held biases, of which many of us might be wrongly convinced we don't hold, we can reduce or eliminate their effects!

When we get to science, the whole thing gets an extra level of checks and balances. If I decide that St. John's wort has no value for the treatment of minor depression, not too many people are going to know about that, let alone correct me. If I publish that in a journal, however, I'll be torn to shreds - the evidence in favour is quite good. Now, I can reasonably argue that it may not be the best choice - self medication is a bad idea, seeing a professional is always a good idea if you have concerns, and the side effects are not trivial - but I can't honestly say it doesn't work, whatever my bias. Even on unsettled issues, there are likely to be scientists who hold equally strong views in opposition to one another, and they will be thoroughly scrutinising each others work - so the eventual consensus will likely be even more reliable in those instances (leaving out the possibility of fraud).

Likewise, if we have solid data that says a public policy is ineffective, then it doesn't matter how many anecdotes we compile, we should conclude that the policy is a failure, and seek a better one.

The sunk cost example you provide is interesting. Yes, it's a common human problem - we'd rather keep going on something that's objectively likely to fail, but which we've already invested time or money than to give up and accept it as a loss. And, yes, it certainly happens that researchers sometimes do - consciously (fraudulently) or unconsciously - massage the data, or keep collecting until it's significant, try different statistical models until one comes up with a positive result, or whatever. But this is why we cannot rely on the results of a single study to answer any question - maybe the positive (or negative) results arise from bias in the protocol; maybe the analysis was flawed; or maybe it was just a fluke (p = 0.05 means a 5% probability of the result being due to chance alone). And it's depressingly likely that bad science will make it through peer review, even in respected journals. But post-publication peer review, whilst having always been important, is beginning to have a significant impact on the literature, with fraud or bad science becoming more and more likely to get called out as access to the literature continues to expand. beyond a single study, however, replication of (or failure to do so) by independent groups, allows us to have greater confidence in the results. Likewise, systematic reviews and meta-analyses by independent groups can - when done well - be used to reduce bias even further (of course, like any tool, they can be used to muddy the waters by someone with an agenda, but that, too, tends to be called out).

Perhaps you're right, perhaps we can never truly eliminate all bias from our research, let alone from our own lives. But if we're cognisant of our biases, we can most certainly take highly effective steps to reduce or eliminate their effects on our decisions and our actions.

---
Quote: Originally posted by szuko03  
Anyone who thinks that people should have free reign over everything simply because to be alive is to be free are showing their ignorance. Sure those who say that may think the world is like them but I've been to a methadone clinic and taken group, the majority of drug users are NOT at all like the majority of people who frequent this forum. You give the individuals living in society way WAY too much credit as they routinely spew vastly incorrect facts and spread the disease of ignorance through their own community. If given access to everything under the sun they would destroy themselves and take out countless "smart" people with them.

The laws that are in place, be it for firearms or drugs, are needed in this particular point in societies history. Perhaps with technology we can over come the need for some general restrictions but for evidence you need only look to our "energetic forum"as everyone who can read thinks this gives them the "right" to synthesize explosives. Until people can make the informed decision of what they can or can not do without jeopardizing everyone in the process of learning due to a failure to realize their own limitations, we need laws that prevent idiots from killing me or my mother or YOUR mother. Some idiot will retard his way into your life through his "inflated sense of entitlement" because of his ability to read coupled with the internet.

Being on this forum means your different from everyone who isnt and the majority of people you wish to trust with drugs and fire arms probably have an 8th grade education just so you know.


szuko03, I'm not arguing for anything like the idea that all things should be available, individual freedom should reign supreme, or any of the other extreme libertarian ideas. My position is simply that, when faced with a problem, we should use the best information available to choose the course of action which is most likely to lead to the desired outcome. In the absence of good information, and for a problem which requires an immediate response, we should certainly take the most reasonable-seeming course of action, but should put in place research to assess effectiveness and processes to ensure that appropriate reviews and changes to the policy are made if required. I am quite opposed, for example, to the idea that everyone should have free access to firearms - I think the system in Australia, where you can get most reasonable guns without too much difficulty - you require a valid reason (which may be as simple as target shooting), to pass a firearm safety course, a background check, and to meet conditions around safe and secure storage - is a pretty good balance (there are many weapons that you could easily get in the US that are inaccessible here, but again, I see no reason for most people to own, for example, high capacity automatic weapons).

Likewise for drugs, I think they should be regulated, their use monitored by health professionals, and options for effective treatment be made readily available. And I certainly think that drugs should never be allowable as an excuse for crime - in fact, if you kill someone because you were drunk behind the wheel, I think a good case can be made that this should lead to a harsher sentence than if you were sober given the broad understanding of the dangers of drink-driving.

I agree that, given the incompetence of individuals to make good decisions, we need processes in place to minimise the harm caused to those individuals and to others when bad decisions are inevitably made. But we need to choose the processes that are the most effective at reducing harm and dispense with processes which fail to reduce harm, or which create more problems than the issue that they were supposed to deal with. In the context of drugs, would the harms associated with drug use be more or less if the resources currently devoted to policing were diverted into the health system to support safe access and effective treatment programs?

x_blaster_x - 2-9-2015 at 10:00

I believe that no-one can be bound by law, that regulate what people could and what could not consume.

I find that as absolutely outrageous that governments siezed this power over lifes of citizens w/o being kicked right in their butts. All drugs are legal not a while ago, so... They should be legal. No-one have the power to force others on what they can and what they cannot consume.

Such power is usually abused badly. See this document:

History of Marijuana
http://ulozto.cz/x5e5GYg/history-of-marijuana-avi
("Stáhnout" means download, so just type the captcha and click... downloading at 300k is done relatively quickly)

ziqquratu - 2-9-2015 at 17:27

x_blaster_x, not that long ago it was perfectly legal to sell poisons as medicine. It was legal to have your infant ride unrestrained in a car. It was legal to dump whatever waste you liked in the local river. On the flip side, it used to be illegal to marry someone of another race. In many places it used to be illegal to open a shop on a Sunday. It used to be illegal to have an abortion, be a homosexual, or for women to vote. In many places around the world these things are STILL illegal, whilst other things that should be criminalised are not.

Just because something WAS legal, certainly doesn't mean that it SHOULD be legal. Nor should unjust laws remain in place simply because they are in place. Beyond that, however, just because something is legal doesn't mean that there should not be restrictions on its use. If there is evidence that something may cause harm to the user or to others, then it is reasonable to consider the need for regulation - which may include outright criminalisation of an activity or product.

A society always puts limits on what its members can and cannot do, and it's a matter of where those lines are drawn and how the society should respond to issues it perceives as problems that is up for debate. "Let everyone do whatever they want" is not likely to lead to optimal outcomes.

KesterDraconis - 10-9-2015 at 18:36

Quote: Originally posted by ziqquratu  
If there is evidence that something may cause harm to the user or to others, then it is reasonable to consider the need for regulation - which may include outright criminalisation of an activity or product.


Yet things don't cause harm. Until you can definitively prove that inanimate things can cause harm on their own, without misuse by a user and their direct action leading to others harm, that initial assumption is absolutely unreasonable and cannot stand.

Punishment rests on the user and their actions with whatever substance or tool in their possession. Regulation and criminalizing a substance or tool is simply the result of the nonsensical assumption that a person will automatically cause harm him they possess said substance or tool.

Needless endangerment is another thing however. I can drink, and I am allowed to drive a car, but doing both on a road where other people are driving is akin to pointing a gun at them and waving it around. Its a criminal act because its endangering others.

[Edited on 11-9-2015 by KesterDraconis]

[Edited on 11-9-2015 by KesterDraconis]

James Ikanov - 11-9-2015 at 12:40

All things in moderation.

I think you should be allowed to partake in whatever you, as long as it does not interfere with your normal functioning outside a set percentage of your day. There are specific rules that can be used to greatly reduce the negative impact of drugs.

The first one is safe rooms and a good trip shepard. A safe room is a room where you can be medically supervised while you partake in whatever drug you choose. They've tried this in at least one Scandinavian country and found that it very quickly stopped over dosing deaths.

A more open ended but perhaps less effective (still better than nothing) method, is trip shepards. They are sober people who voluntarily do not partake in drugs, who are responsible for ensuring that someone under the influence does not overdose, nor injure themselves or others. It helps if they have some level of medical training and an understanding of how to provide immediate aid to someone suffering and overdose. (I've taken on this role a few times before, often in an unofficial capacity, but at least I know my friends won't wonder into traffic or such.)

Any use that becomes persistent or "needed" should simply be treated as addiction and/or a mental health issue. I'm of the opinion that most people outside of the people who can casually handle drug use with moderation, in other words, the people who often become addicted, usually have underlying problems or are in some way dissatisfied with life. Any meaningful reduction in the actual use of drugs must come from a reduction in demand, not supply. And the only way to reduce demand is to improve the quality of life of everyone to the point of happiness or address the underlying issues that cause or contribute to it..... something that has no downside I can find.

I firmly believe that the war on drugs has done little to stop the proliferation of drugs aside from causing people to cut corners, reduce purity, and avoid teaching people the best ways to minimize risks when they eventually DO participate in drug use as at least some of them will. Mixing drugs without a good understanding of what's going to kill you is just a sad after effect of not teaching people about the dangers of mixing drugs. The same could be said for people who use things like inhalants (eg, huffing toluene :o )

Frankly I think decriminalizing drugs is a necessary step for the immediate future, along with strong and blunt regulations. People who mislabel or spike drugs should be civilly and criminally liable for any deaths or injuries that result.

I also think it's important to investigate the implications of drug use on mental health. Unless I'm mistaken, there's some work out there now to suggest that people with more serious problems who cannot get help are significantly more likely to abuse drugs. Mental healthcare is something society should be addressing anyway, but to a certain extent, fortunately or unfortunately, many governments want to do as little as possible in many areas. They often enact flawed, reactionary legislation, in response to very misrepresented issues or a strong public fear of something rather than any actual facts or information.... I believe this attitude is the primary cause of many issues almost all countries face today. This and many issues could be solved much more effectively if we were willing to invest more money and time into healthcare rather than silly things like arguing over religion and blindly opposing any other ideology but our own. (Fat chance of that though.)

aga - 11-9-2015 at 13:15

Totally correct IMHO.

Legal/illegal it all still happens.

Sticking an 'Illegal' tag on it does Not make it go away.

Accept and Assist is a much better alternative, however that carries a Dark Side, in that those who refuse assistance must be slaughtered to make it work.

hissingnoise - 12-9-2015 at 01:05

Quote:
The laws that are in place, be it for firearms or drugs, are needed in this particular point in societies[sic] history.

I'll make it as simple as I can . . .

Guns are weapons (you know, things that kill people?) ─ drugs are substances people take to make themselves feel good!

Do you see a difference?

James Ikanov - 12-9-2015 at 18:39

I'd argue that laws against either, are for the most part, entirely useless.

Legislating to stop people from doing things they still have a reason to do is generally an exercise in frustration rather than productive if you never actually address the reasons that they want those things or to do those things.

Europe for example, has strong gun control. People still want guns or to commit harm... as a result, there is still demand, and still a monetary incentive to provide weapons to people, regardless of legality. The result is that violence still occurs, people still get hurt, and the government tightens regulation rather than recognizing that the system they are trying to fight is already out of their scope of control; someone who will murder has no reason not to murder simply because they cannot legally acquire one a gun.

Relevant and interesting reads related to this particular line of argument, before I go too far down a rabbit hole with it.

http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/Hrvatska/tabid/66/articleTyp...

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/08/11/mystery-9mm-ma...

Simply making a material illegal is irrelevant to the want to acquire, whether that material is drugs (just look at prohibition in the US ;) ) weapons, energetic materials, pornography, news from the outside world, encryption programs, HAZMAT..... it certainly can reduce the ease of acquisition, but often all it really does is raise prices or ensure that only the "right" people can get access to those materials. And I assure you, the Chinese government feels just as strongly about how "correct" it's censorship is for the country as many European or American politicians do about drugs and guns. At the end of the day it's almost entirely subjective decisions that steer and define public policy :(

...Perhaps I've said too much.

Oh, and for the record, firing a machinegun once (a great privilege I doubt I'll enjoy again any time soon in this economy) was very much on par on the fun scale with any variety of drug I've experienced, and for better or for worse, I've been exposed to many, though none recreationally, aside from alcohol. People can partake in either for fun, to help them cope with things, whatever. Abuse is the issue, not possession or proper usage.

[Edited on 13-9-2015 by James Ikanov]

BuTTeRz - 13-9-2015 at 11:17

:o



[Edited on 13-9-2015 by BuTTeRz]

ziqquratu - 13-9-2015 at 19:36

Before I start again, this is starting to sound like I'm all pro-regulate everything and anti-freedom, blah blah blah. I'd like to be clear - this is NOT my position. I simply think that there is a place for regulation in improving the safety of people who wish to use or access items which have a significant likelihood of causing or being used to cause harm to themselves or, more importantly, others.
Quote: Originally posted by KesterDraconis  

Yet things don't cause harm. Until you can definitively prove that inanimate things can cause harm on their own, without misuse by a user and their direct action leading to others harm, that initial assumption is absolutely unreasonable and cannot stand.


Things cause harm all the time. On the obviously ludicrous scale, there's hurricanes and volcanoes. If you want something which can be regulated, though, how about objects being blown from skyscraper construction sites, which could fall on and injure a person. Or maybe contamination of a food manufacturing plant because some animal died and fell into the water supply. We have regulations about securing items or monitoring levels of pathogenic bacteria in food to mitigate the harm caused by these things.

The "argument" that "things don't kill people, people kill people" is also a patently absurd strawman. I seriously doubt that anyone believes that, for example, guns kill people of their own volition, which is what the statement implies. But guns can be used to kill people, and having one can make an ineffective would-be killer pretty damned efficient. They can also be deadly without intent to harm - when a child plays with a gun that was accidentally left unsecured, for example, which seems to happen all too often. On the flip side, I fully recognise the value of guns - for hunting, sport, farming, even defence - and thus would never contend that guns should be outlawed. But because they can be accidentally lethal even in skilled and responsible hands, I think that regulation is entirely appropriate. Like I've said a few times recently, I think the Australian system is quite reasonable - easy to access many types of gun, so long as you pass a basic safety course, justify your need and show that you can store them safely. Certain types of weapons are effectively out of reach unless you're in the military - and you can certainly discuss where that line gets drawn - but most people can access the tools they need for their work or sport with less difficulty than getting a driver's license (and, having gone through both processes, I mean that literally).

I think drugs should be treated similarly. For most common illegal drugs, we have a pretty good idea about their pharmacology and toxicology, and can start to decide which - if any - should remain illegal on that basis, whilst allowing some or all of the others to be brought to the legal market. Then, just like with prescription drugs, we should monitor for adverse events, and remove from sale any that cause significant problems. This, however, would differ from blanket prohibition - if you can buy, say, cheap cocaine, then it's not going to matter much if methamphetamine is illegal because it's been deemed too neurotoxic.
Quote: Originally posted by KesterDraconis  

Punishment rests on the user and their actions with whatever substance or tool in their possession. Regulation and criminalizing a substance or tool is simply the result of the nonsensical assumption that a person will automatically cause harm him they possess said substance or tool.


I agree. If someone acts in an illegal manner, they should be punished appropriately for their actions. But part of the point of regulation is to mitigate harm - that is, to prevent a harmful situation from occurring, or reducing the harm that is done when something does happen. So, with our skyscraper construction, it's probably safe to say that, sooner or later, an improperly secured item will fall and injure someone. But, by having rules about securing items, we can dramatically reduce the chance of that happening. Similarly, if a drug (legal or otherwise) is associated with significant damaging side effects - say increased risk of heart attack, or perhaps an increase in violent assault - then we should regulate it, which may include prohibition on the sale of that drug, depending on the risk-benefit profile (so a life-saving medicine which causes a 5% increase in the risk of heart attack might still be useful, whereas a recreational hallucinogen which has the same cardiac risk should probably be taken off the market).
Quote: Originally posted by KesterDraconis  

Needless endangerment is another thing however. I can drink, and I am allowed to drive a car, but doing both on a road where other people are driving is akin to pointing a gun at them and waving it around. Its a criminal act because its endangering others.


I think it's fairly likely that most people who drink-drive manage to reach their destinations without incident (or being caught). By your logic above, then, why not just allow it and punish any drink-driver who causes injury to another person? Instead, however, we recognise that certain actions (being drunk behind the wheel) are associated with a significant likelihood of harm, and thus we make said actions punishable - and we punish people doing these things even if nobody is harmed. As before, if owning a weapon, or using a drug, or driving a car, or whatever, is an action that increases the risk to the public (or even the individual), then regulation may be needed to prevent or reduce the harm associated with those things.

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James, I largely agree with your post, and I think that this sums up the point I've been trying to make in this thread fairly nicely:
Quote: Originally posted by James Ikanov  

There are specific rules that can be used to greatly reduce the negative impact of drugs.


We, as a society, can implement rules - regulations - to make drug use dramatically safer than it is now. Safe rooms for users have made a difference everywhere they've been tried. And having trip shepherds - or better, trained paramedics - on hand in places where drug use may get dangerous (eg. in those safe rooms, or at music festivals, or wherever else) would allow an immediate response to a problem. Likewise, if you can buy your drugs at the pharmacy, then the pharmacist can provide advice and keep an eye out for signs that you might be developing a problem. And if it's not illegal, then it also becomes a lot easier to seek help - either in an emergency or for a chronic addiction.

Simple regulations can often improve life for everyone involved in any inherently risky activity. The key is to find the most effective forms of regulation for each situation, without going too far (blanket criminalisation of drugs) or not far enough (a sufficiently fat wallet is the only requirement to qualify as the owner of a high capacity automatic rifle).

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To aga, James, and others saying that outright prohibition of an item or activity is ineffective in preventing people from using or doing those things - well, yes, people still commit murder. Sometimes making something illegal isn't just about stopping the activity - it's about spelling out what is and isn't appropriate in a society. It can be a very easy form of social engineering - by making something which is in any way questionable illegal, you pretty much automatically convince some portion of the population that the thing is bad, which can snowball into general social disapproval of that activity. Thus, many people think (with a perverse twisting of logic) that drugs are illegal, so they must be bad - they wouldn't be illegal for no reason, after all! A slightly different spin, but take seatbelts - there was much grumbling and discontent when it was made illegal to drive without one, but nowadays forget the law, almost everyone just does it automatically and failing to wear one is simply unacceptable. Thus, with simple, perhaps not even popular, legislation plus sufficient time, a quick but life-saving action is deeply ingrained in most of us from the first time we're put in a car.

hissingnoise - 14-9-2015 at 01:29

Quote:
- well, yes, people still commit murder.

What, exactly, is the connection you find between people ingesting drugs for fun and people committing the crime of murder?

ziqquratu - 14-9-2015 at 15:50

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise  

What, exactly, is the connection you find between people ingesting drugs for fun and people committing the crime of murder?


It would have to be the most extreme example to highlight that simply making something illegal (let alone the fact that murder, to most, is morally repugnant and socially intolerable) doesn't mean people won't still do it. And if that is true for something as extreme as murder, then you can probably assume that it is true for, say, drugs - making them illegal does not eliminate their desirability.

Although I thought the context of the statement was clear, let me emphasise - it was hyperbole to highlight how criminalisation cannot totally prevent people from doing something; it was not an attempt to link recreational drug use and murder.

Little_Ghost_again - 8-10-2015 at 15:02

Funny thing is Ethanol has killed more people,caused more crime,ripped more families apart,cost more time money and police resources and put more people in prison than every other drug combined.
But its controlled and Governments make money from it. They know its so bad for you that in order to try and protect more people in the UK they are going to increase the TAX so less people drink and harm themselves, I sleep better at night knowing the government I have looks after my welfare so well. <____________ Yeah piss taking
I cant wait to vote and elect another bunch of the same people with different colours but the same self serving interest as every other prick that rules over us

[Edited on 8-10-2015 by Little_Ghost_again]

symboom - 9-8-2017 at 22:03

Ohh maybe this might be boarderline psychological torture
http://disinfo.com/2014/03/future-drugs-will-make-prisoners-...

Making the prisoners feel like time is going slower
So 20 years feel like 100 years

clearly_not_atara - 10-8-2017 at 08:38

Regulations on drug consumption, and sale to consumers, comprise a measure, positive or negative, which is intended to reduce a certain activity from being performed because society does not wish for it to be performed. These laws are "okay".

What is not okay are the regulations on precursors, plants, equipment, etc. These regulations do not actually decrease drug consumption very much. Instead they have the effect of displacing the crime associated with drug production from the first world to the third world -- literally exporting our problems. Such regulations also drive up the profit margins associated with drug production, favoring the formation of large multinational criminal organizations, which we know today as drug cartels. Oras Friedman put it:

"In the drug war, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true."

Yes, Milton Friedman said "literally". And precursor and plant regulations do not demonstrably decrease drug consumption enough to justify the enormous burden of violence foisted on to innocent people because of the profit potential created by these regulations. It is easily understood why they are ineffective: when raw materials for one drug become unavailable, users (who are already choosing to consume an illegal and unregulated substance) will substitute a different one. For example, Japan, an isolated island nation in East Asia, does an excellent job of controlling drug importation (mostly because of geography), and has also been an epicenter of the appearance of new synthetic cannabinoids, and it also has more methamphetamine use than conservative American media would have you believe, because meth production is nearly impossible to contain. Banning the actual consumable material has a rational basis in that it prevents consumption from becoming popularized, and prevents "law-abiding people", if there are any such people, from using drugs, but banning precursors is silly, because it is always possible to simply increase the scale of the operation so as to insure against any losses of precursors.

What happens is drugs become less safe, innocent people in poor countries are killed, organized crime finds new sources of profit, and law enforcement gets lots of photo ops standing next to huge shipments of safrole. Without the protection of the government, large-scale producers lose out to competition from small scale producers who are less violent because they are better hidden. Such a phenomenon occurred in the United States when "shake and bake" methamphetamine cut into the market for cocaine in the early 2000s.

So if any drugs are to be banned, I think it ought to be done while recognizing the market for drugs will still exist, and regulating this to minimize violence, rather than to maximize restrictiveness. In short: stop protecting the drug cartels!

[Edited on 10-8-2017 by clearly_not_atara]

AngelEyes - 11-8-2017 at 07:45

Banning drugs, making them illegal, prohibition...call it what you will...but it'll never work.

If you take a step back and look more broadly, drugs are fulfilling the same role as films, books, music, art etc - and that role is escapism.

All humans, at various points in their lives, want to escape the reality of normal everyday life. Some more than others, it has to be said. They might lose themselves in a book or good film, listen to an album, wander through an art gallery...or get drunk, high, stoned etc.

Drugs are an extension of our species need to, on occasion, not be ourselves. That will never go away and that is why the 'war on drugs' can never be won. Ever. All it does is make many people suffer, make some people rich and allow politicians to have a cause to champion (to try and win votes of course, although most rational people can see the logic of some sort of decriminalisation).

Elemental Phosphorus - 1-9-2017 at 04:26

Well, in an ideal world, drugs would be legal, but there would be programs directed at educating and discouraging people from using them. But this is not an ideal world. Think though, how many people here would use PCP if it was legal? Or for that matter, drugs like meth?

Legalization would allow people access to higher purity substances and proper dosage information, etc. to help eliminate or reduce deaths by overdose, and all this has already been said, but it would remove cash flow from large cartels. What I am torn on, is what the pricing should be. Commercially, fentanyl and LSD could be produced for just cents per dose, but with the idea of reducing use in mind, is that really prudent? I am not sure, and I would like to hear some discussion on the pricing of these drugs if they were to become legal.

CLaS - 20-11-2017 at 01:12

Quote: Originally posted by Elemental Phosphorus  
Well, in an ideal world, drugs would be legal, but there would be programs directed at educating and discouraging people from using them. But this is not an ideal world. Think though, how many people here would use PCP if it was legal? Or for that matter, drugs like meth?

Legalization would allow people access to higher purity substances and proper dosage information, etc. to help eliminate or reduce deaths by overdose, and all this has already been said, but it would remove cash flow from large cartels. What I am torn on, is what the pricing should be. Commercially, fentanyl and LSD could be produced for just cents per dose, but with the idea of reducing use in mind, is that really prudent? I am not sure, and I would like to hear some discussion on the pricing of these drugs if they were to become legal.



"One way to determine what the cost of a drug should be is to apply classical economic concepts. In classical economic theory, the price a corporation charges its customers for a product is the total cost of investment plus a normal profit. Critics of the pharmaceutical industry argue that prices charged by pharmaceutical corporations are unfair to consumers because they are excessive, that is, the profit margin is not “normal”. Proponents of free market theory argue that as long as free market forces determine the selling price of pharmaceutical products, the price charged is, by definition, “fair”.

In a free market, there are two pricing models: opportunity-based pricing and risk-based pricing. Opportunity-based pricing sets the price at the highest possible level that buyers are willing to pay, without increasing production volume to the point where it diminishes total profit. Under this model, some patients are inevitably priced out of the market, but this is considered a problem outside the purview of economics.

Risk-based pricing accounts for the financial and market risks that a company takes by pursuing an economic opportunity in a given market. The greater the risk takenby the company, the higher the expectation for profit. Conversely, the lower the risk, the lower the profit expectation. Under a risk-based pricing policy, an “unfair” price is one that is set higher than the risk exposure can justify. Both pricing models are indifferent to the actual distribution of a product among consumers, making it impossible—in theory—for pharmaceutical companies to exercise any social obligations toward price-sensitive patients by adjusting prices. Obviously, pure economic theory will not help us determine how drugs should be priced."


TLDR: The cost of manufacturing a drug is not what determines the price its sold for in black market or legal markets.


http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v04/i03/html/03zal...

[Edited on 20-11-2017 by CLaS]

LearnedAmateur - 20-11-2017 at 05:32

Quote: Originally posted by Elemental Phosphorus  
But this is not an ideal world. Think though, how many people here would use PCP if it was legal? Or for that matter, drugs like meth?


I agree with and share your stance on recreational substances, they should be regulated like alcohol/tobacco (which are far worse for the body than many illegal substances) and possession legalised - I mean look at Portugal, you can have literally any drug you want (with exceptions of course) and it's only the manufacturers and suppliers who are targeted. Addicts can get all the help they need stigma free, cutting down on overdoses, diseases, and other drug related problems.

However, onto what I was actually going to say. PCP and methamphetamine are perfectly fine to use with correct dosage - PCP is used by many to no ill effect, and meth is prescribed for ADD/ADHD under the brand name Desoxyn. The issue with these drugs stems from prohibition itself, PCP has hit the media because people are overdosing, thinking that they've actually taken a different substance like cocaine for instance which is less potent. Methamphetamine of course is addictive, but this can be negated with harm reduction practices which obviously aren't adequately conveyed in an abstinence based society. When people suffer ill effects due to a recreational substance, chances are that it's because they don't know how to use it properly, they just think 'drug = high' without taking the time (either due to inaccessibility or an unwillingness to ask others) to learn about the drug and how to dose effectively. Then you've got your adulterants, heroin is quite safe on its own and was once used in a medicinal sense, but today it is commonly tainted with far cheaper and more dangerous opioids which is in fact one of the most common reasons for overdose. Another reason again is a lack of drug education, some heavy users don't realise that tolerance to effects is also tolerance to overdose - what they see as a normal dose can actually be lethal to those who don't use it, and so after a period of abstinence they may take what they're used to and suffer the consequences because of it.

Bert - 20-11-2017 at 09:26

Quote: Originally posted by TheAlchemistPirate  

That isn't to say that the drug war is a bunch of caring,passionate figures who sincerely want the best for us and our freedom. I typically compare it to anti-terrorism.


You are correct to compare the drug war with anti-terrorism. But wrong about WHY they are similar.

The "drug war" and terrorism/"antiterrorism" are largely conducted for the benefit of those in power- State governments, their intelligence agencies and others profiting from the military/industrial/intelligence/financial complex.

BOTH sides of these alleged struggles do not exist in their present form for any other reason. It is at the base all a cynical game, sold to you under false pretexts with huge helpings of propaganda.

Quite a while back, some very smart and totally amoral people in USA looked at drug prohibition laws, knowing that there would always be mafias and other cartels arising to profit from them- and considered that the profits and power generated from those drug operations might be used in ways not in their interests. They made the decision to RUN BOTH SIDES OF THAT GAME. And they have largely succeeded.

You drive the French connection out of North America- So the CIA run heroin from Asia and/or Colombia can have the lions share of the USA market, funding black ops off of the proceeds. Just like you do later with the cocaine operations around Iran/contra. You also target the USA sales of heroin and crack cocaine at areas and demographics you feel are in opposition to the status quo and would rather not see politically well organized, it's just another benefit.

Similarly, why ERRADICATE terrorism when you can CONTROL and USE IT.

THERE IS NO LARGE SCALE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION IN THE WORLD WITHOUT A STATE BACKER. Frequently, the same state that claims to be in a struggle with said terrorist organization.

You organize terrorist attacks ostensibly by communist groups in Italy, Germany and elsewhere when there is a good chance they are going to elect a socialist government, unless you can sufficiently repel the local population from anything even loosely associated with the idea of communism. It works.

You turn loose the core of ISIS from your military prison in Iraq, quietly arrange for them to meet each other and rich Saudi Wahabi asshole funders, then leverage THAT can of worms into a good faith effort to take down the intransigent Syrian government, plus the usual profits to the right sort of people in the military/industrial/intelligence/financial complex. AND you now have a plausible excuse to keep a huge military presence in the middle east when the Iraquis finally tell you to please get the hell out of their country. Additionally, your Wahabi colleagues get to put all the dangerously energetic young men they would rather not deal with becoming political at home onto airplanes headed for that insurgency... Where they can get killed by someone else in a useful fashion, instead of having to be imprisoned or beheaded back home.

Meanwhile, hey, Superbowl will be in our town this year! And have you seen the latest Game of Thrones?

Bert - 20-11-2017 at 21:25

Sorry for the above rant.

The OP mentions overeating leading to obesity and asks why it is not legally discouraged... Well, in Japan which has pretty good public health IT IS. Google "metabo law".

Someone else remembered something about Portugal? The Portugese had the humanity to choose harm reduction over punishment. As so much of the harm had come from drug law enforcement, this included decriminalization.

Not legalization, you still can't legally smoke/snort/shoot dope while walking down main street at high noon. But what happens if you do and draw police attention in Portugal has some chance of being less damaging to you than your behavior was in the first place.

Decriminalization- A Love Story

NedsHead - 20-11-2017 at 23:41

Apology redundant, I happen to strongly agree with you Bert