Drugs!!!!!

[Rewired]

Surely the prohibition era in America gave us a good insight into the benefits of substances being decriminalised?

Hard to see many benefits of allowing violent criminals to control a market in comparison to a govt that can at least use the taxes to benefit society in other ways.

Not that I'm particularly pro-legalisation when it comes to harder drugs really, they're easy enough to get for those so inclined so I'm not really fussed. It is ironic that a drug that often makes people violent is legal while one that makes people hug each other isn't though, but then I've often shaken my head at the nonsensical priorities of the justice system.

Weed should be definitely be decriminalised though imo.

No where near as simple as that and you know it.

 

[JD11]

lol at "you have been comprehensively outflanked".

can you elaborate how prohibition era america does not serve as an at least somewhat accurate analogue for the illegalisation of some drugs?

 

[tazaa]

Hmm, different policies of dealing with people caught in possession of illegal substances (as the law stands) is different to wether a drug is decriminalised or not.

Not really sure what your saying, except you really give no good reasons for a pro-drug decriminalisation approach.

The one less drug thing is debateable. As you said, regulate the production of MDMA and you have bikies switching to make other substances.

Really, lets be frank, you cannot come up with any reason that certain drugs should be decriminalised, other then, alcohol is legal, so why isnt weed?

That is a pissweak reason to be frank and you have been comprehensively outflanked on this reason. The problem is, the idea that weed/mdma should be legal becaue alcohol is, assumes the legalisation of alcohol and tobacco was a good thing?

Quite frankly, it was a stupid arse thing to do, but it is far too entrenched into society to take it back now.

You seem out of grasp with the current drug issues affecting Australia.
Let me dumb it down for you.
Many people today drink alcohol as a way of socializing aswell as smoking cigarettes.
Its legal and its enjoyed by many. Thats agreed on.
Many people out there however do not enjoy drinking or smoking. Many do not like to destroy their lungs, die of cancer and many do not enjoy a hangover, becoming violent and doing regrettable things aswell(drink driving, assault) on top of destroying their liver. Thats agreed on.

Now natural instinct is that people will look for alternatives. I believe its a persons right to drink or consume whatever they want- however many of these things are bound to law. And illegal.
A person wishing not to drink when they are out socialising or at home may turn to an MDMA pill or a joint of cannabis. Drugs with pros and cons like alcohol but illegal. So they are frowned upon more, which seems to be your view.
Now in terms of usage, MDMA and weed weigh up more to alcohol than other drugs.

It is well known that many who turn to drugs all concede that they first thing they will try is a pill or a joint. They are the easier to get and the easier available.
This is where my argument comes in and why I believe if somehow legalization of atleast pills can be beneficial to society.

If someone consumes a pill that has PMA in it for example and spends the next 2 hours vomiting, sweating and in and out of hot/cold spells than they will be turned off pills straight away. Like you said the bikies are there to make a profit and trust me i hate the bikies just as much as anyone cause they are the scum of all criminals.
When someone is turned off pills because of the lack of quality they will turn to other drugs. The government needs to step in here so that atleast they can prevent the sickness of users who put this crap unknowingly down their throats.
Turning to Speed gives A nice hit. But Then its ghb. Then k. Then ice. And this is many a problem confronting the nation for decades.
The quality of a pill, of speed, of ghb, of ice impacts heavily on any random user.
And speed will be cut with baby powder, as ghb will be mixed with water, as k will be mixed with msn as ice will be mixed battery acid ffs.

My point is people are going to turn to drugs. No one can stop that or prevent that. Instead of targeting these people- they need to be educated. If the government controlled the access of the more commonly used drugs they can help prevent further drug abuse to users who are duped by quality by crims.
There are class a, class b drugs and so on.
What irritates me is that the more harsher drugs such as heroin, ice or acid are listed on the same level as speed, cannabis or MDMA. Obviously this is socially viewed but thats how drugs are perceived these days.

In this day and age alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana cannot coexist legally, let along mdma and other drugs. The nation would not be able to handle the problems that the legality of these drugs available to an adult would cause.
What needs to be done is that the education and awareness of the more social drugs ive pointed out, needs to occur.

Now alcohol will never be made illegal, neither will cigarettes. The taxes the government makes off of these are too vital. But if the government takes on the education approach and puts the right procedures in place- I have no doubt the the legalization of MDMA and or cannabis will not only damage criminal activity but it could possibly have a positive affect on the number of people who smoke and who drink.

 

[Rewired]

The issue is that no government is going to regulate the production of MDMA. In other words, fund the production, conduct research into drug interactions, enforce the proper selling of product (ie, 18+), ensure quality control. It just isn't going to happen.

It will just create more problems then it solves, the benefit does not exceed the risk/cons

- MDMA is not benign substance many people believe it to be.

I can see where you are coming from. In time, I think the use of food products laced with weed will be allowed for freely for medical use - consumping weed is far safer then smoking it.

However, the idea that the government should step in and regulate the control of softer drugs (weed, MDMA) just won't happen. Should it? Probably not. IMO, it will cost a hell of a lot of money for not much benefit.

MDMA it must be remembered, is still a relatively new drug, long term effects of MDMA use are yet to be conclusively examined. The literature contains many conflicting accounts of MDMA use.

 

[tazaa]

The issue is that no government is going to regulate the production of MDMA. In other words, fund the production, conduct research into drug interactions, enforce the proper selling of product (ie, 18+), ensure quality control. It just isn't going to happen.

It will just create more problems then it solves, the benefit does not exceed the risk/cons

- MDMA is not benign substance many people believe it to be.

I can see where you are coming from. In time, I think the use of food products laced with weed will be allowed for freely for medical use - consumping weed is far safer then smoking it.

However, the idea that the government should step in and regulate the control of softer drugs (weed, MDMA) just won't happen. Should it? Probably not. IMO, it will cost a hell of a lot of money for not much benefit.

MDMA it must be remembered, is still a relatively new drug, long term effects of MDMA use are yet to be conclusively examined. The literature contains many conflicting accounts of MDMA use.

The government is so out of touch with the issues concerning society and how to address them. The leaders of the nations are the spoon fed children of the drugs are bad era. Itll be atleast 15 years if lucky, until gen y start running the country and we then might see a different tolerance and approach to this issue. Until then the majority of this ageing population will stay the sheep they unknowingly play.

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

Very interesting to read this thread and the general pro-drug theme that runs within it.

Firstly, weed is not legal anywhere in the world. It may be DECRIMINALISED, but it is not legal anywhere. There is a distinct difference.

The argument that 'alcohol and tobacco is legal, so why can't drugs be' is seriously flawed. Firstly, that arguement assumes that the legislation of alcohol and tobacco is a good thing? Im sorry, but Im not going to accept that.

Weed has 33 carcinogenic ingredients; let's flood the market with another intoxicant, what a great idea!!

The money you'd save on court and policing costs would soon be more then made up with an over-burdened health system.

The use of weed as a medicine is also controversial. Weed is crop, with crops come pesticides and fungi. Who uses weed for medicine? A lot of immunocompromised people. They are exposed to the fungi, that oridnarily is harmless, but in their weakened state they are overwhelmed.

Pills are another story. SSRI's are a form of antidepressants, in people who take these drugs and combine them with ectascy, the effects of MDMA can be non-existant. Imagine the drama you'd have with drug interactions if a drug like Ectascy is legalised.

All these things need to be thought through before people advocate the decrim of drugs.

I mean, just imagine, you go in for surgery and the pre-anaesthetic nurse, asks, "Have you taken illicit drugs recently"? Now, they dont do that to kill time. They do it because all sorts of drugs can have extremely dangerous interactions with other drugs.

There are a maze of factors that complicate the decrim of drugs.

I'd be really interested in some pro-drug decrim people to explain, in their words, the benefit there would be in legalising drugs.

Something more in depth then, "Alcohol is legal" would be nice.

In the words of Milt Friedman . . .

“Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalising their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society”.

 

[Old Skool]

FFS, another Daytripper alias.

 

[Old Skool]

- MDMA is not benign substance many people believe it to be.

Very few substances are "benign".

Acute harm

Ecstasy: 1 in 10,000 episodes
Horse Riding: 1 in 350 episodes.

- Professor David Nutt, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2009.

MDMA it must be remembered, is still a relatively new drug, long term effects of MDMA use are yet to be conclusively examined.

MDMA was first synthesised in 1892.

The literature contains many conflicting accounts of MDMA use.

Ecstasy is a brand name for all different kinds of crap.

MDMA is something else.

Paracetomal kills more people annually than MDMA.

Many reports cite where MDMA was not even the drug in question. Multi drug use, PMA, Pre-existing health issues, hyponatremia.

It was hyponatremia and not ecstasy that caused a fatality and set off the anti ecstasy hysteria in Australia with the tragic death of Anna Wood.

Her parents went on to become anti drug zealots in the mould of Noel MacNamara, and other such vengeance types.

While her death renewed calls for a more hardline approach to be taken on drugs in the media and by politicians, critics pointed out that this "zero tolerance" approach may have scared Wood's friends into not taking her immediately to a hospital where her life could have been saved.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_health5.shtml

 

[Rewired]

You have absolutely no idea about the physiology of the human body. Ectasy, or MDMA, is linked to water intoxication because ecstasy increases thirst while suppressing the need to go to the toilter.

As a partygoer sweats it out on the nightclub dancefloor they lose sodium through sweat. As they drink water (sodium free) to excessive amounts (because of artifically induced thrist) they further dilute their extracellular sodium levels.

Further dilution results in intracellular sodium being more concentrated than extracellular sodium. Consquently, water moves into the intracellular cells to correct the sodium concentrations. The influx of water into the cells swells the brain cells, the limited space in the skull means that the swelling of cells is extrememly dangerous.

But of course, ecstacy didn't cause that did it?

Another issue is serotonin syndrome. A dangerous situation that can occur when people mix MDMA with anitdepressants.

No one here has addressed the issue of polypharmacy or drug interactions.

In short, most people here have very little idea about what they are talking about.

 

[Old Skool]

You have absolutely no idea about the physiology of the human body.

I have 2/3rds of a degree in Biochemistry, but please, feel free to continue your amateurish dissection of whatever best behooves your personal prejudices.

Ectasy, or MDMA, is linked to water intoxication because ecstasy increases thirst while suppressing the need to go to the toilter.

As a partygoer sweats it out on the nightclub dancefloor they lose sodium through sweat. As they drink water (sodium free) to excessive amounts (because of artifically induced thrist) they further dilute their extracellular sodium levels.

Further dilution results in intracellular sodium being more concentrated than extracellular sodium. Consquently, water moves into the intracellular cells to correct the sodium concentrations. The influx of water into the cells swells the brain cells, the limited space in the skull means that the swelling of cells is extrememly dangerous.

Excellent paraphrasing. Well done.

But of course, ecstacy didn't cause that did it?

Another issue is serotonin syndrome. A dangerous situation that can occur when people mix MDMA with anitdepressants.

No one here has addressed the issue of polypharmacy or drug interactions.

In short, most people here have very little idea about what they are talking about.

I'm pretty sure people can read information on the internet just as well as you, but without the selectivity of prejudice.

In short, this means they have much more of an "idea" than you.

 

[Fart Cummings]

done it all except heroin and ice had fun and survived

 

[Rewired]

I have 2/3rds of a degree in Biochemistry, but please, feel free to continue your amateurish dissection of whatever best behooves your personal prejudices.



Excellent paraphrasing. Well done.



I'm pretty sure people can read information on the internet just as well as you, but without the selectivity of prejudice.

In short, this means they have much more of an "idea" than you.

Biochemistry?

Well surly you know that Ecstacy suppresses the need to go the toilet while increasing thirst. Now you'd know that normally thirst is controlled by the brain in response to differing concentrations of sodium in the blood and other hormances such as aldosterone and ADH. If sodium is too concentrated - then one becomes thirsty and they drink water to dilute the elevated sodium levels.

That explains perfectly why one becomes thirsty after eating a big fat bag of potatoe chips.

So, to say that "ecstacy didn't cause that girls death - water intoxication - or hyponatremia did" is misleading. Because the ingestion of MDMA ultimately resulted, through one way or another, in this girl consuming excessive amounts of water.

You can sit there and fob off my claims. One thing to say you have a biochemistry degree 2/3'ds completed. Another to actually put something into own words to prove that you actually might know something.

I am doing a nursing degree.

Decriminalisng ecstacy has no clear cut benefit. Indeed, it would probably create more harm then good for reasons I have already outlined.

If you want to go toe to toe with me with evidence-based research on what the benefits of decriminalisng ecstacy would be I am all for it.

 

[tazaa]

Well what a shame we cant control the epidemic we are suffering through the deaths of partygoers drowning their lungs with H20 each weekend! Whatever shall we do.

 

[Rewired]

Well actually, when you consume water it goes into your stomach - not your lungs. Water intoxication is lethal because the brian swells through the influx of water into the cells.

If you have heart failure, you may have water backing up into your lungs - but that wouldnt normally be a problem in a healthy 20 year old.

 

[Rewired]

The water backs up into the lungs because the heart cannot effectively cope with the increased blood volume. So water (which makes up a majority of plasma in the blood) leakes out of the veins (Pulmonary arteries) and makes gas exchange quite difficult.

 

[Old Skool]

Well what a shame we cant control the epidemic we are suffering through the deaths of partygoers drowning their lungs with H20 each weekend! Whatever shall we do.

People are dying from ignorance created by hysterical politics.

People are dying because votes are more important than a few deaths.

Walkely Award winning journalist Jack Marx sums it up beautifully:

In the late 90s I spent a lot of time talking to drug and addiction industry professionals - sometimes for journalistic reasons, often not - and, overwhelmingly, their opinions regarding the Woods were not the sort they would dare venture in a public forum. One surgeon who specialised in addiction described Angela Wood to me as "evil", which I understood as not a personal review so much as a scream of professional frustration. People who were devoting their lives to the extremely complex issue of drugs and addiction - a sphere of enquiry on which questions of law, medicine, psychology, civil liberties and politics balance like feuding acrobats on a pinhead - were tired of seeing debate after debate and summit after summit scuttled by unassailable harbingers of moral panic, well meaning as they might have been.

For when the parents of dead children appear, the argument is distilled to mere emotional hysteria, all opposition branded as enemies of life and sympathisers of darkness, the reduction of reason to black-and-white absolutes and slick morality having less to do with a serious search for truth than a lust for propaganda, the caricatures of which belong to certain enlightened times, or the realms of cheap sensationalist fiction. Like the boxer who declares he is "fighting for black people", the parents of the dead child dare their opponents to wage war on a spectral innocent, every retreat, every forfeit, every gesture of sympathy proof that the child is 'alive'.

On July 8, Tony Wood (Anna Woods father) lent his voice to a Liberal politician arguing that local councillors be regularly tested for drugs, adding dollops to a storm in a teacup a few days later when he demanded Labors Peter Garret take a drug test. Back in March, alongside a man whose son was killed last year when a P-Plate driver lost control of his vehicle, Wood was one of a little choir of grieving parents wheeled out by the NSW opposition leader as proof that the heartless Labour party had our loved ones in their crosshairs. One would be forgiven for suspecting the ghost of Anna Wood has a brand new career as a political placard.

I have the deepest respect and sympathy for Tony Wood as a father who has suffered the unbearable - as a member of an elite group of people who have lost their precious children, he knows of things that I can only imagine in my darker moments and hope I will never know. But I do believe it's time he and others like him stopped using society for therapy, and our laws and legislature as some kind of ouija board through which the dead can be given voice. And he should certainly beware of creeps in politics using his suffering as political cache.

http://blogs.theage.com.au/thedailytruth/archives/2007/08/bless_the_beast.html

 

[MacMum]

Stop blaming governments and anyone else...

The kids are killing THEMSELVES...

...they KNOW not to do drugs....They are TOLD not to do drugs.....they are TOLD the dangers of drugs..

..but they still do it.....they die because of their own stupidity!

...argue all you like, thats the bottom line..

NO-ONE'S fault but their own..

 

[Old Skool]

Prohibition creates the fertile environment that leads to overdoses and the like.

Governments create prohibition.

 

[MacMum]

The individual person, old enough to know right from wrong, also old enough to say NO...

...and shoulder the consequences and responsibility of not saying NO..

If they don't say NO to the person offering them the drugs, that is not the governments fault!

Too many people find it so easy to blame governments for things that are ultimately their own problem, and won't take responsibility for their own actions or the consequences of those actions..

 

[Old Skool]

The individual person, old enough to know right from wrong, also old enough to say NO...

...and shoulder the consequences and responsibility of not saying NO..

If they don't say NO to the person offering them the drugs, that is not the governments fault!

Too many people find it so easy to blame governments for things that are ultimately their own problem, and won't take responsibility for their own actions or the consequences of those actions..

It's the governments fault for denying them that right in a relevantly safe environment.

Government prohibition denies the user proper quality control, dosage and safety information.

The black market is only concerned with profit.

 

[JD11]

I am doing a nursing degree.

when you consume water it goes into your stomach - not your lungs.

Money well spent.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Stop blaming governments and anyone else...

The kids are killing THEMSELVES...

...they KNOW not to do drugs....They are TOLD not to do drugs.....they are TOLD the dangers of drugs..

..but they still do it.....they die because of their own stupidity!

...argue all you like, thats the bottom line..

NO-ONE'S fault but their own..

I don't know if you're serious. But I am presuming you are.

You do realise drug addiction can stem from issues outside the control of a person? Some people are born into unfortunate homes. Sometimes, tragedies can warp a whole person. This can lead to substance abuse. I don't see how this is the fault of an individual.

But of course, a lot of people do drugs through their own choosing. I can't fault that. The education is there.

I'm seventeen and I've read up on most of the drugs I could possibly come across. I know things that will bring out the narc and I'll shun. But I'm enticed by certain drugs - I find their effects interesting. I think a lot of young people are like this. The internet is such a valuable tool. It can't give you a good or bad trip, but it can definitely help (a lot).

Some of the world's greatest thinkers, writers, artists used drugs - from states of addiction to recreational usage. I can't say MDMA or LSD are bad nor good. It's dependent on so many variables. It's like everything. When used with respect, they can open up your perspective. If you show little respect, regard, or safety, there are obvious repercussions.

Anyway... I don't know how to say this... but how does smoking weed go at University? Especially for someone on campus. Is it relatively easy to find a connection?

 

[Old Skool]

I don't know if you're serious. But I am presuming you are.

You do realise drug addiction can stem from issues outside the control of a person? Some people are born into unfortunate homes. Sometimes, tragedies can warp a whole person. This can lead to substance abuse. I don't see how this is the fault of an individual.

But of course, a lot of people do drugs through their own choosing. I can't fault that. The education is there.

I'm seventeen and I've read up on most of the drugs I could possibly come across. I know things that will bring out the narc and I'll shun. But I'm enticed by certain drugs - I find their effects interesting. I think a lot of young people are like this. The internet is such a valuable tool. It can't give you a good or bad trip, but it can definitely help (a lot).

Some of the world's greatest thinkers, writers, artists used drugs - from states of addiction to recreational usage. I can't say MDMA or LSD are bad nor good. It's dependent on so many variables. It's like everything. When used with respect, they can open up your perspective. If you show little respect, regard, or safety, there are obvious repercussions.

Anyway... I don't know how to say this... but how does smoking weed go at University? Especially for someone on campus. Is it relatively easy to find a connection?

I advise you in the strongest possible terms to refrain from using illegal and/or powerful psychotropic substances whilst your brain/mind/body is undergoing crucial formative development.

I also advise you to carefully consider the impact that a drug conviction could have on the rest of your life.

If you feel strongly about this subject from a pro choice or responsible health perspective, then I encourage you to engage with your local and federal politicians.

 

[Dan Moody]

Stop blaming governments and anyone else...

The kids are killing THEMSELVES...

...they KNOW not to do drugs....They are TOLD not to do drugs.....they are TOLD the dangers of drugs..

..but they still do it.....they die because of their own stupidity!

...argue all you like, thats the bottom line..

NO-ONE'S fault but their own..

Fair proportion of the blame would have to go to the parents of younger drug addicts/takers as well.
Anyway, you're fighting a losing battle in this thread. There's enough ****wits in here that will attempt to justify this pathetic habit with bullshit medical evidence and the rights and wrongs of being in control of their own judgement.
Surprised the thread has gone on for this long, obviously more drug ****ed losers in the world than I assumed.
Carry on.

 

[MacMum]

I think you might be right!