Decriminalisation of drugs... your thoughts?

Jun 19, 2011
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MDMA overdose is a bit of a fallacy. You are more likely to die from a bee sting.

It is because MDMA has the street name "ecstasy", and all sorts on non MDMA mixtures are sold as "ecstasy" (PMA), that MDMA has received bad press.

There are trials underway to identify it's therapeutic use:

https://adf.org.au/insights/mdma-ptsd/
Yeah, I guess using the word overdose in the headlines gets more clicks.
 
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The problem is the media needs to stop using the phrase "Overdose" for these deaths.
These people aren't dying from taking too many pills, there dying from there bodies reaction to the dodgy chemicals bad pills contain, hence the need for pill testing. Change the phrasing to X person dies from taking a bad pill and it will make more sense for the general public to get around testing.
 
Jul 19, 2008
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The problem is the media needs to stop using the phrase "Overdose" for these deaths.
These people aren't dying from taking too many pills, there dying from there bodies reaction to the dodgy chemicals bad pills contain, hence the need for pill testing. Change the phrasing to X person dies from taking a bad pill and it will make more sense for the general public to get around testing.
How can you be sure though?
 
How can you be sure though?
Autopsy results in most cases indicate the pills were far from pure MDMA and/or reactions to other medications and substances.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Remove the burden of blame from the person who chose to take the drugs and onto the person who produced them?


Place the burden on the so called political leadership that facilitates the existence of a black market.
 
Is that a bit like saying the drugs didn't kill them, the heatstroke did?

Or they died of brain damage after drinking too much water, putting the balance of (I think it's salts) out of alignment and drawing fluid across the membrane into the brain - increasing pressure until they cone.

The drugs caused both, but neither died from the drugs alone. Like being high and jumping off a building, the fall killed you, not the drugs but you wouldn't have been there without the drugs.

I don't think people are capable of supplementing their recreation with drugs they don't understand or the interactions with other medications they are taking.
 
Jul 19, 2008
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Autopsy results in most cases indicate the pills were far from pure MDMA and/or reactions to other medications and substances.
Thats fine, but in terms of media reporting, the news article will come out within a day of the death which is too early for any autopsy report to exist.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Is that a bit like saying the drugs didn't kill them, the heatstroke did?

Or they died of brain damage after drinking too much water, putting the balance of (I think it's salts) out of alignment and drawing fluid across the membrane into the brain - increasing pressure until they cone.

The drugs caused both, but neither died from the drugs alone. Like being high and jumping off a building, the fall killed you, not the drugs but you wouldn't have been there without the drugs.

I don't think people are capable of supplementing their recreation with drugs they don't understand or the interactions with other medications they are taking.


What is your libertarian take on the matter? Should the government have the right to interfere with recreational drug taking?
 
What is your libertarian take on the matter? Should the government have the right to interfere with recreational drug taking?
The right to publicly funded healthcare and welfare comes with the responsibility to not make choices that take the right for granted. That includes putting unknown substances in your body.

I don't think people are educated enough to experiment with recreational substances. They take the risk with their own life, the community's resources and what gain do we see for that?
 
Nov 24, 2008
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The right to publicly funded healthcare and welfare comes with the responsibility to not make choices that take the right for granted. That includes putting unknown substances in your body.

I don't think people are educated enough to experiment with recreational substances. They take the risk with their own life, the community's resources and what gain do we see for that?

A lot of music and art, for starters.
 
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The right to publicly funded healthcare and welfare comes with the responsibility to not make choices that take the right for granted. That includes putting unknown substances in your body.

These "unknown substances" only exist because of current government policy!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think people are educated enough to experiment with recreational substances. They take the risk with their own life, the community's resources and what gain do we see for that?

What you think is hardly a libertarian analysis, and again, the risks you mention are predominately a result of government actions.
 
These "unknown substances" only exist because of current government policy!!!!!!!!!!



What you think is hardly a libertarian analysis, and again, the risks you mention are predominately a result of government actions.

I don't think it's libertarian, but I'm also not an ideological block of beautiful marble that never budges. I can't build a new system to suit a free drug use environment. We have a publicly funded health and welfare system, for good reason, and that is the established granite base. Everything has to fit around that.

Interesting that government action is required to make this issue go away, well not go away but to make it safer, well not make it safer but give the perception of greater safety for people to put substances into their bodies that they aren't educated enough to safely perform.

That's the key right? To create a level point that the rest can then be built off, you know there is exactly 100mg of MDMA in this pill and nothing else - you've done two of those pills before, you can more confidently judge what is going to be safe for you. But I can't reasonably expect everyone else to.

Now there is a solution that I think everyone would be happy with, that let's people use as much drugs as they want while keeping the medical system safety net from being compromised.

We need to have every pill of MDMA the same strength, no contaminants - we agree on that.
We need to have every pill of MDMA matched with a chemical substance that will make the user physically ill when they have taken half the average person's dangerous dosage level.

That will protect young people just like experimenting with coffee or alcohol, too much will make you violently ill and you're done with that for the night (and probably the next day).

Since you can take pills in higher concentration that other dangerous substances that go into your body there needs to be a protection.

A lot of music and art, for starters.
I think most use of recreational drugs are by people consuming the work, not creating it.
 
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Criminalising drugs has only lead to creating huge revenue for some of the worst people in the world. It also empowers the police to search you for things that they should have no business doing so.

I do not think that any use of drugs is good. However, sensible adults can minimize the harm. Legalise everything. I'm pretty sure you'd find that the only drugs that would be used over time are cocaine, heroin, marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, ecstasy and hallucinogens.

If you want an upper, why use meth when cocaine is available. If you want to go down, then heroin is better than fentinal and xanax. If you want a normal life but to get a little bit drunk/high each night I think you'd find that marijuana will be more popular than even alcohol. Especially if you can use a strand that doesn't leave you too dusty the next day.

I'd go further than "legalise". I'd nationalise all "vices". 100% of profits for gambling, drugs and prostitution can go straight to government coffers and be used to deal the the problems caused by them. Gambling profits can be used for financial support for the families of gambling addicts. Drug profits can run a huge upswing in rehabilitation centres.

We have seen from rat park that policing these vices only makes it worse. The rest of the profits from these vices can go to a huge social problem that is the cause of nearly all others. Angry boys. As soon as a boy starts displaying anti-social behaviours put his whole family in the program. This normally becomes evident between 6-9 years old.

Support the family at home. Home support, funding the family to do things to engage him with the family. Provide the parents with coaching in how to deal with their son's behaviour. Provide classroom support for his teachers. Get these boys involved in community work to see how they can have a positive impact on their community.

This will cost the state a lot less than their predictable descent into criminality over the next 10 years. It can be funded by the revenues from vices and the reduction in costs of policing them.

Finally, the lure of selling drugs gets a lot of kids into drugs. A lot of kids use drugs because they seem cooler being illegal. Our current policies only serve to make the situation worse.
 
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I think most use of recreational drugs are by people consuming the work, not creating it.

Of course. Music/art can only ever be created once but can be consumed an infinite number of times, so that stands to reason. It still has to be created in the first place - and there's no shortage of musicians/artists who have credited drugs as an inspiration for their work.
 

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Parents call for pill testing as man dies from suspected drug overdose at Beyond The Valley music festival

By Danny Tran


Photo:
Adriana Buccianti says pill testing could act as a safety net for young people using drugs at festivals. (Supplied)



On the first day of any new year, regardless of where he was in the world, Daniel Buccianti would always find a minute to speak with his mother.

Their calls became a little tradition, a special way to ring in the beginning of a fresh chapter in both of their lives.

It was something Adriana Buccianti looked forward to.

But when Daniel was 34, about seven years ago, he overdosed after taking drugs at the Rainbow Serpent Festival in Western Victoria and died.

Since then, memories of their phone calls have been a painful reminder of her son's death in 2012.

And they are never more vivid than when other young people die in circumstances similar to Daniel, as they did yesterday.

In the early hours of the new year, a young man from Mansfield died from a suspected overdose, days after he was flown to hospital.

He had attended the Beyond The Valley festival at Lardner, east of Melbourne.

The death follows that of another man who died after taking an unknown substance at the Lost Paradise music festival, west of Gosford in New South Wales.

When she first heard about the death in Victoria, Ms Buccianti said she was devastated.

"We know that people, young people, will take drugs," she said.

"For the longest time, since there's been music, there's been drugs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...7QqceGicET1yutEKuETy31P_EA9Nm3OyciH6spBnhDCjU
Is that pic of Buccianti's old cheese?
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Surprise, surprise... another ex-public official (ex Border Force Commissioner until quite recently) coming out to speak their thoughts



Strange how this nearly always seems to occur when they walk away from the money.

They are as implicit in this sham as the drug dealers themselves.
 
I don't think it's libertarian, but I'm also not an ideological block of beautiful marble that never budges. I can't build a new system to suit a free drug use environment. We have a publicly funded health and welfare system, for good reason, and that is the established granite base. Everything has to fit around that.

Interesting that government action is required to make this issue go away, well not go away but to make it safer, well not make it safer but give the perception of greater safety for people to put substances into their bodies that they aren't educated enough to safely perform.

That's the key right? To create a level point that the rest can then be built off, you know there is exactly 100mg of MDMA in this pill and nothing else - you've done two of those pills before, you can more confidently judge what is going to be safe for you. But I can't reasonably expect everyone else to.

Now there is a solution that I think everyone would be happy with, that let's people use as much drugs as they want while keeping the medical system safety net from being compromised.

We need to have every pill of MDMA the same strength, no contaminants - we agree on that.
We need to have every pill of MDMA matched with a chemical substance that will make the user physically ill when they have taken half the average person's dangerous dosage level.

That will protect young people just like experimenting with coffee or alcohol, too much will make you violently ill and you're done with that for the night (and probably the next day).

Since you can take pills in higher concentration that other dangerous substances that go into your body there needs to be a protection.


I think most use of recreational drugs are by people consuming the work, not creating it.


Watch some of the docos on Portugal.

Community worker: Here is a safe dose of an uncontaminated drug. Here is a safe needle. Here is a safe space to inject.
Drug addict: No thanks, where's my dealer?
 

CheapCharlie

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Watch some of the docos on Portugal.

Community worker: Here is a safe dose of an uncontaminated drug. Here is a safe needle. Here is a safe space to inject.
Drug addict: No thanks, where's my dealer?
Portugal has been a success going by actual statistics.
All posted here previously.

Some random drug user in a video makes for sensationalist viewing which doesnt repesent the actuality of what is happening

It is a bit like watching A Current Affair and using a segment in dole bludgers as hard fact example of Australian welfare policy and that all unemployed are like that
 
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