Why Are Illegal Drugs Dangerous?

Discussion in 'Health & Fitness' started by christopher1, Jun 4, 2009.

  1. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    Obviously drugs come with a certain risk, but as far as drugs are concerned LSD is not particularly dangerous. Most of the risk is to the person using it. HPPD (hallucinogenic persisting perception disorder), for example is the sole reason that I don't want to use LSD or MDMA. The risk is small, but to me it's not worth it. Other people are free to make that judgment for themselves. The government shouldn't be involved at all.

    It just so happens that all of those drugs I mentioned are schedule 1, which means there is no recognized medical purpose, and there is a potential for "abuse". When the DEA says "abuse" they don't mean it the way normal people do. They mean recreational use (from a 2008 DEA publication: "abused for their ability to evoke hallucinogenic effects").

    I was merely trying to point out the idiocy of how drugs are scheduled in the US. Is a drug really that dangerous just because it lacks a medical use and can be "abused"? Simple possession charges can quickly add up depending on the circumstances. Being arrested for schedule I drugs can easily ruin a persons life much faster than the drug itself. Sure, it's not exactly "safe" to alter your perception of reality, but is it really dangerous enough to warrant outrageous prison sentences (frequently there are mandatory minimum sentences). The danger of altered perception is certainly not negated by throwing the person into jail, to associate with real criminals.

    Same thing. They decided that the probability of me creating meth was much too dangerous for society. So indirectly, pseudoephedrine was too dangerous to be unregulated.

    Drugs being illegal does not indicate they are otherwise dangerous. All it means is the substance isn't "medicine", but fun enough to do, regardless. It's as simple as that.
     
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  3. PsychoTropicPuppy Bittersweet life? Valued Senior Member

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    So, the OP means to say that legal drugs are better.....good good. Might give some kid a bit of Absinthe then. =D ' doesn't matter..it's LEGAL after all.
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Why do you blithely conform to the government's rather arbitrary separation of drugs into "legal" and "illegal"? The drug with the highest probability of serious health risk is tobacco. Alcohol is a greater health risk (including the second-order effect of death and injury caused by foolish behavior while under the influence) than marijuana, LSD, peyote, powder cocaine, mushrooms, and most of the other drugs that were popular back in my day before the chemistry labs started cranking out the hard stuff. Even caffeine, which we pander to our children, can cause health problems.
    Real cocaine like we had in the 1960s doesn't do that. Today's cocaine is cut with amphetamine, which indeed can kill you if you don't know what you're doing, especially when taken with alcohol, which is quite common. When my grandfather was a pharmacist 100 years ago he sold injectable cocaine and morphine over the counter and there was no major epidemic of death and dissolution due to drug "abuse."
    Your little screed is reasonable so long as it's targeted at children. Children are still growing physically, mentally and emotionally and drugs can perturb or stunt that growth. They also have poor judgment which can be exacerbated by a psychoactive reaction. But you need to be more careful and make sure you don't appear to be aiming that same criticism at adults. Adults and children do not have the same reactions. Adults have far more experience at maintaining a responsible attitude despite how they feel, and their endocrine systems have settled into a steady state so their feelings are a little more stable.

    SciForums is not a place for government shills to be spouting the party line. The exaggerations, dramatizations, and outright lies in the D.A.R.E. program have done enough damage. Remember "This Is Your Brain on Drugs?"
    Oh bullshit. Come back when you're my age and you know a little bit more about life, kid. Cocaine is a trifle compared to alcohol and it's candy compared to tobacco.
    Thank you. The second-order effects of prohibition are invariably worse for individuals and society than the effects of the drugs themselves. Black market drugs are likely to be impure, of inconsistent concentration, and mixed with something else that may cause an unpredictable interaction--like the speed that's now a ubiquitous ingredient in powder cocaine (but not crack). And the prices charged by gangsters can make a drug habit unaffordable without turning to crime.

    My parents learned that in the 1920s during alcohol Prohibition, but Americans are proud of our ignorance of our own history. One of the primary motivations for outlawing marijuana was a convenient excuse for persecuting Mexicans in the Southwest.
    Pseudephedrine is one of the primary ingredients in the formula for making methamphetamine. That's the only reason it's been made more difficult to acquire.
    The problem is that most drugs are not like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, which cause very similar, predictable reactions in the vast majority of people. In the 1960s a handful of people really did have strange reactions to LSD and did stupid shit like staring at the sun until they went blind, or walking off of a roof (or both, I suppose). But I knew a lot of druggies and I never met anyone who had a "bad trip" on acid, or who knew anyone who did. On the contrary, I knew several people who felt no effects at all and joked, "I'm in the placebo group, right?" The point is that those people don't make the headlines and don't get police records, so their experiences--which after all are illegal--are not publicized.

    The same is true of most recreational drugs. Alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are unusual in the rather standard reactions they cause in most of the population.

    If you want straight information about drugs, the best source is still The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs. It's old but it's from the day when independent research could be performed by a reputable organization. It doesn't cover the alphabet-soup drugs that have been created since it was written, but it's also not full of government bullshit. And there are plenty of dog-eared copies for sale on Amazon.
     
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  7. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    a very,very,very small amount of LSD can give you a full blown trip, we are talking micrograms. convey that to a person eager to get high.
    chromosome damage is a very real risk of LSD use.
    distorting your reality to the point you feel like you can fly off a ten story building is also a very real risk.
    flashbacks years after you stopped using LSD is also a risk.
    yes, LSD is dangerous, not only to the individual but to their children as well.
    who else is going to inform the masses?
    people that proclaim LSD isn't dangerous?
    correct, being illegal doesn't mean a drug is overly dangerous.
    i believe the drug laws in the US are adequate and sane.
    there needs to be a dialog about marijuana however.
     
  8. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    1967 Readers Digest. Page 67.
    How to protect your children from LSD and Negro jazz cigarettes.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2009
  9. camilus the villain with x-ray glasses Registered Senior Member

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    895
    Fuck that, our Uncle Sam is extremely inconsistent when it comes to this. Can someone give me the reasons why drugs are illegal?
     
  10. camilus the villain with x-ray glasses Registered Senior Member

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    895
    and how come tobacco and alcohol are not illegal?
     
  11. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Erm... No. Marijuana is usually the reason for their paranoia. It being illegal of course doesn't help, but if they weren't paranoid about that, they would be paranoid about something else.
     
  12. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    13,105
    The simplest reason is that "Abuse" of drugs means that people will sit around all day getting high rather than actually getting off their arse and doing something productive. (After all you can't have someone "high" operating an overhead crane for instance as it would be a legislative nightmare)

    • They have been a part of mainstream society for many years
    • Both are taxed
    • The working people need some sort of release that doesn't undermine their productivity too much.
     
  13. PsychoTropicPuppy Bittersweet life? Valued Senior Member

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    1,538
    Both are taxed. So..what would happen if the "illegal" drugs would get taxed, too?
    Or is the black market too prosperous..
    I don't see how Marijuana undermines the productivity of people any more than alcohol. Most potheads I know..are terribly intelligent and awesomely creative.
     
  14. spaceChild Registered Member

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    94
    Knowing many stoners I would have to say the only paranoia they exhibit is that of being caught. Particularly if they sell. All other kinds of stress that could lead to paranoia.. well they're a bit too mellow to give a fuck.

    I could accept that a constant user of hallucinogenics was paranoid because of their overuse of the substance. But weed itself doesn't lead to schizophrenic tendencies.
    Also you could never overdose on :m: unless you were allergic.
     
  15. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    1,646
    I don't know how it is where you are, but that's very much exaggerated compared to how the DEA makes their judgment. When they say a drug has potential for abuse, they don't mean that you will only sit around and do the drug. Almost anyone who has ever smoked salvia can vouch for this. It's not the type of drug that causes you to be a completely unproductive member of society, yet it's already scheduled in several states, and it's classified by the federal government as a "Drug or chemical of concern" (which most likely means it will be made illegal at some point). This is all because of two criteria: 1) no medical use, and 2) abuse potential.

    Which brings me to my next point. Why do you think it's necessarily wrong for someone to be unproductive? Do you think people have some sort of obligation to contribute something to society?

    That is irrelevant in the context of legislation. Just because something is legal doesn't mean every workplace must allow its use on the job. Take cigarettes and alcohol for example. You don't see gas station attendants smoking right next to the pumps. You also don't see airline pilots switching on auto-pilot and kicking back with a beer.

    Again, you make it sound like people are obligated to be productive. They're not. People are free to produce whenever they want. If somebody can lead a happy successful life from the comfort of their sofa, more power to them.
     
  16. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    17,455
    it's apparent you never smoked any really good grass.
    if you had, then there would be no doubt in your mind why marijuana is illegal.
     
  17. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Rubik's,
    My explanations are based upon how the government bean counters look at people and their use of drugs. What they see are people that are more likely to generate conspiracy theories about their government, people that are likely to complain more about how the government operates while themselves do nothing to aid the situation. They see them as potentially soaking up social money meant for the poor and needy which is then spent on the use of recreational drugs. That's what I mean by "Productivity". As while a person is productive they aren't conspiring, or rioting and most importantly to the government bean counters they're paying tax.

    As for an example of what occurs with "Decriminalisation", you just have to look at the Netherlands with Amsterdam. The 60's and 70's was the main cause for Decriminalisation there and back in the day with the Hippy Communes it was a different place. However nowadays they've seen how bars that sold Cannabis caused holidaymakers from the whole of Europe to appear for recreational purposes. This caused other drugs to start appearing being sold on the street and of course people selling things that aren't actually the drug they were claiming it was.

    In fact one of the parks there got referred to as Needle park where all the Heroin junkies hung out. Over the years Amsterdam has slowly had cafe's closed down, much to the dismay of pot smokers and the current mayor is stepping up the closures further. It's mainly because the Dutch are fed up with having the dregs of society appear there to do their dealing, they are fed up with the extra strain on their own resources, especially in regards to dealing with the criminal elements that try to use Amsterdam as their source of smuggling (Both in and out of the country) and of course they are fed up with the escalation of violence and vandalism.

    Of course that's not the pot that caused it directly, but the pot is the reason that people from those walks of life converged there.
     
  18. spaceChild Registered Member

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    94
    I can't say I've ever had full frontal hallucinations after smoking maybe the closest being when that guy on my road sign was waving to me

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    Maybe it's just NZ or my social circles but usually if someones tripping out hard after a sesh its kinda frowned upon, after a tab or two sure. But smoking ups about mellowing out not tripping out.

    Idk bout you but it sure pisses me off when I'm trying to relax and theres some retard thinking he's gonna die coz he's a bit stoned.
     
  19. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    13,105
    The paranoia caused by "Whitey's". It's common, it's purely down to smoking too much of it. The best thing to do is sleep it off, of course then you get classed a light weight.
     
  20. Vic the Trader straight chillin Registered Senior Member

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    87
    True story:
    I know someone who was so fucked up on Amphetamines, that to visit their family staying in another part of the country, they stole an ambulance, drove it around the block a few times, then realized they had stolen an ambulance and crashed it next to the hospital.

    After this they had 6 months of jail-time and a shit load of probation....I'm not sure if it was actually considered 'theft' because he did return it to the hospital.
     
  21. Mercy Angel Registered Member

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    All substances taken into the body cause changes. A "legal" drug is no different from an "illegal" drug in the ways it alters the physical mechanism. There are more deaths caused by properly prescribed and properly taken medications than the medicos would like to admit.
    We should all be careful as to what we put in our bodies.
     
  22. madethesame Banned Banned

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    411
    the concentrated arificial drugs are dangerous even in small quantities.
    natural herbs should be preferred.
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The reason that people from other countries come to Holland is that the assholes who run their own governments persecute them for using pot. Even though it's less dangerous than tobacco and alcohol, and (in my opinion) caffeine.
     

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