Thread: Let us beat a dead horse(drugs stuff)

I mean what you aren't considering is the overall effect the drugs and it's use have on society en masse. I mean it can be generally harmless (like say, drinking), but that doesn't mean it won't, especially if it loses its status as being socially taboo, have detrimental effects on the people who would choose to use it.

The government going alongside saying it's not harmful is not a stance it can take politically, because that is a tacit endorsement to saying the drug, and its recreational use, is ok, when culturally drug use tends to be frowned on. The political reasoning aside, drug culture and the use of addictive substances tends to have adverse effects on neighbourhoods and workforces, so there is no way the government could ever approve of their use. Even drinking is only allowed because of the ridiculous outcry and rumrunning/crime related to rumrunning that happened when they put in prohibition anyways.

There has never been a GC/MS pill testing by the DEA and only one that I know of from an independent testing organization that popped for heroin (and, incidentally, no ecstasy). Heroin is a much more expensive drug to manufacture than ecstasy. It makes no sense to give you two for one and cut your profit margin severely. It makes much more sense to sell you the drugs separately, unless the drug you're cutting with (meth, for instance) is less expensive than the primary drug you're using.

Which might explain why the only test that popped on ectasydata.org is a shitty ass hand-press pill with an off-center imprint with aspirin as its main component. There's simply no reason to mass produce that shit.

Originally Posted by gwahir

democracy hooray

Just because the majority hold a view doesn't make that view right, you know this and I am surprised to see you make a comment like that. The point is that scientific research, factual evidence is ignored for misguided, populist opinion, and that I feel the government should have a duty to conduct itself in a better manner and that it, along with society has to move with the times.

We let science takes us on so many journey's of progress, yet somethings we won't, for somehow our own uninformed and sometimes ignorant opinion carries more weight than actual facts. It isn't that I don't know why she ignored him, that is plain for all to see, that doesn't make it right and I think it is fair game for debate.

There has been such a push to remove this attitude from so many aspects of our lifes and I really do think it is time to go to the final frontier so to speak, that being vice and this is a prime example of a government not willing to do so, not even willing to entertain the debate, and there is much to be had. And all the while people are still scoring drugs, getting wasted, going to prison because they got high on illegal substances, this is the 21st century, why can we not be adults and look at the facts and use them to form opinions, instead of outdated propoganda designed to misinform and misdirect.

Someone up above posted that while the drug may be harmless to a body, it may be harmful to society. I thought it was an exceptional point, one that I hadn't really considered too much before.

I mean, I see drunks in public now. Do I really want to see a group of party-going club-hopping twenty two year olds just rubbing themselves all over buildings because everything feels so good, and they like when I touch them because I feeeeel soooo goood and some of them are pretty gone from the booze and probably won't remember what I look like in the morning because I feeel sooooo goooood and

fuck that make E legal

Originally Posted by gismo

Just because the majority hold a view doesn't make that view right, you know this and I am surprised to see you make a comment like that.

i was being ironic.

Originally Posted by gwahir

i was being ironic.

Should have added something to make it more obvious

As for its harm to society, has there even been any research into this? It is always going to be difficult though to justify banning it because of feared harm to society when alcohol is legal. However with alcohol we tolerate it and instead encourage responsible consumption. Is there any reason to assume we cannot do this with any other substances?

Even stil, that strictly isn't the point. The point is that the government chose to ignore scientific fact. The scientist claimed that E didn't merit its class A status, most of the fear about E was brought around by media fear mongering and alot of public opinion on the drug is misinformed. He didn't ask the government to say it was ok to use it, or indeed encourage it, he asked them to recognise the reality of the situation, that E isn't as serious a drug as they has presumed and that it should therefore be downgraded.

I don't feel this would have been political suicide, or the only option open to the government. Sure, there would have been critics, however the government would have had the huge advantage of being right, having factual evidence to back up their claims, all it would have taken was some spin to make sure it didn't get taken out of context as a promotion of drugs, but rather government thinking and moving with the times and with the facts.

Armed with the facts they could easily win any debate, since alot of the opposition is based on misinformation and populist fear, or a very selective view point in which people do not apply their worries to other substances, namely alcohol. IT would have been a good chance to confront people with facts and make people think, whilst many might not like it, it remains the same to me that it is better that people be informed. If you are going to restrict freedom, villify and turn people into criminals, you need a better reason than misinformed populist fear mongering. You need facts.

gismo, the government cannot, i meant CANNOT, condone recreational drug usage. The only drugs that they will allow are those involved with medicine and curing people. It goes against the culture of every country on this planet to publically support drug use, and anyone in power who suggested it would be sacked like nobody's business.

Like I said, the only reason they allow alcohol is because thay lack the ability to control it. It's pretty easy to make and widely consumed, but the difference between alcohol and, say, marijuana, is that it's really easy to poison/permenantly injure/kill someone from a bad batch of hooch than from a plant that you smoke.

Now, ideally, a government would downgrade it's status upon review of the drug in a scientific environment, but as far as these people are concerned, it is a subclassification in a field they disapprove and despise through and through. To them, it doesn't matter if cocaine or heroin is more addictive, or if they aren't as completely harmful as once thought. What matters is that they are still drugs, they still cost lives and workforce energy, create black markets for crime and that cannot, and will not, ever be even tacitly endorsed.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

\
What matters is that they are still drugs, they still cost lives and workforce energy, create black markets for crime and that cannot, and will not, ever be even tacitly endorsed.

NO! Drugs do not create black markets for crime. Prohibition of drugs create black market for crime.

Originally Posted by Killuminati

NO! Drugs do not create black markets for crime. Prohibition of drugs create black market for crime.

Well prohibition of anything creates a black market for that thing. That's just basic thugonomics.

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Well prohibition of anything creates a black market for that thing. That's just basic thugonomics.

Yea and if we can't stop that black market from growing bigger and bigger due to such high demand for the substances then why are we continuing to fund crime through prohibition. Look at Mexico right now and tell me how well our drug prohibition is working.

Well it would definitely be in our best interests to legalize the safer illegal drugs and tax the shit out of them. I think it was a California senator who said it most recently, but legalizing and taxing marijuana alone would bring billions and billions of dollars American governments.

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Well it would definitely be in our best interests to legalize the safer illegal drugs and tax the shit out of them. I think it was a California senator who said it most recently, but legalizing and taxing marijuana alone would bring billions and billions of dollars American governments.

Yea California is moving to legalize marijuana and it is estimated to generate at least 1 billion annualy for California. What needs to be done is marijuana needs to be legalized and regulated like alcohol. As for the other drugs treat them the same way they are in Holland, with the exception of mushrooms. They banned them recently due to a few deaths the year before that were caused mostly by tourists going and taking shrooms and alcohol.

Originally Posted by Killuminati

NO! Drugs do not create black markets for crime. Prohibition of drugs create black market for crime.

yes ok we all know this

the tool vs. the person who does it

legalization and taxanation is neither an easy answer, nor a complete fix to the problem either

I hate these shortsighted discussion because people don't recognize that scientific data doesn't prove anything is safe, but rather that in that exact setting it was not harmful.

There are major lifestyle risks associated with widespread ecstacy use and while it's easy to dismiss those occurances as rare and outliers, the majority of these laws are meant to protect the general population from outliers.

I think its funny that the OP tried to blame water intoxication on the girls death when the obvious cause was an impaired state caused by the drug. That's like saying your grandmother died from pneumonia when she had leukemia for 20 years.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

yes ok we all know this

the tool vs. the person who does it

legalization and taxanation is neither an easy answer, nor a complete fix to the problem either

I agree there will still be problems and abuse of drugs. This is inevitable. What we are doing now though is putting innocent people and/or addicts into our already overcrowded jails. We take people who got had a couple grams of weed on them and fuck them. When the punshments do more damage than the crime there is a problem. Not to mention our war on drugs is an absolutely miserable failure. I mean imagine what we could be doing with the money spent on the drug war every year. Take that money and add it to additional money we would get from taxing weed and that's a pretty substantial swing of money.

I also think that the use of hard drugs would go down significantly if we legalized marijuana and decriminilized harder drugs. When you hear the argument that weed is a gateway drug consider what is really getting people who try weed to try other drugs. One thing, in my opinion, is just how a person is. There are plenty of people who dabble with other drugs just out of curiosity and have no problems with them, people you wouldn't even expect to have tried anything like that. At the same time there are plenty of poeple who tried these drugs and got hooked and had problems with them. But in my opinion another big reason is that when you go to a dealer to get some weed, there is a decent chance that he is either selling more than just that, or he knows someone who is and tries to sell it anyway to make a quick buck. So these dealers are offering these harder drugs that maybe that user would have never even tried before that. At the same time the people doing the drugs are familiar with government propoganda concerning marijuana which, after experimenting for themselves and seeing other users, they know isn't true. Who will tell them the harder drugs are much more harmful and addicting, when they are all scheduled in the same category.

Legalize marijuana and do REAL studies on the effect and harmfulness of all drugs and reclassify everything appropriately.

Alcohol and tobacco have medical applications... They just aren't common uses

Originally Posted by coqauvin

gismo, the government cannot, i meant CANNOT, condone recreational drug usage. The only drugs that they will allow are those involved with medicine and curing people. It goes against the culture of every country on this planet to publically support drug use, and anyone in power who suggested it would be sacked like nobody's business.

Like I said, the only reason they allow alcohol is because thay lack the ability to control it. It's pretty easy to make and widely consumed, but the difference between alcohol and, say, marijuana, is that it's really easy to poison/permenantly injure/kill someone from a bad batch of hooch than from a plant that you smoke.

Now, ideally, a government would downgrade it's status upon review of the drug in a scientific environment, but as far as these people are concerned, it is a subclassification in a field they disapprove and despise through and through. To them, it doesn't matter if cocaine or heroin is more addictive, or if they aren't as completely harmful as once thought. What matters is that they are still drugs, they still cost lives and workforce energy, create black markets for crime and that cannot, and will not, ever be even tacitly endorsed.

Alcohol is legal simply because it has been around for so long and is so deeply entrenched in our culture, no other reason. If I can just repeat, that is the only reason, there is no other, there is only one and that is the one I just said, no other. If it were introduced today, it would be class A. The only drugs on the market that are in the same league as alcohol are the likes of heroin and cocaine.

Downgrading isn't the same as condoning, it is simply having its legal status reflect the severity of the drug, huge difference. And when people talk about what is in them, how can we know it is safe...making it illegal does nothing to solve this and since people will still take it, it only makes the situation worse, not better. But that isn't for here.

Sure, ecstacy and co cost lives and energy. So does alcohol, and it is tolerated for the one and sole reason that it has been around for so long. There are so many legal activities that can impair our power to earn a wage, yet we tolerate them because they can be enjoyed responsibly. There are banned substances which are in that category I am afraid. This isn't so much about legal vs illegal, it is fact and ignorance influencing opinion and law, which should carry the move weight?

Atmosfear, the esctacy never killed her. It was probably a combination of both, but none alone like I said in my OP. Your comparison is such a poor one, I don't even know where to begin telling you what is wrong with it. And I cited that example to show how disinformation regarding drugs has created such a climate of fear, yet it is out of touch with reality, and therefore an unjustified fear and panic.

Scientific tests can prove things are safe. Again, I don't know where to begin telling you what is wrong with the stuff you are saying...sure it shows you situations where X is safe, of course it does and we can often reason that there is therefore no reason to get uptight and worry about the safety. There will always be situations where anything is dangerous, but in the general sphere of things we can prove X is safe. 30 deaths a year in the UK to ecstacy is a very good indicator of just how dangerous a drug it is, considering the many tens of thousands who die each year due to alcohol, which we openly promote and condone. You are really twisting things, and yet it isn't bringing you to any valuable point or contribution.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

Alcohol and tobacco have medical applications... They just aren't common uses

Oh please, the medical uses for tobacco are practically nonexistent and they can all be found in other plants and shit. Alcohol in moderation has some medical benefits but not many and those benefits are only actually beneficial when you drink a little bit a day, which most people don't.

Christ, who cares. If people want to take drugs privately, it's their choice to do so. The government has no place telling people what to do to themselves.

Originally Posted by benzss

Christ, who cares. If people want to take drugs privately, it's their choice to do so. The government has no place telling people what to do to themselves.

I only wish everyone thought this way.

Originally Posted by gismo

Alcohol is legal simply because it has been around for so long and is so deeply entrenched in our culture, no other reason. If I can just repeat, that is the only reason, there is no other, there is only one and that is the one I just said, no other. If it were introduced today, it would be class A. The only drugs on the market that are in the same league as alcohol are the likes of heroin and cocaine.

If it were introduced today, doesn't matter because it isn't. If Ecstasy were introduced before modern science could test it's effects, doesn't matter because it wasn't. These hypotheticals (and they are purely hypotheticals) only justify the criminalization of alcohol and tobacco. You are not supporting your conclusion at all.

Originally Posted by gismo

Downgrading isn't the same as condoning, it is simply having its legal status reflect the severity of the drug, huge difference.

The legal status doesn't reflect the severity of the drug, it reflects the severity of the problem. The problem with most drugs extends beyond the simply effects of the drug and into the behaviors that are associated with the culture surrounding it.

Other influences include factors such as the ability to test for it. If a drug is deregulated, but the new regulations cannot be appropriately enforced, then deregulation is nothing more than condoning.

Originally Posted by gismo

And when people talk about what is in them, how can we know it is safe...making it illegal does nothing to solve this and since people will still take it, it only makes the situation worse, not better. But that isn't for here.

Well if there is any point in here, your drug-adled mind couldn't make it clear.

Originally Posted by gismo

Sure, ecstacy and co cost lives and energy. So does alcohol, and it is tolerated for the one and sole reason that it has been around for so long.

That's a pretty good reason to argue against alcohol, not for ecstasy.

Originally Posted by gismo

There are so many legal activities that can impair our power to earn a wage, yet we tolerate them because they can be enjoyed responsibly. There are banned substances which are in that category I am afraid. This isn't so much about legal vs illegal, it is fact and ignorance influencing opinion and law, which should carry the move weight?

You're every bit as ignorant here as anyone opposing decriminalization of ecstasy.

Originally Posted by gismo

Atmosfear, the esctacy never killed her. It was probably a combination of both, but none alone like I said in my OP. Your comparison is such a poor one, I don't even know where to begin telling you what is wrong with it. And I cited that example to show how disinformation regarding drugs has created such a climate of fear, yet it is out of touch with reality, and therefore an unjustified fear and panic.

What is the probable combination? This is simple. Would she have drank water to the point of toxicity if not for taking a drug that impaired her judgment? Would your grandmother have died from pneumonia if she hadn't been immuno-compromised from leukemia? Well she could have but in 99.9% of cases she wouldn't have.

If I go out and get plastered and then wrap my tree around a car, it wasn't the alcohol that killed me, right, it was my bad driving? Please. The cause-and-effect relationship is clear.

Originally Posted by gismo

Scientific tests can prove things are safe.

Safe is a relative term, which is why scientific tests do not prove things are safe. Even medical testing (which costs pharmaceuticals up to $150 million dollars before they ever approach humans) never proves a drug is safe, but rather that it did no harm. Unless you have a good grasp of the scientific method and statistics, you won't grasp the difference.

Originally Posted by gismo

Again, I don't know where to begin telling you what is wrong with the stuff you are saying...sure it shows you situations where X is safe, of course it does and we can often reason that there is therefore no reason to get uptight and worry about the safety. There will always be situations where anything is dangerous, but in the general sphere of things we can prove X is safe.

Would you like me to cite the long list of FDA- and other major regulator-approved drugs that were deemed "safe" and later turned out to be harmful despite wide clinical studies suggesting they weren't? There is a culture surrounding drugs that makes it difficult to determine their true impact for both long and short-term exposure. The amount of testing that has gone into the vast majority of these drugs (and perhaps the sole exception is marijuana) doesn't even compare to what is necessary to gain simply regulator approval, much less decriminalization by politicians.

I'm not saying that ecstasy is a dangerous killer and ought to be outlawed forever, but one junk study from one dumb source is hardly enough to go reversing public policy over.

Originally Posted by gismo

30 deaths a year in the UK to ecstacy is a very good indicator of just how dangerous a drug it is, considering the many tens of thousands who die each year due to alcohol, which we openly promote and condone. You are really twisting things, and yet it isn't bringing you to any valuable point or contribution.

All you've shown here is that a raw count of deaths attributed to a drug is not a very good indicator of its danger to society.

Originally Posted by Cryptic

Here's the deal: form your own beliefs about drugs. If, based on what you conclude, you choose to use them, then use them. If you choose not to, don't. Fucking pointless argument.

I feel this bears repeating: sentiments like these are boring, stupid, useless and stupid. They have less than no argumentative value and anyone who uses them is an arrogant cunt who thinks their pathetic unsubtle clarity is better than everyone else's considered, passionate debate.

Furthermore, every sentence in that post (there are four) contains an assumption which you are taking completely for granted.

Originally Posted by gwahir

I feel this bears repeating: sentiments like these are boring, stupid, useless and stupid. They have less than no argumentative value and anyone who uses them is an arrogant cunt who thinks their pathetic unsubtle clarity is better than everyone else's considered, passionate debate.

Furthermore, every sentence in that post (there are four) contains an assumption which you are taking completely for granted.

The OP?

Originally Posted by benzss

The OP?

the one i quoted

Originally Posted by gwahir

the one i quoted

So was your post ironic or something?

Yours was worse than his

oh well i don't know how that is but i was not intending to add anything to the actual debate you see

Originally Posted by hydro

gismo you might want to read a bit about ecstasy's medicinal value. It was used pretty successfully in the treatment of several mental disorders, if I recall correctly. I'd be lying if I said I had the energy to read through this entire thread, so I might be missing a thing or two, but I think the fact that mdma has some arguable medicinal application addresses Atmosfear's point about how alcohol being a faggot doesn't necessarily mean that ecstasy isn't also a faggot.

I mean I'm not saying unequivocally that ecstasy should suffer maximum criminalization. I'm not saying that there isn't a good argument for the decriminalization of ecstasy.

I'm just saying that gismo hasn't yet stumbled upon it.

Originally Posted by hydro

gismo you might want to read a bit about ecstasy's medicinal value. It was used pretty successfully in the treatment of several mental disorders, if I recall correctly. I'd be lying if I said I had the energy to read through this entire thread, so I might be missing a thing or two, but I think the fact that mdma has some arguable medicinal application addresses Atmosfear's point about how alcohol being a faggot doesn't necessarily mean that ecstasy isn't also a faggot.

I was used to allow people to talk about traumatic events, not sure how well the subsequent comedown would help the person but it certainly was tested.

I think the majority of laws passed on drugs relate more to economic and social factors rather than health. Enslaving the working class etc.

Originally Posted by gwahir

I feel this bears repeating: sentiments like these are boring, stupid, useless and stupid. They have less than no argumentative value and anyone who uses them is an arrogant cunt who thinks their pathetic unsubtle clarity is better than everyone else's considered, passionate debate.

Furthermore, every sentence in that post (there are four) contains an assumption which you are taking completely for granted.

That post was worse then the one you were quoting.
if you meant it to be that way, then i apologise for missing the joke, but it seems serious to me, which is the sad part.

North America and Europe are rife with drug propaganda that people take at face value. The real reasons that many drugs are illegal are mind boggling, when you consider the legality of tobacco, alcohol and the predominance of Big Pharmaceutical.

I found a very interesting video series on the internet that I found highly informative about drugs and society. It blew my mind.

Check it out here:

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

North America and Europe are rife with drug propaganda that people take at face value. The real reasons that many drugs are illegal are mind boggling, when you consider the legality of tobacco, alcohol and the predominance of Big Pharmaceutical.

I found a very interesting video series on the internet that I found highly informative about drugs and society.

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4Ko1MHzBA

That's a great video. The full one can be found 301 Moved Permanently

Originally Posted by Killuminati

That's a great video. The full one can be found here

Thats actually not the full version. Thats about 1/3 of the original, which covers more then just marijuana.
I'll try to find the real version.
Edit- is the full.

Originally Posted by Killuminati

I'm like 99% sure the one I linked to is the full thing.

Just watch the damn video.

Originally Posted by Killuminati

What you talkin about, the one I linked is like an hour and 48minutes long. I can't look at the youtube one right now but I'm like 99% sure the one I linked to is the full thing.

You seem pretty sure about this so when I'll take your word for it. What else do they cover in that?

Don't worry about it, its just a Rick Roll. You really can't expect too much else from Sion.