This is easy to get behind. Although I have doubts of ever seeing these products on store shelves in the US, one of the things that have kept my personal drug experimentation extremely low is fear of product purity and lack of quality control.
It's easy to show how terrible the War on Drugs has been. I'm still against legalizing the worst of drugs like meth and heroin. But marijuana and LSD, other plant-based psychedelics, I'm mostly for.
Keeping drugs under ground and in the shadows funds Mexican drug cartels and puts the lives of millions at risk, while causing medical patients continuous, unnecessary suffering. Legalization and good QC is the best thing we could hope for.
It's a slippery slope to pick one drug as OK and another as not. Putting substances into your own body should not be illegal, regardless of the substance. We would do a lot better if we focused on education, addiction, and rehab than focusing on prohibition.
As things stand today, drugs need to be whitelisted one at a time, and this campaign focuses on two drugs that are safe and could have real benefits for many people. Incremental changes are the only ones with any chance for success.
I myself used to see it as a "slippery slope", but many laws and rules exist as gradients. Using "slippery slope" is reductive - it forces everything to black and white.
If one of your goals is to cripple the thriving black market and all of its accompanying ills (mainly violence) then you can't continue with prohibition because it allows the black market to continue to thrive by generating scarcity.
Drug prohibition has been poisonous to social harmony, civil rights, and the rule of law since its inception. It was never a good idea; and it is time to admit that and move forward.
I am relaying what I have learned as an experienced layperson, but I think you must say that these drugs are "relatively safe". Putting chemicals with noticeable medical effects into your body is something that is rarely 'safe' in an absolute sense.
Many drugs can be used safely, but there are very few drugs that cannot be used dangerously. There are even medicines that cannot be used safely that are nonetheless used in situations where they offer better odds than the alternative.
All drugs are either excreted renally (by the kidney) or metabolized (and possibly excreted) by the liver. Both of these can cause damage to the organ involved if the cumulative load of chemicals that need processing exceeds safe limits; the former is especially serious. In some cases with the latter, there can be cascading consequences due to the toxic nature of the metabolic products (as is dramatically illustrated by the metabolization of methanol).
This is why recreational drug use poses a quandary for regulation. If one is placed in the position of being responsible for determining that a substance is "safe enough" for unregulated use, it is very hard to determine a standard for making that decision. Ethanol, for instance, is clearly not "safe enough" for unregulated use. It is toxic, addictive, socially destructive, and causes thousands of deaths a year. Articulating a standard whereby one should, on one's authority, permit that people should be able to get themselves killed using some chemical one has never heard of: this is a difficult task. A regulatory structure that leans too heavily on authority --- rather than precedent, tests of merit, and community consensus decisions, for instance --- is destined to produce extremely conservative results.
I think that what these people are doing is great, and it is possibly a huge boon to large areas of psychiatric, neurochemical, and psychological research. It is clear at this point that some traditionally 'recreational' psychotropic drugs can have therapeutic effects in some situations. This will allow researchers to develop concrete evidence about specific protocols.
However, I am not sure that this is a first case for stepwise liberalization of drug policies: these are drugs that are medically interesting because of their specific effects, rather than due to the misrecognition of their actual harm. In my opinion, North American society is still at a point where we are just beginning to discuss marijuana seriously in term of harm, and the meaning of noticeable psychedelic & sensual effects are being mooted. There is already a cultural framework available for understanding and accepting recreational drug use, but it needs a lot of poking, prodding, and testing before it will be adapted by society at large. In order for drug policy liberalization to occur, there would need to be significant structural changes in policy, regulatory bodies, societal doctrines of use, and the social systems that deal with the social consequences of drug use, self-medication for dysphoric personal experiences, and non-self-supporting individuals.
For the record, have used and did enjoy psilocybin: based purely on the subjective experience, would use again, but it would be medically unadvisable for me at this time.
I agree but idea of legalized drugs does not fit well with capitalism. As we know wherever there is market there is profit to be made. Companies will pop up advertising whatever drug they are selling. And as we know companies are always interested in increasing their customer base. If a substance is addictive enough it will reach millions of people very quickly and destroy society in the process. However if we keep the drugs away from capitalism that would be the way to go.
Lots of drugs are legal. Alcohol, tabacco, and thousands more that are sold over-the-counter. Plus, all the other ones you can get with a proper prescription (eg: Morphine).
I do agree that education and rehab are of extremely high importance, but if we have that, ilegalizations stops making any sense.
Judging by the abuse of prohormones, legalizing steroids would be a terrible idea. You can recover from cocaine, crack, heroin, etc. but damaging your HPTA can ruin your life not to mention rendering you infertile. And that is just one class of drugs.
Steroids as medicine is already in use. IIRC they're also use in medicinal skin cream.
Steroids abuses are rampant in the Bodybuilding world already. Hell, they talk about it so casually in BB forums and in the subreddits as if it's common.
This just highlight the fact that even if it's a ban substance they're still going to use it regardless.
I actually interpreted it as the parent comment. For instance if you have a really bad poison oak they prescribe prednisone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prednisone )
Opiates can have massively positive value and transform people's lives. Addicts include Howard Hughes, an impressive engineer, and Hermann Göring, a rather successful politician and decorated commander. Oxycontin is massively prescribed, and not all of it is going to highly-visible junkies. It's powering lawyers, doctors, engineers, and many other people that derive high value from it and make valued contributions to society.
While not as physically safe as LSD, opiates have essentially no serious long-term health effects other than constipation. The major downside is the highly visible acute respiratory depression after overdose.
Edit: Speed is used by tons of people, and Paul Erdos said it gave him inspiration (though methamphetamine might have more downsides than other amphetamines, similar to how barbiturates are rather outclassed by benzodiazepines - but that's hardly reason to outlaw it). Many artists have used cocaine to their benefit. I'm all for psychedelics, but don't pretend that other medicines don't have plenty of value.
Was Howard Hughes addicted to opiates when he was building/developing most of his things? I was under the impression that addiction only really set in once he became a recluse.
Fair enough, it seems that was after his most productive parts. (The same isn't true for Goering, even if his productivity was in the opposite direction to our preference.) Though part of my point is that it's not just broken junkies using. Opiate treatment can provide positive value to even the richest, most powerful people, and they are not persecuted.
Perhaps another example is Keith Richards, who says heroin helped him and he doesn't regret it (and then, do we measure the positive impact such music has on other people?). Although dipping into artists for drug use is perhaps too easy of examples.
Goerig and Hughes? Hughes became seriously addicted after his plane crash and spent the rest of his life a recluse, no doubt fueled by a combination of drug use and mental illness. This is an individual who wouldn't bathe for weeks (or more) at a time, peeing in bottles and other quite unusual behavior. I think it is fair to say only his enormous wealth shielded him from being a 'broken junkie' as you say.
Goering was forcibly institutionalized for six months due to his morphine addiction. During his institutionalization he was strait-jacketed due to his violent behavior to the staff. He was already a leader of the NASDP that this time, having been injured during the Beer Hall Putsch.
He gained an enormous amount of weight and his behavior was viewed as increasingly bizarre and erratic over the course of his 'career'. He didn't quit until be was forced after his arrest and imprisonment at Nuremberg, where I believe he quickly lost 80-100 pounds.
It is really unclear how either of these individuals represent an example of the positive power of opiates. At best they seem to have managed to hang on despite their addition to opiates.
The information that I had read years ago was that the ____amphetamines essentially bundled multiple amphetamine molecules into a single molecule for more rapid transit across the blood-brain barrier, and that the non-amphetamine breakdown products were extreme vasoconstrictors and possibly had other neurotoxic effects. This information is extremely dated, but is probably still valid.
They also have an enormous downside compared to the other 'bad drugs' in that they leave you essentially non-functional for 3-24 hours depending on the drug. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of hallucinogens, but essentially all recreational drugs have a downside.
If you mean drugs like LSD leave you unable to work for 8 hours, this is probably true - although it depends what sort of work you are in (heavy machinery is out, painting is probably in). However, the same thing can be said for a day spent in a ski resort with your cellphone left behind.
The term "non-functional" has a pejorative connotation and implies humans have some teleological purpose beyond personal goals and desires. Recreation is subjective; it's not appropriate to call this a 'downside'.
I think it is appropriate to call it such. In all the times I've taken mushrooms I would have been completely unable to respond to an emergency situation. The same with LSD. No other drug I've taken would have left me that incapable, with the exception of extreme amounts of alcohol.
I'm not saying it's not fun or worthwhile, just that hallucinogens leave you impaired in a way other drugs don't.
I would tolerate a statement like "unable to respond to an emergency situation" - although, this varies substantially with the substance, quantity, person, and nature of the emergency. And the recognition that there are plenty of non-pharmacological situations that render you equally unfit for dealing with certain kinds of emergencies - good luck dealing with a back injury while skiing off-piste.
However, throwing out a statement like "drugs make you nonfunctional" does not help the discourse.
Eh... that's relative as well. Some people would argue these "bad drugs" have positive value. And others would argue what you are calling "positive value" is anything but. And in specific cases, all these arguments might be correct.
Drugs don't have to have positive value to argue for them being legal.
For example, cheap distilled spirits have little or no redeeming value. But it would be more harmful to make that illegal than otherwise. Methamphetamine (Desoxyn) is used to treat obesety and ADHD, and similar treatments for ADHD have similar potential for recreational use/abuse. But the whole Drug War is so harmful, it doesn't matter if there are therapeutic or harmless recreational uses of a drug. It would be less expensive, more effective, and more compassionate to treat addicts than to continue the Drug War, even if more people became addicted.
Sorry for being a bit off-topic, but re: heroin for palliative care, I was reminded of The Barbarian Invasions. Just a movie rec for you HN'ers, it's really great (IMHO).
Yes... there certainly is much medicinal value from cocaine and heroin. Which is why they were initially developed... for medical uses.
In addition, one might argue they pick a person up when they want to be up and relax them when they need to relax and abuse, not use is the problem. I'm not saying this argument is correct, but these drugs, like other drugs, have their uses. Which is why people use them.
> Putting substances into your own body should not be illegal
Why is this so? By axiom?
Any parent will forcibly forbid her child to put any substance in his body. We make things illegal exactly because we recognize that a sufficiently large portion of the population is unable to handle a certain freedom. Now what exactly made you conclude that a sufficiently large percentage of the population can handle their use of drugs?
Because arguably, the reason you shouldn't put these substances in your body is because doing so can be unhealthy. Criminal charges and prison are definitely unhealthy.
Making a person's diet a matter of law just goes against the values of many people. I'm well aware of the fact that some compounds lend themselves to addiction/habituation but so do many legal ones. You don't see people throwing winos and pack-a-day smokers in prison unless they otherwise break the law in a way that infringes the rights of someone else.
Likewise, if someone fails to use intoxicants or other recreational drugs responsibly and develops a debilitating habit, it makes more sense to do as we do for people who want to quit drinking or smoking, not as we do for people who rape and murder.
> Likewise, if someone fails to use intoxicants or other recreational drugs responsibly and develops a debilitating habit, it makes more sense to do as we do for people who want to quit drinking or smoking, not as we do for people who rape and murder.
Does your scheme involve coercion of any kind? If not, then why is not working already? People are already free to seek help for their drug addiction.
> Criminal charges and prison are definitely unhealthy.
Making someting illegal does not mean you have to put people in prison. You do understand that we can forbid a drug and try to stop the sale of drugs, and still provide support for people who develop drug habits?
Funny that you mention cigarettes. I'm quite sure that cigarettes will be made illegal at some point in the future.
Actually, it basically does mean you have to put people in prison. What else are you going to due if its illegal? Fine them? Great, they'll never pay the fine, do more drugs. Now what? Fine them some more? Okay...it only goes on so long until they go to jail.
Any punishment oriented consequences are simply going to either be too harsh, or too lenient.
According to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, yes. The rights belong to the people, not the government. It's the government that gets the restricted set. One group of people shouldn't be able to tell another group what to do if it's not violating anyone's rights.
I'm not saying everyone can control themselves. I'm saying trying to prohibit is less effective and more destructive than education, rehab, and prevention. I for one do not want a society entirely engrossed in recreational drug use but prohibition is not the answer. When you prohibit heroine you get krokodil.
Should we make fast food illegal? Since there are probably more people harming themselves with unhealthy food than drugs. It's a dangerous precedent you set when trying to restrict people's freedoms based on perceived use of them.
>> Keeping drugs under ground and in the shadows funds Mexican drug cartels and puts the lives of millions at risk
>> I'm still against legalizing the worst drugs like meth and heroin...
These statements are incompatible. The "worst" drugs are all sold in massive quantity by drug dealers. Psychedelics afaik have never been a big money maker. If you want to essentially defund businesses that settle disputes with chainsaws, vats of acid, and the taped torture deaths of your friends and family, you'll need to legalize the use and sale of all the drugs.
A majority of the drug cartels' profits come from one drug - marijuana[1] - which is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Legalizing pot alone would hurt these guys immensely.
I doubt Mexican drug cartels will suddenly become any nicer when confronted with competition from legal businesses. Whatever they are doing now, what's going to stop them from continuing to do it? Obviously not the police.
If a few owners of a legal pot shops end up in a vats of acid, demand might return quickly. I'm not stating that this will happen, I'm just sceptical of the idea that criminal organizations will just quit and go home just because we legalize the sale of drug X.
Did you ever see the Sopranos episode where they tried to shake down a Starbucks? The legal pot shop owners will eventually be CVS, Walgreens, etc. There's nobody to dip in acid.
I'd love to see Mexico and Colombia license all production to pharma/bio companies. These cartels are tough, but I can't imagine they'd survive long against, e.g. Monsanto. Lesser of two evils, but at least one is less violent and sorta civilized.
> The legal pot shop owners will eventually be CVS, Walgreens, etc.
I find your assuredness amazing. The truth of the matter is that nobody has the slightest idea how the legalization of cannabis is going to play out. The coming few years are going to be very interesting. Your prediction is that pot shops will end up on High Street. My prediction is that pot shops well end up in poor neighbourhoods.
I think we have a good idea since it's already in progress. Have you been to Denver? They're really everywhere. And they'e so far been operating under a cloud of uncertainty due to federal laws that will soon likely clear.
It's also been pseudo legal in California for a decade. Dispensary owners haven't been slaughtered, and cannabis is the biggest illegal drug market.
Americans won't tolerate people being dipped in vats of acid. You cannot compare our system of law enforcement to Mexico's, they're vastly different. Our police will stop that. We've dealt with exactly that sort of organized crime before. Alcohol was once controlled by violent criminals, as were casinos. There are a number of reasons why violent organized crime is able to take hold in an impoverished region like Mexico but won't here.
It is only the large profits enabled by the prohibition of drugs that enables them to conduct their business the way they do. Prohibition contributes to violence further by the fact that disputes cannot be settled through the courts.
Legalize drugs in group A but keep group B illegal is subjective and counterproductive to the drug legalisation movement.
You have to realize the big picture, which is that there will always be a fringe of society doing the worst drugs available. Accepting that and coming up with alternative solutions like just giving them their drugs in controlled environments can be far cheaper for society.
It's the same as prostitution, it will always exist. Either underground or above ground.
Drugs like analgesics are especially dangerous though. There will always be people who turn to analgesics to relieve the pain of everyday life. People will turn to heroin or oxycodone to escape from the sorrow following the loss of a loved one, and it will work --- at first. Then they develop an addiction, and a tolerance, until they get to a point where the drug no longer relieves the pain of everyday life, only the pain of not having the drug.
In order for legalization to be effective, the legal drugs have to be equally potent, equally priced, and easily accessible. The fear of associating with a toxic culture, and of being arrested is part of what prevents more people suffering loss and other stress from turning to analgesics, I fear that the legalization of such drugs would result in more people addicted, albeit with a somewhat more manageable addiction.
I think I still support full legalization, but it's much easier to legalize low addiction substances than the "bad drugs".
What's wrong with being "addicted"? You talk as if there was zero benefit to the user of opiates after they reach a certain point. Apart from the stigmatization of addiction as an intrinsically bad thing, where's the harm? Outside of legal and financial issues, which society has self-inflicted? Where's the evidence that users derive no more value once addicted? Users can " stay well " with less euphoric opiates, yet choose not to. If all they're taking the drug for is to clear the pain of withdrawal, why not prefer simpler, longer-lasting opiates?
People are treated with terrible shit like Haldol, lithium, and Zoloft, but we don't mock those users, calling the medication a toxic addiction and an escape. Even when those medications are very damaging to the body (lithium requiring regular checkups to make sure it hasn't actually accumulated to toxic levels). Those users don't get stigmatized beyond being mentally ill in the first place. In fact, the opposite is heard, with "he's off his meds again", or stories of responsible users that reliably take their medication.
Because physical addiction comes with tolerance. Opiates also have a high overdose potential, and when you combine tolerance-forming with high toxicity, people die. Yes, addicts can continue to get positive effects from the drug, but only by increasing dosage. And dosage can only be increased so many times before they die of overdose.
High-purity opiates are necessarily expensive. The street price is inflated because they're illegal, and pharmaceutical companies have to jump through some hoops to avoid legal issues, and because of patents, but an addiction will always be expensive.
Some addicts can continue to function as a part of society, but others can't. Many of them only become addicts after they are already unable to function, either due to mental health issues or overwhelming stress. I don't mean to imply that these people are morally lesser because of their inability to perform as society expects them to, just that it's a tragedy.
The drugs prescribed for mental health problems are scary, and probably over-prescribed, but they can also help. Lithium can be toxic, and it often quells the patient's personality, but when used correctly it can improve the patient's quality of life.
We might find that one day we prescribe opiates for short-term emotional pain, but they will never be appropriate for chronic issues. Even well-trained doctors make the mistake of prescribing analgesics for chronic pain like arthritis. If that's the case then how can we expect untrained individuals suffering emotional pain and probably some mental health issues to make a good decision about buying opiates from a dispensary. And if it's any harder for them than just going to a corner store and picking up the drugs, the illegal market will still thrive.
[1]: Really, it's inappropriate to mock anyone for substance use, but I take by the tone of your comment that you agree with that.
> dosage can only be increased so many times before they die of overdose.
Citation? In palliative care, dosages can become incredibly high. The bit of info I've read has not talked about a maximum dose, nor have I heard stories about reaching such a level. (There probably is such a dose, just as there is for water, but I'm not sure it's been much of a hindrance to actual patients.)
An addiction has no reason to be expensive. Without being rude, I think you're just making that up. Using GoodRX, I've found that methadone is under half a cent per mg. So for a one-gram-a-day morphine equivalent (120mg methadone) that's a grand total of $18 a month. As comparison, 30mg methadone could (would?) kill a non tolerant user. If that's the current pricing, under all the extra regulatory work and reduced production due to legal limits, we'd expect it to drop. And spending just $200 a month, or 10x of the current price for 1G MED a day, seems not that bad, really.
You go from saying a dangerous, toxic, element such as lithium is OK because it improves the patient's life... to opiate treatment is bad because of addiction. That's it?
The US and Europe alone use about 100 tons of oxycodone, annually. Where is that all going? Yeah yeah, diversion is a "big deal", but even if it's massive, like 50%, most of it is going to the intended target. I'm not sure how production tonnage converts to personal usage, but at 40mg/day, that's about 6 million users. Total annual US prescriptions for opiates is in the quarter billion range (divide by 12 to get a rough estimate of users?) Yet oxycodone only created 175K hospital visits in a year. So we're at a hospitalization rate of only ~3% ? I think that destroys the idea that most users suffer tremendous damage from it. So what about the other 97%? The guy that did your taxes. The person who wrote the backbend of the next app you use? The old friend that just sits around in bliss? We should tell them to sod off because, hey, not all y'all is productive enough, and I don't like your living in an escape?
That 97% could be misleading. Massive over a 3 year usage cycle it's a different 3%, so perhaps 10% of users end up with a hospital event.
I knew people that died from OD. Perhaps because they couldn't get things together, and opiates were too big a call. Or maybe because they bought random quality shit and had no way to properly dose, plus their tolerance wasn't a nice chart due to constant pressure and stigmatization of their usage forcing them into period "rehab". Scenarios that would mostly disappear with proper production and social acceptance.
I also know many more people that have been opiate addicts for presumably a long time. Otherwise fine citizens, you might thing. Most people aren't willing to talk about their usage. But keep your eyes opened in meetings; look for the people with pinned eyes. Opiate addicts are everywhere. (6 million+ oxy users alone would be 2% of the US population.)
> The US and Europe alone use about 100 tons of oxycodone, annually. Where is that all going?
Use, or dispense?
I've had two Achilles tendon surgeries, and for each surgery I was prescribed a fair-sized bottle (30?) of oxycodone. So that's about 60 tablets that were dispensed to me. I've taken probably less than five. Why not just dispense five? Because it's a bureaucratic rigamarole to dispense oxycodone, so they just dispense more than you require and let it go at that.
> I'm still against legalizing the worst of drugs like meth and heroin.
It's funny you're against legalizing those two drugs. I take it you're not aware that both of the "worst" (whatever that is supposed to mean) drugs are actually legal in one form or another. Methamphetamine is available with a prescription and heroin/opioids are generally available with a prescription as well.
I used to be for full legalization, then had to deal with one of my employees being on meth.
Being the big soppy that I am, I didn't fire her immediately and tried to help her get out of it.
I figured that showing her some of the joys of life might do, but it didn't.
I got her a new laptop, and she sold it to buy meth. At least she had the creance of formatting it, so eventually I got back the Steam credit.
I got her an electronics kit, and she sold it to buy meth.
I got her a small sailboat (only cost me $400 on craigslist, but I spent quite a few hours getting her seaworthy again) and she crashed it on the first outing after declaring that she had to come back to get a fix.
Eventually I told her to leave when I discovered that she was stealing from the "go to rat shack and grab a bag of resistors" prepaid card.
(Full disclosure: I don't do drugs because my brain chemistry is all over the place already, but am in favor of legalizing weed and shrooms - declaring an organism illegal only takes legitimity away from laws, and there are no hyperconcentration issues that way)
What the heck does this have to do with legalization? Your employee's performance was presumably suffering because of their addiction, and in any event, theft from your employer is grounds for dismissal.
Your employee was not any less addicted due to the criminalization of drugs.
Meth is extremely addictive and should be hard to get a hold of, is all.
If you have a better solution please share it. Getting stoned on weekends is fine, but I got to see the whole "faces of meth" before and after thing in person over a year, and it was not pretty.
Meth is controlled and yet your employee still managed to get it. Obviously criminalizing it doesn't prevent people from having access to it. What it does prevent is quality control.
I'm all for Alcohol being less available, Paracetamol isn't my cup of tea either and discourage its use, a search for Nutmeg has brought nothing that seems to be supportive of it being overly dangerous, and a quick google for dextromethorphan also seeems to be inconclusive (wikipedia cites adverse effects in doses up to 75 the usual dose, so unless one can buy it in extra large capsules I don't think it is relevant).
I have a hard time believing that you were serious about the latter two examples, given what I found.
Death from cough syrup overdose is well known and cautioned against in the drug taking community.
> Paracetamol isn't my cup of tea either and discourage its use
Why? When taken at the correct dose it's a safe, effective, pain killer. People do need to be careful to avoid overdose, which means that packets should probably be a bit clearer when they include paracetamol / acetaminophen.
Yes and that's why I said discourage and not something like 'prefer it to be banned'. To me it's a 'take if you think you really can't function without but be careful' kind of case.
"Meth" = crystal meth, which is not at all (in its practical properties, not chemically) like the methamphetamine that is available with a prescription (Ritalin and Adderal is what you're referring to). Crystal meth is a lot more addictive, as well as physically damaging, than amphetamines or methamphetamines taken orally.
Likewise, it's disingenuous to compare heroin to morphine or oxycodone, even if they're chemically similar. Look, I'm on your side (the de-criminalisation side) but we need to use real arguments to win our case, not easily debunked or up for debate sophisms that our opponent easily can (and will) turn against us.
Desoxyn is methamphetamine. Adderall is amphetamine, whereas Ritalin is methylphenidate, a completely different drug entirely.
The difference between amphetamine and methamphetamine is largely in the effective dose needed by weight, because the extra methyl group lets the drug cross the blood-brain barrier more easily. It doesn't change the actual receptors it activates or the metabolic process of the drug, however.
The real difference between Adderall and "street meth" has more to do with the means of ingestion (smoked vs oral) than the actual chemical compounds themselves.
"Adderall is amphetamine, whereas Ritalin is methylphenidate, a completely different drug entirely."
No. Methyplphenidate is as different from methamphetamine as methamphetamine is from amphetamine, which is to say that yes they're chemically different, but have similar effects that are different in the margins, like MDMA and 2CB, for example.
"The real difference between Adderall and "street meth" has more to do with the means of ingestion (smoked vs oral) than the actual chemical compounds themselves."
In his book "High Price", psychiatry professor Carl Hart says that the difference between street meth and Adderal, or crack and powder cocaine is mostly social class, not pharmacology. One is taken by the poorest people, the other by movie stars or given to soldiers and schoolchildren, but they're the same drugs.
Again, "street meth" is the smokable form, which is not like Adderal. It's twisting words to even claim that the rocks you buy on the street are 'the same' as Adderal because they're chemically the same. The argument that Hart makes (which I agree with!) is much more nuanced than what you're insinuating here. The scientific evidence on how dangerous crystal meth is compared to Adderal is unanimous. I honestly don't understand how or why anyone can claim otherwise (and I'm more interested in the 'why' than in the 'how', even).
This is a "street drugs are contaminated" argument and you are correct in that "street" drugs are often contaminated or are of inferior quality. It is an argument against prohibition. I'm not sure where you got the idea that "Crystal meth is a lot more addictive", I'd be interested to learn more if that is in fact the case. Again, no argument that illicit contaminated drugs can harm people, so can contaminated food or water. It is interesting OTOH to consider oxycodone which is abused widely and is available often paired with what would only be considered a contaminant (paracetamol or acetaminophen) if it were a street drug; the contaminant being responsible for most of the acute harm attributable to prescription opiate abuse.
"This is a "street drugs are contaminated" argument"
No it's not. As a matter of fact, both MDMA and amphetamine available in the underground market in Europe the last years are more pure than they ever were.
I'm arguing against prohibition, I guess all the downvoters didn't bother to read past my first sentence. My point was that the GP was trying to say 'oh meth is just as dangerous as other stimulants and you can get it with a prescription' - uh no it's not, and no you can't.
"I'm not sure where you got the idea that "Crystal meth is a lot more addictive", I'd be interested to learn more if that is in fact the case."
It's widely documented (see e.g. http://www.cmaj.ca/content/178/13/1679.full , from which I quote "Apart from the generic risks associated with all forms of methamphetamine, the special public health concern with crystal meth is that this form can cause more overall harm to the public than other forms, because it rapidly achieves a high drug concentration with a correspondingly high potential for drug addiction and other toxicities."; see also the references to that article and everything you will find from there) that smoking methamphetamine causes a much quicker dopamine release, and fading effect, than ingesting or snorting it. This causes a user to want to repeat smoking much faster.
Thanks for the link. At least we now have a specific definition for "crystal meth" (methamphetamine hydrochloride).
>This causes a user to want to repeat smoking much faster.
I didn't see where they made that conclusion. I did see this:
>>Despite much research data from animals in the literature,17 the areas of the human brain and the key neurochemicals that are responsible for the pleasurable effects of methamphetamine and for the transition from drug-liking to drug-craving are still unknown.
>>"Research into the pharmacologic treatment of methamphetamine addiction has largely been limited to studies in animals. Surprisingly, there are very limited data from clinical trials of new therapies to prevent methamphetamine addiction relapse.24,33 Although animal studies are essential to the development of new medications, given the public health importance of this worldwide problem and the existence of potential drug targets, it is obvious that the very slow pace of clinical testing of new therapies in methamphetamine addiction needs to be accelerated. "
"meth" is not "methamphetamine". "meth" is specifically "crystal meth", a smokable form of methamphetamine which is (much) more dangerous than other 'forms' of methamphetamine and which is not available legally, on prescription or not, anywhere in the world (well OK I don't know for sure about the entire world, but certainly not in any Western country).
You've said this more than once, but you are completely wrong. 'Crystal' is Methamphetamine HCl. Desoxyn is Methamphetamine HCl. They are exactly, 100% the same chemical.
If your issue is with smoking vs. other methods of ingesting, we can talk - but that doesn't make them 'different drugs' any more than Nodoz is a different drug to Caffeine in coffee - Desoxyn being smokeable too, of course, though I'm not sure who would bother.
You dont have to compare heroin to morphine or oxycodone. As i understands it Heroin is being used clinically in some countries under the name "Diamorphine".
They want people to give them $1M for empty boxes from the future? Are they on drugs?
It might well be a good idea to study the therapeutic applications of these compounds more, or to change the laws. But the bottlenecks are in laws and in actually establishing the medical utility, not in synthesis. If they want to solicit donations for advocacy, fine.. but there are plenty more noble causes worthy of support. Tying it to manufacturing drugs is just bizarre.
This does go towards establishing medical utility and changing the laws. They say they will use the money to distribute psilocybin for free to researchers running medical trials, to develop protocols and applications for a medical trial in Oslo, and for general campaigning.
If I understand this correctly, the recipient (backer) is responsible for obtaining necessary legal documents and approvals for medical use. They might just end up putting a lot of people in danger of possession of drugs if this is not handled properly. But +1 for looking into psychedelics, specifically MDMA, with an objective lens and clearly demystifying their position in the drug world.
Unless I missed it, nowhere on the page does it say the backer is also the recipient. There is no donation level where you get MDMA or Psilocybin for yourself, it's all produced and distributed for free (through unspecified channels, but assumedly with some more due diligence and responsibility than just mailing it out indiscriminately to everyone who backs the project.)
Looks like you can get a box "from the future" which indicates to me it's concept packaging so you can show you support the cause, not an actual box of drugs.
I'm not sure what the goal of this project is. It seems to be to produce psilocybin and MDMA, but it fails to mention why this would be necessary, or why they'd need any money to do so at all (apart from the modest cost of precursor). I'll admit that I don't know much about synthetic psilocybin manufacturing, so I'm talking about MDMA mostly. (but until last year, you could buy 'only add water' growing sets for shrooms in smart shops here (=Netherlands), so how hard can it be?) Either way, there are many syntheses known, most of them (although I'm not a chemist, so I don't have first hand knowledge) available to chemists with very modest understandings of chemistry and rudimentary equipment needs. I'd imagine they already have labs in which they can produce high quality product using high-yield syntheses.
With the right paperwork (which you'd need to get access to this project's product), any researcher could just as easily get access to precursor and make exactly what they want (be it MDMA, MDA, MDME, or any other variation Shulgin described, or invented afterwards by others). Plus it's easier to get licensed for owning e.g. saffrole than it is to import MDMA!
So maybe he's saying that they can do it cheaper? I doubt so, or at least I doubt that the price difference would be relevant. MDMA available underground in Europe has been more pure and cheaper than it ever was before; a gram of pure MDMA costs 20 euros retail (that's about 10 doses) if you're buying from the most expensive guy you can find. If you buy by the 100 grams, you can get it for half or a quarter of that price. So we're talking less than a euro per dose here - at a worst case estimate. After taking everything into account, I have a hard time imagining cost being a factor here (the low price on the underground market being a fascinating topic itself here - how can these clandestine manufacturing gangs make real money on their operations, after counting for the high cost of doing business?) (and before anyone says that you don't know the quality of what you buy on the black market, these people are professional pharmacologists, they could easily check quality of a sample - until a few years ago, you could get your pills checked at raves for free FFS).
Now if they're looking for a million dollars to fund drug legalization work, then fine, that's a worthy goal in itself - but that's listed only in passing in the project. So the only conclusion left is that this project is a PR stunt, where they're using a headline grabbing project description to fund much less exotic advocacy work.
(my comments in this thread make it seem that I have first hand knowledge about these things, but it's been well over 15 years since I last used or even saw illegal drugs. I just have a an interest in the economics and law of underground (drug) markets, and I read case law, reports from our equivalent of the DoJ, papers from academic researchers and government drug monitoring agencies to keep up to date. Hey, other people collect stamps.)
First of all, creating an account just to submit a commercial link? That should be a bannable offense, unless we are cool with marketers selling their stuff here.
Second, I'm fairly sure this campaign goes against Indiegogo's term of use. I would expect an actual ban there.
Third, and more to the point: I could get behind such a campaign if the money went first towards legal access and second to production. The campaign may use as many nice words as they want, but ultimately, they are not putting their money where their mouth is. They "will support EmmaSofia's work to legalize recreational use"... after collecting a nice 300-600K, and only if people pay 400K extra for it. Call me skeptic.
And all of that without getting into the legal aspect of it, which I don't like either.
I just want to clarify that I'm not affiliated with this project what so ever, I just found it interesting and worth posting here. And yes, it's my first submission.
> unless we are cool with marketers selling their stuff here.
Do you not see this multiple times throughout each and every day?
People replying to threads with a small comment then squeezing in the link to their site "and we are http://blahblah.com have done this...." then paragraphs about their product
To be far this is HackerNews, a discussion board backed by a business accelerator program and home to startups and VCs alike.
If there's anywhere that should be okay with commercial promotion its here.
And that's what I like about the place. No where else on the internet can you find people at the ground level, promoting themselves and engaging in discussion. If you want to ask hard questions about the product, its hard to do it to a billboard in time square, but a lot easier to do against someone who's promoting it on HN.
Although I see where your comment is coming from, I think I should nitpick that the posts from actual startups backed by YC cannot be voted on nor have comments enabled. So unless they have the courtesy of showing up in an "unofficial" post, you cannot actually ask any questions, hard or otherwise. I wish I could link to it, but the best I can do is a screenshot[1].
More to the point: call me negative, but I think that fomenting a "post and run" style will lead to a situation in which you find it increasingly harder to talk to the actual creators. I'd rather not see "send link to HN" become yet another item on the self-promotion checklist.
Isn't that just the hiring posts? YC companies do regular posts as well which can get comments.
To be fair, you're right post and run is a bad concept, but a lot of that happens already and its simply downvoted before it ever makes it close to the frontpage.
It's easy to show how terrible the War on Drugs has been. I'm still against legalizing the worst of drugs like meth and heroin. But marijuana and LSD, other plant-based psychedelics, I'm mostly for.
Keeping drugs under ground and in the shadows funds Mexican drug cartels and puts the lives of millions at risk, while causing medical patients continuous, unnecessary suffering. Legalization and good QC is the best thing we could hope for.