[pokkeherrie]

^Where is this country called Amsterdam? I've never heard of it.

Anyway, there's no direct correlation between cannabis being legally available or not and the amount of people using it. Don't take my word for it; go look at some statistics.


Threads about marijuana are BORING.

[HECKLER SPRAY]

You're right, we should stop talking about it. Really.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by HECKLER SPRAY

I just think people are not ready for this legalisation, they're not matured.

so what you are saying is that people are children who cannot handle liberty and need the state to make decisions for them?



sorry but i don't see it that way. given the right information, i trust myself to make decisions about myself more than any fucking government bureaucracy. moreover, even if this wasn't the case, i see this as my inherent human right. i don't want any government, dictator, strongman, bureaucrat, technocrat, political appointee, elected official, general jackass, c- average student, dumbfuck, power tripper or authority figure of any sort telling me, an adult with human rights, what i can or cannot put in my body. that's my own goddamn business and nobody else's.

[HECKLER SPRAY]

Ok, here we go.
when you're talking about a society, you're not talking about the individual. No ?
I will never tell you what you have to do, think,....
But, look at the world, we need rules to live toghether, maybe 'cause everybody are not as matured/informed/clever as you...

Moreover, I don't judge people, they do what they want.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by HECKLER SPRAY

Ok, here we go.
when you're talking about a society, you're not talking about the individual. No ?
I will never tell you what you have to do, think,....
But, look at the world, we need rules to live toghether, maybe 'cause everybody are not as matured/informed/clever as you...

Moreover, I don't judge people, they do what they want.

i'm not talking about judging, i'm talking about a political orientation. it seems to me that you prefer an authoritarian state making decisions for its citizens because they are too feeble-minded to know what's best for them.

while certainly we need some sort of social contract in order to live together without murdering each other, i do not believe that this has to include regulation of a person's private life and affairs. i tend to believe that the less government intervention we get the better off we are.

i'm not here to defend pot, by the way-- i think it's a drug that when consumed in excess invites stupidity- just like alcohol invites stupidity-- just like tobacco invites cancer. what i'm arguing against is your contention that people are not mature enough and need a government nanny to control them.

perhaps the most obvious flaw in your argument is the fact that governments are made of people, so when those people's immaturity and incompetence express themselves through government action the imbecility is magnified in the order of millions, and then who can stop them?

yes, some people are smarter than others and some people are more mature than others, but we cannot sacrifice liberty in the altar of authoritarianism just because some people are stupid, can we? if you believe that, then you might find a happy life in china, north korea, or myanmar.

[Rob Instigator]

government's job is NOT to protect people from their own mistakes
That is why we fight for LIBERTY, the liberty to make our own mistakes and learn or not learn from them

[Fred Cracklin]

Last week the second largest US physicians group endorsed medical marijuana. On Friday the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy issued a report which explains why they are wrong.
posted by Mr_Zero at 11:22 AM - 36 comments

[Fred Cracklin]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected...alcohol123.xml


Alcohol 'is more dangerous than ecstacy'

Alcohol is ranked much more harmful than the Class A drug ecstasy in a controversial new classification system proposed by a team of leading scientists.
The table, published today (ed: published March 3, 2007) in The Lancet medical journal, was drawn up by a team of highly respected experts led by Professor David Nutt, from the University of Bristol, and Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

The authors proposes that drugs should be classified by the amount of harm that they do, rather than the sharp A, B, and C divisions in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act.
They say the basis of the Act is ill-defined, opaque, and seemingly arbitrary and overestimates the risks of ecstasy, which kills around ten people annually of the half a million people who use it every weekend, while neglecting those of alcohol, a legal substance which kills more than 300 annually by acute poisoning, and many tens of thousands by road traffic accidents, cirrhosis, gut and heart disease.

In the paper, the team argues that it would make much more sense for drugs to be reclassified on a rational basis that can be updated as new evidence emerges, and more easily than the current rigid category system now in use.
Prof Blakemore added that policies of the past four decades “clearly have not worked”, given the ubiquity and low price of illegal drugs, and that fresh thinking is now required.

Today’s call to overhaul the UK drug classification system, which will be examined by the forthcoming UK Drug Policy Commission, is likely to receive popular public support, according to research into attitudes to drugs by the Academy of Medical Sciences’ DrugsFutures project.

Harmful drugs are currently regulated according to classification systems that purport to relate to the harms and risks of each drug.
However, “these are generally neither specified nor transparent, which reduces confidence in their accuracy and undermines health education messages,” said Prof Blakemore.
“The most striking observation is that there is no statistical correlation between this ranking of harm of drugs and the ABC classification.”
In the new system legal drugs, such as alcohol and nicotine, are ranked alongside illegal drugs.

The new ranking places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table. These socially accepted drugs were judged more harmful than cannabis, and substantially more dangerous than the Class A drugs LSD, 4-methylthioamphetamine and ecstasy.
“Alcohol is not far behind demonised terrors of the street such as heroin and cocaine,” said Prof Blakemore.

But the conclusions are likely to be ignored, according to coauthor Prof David Nutt from the University of Bristol, who has worked with the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs.
Because some individuals with a particularly genetic make-up are at greater risk, as has been seen with rare deaths connected with ecstasy, ministers have been reluctant to change classifications despite the relative safety for the rest of the population.
Several millennia of human experience with alcohol, its pervasiveness in industrialised cultures, and the US experience with alcohol prohibition (1920–32) make it unlikely that any industrialised society will criminalise alcohol use, he said.
But that still leaves taxation and regulation as methods of control. “Alcohol is a drug we should take very seriously.”
The team identified three main factors that together determine the harm associated with any drug of potential abuse: the physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug; the tendency of the drug to induce dependence and addiction; the effect of drug use on families, communities, and society
Within each of these categories, they recognized three components, leading to a comprehensive “matrix of harm”.
Expert panels gave scores, from zero to three, for each category of harm for 20 different drugs.

All the scores for each drug were combined to produce an overall estimate of its harm. In order to provide familiar benchmarks, for comparison with illicit drugs, five legal drugs of potential misuse (alcohol, khat, solvents, alkyl nitrites, and tobacco) and one that has since been classified (ketamine) were included in the assessment. The process proved simple, and yielded roughly similar scores for drug harm when used by two separate groups of experts, one of consultant psychiatrists who were on the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ register as specialists in addiction and the second including a range of expertise, from police chief constables to scientists. “The two show very good agreement,” said Prof Nutt.

Cannabis, the subject of much recent debate, was ranked below tobacco, despite the evidence for a link with psychotic episodes in about 7% of schizophrenics. Since the expert panels were asked to assess the harm of drugs in the form that they are currently used, this ranking took account of the widespread use of skunk, which is about twice as potent than traditional cannabis resin.
Other experts still doubt there is a cause and effect relationship between cannabis and psychosis, while a study that claimed genes place some people at particular risk requires confirmation.
Prof Nutt said that young people believe that the establishment lies and distorts the dangers posed by drugs and the only way to restore their confidence is to rely on hard evidence, not arbitrary classifications.

“It is a landmark paper, a real step towards evidence based classification,” commented Prof Leslie Iversen of the University of Oxford, a member of a working group of the Academy of Medical Sciences, though he added that there is still more to be done to take on board new understanding of addiction arising from neuroscience.

The Academy has been asked by the Government to undertake an independent review of the issues raised in the Foresight report ‘DrugsFutures 2025?’ The review will take on board the opinions of many hundreds of people from across the UK who have taken part in face to face discussions and an online debate at www.drugsfutures.org.uk, which is open until end of this month.
Participants are clear that the current classification of drugs is “confusing and inconsistent”. A majority of participants support a health-based approach to drug use and treatment, rather than a law enforcement approach. Many also point out that alcohol is one of the most harmful drugs in common use, to both individuals and wider society.

There appears to be little support for decriminalising drugs however. Professor Sir Gabriel Horn, Chair of the Academy of Medical Sciences group considering the findings of the DrugsFutures project said “The UK Government have asked us to explore the likely future impact of recent developments in science on addiction, drug use and treatments for mental health. We have heard views from both members of the scientific community and of the public which indicate that the current classification system is in need of review.

“Such a review must be underpinned by evidence on the harms of drug use to the individual user, to families and to society, and be considered in the light of the latest evidence from the brain sciences.” Drug misuse is one of the major social, legal, and public-health challenges in the modern world.
In the UK, the total burden of drug misuse, in terms of health, social, and crime-related costs, has been estimated to be between £10 billion and £16 billion per year.

[!@#$%!]

yes atari, we read the link

[HECKLER SPRAY]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i'm not talking about judging, i'm talking about a political orientation. it seems to me that you prefer an authoritarian state making decisions for its citizens because they are too feeble-minded to know what's best for them.

while certainly we need some sort of social contract in order to live together without murdering each other, i do not believe that this has to include regulation of a person's private life and affairs. i tend to believe that the less government intervention we get the better off we are.

i'm not here to defend pot, by the way-- i think it's a drug that when consumed in excess invites stupidity- just like alcohol invites stupidity-- just like tobacco invites cancer. what i'm arguing against is your contention that people are not mature enough and need a government nanny to control them.

perhaps the most obvious flaw in your argument is the fact that governments are made of people, so when those people's immaturity and incompetence express themselves through government action the imbecility is magnified in the order of millions, and then who can stop them?

yes, some people are smarter than others and some people are more mature than others, but we cannot sacrifice liberty in the altar of authoritarianism just because some people are stupid, can we? if you believe that, then you might find a happy life in china, north korea, or myanmar.

Don't misquote/exaggerate what I say please. Maybe I don't express it correctly. i live in a country of freedom and I'm happy to have all my liberties/rights...
I don't mean government have to control, drive your life. But do you think laws are useless ? I hope no. To live together, you have to do concessions, to keep your liberty and to not disturb people liberty. If you don't want to do concession, you could also live on a desert island. Concession doesn't mean sacrifice. Are you agree ?
Concerning the fact taht government are made of people, I think it's what we call "Democracy". We don't have a better way to rule the world for the moment.
I don't mean all the people are stupid and need someone else to tell them what to do. But thery 're not equal at the hands of drugs. And some of them need to be informed, educated,... And I think you forgot there are kids on earth.
I wonder what you think about kids who take drugs. Don't you think we have to preserve them from that shit ? Believe me, there are more and more young kids (11-12 years) who start smoking pot in my country. Because their parents have renounced to educate them. Do you guess who is asked to fix the problem ? I will not explain why they 've renounced, it'd be too long.
I think we're not living on a perfect world where all the people are responsible, matured, self-righteous... Maybe it's because I'm french and cartesian. But it doesn't mean I want it to be ruled like in China...
Don't blame me, I'm a pighead.

[Rob Instigator]

I think everyone should do as I did and avoid drugs of any kind until your mind and body are mature enough to handle it. that age could be 18, could be 21. anything younger and you are runnning risks, due to yr brain and body still developing and forming properly.

[!@#$%!]

well children are not full citizens and have limited rights. they don't vote, don't join the army, can't drink, etc. lots of things that are legal for adults are illegal for children. so marijuana could be one of them.

but look, marijuana is illegal and children are still smoking it, by your own admission, right? look, having illegal weed makes it easier for children to get-- if it was cheap, legal, and regulated, it would be harder for them to get-- just like alcohol.

anyway, people who want to get fucked up are going to get fucked up with *anything* they can get, legal or illegal. and abandoned and neglected children are going to get fucked up MORE. as i've said before, it's a public health issue, it's not a criminal issue. simple as that.

if you're interested in the government protecting children, i agree with that-- but sending the cops it's not how you create good mental health and functional families.

Originally Posted by HECKLER SPRAY

Don't misquote/exaggerate what I say please. Maybe I don't express it correctly. i live in a country of freedom and I'm happy to have all my liberties/rights...
I don't mean government have to control, drive your life. But do you think laws are useless ? I hope no. To live together, you have to do concessions, to keep your liberty and to not disturb people liberty. If you don't want to do concession, you could also live on a desert island. Concession doesn't mean sacrifice. Are you agree ?
Concerning the fact taht government are made of people, I think it's what we call "Democracy". We don't have a better way to rule the world for the moment.
I don't mean all the people are stupid and need someone else to tell them what to do. But thery 're not equal at the hands of drugs. And some of them need to be informed, educated,... And I think you forgot there are kids on earth.
I wonder what you think about kids who take drugs. Don't you think we have to preserve them from that shit ? Believe me, there are more and more young kids (11-12 years) who start smoking pot in my country. Because their parents have renounced to educate them. Do you guess who is asked to fix the problem ? I will not explain why they 've renounced, it'd be too long.
I think we're not living on a perfect world where all the people are responsible, matured, self-righteous... Maybe it's because I'm french and cartesian. But it doesn't mean I want it to be ruled like in China...
Don't blame me, I'm a pighead.

[Glice]

I remember posting this on a frighteningly similar thread relatively recently:

 

BBC story

May interest you if you're into the stories behind the news articles

According to that, while alcohol is only just behind Methadone, 4-MTA [Flatliners], Acid, Methylphenidate, Anabolic Steroids, GHB, Ecstasy, Alkyl Nitrate and Khat are all less harmful than weed.

I have nothing to contribute to this thread really. You all know the arguments, I'm sure.

[!@#$%!]

solvents less harmful? how the fuck is that?? no fucking WAI.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

solvents less harmful? how the fuck is that?? no fucking WAI.

It's like my thing about speed - no fucker takes solvents for long enough to die, or have adverse affects. I've taken solvents - I've taken a lot of things... but solvents were about 20 seconds of ok-ness and a day of headaches. Rubbish drug. Poppers are a laugh, but you need to be very wrong to take enough for it to have adverse affects.

I can't remember what the criteria were for that study, but I remember it's an interesting read.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Glice

It's like my thing about speed - no fucker takes solvents for long enough to die, or have adverse affects. I've taken solvents - I've taken a lot of things... but solvents were about 20 seconds of ok-ness and a day of headaches. Rubbish drug. Poppers are a laugh, but you need to be very wrong to take enough for it to have adverse affects.

I can't remember what the criteria were for that study, but I remember it's an interesting read.

oh, in an epidemiological sense perhaps-- ok-- "how many killed", etc? yeah i see.

glue sniffer!!

[Everyneurotic]

something like month ago, a car exploded because a bunch of kids were doing compressed air in it.

i laughed a lot.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

oh, in an epidemiological sense perhaps-- ok-- "how many killed", etc? yeah i see.

glue sniffer!!

Ha. Yes, well, as I'm sure you're aware, one takes these things with a pinch of salt. You can come up with lots of different criteria to 'prove' something. People aren't likely to choose to take brown or booze just because of an article like the above.

Something I am interested in is how the zeitgeist for drugs moves. Weed is always in, speed seems to make periodic comebacks (during shit pill season, it seems) Acid I haven't seen for about 4 years, MDMA & coke are all over the show lately, and nearly everyone I know absolutely hate ketamine. None of this is particularly to do with the quality or otherwise of the drug... or perhaps it is.

I could murder some ket right now.

[pbradley]

Whatever's good enough for ol' Satchelmouth is good enough for me.

[Everyneurotic]

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

something like month ago, a car exploded because a bunch of kids were doing compressed air in it.

i laughed a lot.

just in case you thought i was joking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQunZdwLeJA