Sorry to bombard you folks, but here's a topic on drugs.

[Lagmonster]

Face it we live in a world were we know precious little about the very long term effects of ANYTHING(Besides lack of, like food and water thats generaly 100% know, you die, but besides that)

Bah. Any random person can guess that when you cause a toxicological imbalance in your system, alter your perceptions with chemicals, or stick things directly into your bloodstream with no other reason than to get a high, you're probably doing something bad thing to your body. We can argue that the body is resilient, yes. I know lifetime smokers that have no cancers or disabilities because of it. I know lifetime drug users who have had the sense to use moderation and are fully functional people. But the plain and simple truth is that if you chemically poison yourself, even mildly or temporarily, you have to at least expect that you are doing something to your body that it was *designed* to handle without the possibility of nasty effects later on. That sort of assumption should easily replace hard-core knowledge of long-term side effects as a deterrant in the sensibly-minded, no?

[Mr Bean]

Bah. Any random person can guess that when you cause a toxicological imbalance in your system, alter your perceptions with chemicals, or stick things directly into your bloodstream with no other reason than to get a high, you're probably doing something bad thing to your body.

And yes there is a natrial version of Pot already in your body produced when you get exicted

Also any random person could guess, but they would be guess what?
WRONG

know lifetime drug users who have had the sense to use moderation and are fully functional people. But the plain and simple truth is that if you chemically poison yourself, even mildly or temporarily, you have to at least expect that you are doing something to your body that it was *designed* to handle without the possibility of nasty effects later on. That sort of assumption should easily replace hard-core knowledge of long-term side effects as a deterrant in the sensibly-minded, no?

The thing is not all of these are posions, some simply replace a existing chemcial in your body, or stimuate production of it, Heck we could slap *Non-toxic labes on Extasty because all it does is stimulate a naturaly occuring checmail in your body and is in and out in under 24 hours

You have to face facts Lag, Saying well I know better when all your doing is guessing is no better that what I or anyone else could do

Did you know that Beer helps you reduce your risk of Heart Attacks?
Yes/No?
Do you know why?
No?
Nor do we

[Lagmonster]

Right. I'll concede that not *every* drug is measured to the same levels. Pot, as you pointed out, may have properties akin to chemicals produced in our body (or our body may be able to mimic the effects, I'm not sure about either since I haven't heard of this effect before you mentioned it).

However, I wouldn't say that many commercially available drugs aren't toxic. Take Ecstasy. You've stated that it doesn't do anything our bodies can't do. But it does it in higher-than-normal levels and is ingested at higher-than-normal levels. Your body has testosterone in it, too, but try amping the levels of that.

I also agree with your point that drugs don't have to be harmful or produce *unnatural* effects in the body, and that we don't know something has side effects just because it alter our perceptions. You're right, that's only a guess. But my point was that a person who knew nothing about body chemistry could still conclude that drugs may be doing something negative to them (EVEN if they aren't), simply by observing the way it changes them and doing that guesswork.

I'm just trying to say that people can *usually* trust the reaction their body has to something they've ingested to tell if that thing is good or bad for them. Like a guidepost, so to speak.

[Mr Bean]

However, I wouldn't say that many commercially available drugs aren't toxic. Take Ecstasy. You've stated that it doesn't do anything our bodies can't do. But it does it in higher-than-normal levels and is ingested at higher-than-normal levels. Your body has testosterone in it, too, but try amping the levels of that.

I never said that but the fact remains you can't always trust you body when it comes to desiding of somthing is good or not. What do you judge it on? Taste? Smell? How you feel after? How do you not know your body is not reacting to somthing else?

Guesswork Drug testing usaly leaves alot of dead subjects which is why sane people tend to stay away from it

Take Ecstasy. You've stated that it doesn't do anything our bodies can't do. But it does it in higher-than-normal levels and is ingested at higher-than-normal levels. Your body has testosterone in it, too, but try amping the levels of that.

Ahh but there you go how do you know its higher than normal? How do you know thats harmful for you?
The chemical that promest Hair-growth for example, is it bad to have an excese of that in bald people?
Higher levels don't always equal Bad things

But like I said above
Guess-Work Drug Testing usaly does not leave that many test subjects behind

[Lagmonster]

The fact remains you can't always trust you body when it comes to desiding of somthing is good or not. What do you judge it on? Taste? Smell? How you feel after? How do you not know your body is not reacting to somthing else?

Fair point. A dog who drinks from a contaminated water source may not know it's the water that makes him sick, but a person who shoots up, then eats a burrito and snifs a rose isn't going to blame the burrito or the rose on the fact that he gets high. You probably wouldn't suggest that you, personally, couldn't determine in that scenario what had caused you to get high, since you could do all those things separately and tell what was causing the effect. At that point you also probably wouldn't tell me that if you ingested something and it consistently made you feel whatever it is you feel when you do heroin or something, that you couldn't judge by your health and loss of cognitive clarity that you were doing something that made you less functional, or even sick? (with apologies because I have no clue what it feels like to be on drugs)

Ahh but there you go how do you know its higher than normal? How do you know thats harmful for you? The chemical that promest Hair-growth for example, is it bad to have an excese of that in bald people?
Higher levels don't always equal Bad things

No, no, no...you said that we *know* that the chemical in Ecstasy is naturally occurring. Do you naturally get Ex highs? No. I think that concluding that Ex has higher-than-normal amounts of this naturally occurring thing is fairly reasonable. And higher levels are *always* bad things. BUT, the definition of 'higher' is relative to the body's ability to deal with the chem. Some people have more of some chemicals than others, but there *is* nonetheless a limit to how much any person can have before the chemical's presence is considered toxic. Obviously most back-street drugs aren't outright fatal levels of a chemical, because the business likes repeat customers. Nonetheless, I think you could fairly argue that if you monitored the amount of something in the body, the response of the body to that thing, then gave someone a mystery chem and watched the body exhibit the same symptoms to a much higher degree, you'd conclude that similar chemicals were at work in much more powerful or higher-than-normal amounts, right?

But like I said above Guess-Work Drug Testing usaly does not leave that many test subjects behind

On that, we are in total agreement.

[Mr Bean]

Heh heh this is acuatly funny as I did a little more work on the subject and can reply to what you said thusly

but a person who shoots up, then eats a burrito and snifs a rose isn't going to blame the burrito or the rose on the fact that he gets high.

Fun Fact:Bean's contain small amounts of the same chemicals, Thefore a few pounds of Bean could in theory produce the same effect (Yes I know its rediculius but consider it)

No, no, no...you said that we *know* that the chemical in Ecstasy is naturally occurring. Do you naturally get Ex highs?

Acutal yes to be exact one to two mintues after sex you have the similar levels of the chemcials in your body natural
Why do you think that people don't drop dead from using Ecstasy?
Simple because it simply FORCES a natural Condition
If I where to be thrown off a bridge attached to a bungie cord I would get similar amounts of the chemcials as if I took 200 mgs of Ecstacy, Fun fact
You do natual get Extasy highs because right after normal activites, one of the reasons you feel worn out is all those chemcials pumping through your body force you up then as they get out of your system you slow back down and feel tired.

And higher levels are *always* bad things. BUT, the definition of 'higher' is relative to the body's ability to deal with the chem. Some people have more of some chemicals than others, but there *is* nonetheless a limit to how much any person can have before the chemical's presence is considered toxic

There are limist to everything but there are also PHYISCAL Limits, IE you have to smoke twice you body weight in Pot to overdose on it, Naturaly you'd choke to death far before that but its a good example, Or sugar. You have to eat 2/3 of you body weight before it becomes fatel

Sure there are limits but thats not the point. Sure to much of most anything is toxic. So what? What does that acutal have anything to do with what we are talking about?

The issue at hand is the legalisation of Drugs and weither or not they should be, If so how and how much(for lack of a better term) should be avaible

Acutal Bio-chemical facts can wait and to be honset I kinda forgot the point you where trying to drive towards

[Lagmonster]

Fun Fact:Bean's contain small amounts of the same chemicals, Thefore a few pounds of Bean could in theory produce the same effect (Yes I know its rediculius but consider it)

Yes...and potatoes contain arsenic. This doesn't mean much towards the point, so I'll concede this to wait for another thread so we can have it out on the topic of human chemical tolerances.

You do natual get Extasy highs because right after normal activites, one of the reasons you feel worn out is all those chemcials pumping through your body force you up then as they get out of your system you slow back down and feel tired.

Right. My original statement was that we could use our body's reaction to things on a short term as a guidepost to determine whether they were good or bad for us (itself off topic, but there you go). My last rebuttal on this aside is that jumping off cliffs and two minute orgasms is not the rule, it's the exception. From that you aren't going to tell me that you can pop a pill and go full funk and later conclude you were plummetting off a building with a rubber band tied to your foot, you can figure out cause and effect, and conclude that drugs *are* doing something to your body it is only designed to handle in MORE moderated amounts (and we're talking about Ex and pot now, blatantly ignoring things like Heroin and Crack, but that's okay).

The issue at hand is the legalisation of Drugs and weither or not they should be, If so how and how much(for lack of a better term) should be available

Now, I'll grant you that. My original statement was just an objection to your broad and sweeping generalization that we don't know the long term effects of anything, which should be a major consideration when thinking about legalizing a substance. I was suggesting that we can use short term effects as the deciding factor.

As for long-term, well, medical facilities, insurance companies, etc., all want to know if you're going to cost them a crapload of dough down the road because of the chemicals that you were pumping into your system.

If we're going to drag this drugs argument back on track (and that seems like a good thing to do before anyone with any third opinion wanders onto this thread ), then I'll restate my feeling that legalized drugs should only be available in controlled environments for the safety of the users, the way legalized prostitution is often contained in regulated brothels, and public smoking/drinking is *sometimes* socially contained in bars.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

You can't control exposing yourself to the sun. You HAVE to expose yourself to the sun to do anything in life. You don't have to take drugs to do anything else. It's pointless. And once you get addicted to a drug, your life is immediately more difficult.

[Darth Wong]

You can't control exposing yourself to the sun. You HAVE to expose yourself to the sun to do anything in life. You don't have to take drugs to do anything else. It's pointless. And once you get addicted to a drug, your life is immediately more difficult.

True. But why are certain narcotics (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine) permitted and accepted, while others are not? Are they less harmful? Caffeine may be considered a weak drug, but alcohol is directly implicated in tens of thousands of injuries and deaths every year from drunk driving; what other drug can boast that kind of destructive track record? Oh, wait; I can think of one: tobacco. Cigarettes are directly implicated in the premature deaths of four hundred thousand stupid people and their relatives every year. Yet both are OK, while something like marijuana is illegal. Strange ...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

What does certain drugs being permited have to do with my saying you don't have to take them? I'm lost. What are you arguing?

[Mr Bean]

*Scratchs head
I can't even remeber what I was aurguing with Lag about cause we agree hmm


Umm I don't like Lag's Hair-Cut?(Yeah thats it! Better than what I got right now)
Lag get a Hair-Cut!

[Lagmonster]

Umm I don't like Lag's Hair-Cut?(Yeah thats it! Better than what I got right now)
Lag get a Hair-Cut!

Funny thing, I'm bald, no joke.

Anyway, I was thinking - despite my suggestion of how I'd handle legalized drugs, I'm still very anti-them. Smoking, drug use, scrap it. Render the tobacco plant extinct if you can find no other reason for it than to roll its leaves in your mouth and set it on fire.

Drinking, that's harder. I believe that penalties for extreme public drunkenness, not to mention drunk driving, aren't harsh enough. I think zero-tolerance, zero-warning jail times for drunk driving and fines for public displays of drunken behaviour should exist. I see no reason that people shouldn't get as loaded as they want, but if they stagger out of a bar at 1 a.m., wander yelling around on my lawn and then fall asleep on my doorstep in a puddle of vomit and piss, that I should see better deterrants than him being locked in a cell for a few hours to sober up. Because that guy will likely be back on my lawn the next week with his pants round his knees and screaming at my ornamental hedge.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

LOL
Maybe handing out wacky fines would do the job. Like if something of that nature happens, he gets a $200 fine. For drunk driving, $500 fine. Stuff like that. I don't think they'll be getting drunk for a while at a bar after they get one of those.

[LordShaithis]

Arguments about the harmfulness of drugs should be irrelevant to their legality. It should not be illegal to do something harmful, or else we may as well ban those heart attack causing cheeseburgers right now.

[Lagmonster]

Arguments about the harmfulness of drugs should be irrelevant to their legality. It should not be illegal to do something harmful, or else we may as well ban those heart attack causing cheeseburgers right now.

Somewhat agreed. I don't think you can create two broad categories of 'Harmful' and 'Not Harmful' to judge every ingestible product by. Otherwise you end up in the world of the Demolition Man.

Remember, Life is Fatal.

Perhaps a better standard of measurement would be how much it causes you to BE harmful to others. I don't know too many people who knock back a dozen cheesebugers, then drive a car with a 'cholestorhol buzz' and ram into a dozen teenagers at a bus shelter.

[Mr Bean]

I don't know too many people who knock back a dozen cheesebugers, then drive a car with a 'cholestorhol buzz' and ram into a dozen teenagers at a bus shelter

Thats because teenagers don't use Public Transportation unless under court order

It happens all the time except when they run into the Bus Shelter nobody notices cause no one is there and besides it got hit last week same spot even

[Lagmonster]

It happens all the time except when they run into the Bus Shelter nobody notices cause no one is there and besides it got hit last week same spot even

Funny thing, bus shelters up here are a stoned teenager's dream. Something to hide in, and in a pinch, something to break.

[Tebrak'aun]

People are stupid great point however people shouldnt be protected from themselves they should be encouraged to indulge in any potentially hazardous activity which comes to mind. I propose a worldwide taskforce to be created that not only encourages drink driving but ensures that drinking games are a pivotal part of the driving experience. Mind altering substances and large machinery are another great working combination that can be brought together with hilarious and visually spectacular results. Darwins theory of natural selection will ensure that only the strongest, drunkest and most socially inept survive to propagate the species.
But seriously the responsible use of anything from drugs to freedom of speech should be solely at the discretion of the individual because a society that has to be protected from itself probably shouldnt be

[seanrobertson]

Whoops, strawman. What makes you think that everyone who has the opportunity to use drugs will do so? The Government will make sure to inform everyone of the nasty effects and addiction related to each drug, and trust the public to make an informed choice. That's what we called 'regulation.' Smokers are making a bad decision, but I don't think that most of them are stupid enough to do the truly hard drugs.

Technically, it sounds more like a leap in logic , but...

I agree. Speaking purely from a standpoint of empiricial evidence--and
in spite of the rant of sorts I just posted--I know a couple of people,
two young women and one guy, that actually chain-smoke, yet have
never even touched marijuana. (For that matter, neither have I.)
One of the girls doesn't drink and is a strict vegetarian. My
discussions with her about clean living have been...interesting LOL.
Sweet, but illogical lass.

My opinion on the drugs is this:
Marijuana should be legal, because it really doesn't hurt anyone. They are only slightly more harmful to the user than cigarettes, and a pothead is generally too docile and unmotivated to do much of anything wrong. Of the marijuana smokers who I have met, I would consider much less dangerous than a non-user.

Yep. I've yet to meet a stoner who was a danger to anyone. As
a buddy of mine once said, "Marijuana makes the user stupid and
lazy. What's the threat in that?"

That's a bit overstated, but in general, it's probably *not* a demon
of a drug...if someone of age wants to use the stuff, fine. Let them.
I'd rather have a stoned person behind the wheel than an extremely
drunk person, tu quoque as it is.

Ecstasy should be studied, and then an informed decision made about it. So far we have not found any serious side effects, and most of the danger resulting from X use now is a result of its illegal status--drug dealers sell what they purport to be X, but what is actually PCP or GHB or even Drano. If the government would regulate it, then we could cut down on this problem.

I know next to nothing of Ecstacy.

The harder drugs are harder to solve, but we should hit the problem at the source. Why do people grow opium and cocaine and sell it to the USA? Because they can make more money doing that, than growing foodstuffs. There are two ways to solve this: Destroy the Market, or make foodstuffs more lucrative. The current policy of arresting middlemen and consumers has proven a total failure, so we need to look at other options.

Definitely.

How would everyone classify anabolic/androgenic steroids, a class
three substance in the United States? Again, speaking only for
myself, the juicers I've known have NOT been the rampaging,
out of control nuts that are so often publicized in mass media.
(When you consider that a large percentage of US pro baseballers
are using, yet they're not caught smashing up bars etc., that should
tell you something.)

I for one think they should be legal, available through prescription.
Having first-hand experience with the so-called side-effects, I think
they're like any other drug: use them responsibly for short periods,
and you'll be okay--and FAR from more prone to violence than you'd be otherwise. But abuse them, like any other drug (ephedrine), and you're fucked.