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Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of her (3 Viewers)

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

alcohol is not a soft drug

should alcohol be banned?
Make it a thread. Except be clear on the reasoning, something along the lines of
"Independent scientists have shown alcohol is without doubt much more dangerous than many currently illegal drugs including MDMA, LSD, Cannabis, speed, steroids etc...



*link to study, why it's awesome, provide a few notes.

Should possession of booze be criminalized to bring it into line with existing laws for other drugs?


Do it.
 

Ben Netanyahu

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

shuttup. hard drugs should be banned in all cases, because classifications like that are inherently helpful!
^_^
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

hard drugs should be banned in all cases, because classifications like that are inherently helpful!
^_^
I don't comprehend your humor.
That's what I said?
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

shuttup. hard drugs should be banned in all cases, because classifications like that are inherently helpful!
^_^
Do we draw the line between Hard and Soft before or after Buprenorphine?
 

incentivation

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

To overtake alcohol in long-term harm, MDMA would have to become the leading cause of liver disease, would have to cause greater 4% of all cancer cases, be addictive, cause a range of mental health problems, cause pancreatitis, epilepsy, alcoholic dementia. nutritional deficiencies, sexual dysfunction and death.

That sure is a lot of problems to discover to justify protecting people from themselves!
I think it's an inequitable comparison. A drug easily accessible, available and often abused versus a drug used by less than 2% of the population each week.

It is going to contribute to a far greater number of negatives for that very reason.

I'd like to see the impact of such excessive use of MDMA.
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

You're speculating with no evidence cool.

The evidence we've posted, based on all the research, says MDMA is definetly safer over any term, in every way.

Speculate all you want, these are the known facts about MDMA in the 21st century, based on almost 30 years of widespread use.

MDMA isn't a massively new or rare drug, it's been used widely for almost 30 years. Users are having extremely few, if any significant health problems.

MDMA will never be fatal like alcohol is.

I'll admit, there may be some unknown harms, everything kills you, hell mouthwash causes cancer now, I'm just saying, worst case scenario, no scientist would take seriously the idea MDMA is even remotely likely to turn out to be worse than alcohol, in any measure of harm.

There's probably been more research into the actions and effects of MDMA than half the medications on the market now.
 

incentivation

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

You're speculating with no evidence cool.

The evidence we've posted, based on all the research, says MDMA is definetly safer over any term, in every way.

Speculate all you want, these are the known facts about MDMA in the 21st century, based on almost 30 years of widespread use.

MDMA isn't a massively new or rare drug, it's been used widely for almost 30 years. Users are having extremely few, if any significant health problems.

MDMA will never be fatal like alcohol is.

I'll admit, there may be some unknown harms, everything kills you, hell mouthwash causes cancer now, I'm just saying, worst case scenario, no scientist would take seriously the idea MDMA is even remotely likely to turn out to be worse than alcohol, in any measure of harm.

There's probably been more research into the actions and effects of MDMA than half the medications on the market now.
I didn't say it would definitely be the case, just that I'd like to see the effects.

I disagree with your theory about harm. If the prevalence of alcohol was comparable to that of MDMA as it currently stands, the health problems caused by the former would be minimal.

You are also making assumptions without a great deal of evidence. On current distribution patterns and use, MDMA does not cause fatalities or extensive harm. However if those patterns were to change, and yes this is speculation, I would highly doubt the figures in relation to harm would remain static.
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

If the same number of people used pills as use grog now, how would MDMA manage to kill 2.5% of the population?

Among countless other problems...
 

withoutaface

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

I didn't say it would definitely be the case, just that I'd like to see the effects.

I disagree with your theory about harm. If the prevalence of alcohol was comparable to that of MDMA as it currently stands, the health problems caused by the former would be minimal.

You are also making assumptions without a great deal of evidence. On current distribution patterns and use, MDMA does not cause fatalities or extensive harm. However if those patterns were to change, and yes this is speculation, I would highly doubt the figures in relation to harm would remain static.
Can you explain your last statement? If it causes long term harm in x% of cases under its current distribution, how is that percentage going to change if it becomes more widely used?

EDIT: Apart from going down when MDMA is manufactured by Pfizer and not Carl Williams.
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

MDMA does not cause fatalities or extensive harm. However if those patterns were to change, and yes this is speculation, I would highly doubt the figures in relation to harm would remain static.
Are you saying if more people used MDMA (assuming all pills are clean, which can easily be done), there would be thousands of fatalities?

You are also making assumptions without a great deal of evidence.
What? There's a great deal of evidence regarding the short and medium term harms. We have anecdotal evidence of the long term. Absence of evidence of long-term harm does not in any way support there may be long term harms.
 

Graney

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

Worst case scenario, MDMA causes damage to serotonergic neurons and some long term memory and cognition harm, liver damage.

For a lifetime of serious binging, It's really nothing, in the relative scale of things.
 

jtyler

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

It's no surprise the the majority of those supporting decriminalisation/legalisation of MDMA on here are the users.
Yeah, telling isn't it. The way some people will so cavalierly criticise something they've never tried, let alone done any substantial research on - what a surprise they tend to be the people raised in dogmatic religious households. When they learn to form rational arguments for themselves they'll be worth listening to.

Astounding the number of people that think the government should be their personal nanny, monitoring everything they do and say and ensuring its acceptable. We already HAVE criminal laws to protect against malum in se crime, drug laws simply double-punish the people who break them under the influence, and punish everyone else regardless. I'd rather know the law protects my intrinsic freedoms than that the government is committed to babysitting me not only for the first 18 years of my life but all the proceeding.

Believe it or not, criminal law isn't the catch-all solution to social problems. In fact, its the "solution" to none since its purely post hoc. What it is good for is giving legislators a quick and easy way to appease moronic masses.
 
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David Spade

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

Fuck whether it's safe or not -
Is it generally accepted that those who are addicted to substances such as heroin and ice are unable to comply and act in a manner that is beneficial to the community? I.e. holding down a job, which then leads to crime if they can't afford their habit...etc

Are we generally agreeing on that?
 

jtyler

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

For a start, if half of the money allocated for the absurd "war on drugs" was used for rehabilitation and preventative measures (instead of searching and arresting people before they've even commited an intrinsically criminal act, holding them in police custody, dragging them before courts and judges then throwing them in prisons that we all get to pay for), we might have actually made a dent in the problem by now. You only need to look as far as America to see what you get when you start locking people away for the most ridiculous drug "crimes" - like smoking a goddamn joint.

Secondly, how far removed from an actual crime does something need to be before you'll stop punishing people for it? The (allegedly new) global threat of terror is so severe that all over the world new crimes are being defined, further and further removed from the 'guilty act.' You don't even have to possess (or have ever possessed) illegal drugs to be guilty of supplying them in NSW, just a few words offering to is enough for "guilt."

If the Christian right had more than half a brain between them (or cared enough about their religion to understand it), they'd probably find they're on the wrong side of this argument. It's not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of it. Given the amount of shit they tend to spew forth, I'm not particularly surprised they choose to ignore it.

The two biggest arguments I see for continued criminalization are that drug use is inherently evil (I'm still waiting for someone to explain this to me, seems indefensibly stupid), or that its necessary to prevent crime. If its the latter, maybe you can explain to me the ways in which the "war on drugs" has been successful in a sense other than ensuring all the profit goes to real criminals more than happy to use it for real crime.

There's perhaps a stronger argument to be made against decriminalizing extremely physically addictive drugs, but definitely not against the non- or negligibly addictive ones. Regardless, the mindless threat of criminal retribution is possibly the only thing guaranteed not to fix the problem. Criminal law is a political instrument, used when legislators need to placate the public (lest they appear "soft on crime" - you only need to look at some modern history to see the trend of the "hard on crime" viewpoint - retrospectively it appears barbaric and brainless) without actually solving the problem. Not all their fault though, the public is too stupid to care.
 
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withoutaface

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

Fuck whether it's safe or not -
Is it generally accepted that those who are addicted to substances such as heroin and ice are unable to comply and act in a manner that is beneficial to the community? I.e. holding down a job, which then leads to crime if they can't afford their habit...etc

Are we generally agreeing on that?
No. The Swiss provide heroin as a final solution to long term addicts who are unable to be weaned onto methadone programmes or off the drug altogether and for these people it's simply a case of going to the injection centre, getting your hit, and heading off to work. Further, such a liberal approach to drug policy has led to an 82% decline in new heroin users because it's no longer the last taboo.
 

incentivation

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

For a start, if half of the money allocated for the absurd "war on drugs" was used for rehabilitation and preventative measures (instead of searching and arresting people before they've even commited an intrinsically criminal act, holding them in police custody, dragging them before courts and judges then throwing them in prisons that we all get to pay for), we might have actually made a dent in the problem by now. You only need to look as far as America to see what you get when you start locking people away for the most ridiculous drug "crimes" - like smoking a goddamn joint.
Custodial sentences are rarely utilised for possession offences.
 

withoutaface

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

Oh, and I've never done anything harder than pot.
 

incentivation

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Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he

Yeah, telling isn't it. The way some people will so cavalierly criticise something they've never tried, let alone done any substantial research on - what a surprise they tend to be the people raised in dogmatic religious households. When they learn to form rational arguments for themselves they'll be worth listening to.
And bias isn't an issue?

I assume your opposition to criminal law as a mechanism to maintain social order would equally apply to workplace relations law, anti-discrimination law and other areas of law which prevent the causing of undue harm or exploitation?

What comes first, the malum in se crimes of break and enter and larceny, or the malum prohibitum crime of drug possession? Does the drug use itself cause individuals to commit the intrinsically 'evil' crimes? I see the impact of illicit drug use everyday. This obviously creates a bias in my views. However, I've long stood by the proposition that alcohol, the legal drug, causes the greatest number of problems in society. The regulation of the market has done nothing to assist misuse or abuse.

To replicate such problems with illicit substances would be madness.
 
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