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Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

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Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#51

Post by meri_dian »

addicted wrote: post #46
meri_dian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I argue that it is not. The destructiveness of opiates derives from their very nature, not the context surrounding their existence in a society.

A lot of good research on addiction, including opioids, shows that societal context absolutely matters. A good example is heroin use in servicemen after the Vietnam war. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/1444317...

It's interesting research, but taking the entire heroin addicted US population on an extended vacation to try to rid them of their addiction is impractical. They would need to return home eventually too. Where they would be much more likely to relapse.

The findings of the Vietnam study tell us something interesting about the particulars of Vietnam and maybe war zones in general, but I doubt they hold much relevance to the general addict population.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#53

Post by md224 »

meri_dian wrote: post #22
ni-hil wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to potentially obtain a product of better quality, and to not have to deal with such shady people to get their dose.

So let's make it easier for people to perpetuate their addiction? No, we should be making it much harder for them to do so.

So do you disagree with the use of heroin-assisted treatment[1] or supervised injection sites[2]? Have you considered that many of the problems associated with addiction actually stem from the efforts of people like you to make it harder for users to get the drugs they need, problems like exorbitant prices and potentially lethal adulterants?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#54

Post by awakeasleep »

mainliningfbs wrote: post #49
chimeracoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. Opium was explicitly used as a tool of war by the British in order to colonize China. You can't look at what happened in the 1800s in China with opium without looking at the entire context in which it happened, how it was spread throughout society, how it was promoted, how it was sold, and how it was weaponized. Legaliz…

Weird, China is flooding the US with opium derivatives now.

It does make you think, but the nature of current opiates from China and sold to the west makes it possible for a single rogue lab to be supplying the entire USA.

One Kg of Fentanyl is 20 MILLION strong doses (50mcg). One Kg of carfentanil is 50 million lethal doses (at the 20ug ld50 espoused by the RCMP)

So in a country of 1.5Billion people it only takes one bad actor to fuck over a significant part of the world.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#55

Post by usrusr »

ep103 wrote: post #11
meri_dian wrote: post #10

I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…

yeah, legalizing opium is an odd choice. I don't understand it. Its addictive. It would make more sense to significantly decriminalize it, but keep it illegal, so that addicts can get treatment without fear of legal repercussion. I don't understand what would be gained by legalizing it wholesale though.

> legalizing opium is an odd choice

Only if the bill wasn't "inspired" by some group that wants to sell opium. For such a group, trying to piggyback opium on the current wave of marihuana legalization would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

But it still would not make much sense because existing opiate sellers, both legal and illegal, seem to be on the winning side of existing regulation.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#56

Post by legulere »

bbatha wrote: post #19
meri_dian wrote: post #10

I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…

> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. To play devil's advocate, China had loads of Opium pumped in by the British to pay for their tea debts. The British countered any attempt to regulate it, so they could keep their markets open. Opium is a dangerous substance, but I'd be interested to see what a well regulated opium market looks like. Unrefined opium is i…

> In the United States about 17 million (7%) of adults and 0.7 million (2.8%) of those age 12 to 17 years of age are affected.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism)

That looks like a health crisis for me. Of course with a regulating a drug that was illegal before you have more far-reaching possibilities of regulation.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#57

Post by sgrove »

opportune wrote: post #47
libertyEQ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a serious problem when we conflate plant material with synthesized, concentrated compounds. People call their pills "medication" and the 4 plants I grow every summer in my backyard "drugs."

Yet those same plants contain psychoactive drugs just as those pills do. I am all for drug decriminalization/legalization but this is seriously a stupid argument. There's no logical consistency in treating a drug differently just because you can grow it.

I think the argument is more around the potency of a thing (although plant strains can become very potent as well). Just like naturally fermented berries have a different effect compared to distilled spirits.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#58

Post by chimeracoder »

meri_dian wrote: post #42
chimeracoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. Opium was explicitly used as a tool of war by the British in order to colonize China. You can't look at what happened in the 1800s in China with opium without looking at the entire context in which it happened, how it was spread throughout society, how it was promoted, how it was sold, and how it was weaponized. Legaliz…

I argue that it is not. The destructiveness of opiates derives from their very nature, not the context surrounding their existence in a society.

> I argue that it is not. The destructiveness of opiates derives from their very nature, not the context surrounding their existence in a society.

As someone who has both studied pharmacology and worked in drug policy, I've seen this common misconception before.

Opiates, as a class, are not inherently any more destructive than any other class of drugs. It's possible to synthesize very potent forms of opiates, but it's also trivial to synthesize or distill very potent forms of other drugs as well, including drugs which are either loosely regulated or completely unregulated.

Opiates are, in certain ways, less addictive than alcohol. That's not an endorsement of opiate drug use, but it does mean that we can't say that "the destructiveness of opiates derives from their very nature" without saying that "the destructiveness of alcohol derives from its very nature", and questioning the implications of what that would mean.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#59

Post by chimeracoder »

awakeasleep wrote: post #50
chimeracoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. Opium was explicitly used as a tool of war by the British in order to colonize China. You can't look at what happened in the 1800s in China with opium without looking at the entire context in which it happened, how it was spread throughout society, how it was promoted, how it was sold, and how it was weaponized. Legaliz…

First, it was used as a tool of wealth extraction- to the point were it was economic warfare. The shooting wars were to ensure the wealth extraction remained viable. Next, do you think the cartels or monopolists who come to control opium supply will show the poor of India more mercy? Do they currently?

> Next, do you think the cartels or monopolists who come to control opium supply will show the poor of India more mercy? Do they currently?

You can't compare a local cartel to a foreign, hegemonic imperial power.

In addition, what leads you to assume that the opium trade will inevitably be controlled by cartels or monopolists? Is marijuana production in California controlled by cartels or monopolists[0]? Opium is already produced in India (legally!), and its production isn't controlled by cartels or monopolists. And the plant is both endemic to the region and easy to grow, making it incredibly difficult for any entity to seize control over its production.

[0] Answer: no, despite all their best efforts over the last couple of decades.

Re: Bill to Legalize Marijuana and Opium Cleared for Indian Parliament (2016)

#60

Post by radicaldreamer »

meri_dian wrote: post #10

I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…

The Chinese smoked opium, which is a lot more addictive, than chewed it (as was traditional in the Indian subcontinent). This bill is seems to be because in some areas of India, it is already traditional to drink Bhang (ground marijuana leaves with milk and sugar) and chew poppy pods (by day laborers etc. for pain).
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