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Not-such-better-living through chemistry

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Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#221

Post by starkd »

tchaffee wrote: post #205
starkd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I was not claiming prohibition did anything.

So how do you suggest "not starting in the first place"? How would you implement that if not prohibition? Keeping in mind that the parent comment made a concrete suggestion on what could replace prohibition. If prohibition didn't do anything then we should surely drop it. And then?

Well, policies that introduce a little bit of friction into the choice to do drugs would be a good start. Mostly, education that warns against the harms.

But, your comment seems to indicate you are more interested in legal ways you can use them than recognizing the lives that have been damaged.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#222

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #160
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally in favor of drug legalization and/or decriminalization, but I'd draw a line at meth. There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. Even if you disagree with my stance, I think it would be a grave mistake to not acknowledge that different drugs have different capacities…

> There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. If you believe the propaganda - memes are not a quality source of information. You need to be less willing to repeat what you've heard sand more willing to dig out the facts. The same is said of crack ("one hit and you're hooked") but i…

To be clear, my stance against meth comes not from "anti-drug propaganda", but from knowing people whose lives were ruined by it. I'm pretty open about drug use, and after hearing their experiences with it, it is absolutely a drug I would refuse to touch.

I'm not arguing these anecdotes are data, but for me personally they are enough to highlight the unequal danger of meth.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#223

Post by tchaffee »

starkd wrote: post #221
tchaffee wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you suggest "not starting in the first place"? How would you implement that if not prohibition? Keeping in mind that the parent comment made a concrete suggestion on what could replace prohibition. If prohibition didn't do anything then we should surely drop it. And then?

Well, policies that introduce a little bit of friction into the choice to do drugs would be a good start. Mostly, education that warns against the harms. But, your comment seems to indicate you are more interested in legal ways you can use them than recognizing the lives that have been damaged.

Then you've completely misread my comments. Where did you get the idea that I'm interested in anything other than what actually works in reducing harm? Can you quote me?

Pumping money into education about the pros and cons of recreational drug use would likely do a lot to reduce abuse and addiction. However only talking about the harms was already tried and was a failure. Most kids will at least try alcohol or marijuana or vaping nicotine and if you've already lied by omission about the pros they won't trust you anymore. But if you can manage to educate in an unbiased and scientific way that would likely lead to fewer lives damaged. Worth a try at least.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#224

Post by sizzle »

astrange wrote: post #212
sizzle wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with ADHD don’t get “high” on Adderall taking therapeutic dosages in the Milligrams. They take it to turn the noise down in their head so they can focus and be productive. The comparison to meth “addicts” is absurd. People with ADHD are not taking Grams of prescribed amphetamine pills to get high like some one blasting their brain with a bag of street meth with the intent of feeling euphoria.

Do you actually feel "euphoria" taking more than the prescribed dose of Adderall? I've been encouraged to try increasing the dosage by psychs before and I just can't. It feels more like a panic attack than anything.

I’ve accidentally taken double doses and had a massive migraine. As for euphoria, your brain gets used to meds so you will only feel normal taking doses, even higher might feel more energy but never high

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#225

Post by GoldenRacer »

nobody9999 wrote: post #181
vidarh wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. I think legalisation ought to be driven largely evidence of harm, not just by abuse of the drugs, but systemic harm both of legalisation vs. criminalization, but with a reasonably high level of ability to take personal risk. E.g. for…

>Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. That particular cat is well out of the bag as, according to the WHO[0], a full 1/3 of antibiotics users obtained their last doses without a prescription. In fact, many countries (unlike the US) don't require prescriptions for antibi…

And that's just humans using antibiotics. Roughly 2/3rds of antibiotics are used for veterinary purposes.

But yes, we need to be much more careful with how we use antibiotics than we currently are and I also don't have a good answer for how that happens.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#226

Post by hypertele-Xii »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #222
_a_a_a_ wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. If you believe the propaganda - memes are not a quality source of information. You need to be less willing to repeat what you've heard sand more willing to dig out the facts. The same is said of crack ("one hit and you're hooked") but i…

To be clear, my stance against meth comes not from "anti-drug propaganda", but from knowing people whose lives were ruined by it. I'm pretty open about drug use, and after hearing their experiences with it, it is absolutely a drug I would refuse to touch. I'm not arguing these anecdotes are data, but for me personally they are enough to highlight the unequal danger of meth.

Are you saying those peoples' lives were totally fine, and then when they tried drugs they were ruined?

My understanding is that most people whose lives are in ruin and use drugs, use drugs because their lives were already ruined in some way or other.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#227

Post by jeffreyrogers »

nobody9999 wrote: post #179
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been countries like China in the Opium Wars period that had limited restrictions on drug consumption. It ended up with a substantial fraction of their population being addicted to opium and basically non-productive. HN is full of smart people who (wrongly I think) assume that because they have the self-control and discipline to either avoid drugs or to use them relatively safely that the rest of the popula…

>HN is full of smart people who (wrongly I think) assume that because they have the self-control and discipline to either avoid drugs or to use them relatively safely that the rest of the population does too. This does not seem true in my experience. I forget the exact stats but roughly 1 in 20 Americans is an alcoholic, and that's with a drug that humans have been consuming for thousands of years and that has establ…

> If we invested USD$10-15 billion a year (as compared with ~USD$50 billion on "drug enforcement") into the resources required to provide treatment for anyone who wants/needs it, and legalize/regulate all "drugs", will save money, increase economic output and improve social cohesion.

I don't think there is much evidence for that (nor against it). One country that has tried something like that is Portugal and from what I can tell it has worked moderately but not spectacularly well. The problem with assuming that the US would have the same outcome is that the US shares a porous border with a part of the world heavily involved in drug trafficking and the US is a much larger country and larger consumer of narcotics, so the demand effects are hard to compare with Portugal.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#228

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #226
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, my stance against meth comes not from "anti-drug propaganda", but from knowing people whose lives were ruined by it. I'm pretty open about drug use, and after hearing their experiences with it, it is absolutely a drug I would refuse to touch. I'm not arguing these anecdotes are data, but for me personally they are enough to highlight the unequal danger of meth.

Are you saying those peoples' lives were totally fine, and then when they tried drugs they were ruined? My understanding is that most people whose lives are in ruin and use drugs, use drugs because their lives were already ruined in some way or other.

> Are you saying those peoples' lives were totally fine, and then when they tried drugs they were ruined?

Yes, I am. They weren't ruined immediately, but the addiction quickly ruined them.

> My understanding is that most people whose lives are in ruin and use drugs, use drugs because their lives were already ruined in some way or other.

I think your understanding is woefully incorrect, almost to fall into the caricature of what "bad drug users" look like. Many people (myself included) like to use drugs because they make you feel good. Just look at, for example, the popularity of pubs in England - do you really think that all alcoholics only became alcoholics after their lives were already shitty?

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#229

Post by _a_a_a_ »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #228
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying those peoples' lives were totally fine, and then when they tried drugs they were ruined? My understanding is that most people whose lives are in ruin and use drugs, use drugs because their lives were already ruined in some way or other.

> Are you saying those peoples' lives were totally fine, and then when they tried drugs they were ruined? Yes, I am. They weren't ruined immediately, but the addiction quickly ruined them. > My understanding is that most people whose lives are in ruin and use drugs, use drugs because their lives were already ruined in some way or other. I think your understanding is woefully incorrect, almost to fall into the caricat…

Yes, I am. They weren't ruined immediately, but the addiction quickly ruined them.

Questionasble. There's a good asrticle in the spectator asbout this I can't find now, am at work. It suggests a very different interpretation.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#230

Post by VLM »

photochemsyn wrote: post #95
VLM wrote: post #61

The teaser line about ibuprofen synthesis is interesting because he didn't put enough "tease" into it for non-chemists to understand the kind of funny analogy. Superficially, one would not expect that a "green" synthesis would start with HF acid, but here it is anyway and it works. A "you gotta be kidding me" moment that makes sense after thinking about it. I think that's the analogy he was trying to make in the arti…

"Green synthesis" in chemistry should probably be renamed. "Closed-loop synthesis" is closer to what it's about. The fundamental concept is that you're not producing any waste products or unwanted side reactions, and all the reagents and catalysts are recycled back to their original state at the end of the reaction. This typically involves synthetic routes that start with small molecules and build larger molecules fr…

I agree with you completely in a technical sense although greenwashing has become enough of a cultural icon that its hilarious to contemplate "watch me do something green" start with cracking open a container of HF, LOL.
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