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How to get 7th graders to smoke

experimental-history.com

141–150 of 263 posts

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is where LSD gets interesting. No, LSD won't kill your body. But what are you ? You aren't just your body, you are your mind and mental state and the consistency of that. Do enough LSD, especially consistent high doses, and the "you" you know will die and be permanently replaced by something else. I of course agree that LSD won't put you in a coffin. But there are more axes upon which a drug's danger should…

And if I try to change your mind about how much it matters to get a new perspective and new evaluation on some things, I might murder you. A conundrum.

Magnitude matters. A full frontal lobotomy counts as personality death even if a conversation doesn’t.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#142
post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

This seems to be the overwhelming majority sentiment of the Internet or at least of what gets upvoted, but I think DARE at least worked on me. I wanna say it was probably 2nd grade, which would have been 1987 or 1988, and I don't remember the briefcase, but I do remember a plastic lung. It filled up and blackened with tar after only a few puffs from a cigarette and I remember being so viscerally disgusted and disturbed by that, I resolved to never smoke and I never did, in spite of a lot of peer pressure. I was largely friends with goths and art kids and nearly all of my friends smoked, some as early as 4th grade, but I never did.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#143
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

> Alcohol [has] minimal short term health risks. What on earth are you talking about? Alcohol can kill you in a single evening if you drink enough of it. How much shorter-term could its health risks be?

You can die from water if you drink enough of it. Some people actually did.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#144
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

>Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be

Are you really arguing that meth is a poster child for safe illegal drugs?

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#145
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realization that almost all illegal drugs (heroin, meth, a handful like that that feel too good —probably exceptions) aren’t really in some much worse category than alcohol and nicotine, and that some are surely less-bad, even, was quite a revelation. Must be a shared experience for a lot of the DARE generation.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

Messing you up really bad if you use way too much or use way too frequently is also a property of alcohol, is the thing. And lots of them aren’t any more habit-forming than alcohol (less, in several cases).

Like yeah if you take way too much lsd or take a tab a day it might fuck you up, but so will drinking a fifth of whiskey inside an hour, or having two or three cocktails every evening. Or take like double the top-end therapeutic dose of tylenol.

I’m not claiming most of them are strictly safe, just that most aren’t obviously in a whole different risk category from a couple of our legal drugs. Shit, I’ve given myself heart palpitations as a teen because nobody stopped me from getting a second triple-shot cappuccino.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#146
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the proposed preparation entail heating? Might have described a process that destroyed most of the mescaline to spare you the experience, which can be quite frightening and/or debilitating. I've never come across someone that does more preparation than drying, so to me it seems suspicious to suggest anything else. Mescaline is water soluble so one can make infusions, but it takes a fair bit of plant material to g…

No heating. I was just along for the ride, but I think it was something to do with removing hairs, and to make it less bitter.

Reducing bitterness likely reduces potency as well. Mescaline itself is quite bitter and whatever solvent is used to flush out other less tasty substances will likely solve mescaline as well.

Drying slightly improves the taste but not by much.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#147
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiem for a dream still haunts me.

Just when I finally almost forgot about it, this comment rips it back into my poor brain.

And now, if it hasn't already been playing in your head, Clint Mansell's "Summer Overture" will now haunt you. ;)

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#148
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

Cannabis is linked to a significant number of traffic fatalities. Cancer risks are also meaningful with lifetime use so it’s a mix of Alcohol risk and Tobacco risk. Safe enough to be legal, but not really safe. People have fatal overdoses on MDMA and hart attacks etc. Amphetamines use is linked with cardiovascular issues and brain damage.

> …2019 on deaths in three areas that have previously been linked to cannabis use but are still poorly understood: motor vehicle accidents, suicide and opioid overdose.

For each cause of death, the researchers compared trends in deaths in states with legal markets with those in states that had comprehensive medical cannabis programs and similar trends in death rates prior to implementing markets…

The study did not link cannabis use with traffic fatalities.

The study linked trends.

Cannabis use was not a factor in those deaths. Not listed as a cause. Not listed as intoxicated at time of accident.

There is a significant difference between the narrative being schlepped versus what data was actually accumulated.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#149
post #128
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

> Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. If you take enough of a drug that it makes you throw up, you did overdose. 'Overdose' doesn't mean you died. Fatal overdoses just get talked about more than other overdoses because they're the most harmful kind of overdose.

I’m referring to throwing up preventing negative health outcomes rather than death. You can throw up from excessive smoking, but it’s not going to help for inhaled or injected drugs.

OD refers to excessive consumption or negative heath outcomes, so yes and sort of. With alcohol people will sometimes throw up before all that much alcohol enters the bloodstream, throwing up may qualify on its own but may prevent things like liver damage but throwing up itself could qualify as a negative health impact.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? Mia's OD scene in Pulp Fiction definitely scared me away from drugs even though I wasn't supposed to be old enough to see it >_>

Same. That scene stuck with me. Makes me wonder if over-protecting children from negative feelings backfires. Pulp Fiction was a risk-free and simple way to make vivid the risks of heroin.

> over-protecting children from negative feelings backfires

it definitely hit differently to "see it myself", versus having it introduced by a parent/guardian, who probably would shy away from making the lesson so graphic

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