Live data from Hacker News

How to get 7th graders to smoke

experimental-history.com

231–240 of 263 posts

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#231
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re suffering significant medical issues from taking excessive amounts of a drug, that’s called an overdose. Again, no, that San Francisco situation is strictly not describing an overdose . From the comfort of your living room, you can consume a massively higher amount of MDMA than what was described in that paper, and won't suffer significant medical issues. > I’m including traffic fatalities as a risk from…

What defines an overdose is the impact it has on your body not the specific quantity consumed. Thus you can OD on insulin even if the amount is needed at other times. If they had taken that much at home it may not have resulted in an overdose, but in this situation it did.

Well, by that logic, if someone has a panic attack from consuming cannabis, you'd view them as "overdosing" on weed.

I suppose you're free to say that, and everyone else is free to ignore this as ridiculous nonsense which is completely out-of-step with the widely-used definition of "overdose".

You're completely ignoring the context of the event. Have you ever been to a rave? Some promoters are good and understand the importance of providing free/inexpensive water, proper ventilation, and security who are able to spot attendees requiring medical intervention. Other promoters are shady AF and do none of those things. In the latter case, if someone consumes MDMA and also dances for hours without hydration and the venue is way too hot / oversold, yes that person is at risk of hyperthermia.

That can also happen even to sober people, I've literally seen it.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#232
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDMA overdoses are almost certainly all cross-contamination with fentanyl.

Here’s 2 MDMA deaths that aren’t: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22640978/ From one rave “Twelve patients with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) toxicity from a single rave event presented to multiple San Francisco Bay area hospitals with various life-threatening complications including seizures and hyperthermia. Eight required emergent endotracheal intubation and six had hypotension. Hyperkalemia, acute kidn…

Equvalent to saying Alcohol is toxic amongst a sample of people that died due to drunk driving.

It appears thar heat stroke caused the problems not "toxic MDMA concentrations". The LD50 of MDMA is estimated to be 180mg/kg - Were those ravers taking tens of capsules? I presume there are toxicology reports from the deaths that estimated the dosages. But alcohol is poisonous if you have too much - we don't usually call it "toxic".

Weirdly they mention "a warm ambient environment" but what were the humidity levels? I presume there is good information on the underlying causes of death elsewhere? That summary is terribly uninformative.

"mortality from classic heat stroke approaches 80% and, for exertional heatstroke, 33% in the absence of prompt treatment" : https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp2210623

Disclaimer: personally I'm not a MDMA user. I'm a concerned citizen that thinks raves are generally healthier than bars. "sensible" MDMA usage anecdotally within those events seems safe to me (sample of thousands of people, zero deaths). Number of people I know dead from MDMA: zero. Number of people I personally know dead from alcohol: many (I am a middle aged guy so some were long term effects, one was in a house fire).

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#233

> We perceive ourselves in full 4000K HD with Dolby Atmos Surround Sound, but when we perceive each other, it’s like we’re watching a VHS tape that someone made by using a Motorola Razr phone c. 2007 to record the screen on the back of an airplane seat. Does anyone else feel the opposite? I can much more easily intuit how others feel and synthesize hypotheses on why they behaved the way they did than I can with mysel…

Well, I have a similar difficulty in analyzing myself. So you are not alone.

But I also struggle hypothesizing others' reasons for behavior. I can readily empathize with others, but often can't transfer from the emotional response to the underlying reasons/logic.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#234
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What defines an overdose is the impact it has on your body not the specific quantity consumed. Thus you can OD on insulin even if the amount is needed at other times. If they had taken that much at home it may not have resulted in an overdose, but in this situation it did.

Well, by that logic, if someone has a panic attack from consuming cannabis, you'd view them as "overdosing" on weed. I suppose you're free to say that, and everyone else is free to ignore this as ridiculous nonsense which is completely out-of-step with the widely-used definition of "overdose". You're completely ignoring the context of the event. Have you ever been to a rave? Some promoters are good and understand the…

It’s a definition used by doctors not just me.

Try asking your GP about what it an insulin OD entails and they will refer to the results not the specific dose. Though obviously there’s a dose large enough it’s never appropriate.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#235
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s 2 MDMA deaths that aren’t: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22640978/ From one rave “Twelve patients with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) toxicity from a single rave event presented to multiple San Francisco Bay area hospitals with various life-threatening complications including seizures and hyperthermia. Eight required emergent endotracheal intubation and six had hypotension. Hyperkalemia, acute kidn…

Equvalent to saying Alcohol is toxic amongst a sample of people that died due to drunk driving. It appears thar heat stroke caused the problems not "toxic MDMA concentrations". The LD50 of MDMA is estimated to be 180mg/kg - Were those ravers taking tens of capsules? I presume there are toxicology reports from the deaths that estimated the dosages. But alcohol is poisonous if you have too much - we don't usually call…

MDMA is one of many drugs that interferes with temperature regulation. It’s a direct contributing factor and they wouldn’t have had severe medical issues without taking it.

Drunk driving is a more indirect risk, but I am also including that as one of the risks of Alcohol consumption elsewhere in the thread. If you’re objecting to the name fine, but the risk still exists as MDMA consumption regularly kills people due to this and other risks.

PS: Water toxicity is a similar situation. It’s not just the amount of water alone that’s a problem instead the amount they’ve been sweating is often a contributing factor. Oddly, they also mention MDMA as a risk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#236
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk is severity of harm * probably of harm. Of the ~3 million Americans that tried Alcohol for the first time in 2023 how many exactly died from an overdose that night? That’s what low risk looks like.

According to the CDC, it seems about 6 people die per day of alcohol poisoning, or ~2,191 per year, so about .07%. Nearly 3/4 are men, which doesn't particularly surprise me, but what does surprise me is that the average age was 49 years, and only 5% were aged 18-24. I would've expected the numbers to be shifted left far more than that. Also interesting was that the overwhelming majority (71%) had a long history of a…

~3 million is number of first time drinkers not the total number of people drinking alcohol in the US. ~180 million people drink alcohol one or more times a year so 2,191 per year is ~0.0012% per year.

The risk on the first time they consumed alcohol is probably 1/100th of that due to younger ages etc.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#237
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate thing that convinced me not to smoke was watching my uncle die of lung cancer, and being unable to quit the thing that was killing him. I'm somewhat relieved that tobacco references are considered "adult" now in entertainment. The amount of smoking I saw in movies and TV (and around my uncle) normalized it for me, even though I knew how unhealthy it was.

For my high school cohort the video interview of the person still smoking after having had a laryngectomy really drove home the powerlessness of addiction.

The problem is seeing all that... And then seeing family members and friends smoke on the weekend... It puts it in this weird "safe to try, but not safe to keep doing" slot.

Nicotine addiction is very subtle, for many it's hard to recognize until you're hooked.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#238
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What defines an overdose is the impact it has on your body not the specific quantity consumed. Thus you can OD on insulin even if the amount is needed at other times. If they had taken that much at home it may not have resulted in an overdose, but in this situation it did.

Well, by that logic, if someone has a panic attack from consuming cannabis, you'd view them as "overdosing" on weed. I suppose you're free to say that, and everyone else is free to ignore this as ridiculous nonsense which is completely out-of-step with the widely-used definition of "overdose". You're completely ignoring the context of the event. Have you ever been to a rave? Some promoters are good and understand the…

> Some promoters are good and understand the importance of providing free/inexpensive water

And indeed some countries legally require it.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#239
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate thing that convinced me not to smoke was watching my uncle die of lung cancer, and being unable to quit the thing that was killing him. I'm somewhat relieved that tobacco references are considered "adult" now in entertainment. The amount of smoking I saw in movies and TV (and around my uncle) normalized it for me, even though I knew how unhealthy it was.

For my high school cohort the video interview of the person still smoking after having had a laryngectomy really drove home the powerlessness of addiction.

I remember that ad. I think it did it for me as well.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#240

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.

I would put Pulp Fiction near the top of the list for "films with surprisingly wholesome moral examples". The overdose, Butch coming back to help Marcellus and their subsequent parting ways, Jules' acknowledgement that he's "buying" not "giving"... to top it off, nobody is trying to moralize or patronize the viewer. Jules was getting close enough to agitate Vince but that just strengthens the film; it's okay to feel Vince's side more and not feel what someone else does despite witnessing the same thing. I was probably late teens when I first saw it but pretty sure if I saw it as a kid that I'd have gotten the good with the bad.
Post reply on HN