131–140 of 213 posts
This is a really interesting use of the word "democratize." I've seen it used in many other contexts (usually in a business sense), and some have been more ominous than others.
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Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did in my life. On the first day I almost died of an altitude sickness. On the following days, climbing 5 meters up the mountain felt like climbing the whole mountain twice. After every 10 steps I had to stop for 30-60 seconds and catch my breath. I drank a lot of coca tea and couldn't feel anything different. Peru, especially cordillera negra/blanca is the most sp…
> Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did in my life HOw much preparation did you do before hand ? I'm looking at a himalayan trip next year to around a 23k feet summit (over the course of 30 days or so). I'm taking a year to train for it, but I have no way to train for 'altitude', and as I understand it reaction to altitude doesn't correlate that much with overall fitness. You can apparently be supe…
You will suffer regardless, acclimatization just makes things possible and over time mentally more bearable experience. But prepare for 3-5 steps and rest routine in higher parts, pushing through is actually pretty stupid and will fire back quickly and badly, listen to your body.
That being said, what others say is correct - a lot of endurance training helps a lot reaching the limit of your body. Plus train carrying medium backpack uphill a lot (10-15kg).
I've camped 6000m high on Aconcagua, but I couldn't sleep well above 3000m, almost nothing above 4000m, regardless of what mild medicine/support I took. Some sleep up there like babies. High mountains are just not for me, but I am happy with European alps though, they have it all apart from that much altitude suffering. Higher peaks just for hiking below/around them like Annapurna or Everest, loaded multi week 5500m hikes are not easy neither and you actually experience way more in 3-4 weeks rather than progressing slowly up one empty valley to the top.
“... a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.”
― Sigmund Freud
The ban on cocaine is kind of annoying even in its pure form, it’s a very useful local anaesthetic with good tolerance, low side effects that few people are allergic to. I have often wished it was included in some of the more advanced first aid kits, or used more widely for minor operations.
Just take sugar instead. Cheaper, stronger and legal.
> As David Courtwright writes in his book Forces of Habit, “factories did for drugs what canning did to vegetables. They democratized them. It became easier, cheaper, and faster for the masses to saturate their brains with chemicals.” This is a really interesting use of the word "democratize." I've seen it used in many other contexts (usually in a business sense), and some have been more ominous than others.
0 - just google define: democratize
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>"Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this country, if you didn't already know. To be fair, it's not like they're letting them do whatever they want with the plants. They use them for a very specific purpose, and I'm sure there's very strict accounting involved, as is done with factories that produce solvents and their customers. The question is whether a new business could be started that had a legi…
The answer is obviously not, since there's only 1 and there's been presumably hundreds of applicants (at least) who have tried the same and been rejected. It's actually a fascinating example of where government backs a private monopoly as opposed to breaking it up, which is often a case for having a strong government apparatus.
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TFA literally already says what you said. They're making a reasonable distinction between chewing coca leaves for mild stimulant effect and huffing a fat rail of the pure stuff. It gives the wrong idea to say these 17th century people were doing cocaïne.
You must misunderstand what I said if you think the article says the same thing. As someone already mentioned to you, the article says “cocaine was being used in the 17th century by literally no one” when using cocaine is literally exactly what they were doing. It’s just the same as someone saying “no one was using caffeine in the 17th century…they were just drinking coffee.” You honestly don’t understand why that is…
You would be expected to read it this way because the article explicitly elaborates on how cocaine hydrochloride is isolated from leaves (that alone should have stopped you from trying to "inform" anyone), and uses that to drive the main thesis about the industrialization and democratization of drugs.
And that's an entirely self-contained pathway to the correct reading, nevermind what you already knew going into the exercise.
The caffeine analogy is useless because there is no common sense of people using caffeine to very different effect the way there is for cocaïne.
“I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time ... I had been the first to recommend the use of cocaine, in 1885, and this recommendation had brought serious reproaches down on me.” “... a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.” ― Sigmund Freud
"Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body" - a letter to his fiance.
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To make this analogous, the words for "alcohol" and "vodka" would have to be the same. The OP is arguing that when people say "doing cocaine" they are generally referring to the high-strength powdered form, not the underlying chemical in general. And that if we interpret the sentence like that (which we should if that's how it's generally understood) then it is not true that people were doing cocaine in the 17th cent…
Cocaine hydrochloride (i.e. powder) isn’t even the only purified form of cocaine. There’s also crack. Would you argue that people who smoke crack aren’t doing cocaine? Furthermore, the most purified form of drinking ethanol actually is called “grain alcohol”; Everclear is a popular brand.
Yes. This is true colloquially and legally.
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"In the United States, cocaine is regulated as a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse but has an accepted medical use. While rarely used medically today, its accepted uses are as a topical local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract as well as to reduce bleeding in the mouth, throat and nasal cavities.", from Wikipedias cocaine page. I remember sept…
Where do I buy it for my med kit?