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The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

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Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#61

Post by jazzyjackson »

keepamovin wrote: post #60
cryzinger wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think another under-discussed factor in the opioid crisis is that opioids are cheap, but (American) healthcare to treat underlying pain is not. You might not be able to afford six weeks of physical therapy, surgery, etc., but you can probably afford $11.23 a month for a generic prescription.

My view of a lot of the opioid crisis stuff aside from physical pain is psychological trauma - people self medicating as an alternative to doing the work. That’s why I think the psychoactive legislation that’s introduced recently about psychedelics is so important because those things can rapidly accelerate processing and healing psychological trauma. My view, is if this was done 20 - 30 years ago there wouldn’t be s…

Sorry what? What does ego death have to do with healing a back injury?

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#62

Post by yojo »

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

Oregon decriminalized drugs in 2020 and the experiment is widely viewed as a failure by both sides of the political spectrum. The Democratic legislature rolled it back four years later.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s impossible to have a legalized or decriminalized regime that works, but it is non-trivial to get right.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#63

Post by applfanboysbgon »

hash872 wrote: post #59
idiotsecant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opioid comparison is wildly apples to oranges. They were marketed and sold to consumers as safe, much more effective, and dramatically less addictive than it actually was. An industrial addiction machine ignored regulatory safeguards, built a 'pay for play' rewards structure to incentivize prescriptions, and a zillion other cartoonishly evil things . There is a world of difference between something like that and…

>Those are exactly the people you want to have access to it Yes but that's different from 'every random person can buy some meth at 7-11 or the government store' though. I'm fine with a controlled program for registered, hardcore addicts- the 2% who do 50% of the drugs or what have you. >The problem was not in fact opioids. It was the profit structure behind the distribution network. Remove that and the bulk of the p…

That's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. The thing about for-profit prescriptions is that they incentivize doctors to prescribe opiates for people who don't need them, people who may not have even been interested in them. A for-profit retailer selling alcohol doesn't have that aspect at play at all; at most the for-profit aspect encourages flashy advertising and displaying alcohol more prominently, but nothing to the level of having a trusted expert in a one-on-one setting personally pushing for you to consume.

Instead the pressure to consume alcohol comes at a grassroots level. Social alcohol consumption is deeply rooted in human culture, and it's generally the people around you who will push you to consume. This pressure is independent of any profit motive, so removing the profit motive does nothing to affect it.

> AFAIK rates of alcoholism aren't even different between state-run and private sector models

Looking at some 2016 WHO statistics, the US seems to have ~3x the rate of alcholism as Iceland, but I recognise these are cherrypicked examples and I'm not interested enough to do a deep dive aggregating countries. Still, it seems plausible that government intervention can reduce alcholism rates. The fact that it's not 0% means nothing; nothing in the world is 0%, outlawing murder doesn't mean murder doesn't happen, but you can strive to reduce it as much as reasonably possible.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#64

Post by cyberax »

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

> The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance.

The thing is, drugs are addictive. ESPECIALLY meth. How would you prevent people from just getting as much as they want and then becoming drug zombies? Fentanyl is similar. Cartels perfected its production, so now it's pure and widely available.

It's even worse than meth in some regards. Once you start using fentanyl, you're going to become a hardened addict. And there will be almost no hope of recovery, the success rate of drug rehab treatments is in single-digit percentages.

I guess the idea is that people will just keep using "safer" drugs like cocaine instead? I'm not sure it's working, we legalized cannabis and it made zero difference.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#65

Post by Retric »

hash872 wrote: post #59
idiotsecant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opioid comparison is wildly apples to oranges. They were marketed and sold to consumers as safe, much more effective, and dramatically less addictive than it actually was. An industrial addiction machine ignored regulatory safeguards, built a 'pay for play' rewards structure to incentivize prescriptions, and a zillion other cartoonishly evil things . There is a world of difference between something like that and…

>Those are exactly the people you want to have access to it Yes but that's different from 'every random person can buy some meth at 7-11 or the government store' though. I'm fine with a controlled program for registered, hardcore addicts- the 2% who do 50% of the drugs or what have you. >The problem was not in fact opioids. It was the profit structure behind the distribution network. Remove that and the bulk of the p…

State run liquor stores in the US don’t prevent companies advertising alcohol on TV. The US is really bad at allowing drugs without then also allowing drug promotion.

A better comparison is probably countries where prescription drugs can’t be advertised to the general public. But, then you’re dealing with a lot of differences in other government policies.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#66

Post by thepryz »

cyberax wrote: post #50
hash872 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…

> A shattering drug addiction crisis that at its height killed more people annually than the entire Vietnam War. Except that you're wrong. The war-on-drugs kept drugs under control. It did not _eliminate_ them, but they also were not available on every street corner. Once we stopped the war-on-drugs, the abuse rates skyrocketed. Not just opiods, but also meth. You can see it on the graphs in this article, the general…

I personally consider the war on drugs to be a colossal failure and there tends to be widespread agreement that the War on Drugs was somewhat effective at enabling enforcement, but ineffective or counterproductive at eliminating drugs or reducing long-term harm.

What America continues to ignore, intentionally or not, is the root cause of drug addiction which tends to be a more complicated and nuanced

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#67

Post by cyberax »

keepamovin wrote: post #54
Aurornis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance. The phrase “small amount” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement. The government does regulate and control amphetamine and methamphetamine (Desoxyn) as prescription drugs. The former is not all that hard to access. For a while it was as easy as signing up for a service thr…

No, policy wise I appreciate you getting into the nuance, but I feel like you take the argument to polar extremes (with an attitude of confident, final certainty), when the expected outcome is across the middle. This smells more like ideology than practicality. > These discussions always end up … Before your comment i wouldn’t say anyone is lacking curiosity here. Tho your comment about fixing into a stereotype, seem…

> On the toxicity side, do you have any studies to cite? I wasn’t aware of toxicity, but it’s plausible.

A typical therapeutic dose of amphetamines is around 20mg, topping at around 60mg for serious narcolepsy. Recreational doses can go up to around 1000mg for long-term users with 360mg as the median: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40385390/

That's the area of crazy toxic side effects just from vasoconstriction. Never mind direct effects on the brain.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#68

Post by cortesoft »

robotbikes wrote: post #41

And I thought for a second they were talking about peer to peer meth but no that's what the DEA shut down by tightly controlling pseudoephedrine, where before meth using meth makers were making meth and distributing it. It certainly seems like prohibition is just making things worse and making it more lucrative for the least ethical of black market producers. Similar situation with fentanyl when compared to previous…

I thought it was going to be metaphor about exploiting a peer to peer network

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#69

Post by culi »

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

Government does sorta regulate it. Desoxyn is (rarely) prescribed for ADHD when other meds aren't effective enough.

The difference between most amphetamines and Desoxyn is that extra methyl group. That methyl group helps it cross the blood-brain barrier a little faster but the chemical that reaches the brain is the same in both cases.

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