The drug revolution that no one can stop • Hacker News Board

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#51

Post by tjradcliffe » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:19 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #38

jrapdx3 wrote: post #28

This article fits in with another thread here earlier today where I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I'm not sure what makes it so hard for some people to grasp the intrinsic dangers of ingesting "designer" drugs. Our physiology is complex and quirky, rendering al…

I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I can see your line of thinking: X has risks, X should not be done, thus make X illegal and X will not be done and the risk will no longer exist. But that's not the way the world works. Making X illegal does not prevent X being d…

While I agree that is the appropriate question to be asking, it's worth considering the length and complexity of the drug pipeline for creating new legal drugs, as a way of estimating the risk of new illegal drugs, which go through nothing like the same degree of testing: http://www.pacificbiolabs.com/drug_stages.asp

A new legal drug in its first iteration frequently through animal models frequently has a breakdown of 80% or more effectiveness, with the balance of the population mostly experiencing no effect and a small remaining fraction experiencing negative side-effects. The drug will then be tweaked and twisted to increase the size of the population it is effective on and drop the size of the negative side-effect population to as close to zero as possible.

This is a hugely expensive process. It is where a good fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go into the development of legal drugs wind up, and it is necessary because biochemistry differs very significantly across individuals.

What the makers of illegal designer drugs appear to be doing is more like a developer who says "works on my machine" and then ships. No testing, no QA, no coverage... just ship based on a single working instance in a particular environment. That's a recipe for disaster, and while the disasters are mostly recoverable, the process is fraught with risk.

This does not mean that making it illegal will change anything, because near as we can tell from the data the law barely changes human behaviour. Making abortion illegal does not change it's rate but just makes it unsafe. Making murder legal would not result in a vast increase in the rate of murders--it would result in blood-feuds and other mechanisms that the codification of law was designed to prevent. People don't refrain from murder because it's illegal (for the most part) but because they believe it's morally wrong. The law follows from that widespread moral belief, not the other way around.

So legalization and regulation may well be the best way to go, but given the ordinary standards of drug development that might create an underground grey-market where things are almost as bad, safety-wise, as they are now. A carefully targeted criminalization, that focuses solely on drug makers rather than distributors or users, might be a better solution. So long as we keep in mind that the goal is to minimize harm, including the harm done by law enforcement.

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#52

Post by lostgame » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

Havvy wrote: post #46

jpatokal wrote: post #29

And these shenanigans, too, would be entirely unnecessary if known drugs were legal and regulated, and people could take controlled risks instead of playing Russian roulette with newly synthesized drugs.

Yeah, it looks like the entire legislative approach is wrong and doing more harm than good. It'd be nice to see more focus on education and building up knowledge. Perhaps even a well designed website (including first-class mobile support) that we could link drug users to that describe the effects in an easy to search and digest format. If people want to do stupid things to themselves, let them. We've found that legal…

https://www.erowid.org/

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#53

Post by refurb » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #29

And these shenanigans, too, would be entirely unnecessary if known drugs were legal and regulated, and people could take controlled risks instead of playing Russian roulette with newly synthesized drugs.

That's actually a great point. Most illegal drugs have known safety profiles since they used to be (or still are) prescription drugs. Even those that were never prescriptions drugs (e.g. LSD) have been used long enough and by enough people that we have a pretty good sense of their safety.

People are taking a big risk with some of these designer drugs. Just because a drug looks like an illegal drug doesn't mean a dam thing. Sometimes a simple modification of a molecule (methyl changed to ethyl or a hydrogen replaced by a bromine) can completely change the safety profile of a drug.

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#54

Post by refurb » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

poizan42 wrote: post #35

NicoJuicy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually read about a terrifying drug made by cheap materials in Russia (easy to self create) named Crocodile... Skin gets eaten and it's very horrifying to see long term users, carefull not for the weak of heart :s http://goo.gl/wiAXNx

That's just impure desomorphine though

Exactly. Desomorphine itself doesn't cause your flesh to rot off, it's the impurities in it. I think they commonly use an iodine/phosphorus reduction to remove the hydroxyl group.

It doesn't surprise me that injecting a drug that has left over phosphorus triiodide or other phosphorus/iodine compounds would destroy your tissue.

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#55

Post by researcher88 » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #26

coldcode wrote: post #2

I've never found any interest in taking anything stronger than an occasional beer but as a former chemist I find the research into these types of drugs fascinating. We really do need to look into areas that might be highly illegal if for no reason other than to learn how the brain works.

I dearly wish that in all the MJ legalization that some company would start extracting the chemical pain reliever and the appetite stimulant. We reduced smoking at it would be nice to have these in other forms.

You can vaporize it or eat it for a similar (but different) effect. For treating pain, nausea and stimulating appetite, I am fine with marijuana. I've taken nausea medication, all of which stop working eventually. I fear that a dervived compound could be the same and could have the same problems Marinol did. I am all for research but for people suffering, I think they should be able to use marijuana if they want.

There are 66 cannabinoids and 480 known compounds in marijuana. It's hard to know exactly what is happening. I do support research for THC+CBD oil treatments to fight cancer cells. But if you are suffering through radiation or chemo, I would much rather have the full spectrum of marijuana to deal with it.

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#56

Post by ZoF » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:46 AM UTC

benbreen wrote: post #37

"Technology and drugs have always existed in an easy symbiosis: the first thing ever bought and sold across the Internet was a bag of marijuana. In 1971 or 1972, students at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory used ARPANET—the earliest iteration of the Internet—to arrange a marijuana deal with their counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This is fantastic. Anyone know of an a…

I would assume that it is widely known, particularly in this community. I probably come across at least three mentions of this every year.

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#57

Post by lostgame » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:47 AM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #32

jrapdx3 wrote: post #28

This article fits in with another thread here earlier today where I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I'm not sure what makes it so hard for some people to grasp the intrinsic dangers of ingesting "designer" drugs. Our physiology is complex and quirky, rendering al…

I'd much rather take an illegal drug than a legal, 'under the radar' one. The personal risks of possibly getting thrown in jail are vastly dwarfed by the risks of ingesting an untested and completely unknown substance. The sad thing is that even the illegal ones often involve a terrible externalized human cost. Illegal drugs are consumed at scale, exploiting the producers and transporters, legal ones are consumed ind…

Alcohol:

• makes people vomit • makes people fight and argue with each other • is incredibly easy to take to excess • physical addiction entirely possible • damaging to liver + kidneys

Cannabis:

• makes people lazy • makes people hungry • makes people generally friendlier • capable of curing cancer as well as many major diseases • not physically addictive

So wait, what?

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#58

Post by d23 » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 2:59 AM UTC

sehr wrote: post #9

krick wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Hoffman didn't really "decide to try it on himself", but accidentally got some dose through his skin because of working without gloves and felt that something is not right . I don't remember where I got that — I guess it was his autobiography or something.

Can you imagine that bike ride home? Dude must have some mental fortitude. Basically took a thumbprint and walked it off

Actually, I read the excerpt from a talk once that argued it was extremely unlikely that he actually ingested the LSD. It has some pretty interesting arguments:

https://www.erowid.org/general/conferences/conference_mindst...

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#59

Post by AndrewKemendo » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:08 AM UTC

benbreen wrote: post #37

"Technology and drugs have always existed in an easy symbiosis: the first thing ever bought and sold across the Internet was a bag of marijuana. In 1971 or 1972, students at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory used ARPANET—the earliest iteration of the Internet—to arrange a marijuana deal with their counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This is fantastic. Anyone know of an a…

I was very surprised too and just found this:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-first-thing-to-be-bough...

Apparently the anecdote is from this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pe...

Re: The drug revolution that no one can stop

#60

Post by kragen » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:10 AM UTC

jrapdx3 wrote: post #28

This article fits in with another thread here earlier today where I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I'm not sure what makes it so hard for some people to grasp the intrinsic dangers of ingesting "designer" drugs. Our physiology is complex and quirky, rendering al…

Synthesizing legal "designer drugs" is safer for the chemist than synthesizing illegal drugs, because they are very unlikely to get arrested, have their lab equipment confiscated, and lose their career. Similarly, taking legal "designer drugs" may be safer for the user than taking illegal drugs, despite the extra risk of serious side effects, not only because there's less risk of getting arrested, having your children taken away, etc., but also because if something goes wrong, you have recourse — you can sue the pharmacy if the drug is contaminated, they can refer you to a legal collection agency if you don't pay them rather than to the Mafia, etc.

Of course, we could eliminate this ridiculous dilemma between the risk of novel side effects with "designer drugs" and the risks of illegality with the better-known recreational drugs, simply by making those drugs legal, although that will increase usage. That also has the additional benefit that it removes much of the stigma and danger from things like hobby chemistry. So far, it seems to be working well in Colorado and the Netherlands.