When did 'animals do it' become a justification for anything? Animals are violent, self-centered, racist, misogynistic assholes.
And eat their own shit, but hey, whatever floats your boat man...
Why animals eat psychoactive plants
61–70 of 180 posts
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#62>> Only 10 percent of drug users have a problem with their substance My politics generally agree with the author's main point, but this statistic seems disingenuous. Surely the percentage varies significantly depending on the drug. I know plenty of people who smoke marijuana and don't have a problem with it. Yet the only people I've known who had problems with methamphetamine or heroine have all ended up hitting rock…
I don't think that's true. I think in most western countries the kind of people who end up taking meth are already people who have a drug problem, making the makeup of meth users be generally people with serious issues.
New Zealand has been particularly good at prohibiting the import of drugs like MDMA and Cocaine, which has made them prohibitively expensive. As a result, if you're a drug user you either smoke cannabis, take pills which are generally a mix of mephedrone and meth or just straight up take meth. There's no middle ground.
As a result the kinds of people who would normally take MDMA on a night out in London would take Meth on a night out in Auckland. I know a good number of young professionals who take it from time to time without it being a big part of their lives. Strangely the meth snorters stigmatise meth smokers in the same way a normal person would stigmatise a meth user.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#63I note that this is written by Johann Hari http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
So? Does it change the value of this recently published article because of previous bad behaviour? Keep your logical fallacies to yourself.
Really? I mean really? Of course it changes the value of the article- articles written by unreliable sources are less valuable than those written by reliable ones. Or does it not matter as long as you like the message? If the CIA/NSA comes out and says "Oh it's ok y'all should totally get stoned" does that mean you trust them all of a sudden?
It's no wonder every decent novel about a dystopean society has some type or psychoactive available-everybody trusts their dealer I guess.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.
Well first i'd question calling tea a socially sanctioned drug given how little caffeine it contains. (Also, most teas are quite pleasant tasting, if you use premium tea and make it correctly, which 99% of people do not) Second i'd note that virtually all foods that aren't fruits or vegetables must be 'acquired by special effort', and that a large number of them are fairly inedible or bland until you prepare or cook…
According to google, tea has 3mg/fl oz, while soda has 2mg/fl oz of caffeine.
Also, the people that I know who drink tea, tend to drink it by the pot, whereas most coffee drinkers I know tend to drink by the cup.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Everyone and their mother is addicted to something, it's just a matter of whether or not the authorities approve of your choice of substance. Truth is we're humans and humans seek to alter their consciousness whether it be through meditation, prayer, exercise, spinning in circles or a through a shortcut -- a substance. Un…
That's because we've somehow equated addiction with badness. When you read about opiates, for instance, the high addiction potential is called out as a major downside. Doctors get all nervous about it, try to prescribe little, don't allow refills, etc. Yet this is not the case when prescribed, say, antidepressants, which can be just as addictive. What we need to do is realize that addiction is not a bad thing intrins…
I thought that one of the requirements for addiction was that you were willing to let the rest of your life go up in flames to get your next "fix." People definitely bandy about the word "addiction" for things that are somewhat less than that. E.g. not many people withdraw from those around them to get their next caffeine fix.
(It's worth noting that this doesn't necessarily apply to just drugs. WoW-addiction falls into this definition too.)
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Except "addict" is a loaded term, which implies... well, unequivocally maladaptive behavior. You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix.
>You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix. I also seldom hear of people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden drug/alcohol stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their drug/alcohol fix. Really, I do often hear the same sad generic story which you refer to, but there are never…
I hear variations on these stories at least half a dozen times a week at my alcoholism support groups.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#67I’ve always found it fascinating that people don’t perceive socially sanctioned drugs as drugs at all. Saying “drugs and alcohol” to me is like saying “sandwiches and hamburgers”. A person can drink a cup of coffee in the morning, smoke a cigarette on their lunch break, and drink a couple glasses of wine in the evening, and the only thing that keeps them from being called a “drug addict” is that these particular drug…
Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Everyone and their mother is addicted to something, it's just a matter of whether or not the authorities approve of your choice of substance. Truth is we're humans and humans seek to alter their consciousness whether it be through meditation, prayer, exercise, spinning in circles or a through a shortcut -- a substance. Un…
More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances.
Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooked on cigarettes way more often than other groups. Etc.
The famous Rat Park experiment showed that addiction is not nearly as common a thing, for neurotypical individuals living in an adaptive environment, as we assumed when we built our models of addiction epidemiology. Most addicts (sparing a few drugs like cocaine and heroin that create strong chemical dependence) are either not neurotypical, or in a mal-adaptive environment, or both. Fix the problem with the neurology or the environment, and the addiction becomes easy to break.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#68When did 'animals do it' become a justification for anything? Animals are violent, self-centered, racist, misogynistic assholes.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well first i'd question calling tea a socially sanctioned drug given how little caffeine it contains. (Also, most teas are quite pleasant tasting, if you use premium tea and make it correctly, which 99% of people do not) Second i'd note that virtually all foods that aren't fruits or vegetables must be 'acquired by special effort', and that a large number of them are fairly inedible or bland until you prepare or cook…
According to google, tea has 3mg/fl oz, while soda has 2mg/fl oz of caffeine. Also, the people that I know who drink tea, tend to drink it by the pot, whereas most coffee drinkers I know tend to drink by the cup.
The caffeine in tea varies wildly depending on the processing, region, harvest, etc. Coffee is similar but of course on average it's something like 10x more.
When you drink tea you re-steep until the leaves lose flavor, and the other chemicals reduce in potency similarly. Coffee you re-grind for every brew.
Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants
#70When did 'animals do it' become a justification for anything? Animals are violent, self-centered, racist, misogynistic assholes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
The naturalistic fallacy should not be confused with a fallacious appeal to nature, a mistaken claim that something is good or right because it is natural (or bad or wrong because it is unnatural).