151–160 of 232 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What negative consequences are there to doing MDMA or LSD a couple times a year? Especially when comparing with the negative consequences of doing alcohol. The argument that any drug use is bad is pretty blown out of proportion.
LSD can mess you up big time even with a single intake in your life.
What he's talking about is molecular mirror images. Our bodies can tell the difference between the (L) and the (D) form. The former drains your sinuses and the latter gets you high.
This is a tangential plot point in Breaking Bad. In the episode "Boxcutter," Walter White asks: "If our reduction is not stereospecific, then how can our product be enantiomerically pure?"
There's a lot to unpack there, but it implies that Walt is isolating (D) methamphetamine exclusively. It also implies that this is occurring through a selective reductive procedure.
The first few seasons established that the synthesis relies on methylamine through a reductive procedure called P2P. But that procedure produces (D) and (L) forms in equal quantities.
What Walt is revealing in that one sentence is that he's developed a way to do the reductive amination step in the P2P cook such that just the (D) form is isolated. His use of the term "stereospecific," implies that the selectivity is close to 100% in the bond-forming step itself. The process therefore doesn't just produce highly pure product, but does so very efficiently.
At the time period of the show, such a reaction would have been very close to cutting edge research.
The current thing on the rise here seems to be ketamine, according to a social workers.
There was in local news papers article about gangs shooting (and launching grenades?) at each other after confiscated cocaine shipment... And Stephen Colbert joked about Belgium asking for help to distroy cocaine seizure. I met people who did jail time for various substances trafficking. I met people who were in recovery for cocaine addiction. I even met with someone advocating for drug legalization... And I know for sure some ex-neihbours set up a phony business to launder years of pot trafficking benefices.
But I never met, heard or read or whatever or whoever having encountered methamphetamine in any way (or someone having met someone else having encoutered methamphetamine)...
And I live 30 minutes away in train from the closest dutch city. I also live in the city with the (reportedly) highest number of drug users (and dealers?) per capita in the country.
So I don't know what to think about d-tartric acid seizure in holland and belgium, and where the corresponding drug is sold, but methamphetamine is definitively not a thing here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What negative consequences are there to doing MDMA or LSD a couple times a year? Especially when comparing with the negative consequences of doing alcohol. The argument that any drug use is bad is pretty blown out of proportion.
LSD can mess you up big time even with a single intake in your life.
If you're not predisposed to psychosis, can it really do anything besides give you a bad trip? Bad trips are traumatizing and may take a while to work through, psychologically, but it's not permanent damage.
Personally, I had a very bad trip that led me to stop doing drugs and, ultimately, to a lot of very positive changes in my life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point is people disproportionately tsk tsk about the harms of drug use compared to the harms of alcohol. Personally I think most substances in moderate quantities taken only occasionally are no big deal. Yes there is probably some minute health impact visible in long term longitudinal studies but it's probably dwarfed by other lifestyle factors. I would rather be someone who exercises regularly, eats a he…
The worst part is that keeping them all illegal drives people towards whatever is available, and some of those choices are far worse than others. A more flexible approach would see drugs regulated purely based on actual harm coupled with availability of a less harmful analogue (will fentanyl users pick heroin if it's more easily available than fentanyl? If so regulate one much more strictly than the other) Incidental…
Well, from the scientific view things are pretty clear.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Psychoactive_dru...
Only politics don't want to move. Because why ask science when you can ask the alcohol and tobacco lobby?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm generally in favor of drug legalization and/or decriminalization, but I'd draw a line at meth. There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. Even if you disagree with my stance, I think it would be a grave mistake to not acknowledge that different drugs have different capacities…
The amphetamines are all similarly addictive, it's just that methamphetamine is more active at smaller doses. This general class of drugs is widely prescribed to children and adults to treat ADHD in the United States (many argue over-prescribed). People who use amphetamines 'recreationally' seem to mix it with alcohol, with very bad long-term effects on health. It also seems to drive people towards reckless and poorl…
Dose makes the difference. The kind of dependency people with ADHD develop on their meds is closer to the kind a person with mobility issues develops on their wheelchair after spending some time using it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That might work if drugs were as easy to stop than start. Addiction treatment has a very low success rate with high relapse rate, and its incredibly expensive per user. The best treatment remains not starting in the first place.
Prohibition doesn't work at all at stopping people from starting in the first place. It has over a hundred years of failure. Switzerland hugely reduced an endemic heroin problem in part by making it a health issue instead of a criminal issue. And Portugal has shown a lot of success in decriminalization of most drugs. Illegal drugs are perhaps the 2nd largest business globally, after petroleum. Prohibition is an abjec…
It's interesting to note that as methamphetamine and amphetamine were more regulated in the 50s and 60s, it became more prevalent. Then in order to stamp out illegal production, the precursor chemicals were monitored. So what happens? Production becomes more dangerous. Solution: Just make every kind of drug legal to produce, but regulate the purity. Be very explicit about the dangers. The only thing prohibition does…
There have been countries like China in the Opium Wars period that had limited restrictions on drug consumption. It ended up with a substantial fraction of their population being addicted to opium and basically non-productive. HN is full of smart people who (wrongly I think) assume that because they have the self-control and discipline to either avoid drugs or to use them relatively safely that the rest of the popula…
Do you have any evidence of this? I don't believe this to be true from general reading, but can't back it up. My rcollection is that the workers would work hard during the day then smoke opium in the evenings.
It's interesting to note that as methamphetamine and amphetamine were more regulated in the 50s and 60s, it became more prevalent. Then in order to stamp out illegal production, the precursor chemicals were monitored. So what happens? Production becomes more dangerous. Solution: Just make every kind of drug legal to produce, but regulate the purity. Be very explicit about the dangers. The only thing prohibition does…
I'm generally in favor of drug legalization and/or decriminalization, but I'd draw a line at meth. There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. Even if you disagree with my stance, I think it would be a grave mistake to not acknowledge that different drugs have different capacities…
If you believe the propaganda - memes are not a quality source of information. You need to be less willing to repeat what you've heard sand more willing to dig out the facts. The same is said of crack ("one hit and you're hooked") but it's a lie. I've spent several full evenings smoking it and I am not going back to it. To some people, maybe one shot and then doom, but to most it's an incremental downward slope depending on many factors. Not denying crack is a bastard and I would probably not support legalising it either, but please don't parrot back rubbish you've been told.
If this is still the level of HN debate ion drugs, to repeat soundbite anti-drug propaganda, I feel we're getting nowhere and burning a lot of fuel doing it.