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How to get 7th graders to smoke

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Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#151

Post by rabbits_2002 »

patwolf wrote: post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

The sole take away I got from DARE when I was a kid is “LSD sounds really cool, gotta try that someday”

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#152

Post by ladzoppelin »

Like others have said its the lying and exaggeration on both sides that really made this a confusing topic to navigate. I wish there was a way to push a "wait until your brain is developed before anything" message without being pro drug or confusing.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#153

Post by nashashmi »

Here is what prevented me: My D.A.R.E. officer said to us (honestly?) when you take drugs you feel like you are on top of the world. You take it again and you again feel like you are on top of the world. This is called a high. And after that, you feel like just a little bit of trashy feeling from how you used to be. And so you take drugs again and again to keep the trashy feeling away and each time you feel trashier and trashier after the high is gone. Until people who have been drugs for so long have a difficult time ever becoming normal again.

next what prevented me from doing this was that it is illegal. Plain and simple. I am not questioning the law. I am following it.

Lastly, what prevents me is my community faith that has labeled it to be forbidden.

OTOH, caffiene is also bad. My family told me so. And they drank it nevertheless. And I drank a few times, but very few. But I avoided it because children should not be drinking coffee/tea. Until college came. And then I had to. It was a hack. But I kept it disciplined. And then I got married to someone who always drank coffee. And now I am an addict. and my potassium is super high. And everything else in my body is in the gutters because of it. And I can't come off of it. It's a way to stave off depression. And stress. And anxiety. And keeps me in a positive state because I can drink and become a superworker and get all my work done, without addressing some of the more problematic stuff. All I have done is push the crash further down the timeline.

Caffiene should be banned too. And probably ADHD drugs while we are at it.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#154

Post by Retric »

imchillyb wrote: post #148
Retric wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannabis is linked to a significant number of traffic fatalities. Cancer risks are also meaningful with lifetime use so it’s a mix of Alcohol risk and Tobacco risk. Safe enough to be legal, but not really safe. People have fatal overdoses on MDMA and hart attacks etc. Amphetamines use is linked with cardiovascular issues and brain damage.

> …2019 on deaths in three areas that have previously been linked to cannabis use but are still poorly understood: motor vehicle accidents, suicide and opioid overdose. For each cause of death, the researchers compared trends in deaths in states with legal markets with those in states that had comprehensive medical cannabis programs and similar trends in death rates prior to implementing markets… The study did not li…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8195290/

Findings show that meta-analyses and culpability studies consistently indicate a slightly but significantly increased risk of crashes after acute cannabis use. These risks vary across included study type, crash severity, and method of substance application and measurement. Some studies show a significant correlation between high THC blood concentrations and car crash risk. Most studies do not support this relationship at lower THC concentrations. However, no scientifically supported clear cut-off concentration can be derived from these results. Further research is needed to determine dose-response effects on driving skills combined with measures of neuropsychological functioning related to driving skills and crash risk.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#155

Post by bombcar »

itronitron wrote: post #83
gwbas1c wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate thing that convinced me not to smoke was watching my uncle die of lung cancer, and being unable to quit the thing that was killing him. I'm somewhat relieved that tobacco references are considered "adult" now in entertainment. The amount of smoking I saw in movies and TV (and around my uncle) normalized it for me, even though I knew how unhealthy it was.

For my high school cohort the video interview of the person still smoking after having had a laryngectomy really drove home the powerlessness of addiction.

We had a guy who had one come to our school in person; giving his talk whilst smoking from his stoma was ... pretty convincing, to be honest.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#156

Post by sophacles »

Retric wrote: post #118
nicoburns wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

Cannabis is linked to a significant number of traffic fatalities. Cancer risks are also meaningful with lifetime use so it’s a mix of Alcohol risk and Tobacco risk. Safe enough to be legal, but not really safe. People have fatal overdoses on MDMA and hart attacks etc. Amphetamines use is linked with cardiovascular issues and brain damage.

So traffic deaths, heart attacks (and general cardio problems), and brain damage. Looks like a melange of cannabis, mdma and amphetamines is almost as dangerous as the standard american diet.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#157

Post by mock-possum »

malfist wrote: post #144
nicoburns wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

>Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be Are you really arguing that meth is a poster child for safe illegal drugs?

Arguing for recreational ADHD meds more likely

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#158

Post by jwagenet »

Retric wrote: post #118
nicoburns wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

Cannabis is linked to a significant number of traffic fatalities. Cancer risks are also meaningful with lifetime use so it’s a mix of Alcohol risk and Tobacco risk. Safe enough to be legal, but not really safe. People have fatal overdoses on MDMA and hart attacks etc. Amphetamines use is linked with cardiovascular issues and brain damage.

MDMA overdoses are almost certainly all cross-contamination with fentanyl.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#159

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

nicoburns wrote: post #111
Retric wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

LSD is absolutely NOT the poster child for safe illegal drugs: Something like cannabis, MDMA, or amphetamines would be. I think all of those have a decent claim to being safer than or comparably safe to alcohol. Tobacco, as you say isn't particularly bad in the short term. But it is particularly addictive, so you end up with a large proportion of addicts / long term users for whom the longer term effects apply.

99% of what makes illegal drugs unsafe is caused by prohibition. Liquor store clerks aren't known to murder drinkers because the drinkers have been trying to pass fake twenties. The cops and beer dealers don't get in shootouts and kill each other or bystanders. Any time someone ODed, it was because the heroin was laced with fentanyl, or cut too much or not enough... none of which happens if heroin is regulated by the FDA, and doses are measured and unadulterated. With clean disposable needles in the box, no one gets AIDS or hepatitis. And you could probably train the junkies to use sharps containers and return them when full to get their deposit back.

Hell, even petty theft is caused by piss tests... if you truly believe that these people become addicted to badly that they'll do anything for a fix, hey guess what? That includes scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. So why do they steal copper wire out of foreclosed homes for scrap? Because piss tests disqualify them for the toilet scrubbing positions.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#160

Post by porphyra »

I feel like humans, especially children, are in some respects similar to LLMs or current AI models. With an LLM, if you explicitly tell it not to do something, like keeping a secret hidden, it's notoriously eager to disobey the command and do just that. Similarly, if you tell generative AI like DALL-E to not include something, it will try super hard to include it nonetheless. It's as though once the concept is shown, they can't stop thinking about it.

Maybe an "out of sight, out of mind" thing would do better than explicitly telling people not to do something?

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