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How to get 7th graders to smoke

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Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#211

Post by margalabargala »

Atotalnoob wrote: post #140
margalabargala wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is where LSD gets interesting. No, LSD won't kill your body. But what are you ? You aren't just your body, you are your mind and mental state and the consistency of that. Do enough LSD, especially consistent high doses, and the "you" you know will die and be permanently replaced by something else. I of course agree that LSD won't put you in a coffin. But there are more axes upon which a drug's danger should…

I really hate the “LSD is safe” mantra people have. I had a college roommate who did a shit ton of LSD one night and I woke up to the fire alarm having been pulled and him punching holes in the wall. The police (fire department called the police) dragged him off and the hospital had to give him a bunch of antidepressants to short circuit the LSD. He was literally not the same person ever again. That is terrifying, ev…

In defense of LSD, your roommate did "a shit ton of LSD". Keeping dosage under ~300ug radically decreases the likelihood of any sort of permanent personality shift like that.

That said things can still happen on a bad trip. I posted my own personal experience downthread.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#212

Post by somethoughts »

In all seriousness (although half joking) - these days it seems perhaps the best way to get people not to do something is to make them think that some "Big" corporate monopoly - with an army of lobbyists - want to sucker them into buying their mass produced product for huge $$$ profits.

The movie "Thank You for Smoking" has a great scene between Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol and Big Firearms lobbyist caricatures [1].

[1] Merchants Of Death Thank You For Smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss0jLHvMO20

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#213

Post by nathan_douglas »

Retric wrote: post #129
arrowsmith wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alcohol [has] minimal short term health risks. What on earth are you talking about? Alcohol can kill you in a single evening if you drink enough of it. How much shorter-term could its health risks be?

Risk is severity of harm * probably of harm. Of the ~3 million Americans that tried Alcohol for the first time in 2023 how many exactly died from an overdose that night? That’s what low risk looks like.

According to the CDC, it seems about 6 people die per day of alcohol poisoning, or ~2,191 per year, so about .07%. Nearly 3/4 are men, which doesn't particularly surprise me, but what does surprise me is that the average age was 49 years, and only 5% were aged 18-24. I would've expected the numbers to be shifted left far more than that. Also interesting was that the overwhelming majority (71%) had a long history of alcohol use problems. In 58%, death was attributed solely to acute alcohol toxicity, but in 42% there was an underlying disease present as well. Huh.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#214

Post by lrivers »

aeonik wrote: post #39

It's pretty funny in a sad way to me that this article talks about how little we know about human behavior and struggling to find answers about why the kids had a backfire effect. I remember these programs, and I remember how they made me and my friends feel. But nobody asked us, lol. I'd even try to tell people I thought, but instead of listening to us, we were admonished. The problem is that these programs are full…

One way to ruin kids desire to drink is to offer them tastes of what you’re drinking from a relatively young age.

Whatcha drinking daddy?

A beer! Want to try it?

YUCK!!!!

This removes the rebellion portion from drinking to a degree.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#215

Post by vundercind »

jandrese wrote: post #184
vundercind wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think I’ve seen that movie three or four times and I never made the connection between the name and smoking cigarettes. Figured it was all the oil they had, and engines they could run with it.

The only thing I remember is they made some old dude row around the oil tank on a tiny boat because they had apparently forgotten how fuel gauges and dip sticks work. Thinking back on it, were they powering their pirate jetskis with heavy crude? Was there a distillation column set up on the oil tanker? I probably shouldn't think too hard about Wet Mad Max because I bet a lot of that movie doesn't really make sense on…

Yeah the lack of a refinery does seem like a problem. Maybe they were making something close-enough to diesel out of it with some crude process? No way they were making gasoline, nor most other petroleum fuels.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#216

Post by gumby »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #187
gumby wrote: post #103

I remember when the cigarette companies used to hire people to stand on street corners and just give them away (little three-cigarette packs) to encourage people to start or switch brands. Teenagers never have money so this was a great way to get them. I didn't smoke but I used to accept them and then give them to my smoker friends.

You’re the one the programs warned us about, giving drugs away for free.

According to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, I am merely an provider and the liability rests with the employee who "posted" the cigarettes with me.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#217

Post by lelanthran »

evilsnoopi3 wrote: post #108
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…

Literally only one of the drugs you mentioned can kill you due to withdrawal. Hint: it's not LSD or tobacco. Alcohol is an _extremely_ harmful drug.

> Alcohol is an _extremely_ harmful drug.

Yeah. If alcohol was discovered only today, there wouldn't be a government in the world that would legalise it.

It's legal because its grandfathered in, from the time before humans developed society and civilisation.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#218

Post by ordu »

kazinator wrote: post #44

If you see footnote 1: "In a later paper where the researchers caught up with these same students again, the difference between the Social and Emotional programs had mysteriously disappeared." It almost seems as if the researchers triggered something resembling the Streisand effect. The Social and Emotional programs were obviously intended to discourage the kids from smoking, but participation in those programs was o…

*> Programs designed to produce resilience against peer pressure...

... also could have a unintended effect. A kid could start to notice a peer pressure and get more clear idea how to follow trends or even predict them and to run ahead of them.

Teenagers are really concerned about what their peers think about them. If you tell them all about peer pressure, they will listen attentively, and develop a strategy how to grow in the eyes of their peers. Very bright could get the idea that you can be the source of peer pressure. Lets start smoking and lets make all others to start smoking too.

I would say, that if you talk with kids about smoking, some of kids get the idea that if they were seen smoking, then they will look more knowledgeable about smoking than you. Or maybe they will see rebellious and independent from boring adults. Especially rebellious if adults talk about dangers of smoking all the time.

People's minds are difficult complex machines, they could react at your stimulus in unexpected ways, and the more ways you can predict the more mind-blowing unpredictable become.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#219

Post by xboxnolifes »

bko wrote: post #121
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…

Do you feel the same way about sex ed? In other words, is exposing children to sexual education actually encouraging them to have premarital or unsafe sex?

DARE is the equivalent of telling kids that if they have sex, they will get an STD and ruin their life forever with a painful, annoying, lifelong illness.

Interpret outcomes from that as you will.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#220

Post by currency »

>changing people is so surprisingly hard—no matter how much you focus on the person in front of you, you’ll never appreciate the million tiny influences that made them who they are and that keep them that way. If you really want to make someone different, you might have to change the TV they watch, the music they listen to, the things they learn in school, the friends they hang out with, the role models they look up to, etc.

I'm a white guy who grew up in rural Pennsylvania in the 60s and 70s, so you can imagine what my implicit biases are like pretty reliably. What helps me get away from that is access to social media sites like X, reddit, and tumblr, where I follow people who are as different from me as possible. I have updated my influences. I listen. I pay attention to my internal dialogue and reactions and try to challenge myself.

>and if you do all that, congratulations, you’ve started what we call a cult.

Right. It's one thing to open myself to worlds I'm not aware of. It's something completely different to try to control what someone else experiences.

Another way of saying that is—as an atheist, I don't find religions interesting or useful. But I know that I'll never be able to sell atheism to anyone if their religion is a deeply meaningful part of their worldview and identity. Any attempt to do so has to start by destroying that world and that identity, and that kind of violence is anathema to anyone with the smallest bit of empathy. We are made of our influences and this essay covers that well.

It's a great essay that covers so much more than smoking (or drugs). Thanks for the link.

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