Comments on: Danger List demonstrates Drug Hypocrisy

By: Stilgherrian · Most popular posts of 2007

Stilgherrian · Most popular posts of 2007 — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:46:35 +0000

[...] Danger List demonstrates Drug Hypocrisy [...]

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 07:21:38 +0000

Roland, nice bit of promo-linking back to your shop.

By: Roland

Roland — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 04:20:46 +0000

Tha classification for magic mushrooms is completly wrong. Magic Mushrooms is free in holland because of his beneficts and because it doesn’t do any damages to the body or to the mind. It’s way way different from cocain or heroin or ecstasy (that three yes, we can say that are really bad drugs).

By: Stilgherrian : Reclaiming Fascism: perspective please, people!

Stilgherrian : Reclaiming Fascism: perspective please, people! — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 12:34:30 +0000

[...] Sydney Indymedia had to “stick it to the man”, though, and illustrated their report with a completely unrelated, vicious-looking police dog. Somehow they missed the point that the target of their anger should be the politicians who implement hypocritical laws against (some) drugs, not the hard-working boys and girls in blue. [...]

By: Stilgherrian : Two million “Problem Drinkers”

Stilgherrian : Two million “Problem Drinkers” — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 05:45:10 +0000

[...] What I don’t understand is why two drugs of similar harm levels are treated so very differently. One attracts millions of dollars in government assistance, the other costs us millions of dollars in policing. What is the difference? abs alcohol Human Nature hypocrisy methamphetamines moral panic Politics propaganda statistics tobacco [...]

By: Stilgherrian :

Stilgherrian : — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:53:47 +0000

[...] My posting Danger List demonstrates Drug Hypocrisy generated a massive spike in traffic. Most of it came via Stumbleupon.com, a site where people say, in effect, “Hey, guys, look at this!”—to more than a million users. [...]

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:02:34 +0000

If you need a quick “So how did they do this?”, grab the PDF version of the report and zap down to pages 176-177.

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:38:44 +0000

Marlin, you’re shooting the messenger there. _New Scientist_ was merely _reporting_ the research, it’s a news magazine. The research was published by the UK parliament’s “Science and Technology Committee”:http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmsctech.htm.

You can browse the full report, “_Drug classification: making a hash of it?_”:http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmsctech/1031/103102.htm, and there’s a “PDF version”:http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmsctech/1031/1031.pdf.

It’s worth remembering that the aim was to evaluate the overall “cost to society”, not just the physical affects on the individual. And as the report itself says, “determining harm scores… is almost as much an art as a science”:http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmsctech/1031/103110.htm.

By: Marlin Stoebner

Marlin Stoebner — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:29:56 +0000

Solvents are less harmful than Cannabis? yeah right! I think the _New Scientist_ magazine needs to do some more research.

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:01:34 +0000

Xevious49 and Andrew, thanks for your comments. I’ll respond in a little more details when I get the time — it’s been a hectic week!

By: Andrew Kensington

Andrew Kensington — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:31:26 +0000

I think chronic solvent abuse would be easily the deadliest form of drug use.The article confirms the suspicion that drug laws have nothing to do with public health or saftey issues and everything to do with control and promoting the delusion that something, a “Drug War”, is being done.

By: Xevious49

Xevious49 — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:30:27 +0000

I’m a recovering addict, so I guess you could say that I’ve done my share of street drugs. I got clean in 1984 and even to this day, I feel people have the right to take whatever they want into their own bodies as long as it doesn’t endanger anyone else’s life or space. But when I see people advocating the use of substances like ectasy and solvents, that’s where I have to draw the line. I knew nothing about ectasy until I watched a very unopinionated TV special about it that explained how daily use over a year or so could accelarate the deterioration of a “normal” brain for a certain aged youth to one that was almost on the verge of behavior of an old person in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s Disease - That scared the shit out of me. Every article I’ve read discussing the street drugs kids are into now compared to what was on the street when I was using is scary to me. I did my share of LSD and reefer, but I wouldn’t touch PCP or solvents because I saw for myself what it was doing to my friends who didn’t give a shit what they took. I had a friend who was a newly graduated chiropractor go out to the west coast from NY and was dead a week later because he thought he knew what he was doing and scored some China White and ODd and died. I always worked jobs in labs where I had access to clean needles, sterile filters and water and I never stuck a needle in my arm because I was afraid of dying. I didn’t write this in order to judge anyone; I just feel people have to use their brains if they decide to party. I lost too many friends who didn’t think before they leaped and I hope some younger drug users read this and just THINK. Peace!

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 21:57:38 +0000

Nice points, Mark.

The original _New Scientist_ article says they looked at 20 drugs, but there’s only 14 on the chart. I’m guessing that’s _NS_ “simplifying the story”.

By: Mark Wellington

Mark Wellington — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 21:33:52 +0000

Nice article. I can see two problems with the figure though: (i) cocaine and crack seem to have been lumped together (crack, I would place just after heroin, cocaine probably just before alcohol); (ii) ketamin is not on the list - I would estimate that this would appear between alcohol and anphetamines.