At 04:52 PM 5/22/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Just to clear things up - I did NOT write the quoted text. It was quoted
>from another source. I wholeheartedly agree with any and all efforts to
>thwart drug use. Usually the ones who don't are the ones using them...
I've been ignoring this thread since day one, but this is one of the
silliest things that I've ever heard. So let's talk about drugs...
Tylenol is a drug. Vitamins are drugs. If you really want to get picky
about it, food is a drug. Sucrose is a physically addictive, mood-altering
chemical that is not produced by our bodies. Muffins are the scourge of the
world, but they're so yummy and crumbly that we simply don't mind.
So let's just assume that you meant illegal drugs. Of course, I am going to
completely ignore the biassed system under which some drugs have been made
illegal. If you know anything about the drug schedules and in what ways the
scheduling rules were broken to make certain drugs illegal, then feel free
to argue with me on whether or not the system is biassed. Let's just
imagine that all illegal drugs are illegal because they are so horrible and
not for political reasons nor due to pressure by Big Business nor due to
any profit to be made by anyone in the world. Let's say they are illegal
because they are bad and that all things that are as bad are illegal. This
is actually pretty far from the truth if you take marijuana and nicotine
into account. But for the sake of argument, we'll just pretend.
Illegal drugs are bad. "Any and all efforts to thwart drug use" would
include discontinuing the legal uses of these illegal drugs. They are
drugs. We can't use them. They are bad. So let's eliminate all opium based
pain killers. People using opium based pain killers are using illegal
drugs. Well, they may be using them by prescription in which case it's
technically legal for them to take them, but they are still using drugs.
Heroin, morphine, codeine, hydrocodone-- bye bye. These drugs aren't even
painkillers because they kill pain-- they just make you high until you
forget the pain. That is their drug action.
Next time you have a kidney stone or you are coughing up blood, don't call
me. Next time you accidentally chop off a finger and end up in the
emergency room, they won't be able to use liquid cocaine on contact at the
site of the wound, because, well, it's a drug. It's cocaine. It is bad bad
bad. Never mind that it's standard treatment for this type of injury. It's
a drug. In fact, it is one of the most dangerous drugs that we have found
so far, according to the drug scheduling rules.
Now amphetamines... well, those are weird. But let's skip the weird bits
and go for the gusto. No AD(H)D meds (although I think this might be a good
thing, since better, albeit less convenient treatment exists). No medicine
for Parkinson's disease. No diet pills for obese people who really will die
if they don't lose weight.
My point is that you comment tells us some things. It tells us that you
should think before you say something. OK, ignoring that obviously
sarcastically persnickety comment (hey. My spell-checker likes
persnickety), it tells us that you really haven't thought this through.
There is a lot of propaganda about drugs that is misleading or incorrect
and people in the US get exposed to that pretty much more than they get
exposed to the science that debunks it. Taking it at face value when all
arguments to the contrary are automatically disregarded as "made by people
who take drugs" isn't thorough or fair, especially when you don't even know
if the drug-taking assumption is correct. It also shows that you think that
people who have only read the propaganda knows more about the effects of
drugs than the people who have read the propaganda and actually taken
drugs, which is a pretty silly thing to think, quite frankly.
Whether or not I've taken drugs is irrelevant to whether or not I know more
about them than someone hasn't studied them-- I have studied them in school
for several years and as a hobby for over ten. And on that basis, I have to
tell you that some illegal drugs do not meet the necessary requirements for
their classification as an illegal drug and other substances that do meet
the requirements are not classified as illegal drugs. Treating all illegal
drugs the same is ludicrous and condemning the use of illegal drugs can be
pretty short-sighted as well. The drug war is a futile farce of a one-sided
propaganda machine with military support.
If anyone would like to become informed on a scientific basis about illegal
drugs and then discuss them with me, please read this book:
Drugs and Behavior: An Introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130831468/o/qid=990576465/sr=2-1/002-6582464-2705610
You could also opt for a neuropsychopharmacology class that centers around
the issue of drug use, but that was my textbook for such a class and it was
very informative. A little dry for some, maybe, but I'm a sucker for brain
stuff. Besides, those neuropsychopharmacology classes tend to have some
prerequisites.
Talking drug wars in front of a girl who was a chem major with a psych
minor for three years for the sole purpose of going to neuropharmacology
grad school (before opting for earlier graduation and then just becoming a
CF coder instead). Sheesh.
Time for some muffins.
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