Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8221599.stm

Argentina rule it is unconstituational to punish someone for smoking cannabis as long as it's not affecting anyone else. Groovy.

Great, but that should apply to any drug.

Jen has to give a talk at her Poooooleeeees* college next Monday arguing for the legalization of heroin. Quite an interesting topic actually.

*Lester Freeman has nothing on me

I think all drugs should be legalised, personally. It's hypocritical otherwise.

Insert definition of "not affecting anyone else" here.

It shouldn't cause your family, friends or any members of the public any physical or emotional harm.

The argument for is certainly compelling. Even just for the tax the government could earn and the quality of drugs we (should) recieve as a result. I never made it to Amsterdam before I stopped sadly

Well that's the rub then, isn't it. If you're a very heavy drug user, you're likely unemployed, therefore a burden on the state. Is that harm? What about the eventual cost of rehabilitation, if you're lucky, or getting picked up by an ambulance and treated in hospital for a missing septum, if you're not? Stealing to fund a habit?

While it's clearly not true to say that "drug users cause harm", it's also not true to say "people using drugs for personal use only do not cause harm".

Yes but if they were to use that definition of harm then they would have to also apply that to alcohol and tobacco and things like that. So I guess that since they don't, then they have decided they can't really apply a different rule to drugs.

Again, those sociological harmful effects of drug use (or abuse) could be reduced by legalizing illegal drugs potentially. No government in the UK would be brave enough to do it though. SHEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT.

Oh, I don't deny the hypocrisy. Not that I'd really object to alcohol and tobacco following the same rules, mind.



Just don't touch my coffee.

There's plenty of precedent of people consuming both tobacco and alcohol, even to excess in the latter case, in moderation and remaining productive members of society for the next forty years though. Heroin, not so much.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.

Amsterdam -> Hamsterdam -> Gerbildam -> Gorbalsdam

Only because it's bad polluted shit. There are cases of people, doctors etc, abusing medical grade stuff over half a lifetime and nobody knowing anything about it.

Agreed, but I know a lot of drug users who cause as much harm to others as you would by sitting at home alone smoking ten cigarettes of an evening.

But by the same token there are plenty of people who consume alcohol and are not able to function as a productive members of society.
Legalizing heroin should reduce the amount of addicts anyway- in fact I think I saw somewhere a few years ago that since cannabis was legalized in Amsterdam, the percentage of heroin users in the population has remained static whilst in Britain it has exploded. I might be making that up though so don't quote me on it.

I wanted to mention that but wasn't sure if I was imagining that I'd read that somewhere.

Of course. Which is why I said the first half of the sentence. But they aren't the ones to worry about. Which is why I said the second half of the sentence.

How harmful is cannabis if smoked without tobacco? I know it is carinogenic but is it more or less so than a cigarette? Also, how much does the lack of a filter come into it?

Of coruse, with the current set-up, the vast majority of drug use is harmful to society, what with the cash going to bad people who do much worse things than sell you a bit of dope.

Legalised, possibly not so much (depending on your view of the government, I suppose!).

Also, Come Dine With Me is funny, and Clay Davis rules.

Yep, but there will always be those sorts of people. The sorts of people who drink meths and smoke 100 cigarettes a day. Legalising drugs won't make the public think that it's suddenly 'ok' to start taking them, I don't reckon, just like most reasonable people know now that drinking too much may cause cirrhosis of the liver, and smoking may cause lung cancer. Education and moderation is the key.

There is a strong clinical link between cannabis use and schizophrenia; cannabis users are seven times more likely to develop schizophrenia in later life than a control group.

Portugal took the right attitude to drugs: Link

I was intrigued by those parks in Amsterdam where heroin users go at night to use. The police turn a blind eye as long as they're in the designated areas and the users get clean needles and a feeling of safety.

No good for a midnight stroll though!

How likely are you to develop it without taking cannabis?

You're very unlikely to get it either way.

Are you asking me?

OR ME?

I knew about the link between smoking cannabis and schizophrenia, I was mainly wondering about the lung cancer thing.

I think legalizing all drugs is the way forwards. I agree with the argument that legalizing cannabis should stop most people moving onto harder drugs as a reasonable option but total legalization and control of all drugs would be a good step I think. Although I am happy to be talked out of this stance if necessary.

EDIT-added 'of all drugs', twice for clarification

Indeed. I love stats like this because on the surface it looks massive. Like wow! Seven times! That's like 700% more likely!

It makes a good headline, but the thing is that if you're 0.006% percent likely to get schizophrenia in the first place, seven times that is 0.042% - so still negligible. Life's too short to worry about shit like that.

More so. Cannabis smoke's got 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke.

Also:

Let's start with the health risks associated with cannabis, shall we?

You've got:

Problems with memory and learning

Distorted perception

Difficulty in thinking and problem solving

Loss of co-ordination

Increased heart rate

Long term tests have shown alteration of the areas of the brain involving dopamine things arising in animal models.

Increased rate of heart attack due to physiological effect

Cannabis smokers that don't use tobacco have more sick days from work, mainly due to respiratory problems: daily cough and phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illness, a heightened risk of lung infections, and a greater tendency to obstructed airways.

There is an increase in the likelihood of getting cancer of the head or neck

Studies have been done which have shown cannabis smoking doubles o triples the risk of getting such cancers.

THC impairs the bodies immune system, shown in animal models and human cells.

You have the psychological problems such as depression, anxiety and personality disorders it causes.

If you stop taking the drug, you suffer from irritability, sleeplessness, anxiety and aggression.

So what's the liklihood in the first place?

Depends on lots of factors.

Starting with heredity.

Twelve.

So say you've got no history of cancer in the family, you'd think that doubling or tripling the risk is quite likely still to be a small risk?

The point is though that there are legal things which also have alarming side effects when detailed like that. Legalizing the likes of cannabis
gives a degree of control over the production, supply and quality of the drug;
earns money for the government in the form of tax;
Removes the appeal of doing an illegal drug;
limits the amount of money going to bad bad men for bad bad reasons;
reduces the number of people going on to try harder drugs;
and in heroins case also protects vunerable people from things like the sex industry.

In my mind, the good things are better for society in general than the bad things are bad for it.

You're looking at it from the wrong angle. Seven times is massively statistically significant, which tells neuroscientists interesting things about both cannabis use and schizophrenia. Clearly there is a link, but no-one knows what it is; therefore by studying it we may be able to deduce things about how schizophrenia comes about.

I think we should legalise Myp.

If something increases the risk by 100 to 200% then I'd say it's worth avoiding.

Cancer's quite a complicated thing, mechanistically and otherwise.

Is that because there's no filter on funny cigarettes?

Out of interest though, how much of this is due to the mechanism used to smoke? Is this compared to rollies or manufactured cigarettes. I would imagine due to their compact nature, a manufactured cigarette gets hotter (physicists confirm) therefore aiding in the thermal decomposition of a large number of those hydrocarbons.
Further more is this study using resin or just leaf. If resin, what else is it made with, how has it been processed?

If you legalise, say, cocaine. where are you going to get it from?

I've seen people put filters in them. 4realz

Of course, from a scientific angle it's important and fascinating; in the real world, I'm not going to worry about it.

I don't use cannabis, btw.

Citation needed!!!!!

Yeah, to be honest, wouldn't it increase the number? I can't see a way it would decrease it.

Yes, this is also a thorny issue. If we import from somewhere like Colombia, then we are almost condoning child-labour and shitty working conditions. Then again, we already do this with clothes and other manufactured products, so... in short, I don't know.

Well if the government did decide to take such a drastic step they would have to set about trying to set up some sort of fair trade with local villagers. or something.

But it's illegal to produce it in Columbia / fucking everywhere, so they can't sell it to us officially.

I think the theory goes that pills and powders etc are less obtrusive and less detectable than teh weed, so even though they are a higher "class" with worse penalties, people tend to use those instead to avoid being caught at all.

You could grow it here with the right set up. Look at the skunk boom thanks to hydroponics.