- 5 Mar 2005
- 108
- 1
It's amazing reading so many mis-informed inexperienced posts in this thread! I couldn't even get to all of them without getting a headache of the illogic used in this here.
First of all define "drugs". What the hell do you mean by this term? It's such a widely used and abused term that to say anything about it you need to put some definition. For example a "drug" can refer to
- any substance/plant that alters the body/mind.....this definition wouldn't include legal stuff like alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, salvia, dpt, and even the deadly nightshade plants like datura or belladonna. But this is nothing more than some pretentious colloquial usage.
- or it can mean anything that leads to addiction, toxic enough to od on, and numerous deleterious health effects......this definition wouldn't include pot, shrooms, LSD, mescaline, and dmt.
Now there really is no consistent definition of this term, but in medical and scientific discourse it usually refers to any substance that alters the body or mind. So there you have it.....anything that alters.....note that this doesn't include dangerous effects and what not. There's a lot of other things that can alter your consciousness or body.....mind machines, CES devices, meditation, fasting, sleep deprivation, exercising, and so on.
Now then....let's get into some common drugs. Obviously the most commonly talked about are the legal ones like alcohol and tobacco. But something like alcohol is NOT the most widely used drug out there.....this of course goes to CAFFEINE! YES! That little chemical that everyone likes to ignore....it's in so many of our foods and in many of our favorite drinks. And it's the main active ingredient in one of the most common drinks in the world.....COFFEE! Yes coffee is a psychoactive drug......meaning it is a mind altering drug! It's as druggie as any other drug but it has no legal restrictions on it and it's a widely used and promoted drug especially in corporate establishments. Red bulls and other energy drinks would also be included here, but this would exclude tea and soft drinks like cola which don't necessarily have enough of the drug caffeine for a full dose of it.
And the fact remains that caffeine is no mild drug....it kills many each year from overdose deaths and there are numerous caffeine-related health issues leading to death (ie ulcers, irregular heart beat leading to heart attack, ect.). You can obviously OD from caffeine because it is a natural pesticide....yes that's right it is grown in plants to kill insects.....and enough will be toxic enough to kill humans. Caffeine is also addicting.....both physically and psychologically and withdrawal can lead to numerous adverse conditions including anxiety, depression, headache, insomnia, and many more.
Now caffeine may not have as much adverse effects and social problems as say alcohol and tobacco.....but it's very easy to see that it's far worse than the soft stuff like weed, shrooms, LSD, ect. It's a scientific fact that it is impossible to induce a lethal od from either pot or shrooms and nearly impossible with LSD. Weed can be psychologically addicting but this is pretty rare.....psychological addiction to shrooms or lsd are nearly unheard of due to tolerance issues and these being undesirable to take all the time.
Now with MDMA (ecstasy)....if you were to use MDMA everyday then of course it will have long term negative effects.....though the fact remains is that most people don't use MDMA in such a way. In fact XTC addiction is probably slightly less common than the few cases of pot addiction....although being addicted to pot is not as bad as being dependent on MDMA as it has nearly no long term negative effects in most users. But yes MDMA is much safer than alcohol.....if more people used MDMA at social gatherings, pubs, clubs, ect. then there would be far less social problems (imagine all that violent drunk behavior turned into overly empathetic lovey-dovey xtc behavior).
So what about alcohol and tobacco? The fact is that these meet every definition of a hard drug.....and in some cases these are worse than many hard drugs. Nicotine for example is the most addicting drug out there (even more addicting than heroin).....just imagine if they banned nicotine making supply more scarce.....expect growth in robberies from nicotine addicts that are driven to it to get their fix. Alcohol is not so much different than cocaine....actually at least with cocaine you don't do stupid **** necessarily and won't increase the chances of driving fatalities. So yeah wanting to ban cocaine while not wanting to ban alcohol is hypocrisy at its finest....they both cause disproportionally equal problems (well considering the fact that alcohol makes people violent and accounts for a large percentage of murders....it may be the worse of the two....cocaine is probably slightly more psychologically addicting than alcohol but alcohol is definitely more physically addicting).
The only reason why something like pot......which btw is a freaking vegetable is often demonized is because 80 or so years ago a man named Randolph Hearst decided to contact his relative Harry J. Anslinger who was head of the commission of narcotics to go after cannabis because the hemp plant threatened his timber and cotton investments. Even Anslinger was reluctent to control this as even he himself stated they were having no problems with it......but seeing that he need it to raise more revenue for his operations he eventually decided to add it.....then he started demonetization campaigns making up bullshite that an evil mexican weed called marihuana (marijuana) is causing rape, insanity, and murder. All scientific studies that showed otherwise were censored and pushed to not getting around....in this way pot became banned.
Now imagine if none of this occurred....if there was no demonetization campaign......pot would not only be legal but it wouldn't even be payed attention to. It would likely not have even gotten all that popular....in fact prohibition played a huge role in popularizing cannabis.....which was once only an activity of mexican immigrants, jazz musicians, and the like in places like the US. And indeed who would care about a weed you can't overdose on when you can overdose on something as fundamental as water.....yes more people die every year from water than ever with cannabis (or any psychedelic for that matter).
Now even the more harder drugs like cocaine and heroin got banned for somewhat similar reasons......actually it was mostly race based. There were reports of "cocaine-crazed negroes" being ultra-violent in the South and of "opium smoking chinese men" seducing white women into race mixing, prostitution, and sexual slavery. And wouldn't ya know.....all this was born from the US.....in actuality if it wasn't for the US there would most likely not be any drug prohibition anywhere in the world besides some few local laws against alcohol or opium. And then none of this would even be in common discussion.....drug problems would be treated like a medical issue like how the legal drug alcohol is today.
If you were to rate the 10 more popular drugs by there scientifically proven actual dangers, (From more harmful to less harmful) it would go something like this;
1. Speed (more specifically Meth)
2. Opiates (more specifically Heroin)
3. Cocaine
4. Alcohol
5. Tobacco
6. DXM
7. MDMA
8. Caffeine
9. LSD (if used properly)
10. Cannabis
The laws of course are full of shite......they don't exist to prevent any abuse and drug prohibition is just a political tool politicians can use to get votes and tax money. They create far more problems than they solve which is evident in both modern drug prohibition and past alcohol prohibition (gang violence, dirty drugs, ect.).
As for "drugs" overall.....to each his own I say. If you don't like "drugs" then fine.....just don't force your view upon others. If you don't like "drugs" then fine.....make sure you don't harm anyone else while using them.
I personally think that soft drugs like pot can make life more fun and interesting and sometimes provide insights on how to live a better life among other insights. And especially the psychedelics like shrooms and dmt can provide lots of insights on the way consciousness and the mind works as well as other stuff.
Of course I think harder drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine, or alcohol should be avoided as much as possible and should only be used more sparingly or in strict moderation.
First of all define "drugs". What the hell do you mean by this term? It's such a widely used and abused term that to say anything about it you need to put some definition. For example a "drug" can refer to
- any substance/plant that alters the body/mind.....this definition wouldn't include legal stuff like alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, salvia, dpt, and even the deadly nightshade plants like datura or belladonna. But this is nothing more than some pretentious colloquial usage.
- or it can mean anything that leads to addiction, toxic enough to od on, and numerous deleterious health effects......this definition wouldn't include pot, shrooms, LSD, mescaline, and dmt.
Now there really is no consistent definition of this term, but in medical and scientific discourse it usually refers to any substance that alters the body or mind. So there you have it.....anything that alters.....note that this doesn't include dangerous effects and what not. There's a lot of other things that can alter your consciousness or body.....mind machines, CES devices, meditation, fasting, sleep deprivation, exercising, and so on.
Now then....let's get into some common drugs. Obviously the most commonly talked about are the legal ones like alcohol and tobacco. But something like alcohol is NOT the most widely used drug out there.....this of course goes to CAFFEINE! YES! That little chemical that everyone likes to ignore....it's in so many of our foods and in many of our favorite drinks. And it's the main active ingredient in one of the most common drinks in the world.....COFFEE! Yes coffee is a psychoactive drug......meaning it is a mind altering drug! It's as druggie as any other drug but it has no legal restrictions on it and it's a widely used and promoted drug especially in corporate establishments. Red bulls and other energy drinks would also be included here, but this would exclude tea and soft drinks like cola which don't necessarily have enough of the drug caffeine for a full dose of it.
And the fact remains that caffeine is no mild drug....it kills many each year from overdose deaths and there are numerous caffeine-related health issues leading to death (ie ulcers, irregular heart beat leading to heart attack, ect.). You can obviously OD from caffeine because it is a natural pesticide....yes that's right it is grown in plants to kill insects.....and enough will be toxic enough to kill humans. Caffeine is also addicting.....both physically and psychologically and withdrawal can lead to numerous adverse conditions including anxiety, depression, headache, insomnia, and many more.
Now caffeine may not have as much adverse effects and social problems as say alcohol and tobacco.....but it's very easy to see that it's far worse than the soft stuff like weed, shrooms, LSD, ect. It's a scientific fact that it is impossible to induce a lethal od from either pot or shrooms and nearly impossible with LSD. Weed can be psychologically addicting but this is pretty rare.....psychological addiction to shrooms or lsd are nearly unheard of due to tolerance issues and these being undesirable to take all the time.
Now with MDMA (ecstasy)....if you were to use MDMA everyday then of course it will have long term negative effects.....though the fact remains is that most people don't use MDMA in such a way. In fact XTC addiction is probably slightly less common than the few cases of pot addiction....although being addicted to pot is not as bad as being dependent on MDMA as it has nearly no long term negative effects in most users. But yes MDMA is much safer than alcohol.....if more people used MDMA at social gatherings, pubs, clubs, ect. then there would be far less social problems (imagine all that violent drunk behavior turned into overly empathetic lovey-dovey xtc behavior).
So what about alcohol and tobacco? The fact is that these meet every definition of a hard drug.....and in some cases these are worse than many hard drugs. Nicotine for example is the most addicting drug out there (even more addicting than heroin).....just imagine if they banned nicotine making supply more scarce.....expect growth in robberies from nicotine addicts that are driven to it to get their fix. Alcohol is not so much different than cocaine....actually at least with cocaine you don't do stupid **** necessarily and won't increase the chances of driving fatalities. So yeah wanting to ban cocaine while not wanting to ban alcohol is hypocrisy at its finest....they both cause disproportionally equal problems (well considering the fact that alcohol makes people violent and accounts for a large percentage of murders....it may be the worse of the two....cocaine is probably slightly more psychologically addicting than alcohol but alcohol is definitely more physically addicting).
The only reason why something like pot......which btw is a freaking vegetable is often demonized is because 80 or so years ago a man named Randolph Hearst decided to contact his relative Harry J. Anslinger who was head of the commission of narcotics to go after cannabis because the hemp plant threatened his timber and cotton investments. Even Anslinger was reluctent to control this as even he himself stated they were having no problems with it......but seeing that he need it to raise more revenue for his operations he eventually decided to add it.....then he started demonetization campaigns making up bullshite that an evil mexican weed called marihuana (marijuana) is causing rape, insanity, and murder. All scientific studies that showed otherwise were censored and pushed to not getting around....in this way pot became banned.
Now imagine if none of this occurred....if there was no demonetization campaign......pot would not only be legal but it wouldn't even be payed attention to. It would likely not have even gotten all that popular....in fact prohibition played a huge role in popularizing cannabis.....which was once only an activity of mexican immigrants, jazz musicians, and the like in places like the US. And indeed who would care about a weed you can't overdose on when you can overdose on something as fundamental as water.....yes more people die every year from water than ever with cannabis (or any psychedelic for that matter).
Now even the more harder drugs like cocaine and heroin got banned for somewhat similar reasons......actually it was mostly race based. There were reports of "cocaine-crazed negroes" being ultra-violent in the South and of "opium smoking chinese men" seducing white women into race mixing, prostitution, and sexual slavery. And wouldn't ya know.....all this was born from the US.....in actuality if it wasn't for the US there would most likely not be any drug prohibition anywhere in the world besides some few local laws against alcohol or opium. And then none of this would even be in common discussion.....drug problems would be treated like a medical issue like how the legal drug alcohol is today.
If you were to rate the 10 more popular drugs by there scientifically proven actual dangers, (From more harmful to less harmful) it would go something like this;
1. Speed (more specifically Meth)
2. Opiates (more specifically Heroin)
3. Cocaine
4. Alcohol
5. Tobacco
6. DXM
7. MDMA
8. Caffeine
9. LSD (if used properly)
10. Cannabis
The laws of course are full of shite......they don't exist to prevent any abuse and drug prohibition is just a political tool politicians can use to get votes and tax money. They create far more problems than they solve which is evident in both modern drug prohibition and past alcohol prohibition (gang violence, dirty drugs, ect.).
As for "drugs" overall.....to each his own I say. If you don't like "drugs" then fine.....just don't force your view upon others. If you don't like "drugs" then fine.....make sure you don't harm anyone else while using them.
I personally think that soft drugs like pot can make life more fun and interesting and sometimes provide insights on how to live a better life among other insights. And especially the psychedelics like shrooms and dmt can provide lots of insights on the way consciousness and the mind works as well as other stuff.
Of course I think harder drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine, or alcohol should be avoided as much as possible and should only be used more sparingly or in strict moderation.
I have a feeling if weed was more widely accepted and not so widely condemned with useless propaganda that people would learn how to use it without experiencing the negative. And do keep in mind while weed is tolerated in the Netherlands, it still is illegal.....the government is even trying to make an effort to re-criminalize it again by limiting the number of coffee shops.....yeah there's been a lot of conservative backlash in Holland lately. And there's a lot of dutch and europeans who are still in some medieval old-fashioned mindset.....despite western europe being considered more tolerant in this area than many other places in the world.
