Give us druggies not drunks, say Valley police

[MindExpansion]

So really, what is the way to handle this situation. There must be some things we can do with the evidence supporting a change in legislation or at least a reconsideration.

How could the supporters of new regulations get their case heard and not just dismissed as a bunch of druggies looking to get high.

It is all good and well to talk about it here but what if there was something we could actually do, we mostly agree that it would be a positive step forth for society, reducing harm and risks and generating revenue which could be used for health care and education. Is there a society in Aus seriously approaching this matter, and by seriously I mean a genuine society who aren't just a bunch of guys who wish it was easier to get high, I mean a society who focuses on the points we are discussing here.

Peace,

Mind

[apothecary]

Researchers say the world's largest ever ecstasy seizure will ultimately make little difference to the supply of the drug here in Australia.

About 4.4 tonnes of tablets hidden in tomato tins and worth around $440 million were seized yesterday.

At least 20 people from four different states have now been arrested in connection with the haul.

The shipment was discovered by Australian Customs and the Federal Police in Melbourne last June but remained a tightly kept secret until yesterday, when the arrests were made.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) allege an international drug syndicate operating in Australia and Europe was responsible.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty alleges the syndicate could be responsible for as much as 60 per cent of the drugs imported into south-east Australia.

But Associate Professor John Fitzgerald from the University of Melbourne's School of Population Health told ABC Radio's AM program he doubts the huge seizure will have much of an impact on supply.

"One of the issues around looking at the impact of seizures is that we're not quite sure what impact they have because the issue of stockpiling," he said.

"We know with a range of other substances, like heroin and amphetamines, that there's a high level of stockpiling that goes on, so when there is a seizure it doesn't necessarily translate to reduced access to the drug on the street."

Professor Fitzgerald says that previous seizures have failed to result in significant increases in price or drops in supply.

"Our sense is that yes, this is a big seizure, we need to watch it very carefully in terms of the impact, but our past history would tell us that the impact at the street level will be minimal if anything," he said.

Adelaide emergency doctor David Caldicott, who has a special interest in illegal drugs, is surprised by the amount of the seizure and applauds the agencies for their work.

But he also doubts it will have much of an impact on demand and supply.

"People would not be sending this quantity of product to Australia without a realistic expectation that they stand to be able to move all of this product," he said.

"So what you're looking at is a truly phenomenal demand in Australia for these sorts of drugs in the modern era.

"As long as that demand exists, it doesn't matter what interdiction does."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/09/2329805.htm

Dr Caldicott once again speaking the truth.

Edited August 10, 2008 by Sina

[reptyle]

Doctors prescribe medicine based on the same trust we rely on, which entails them understanding the effects of the substances they work with. There need be no dictator as to what is useful for healing other than the research that has and will be completed through hundreds of years of usage.

Priest provide safe and appropriate venues and substances for the soul purpose of connecting with the joy and ecstasy that is often experienced by large portion of the standing population.

Purity and quality are controlled through structures already governing products for human consumption.

recreation could fall into any of the above yoga's.

as for peoples choice, although evolution is a great concept for thinning out unwanted personality sets, it woudnt be very Godly to let the ignorant suffer themselves un-assisted. personally i would suggest a caste system, much like that which is curently in place throughout the hidden world of conspiratorial leaders. there is rather no doubt that the free reign in regards to personal choice exists in those at the top of our evolutionary selection process.

the thing that most people are really trying to do is escape their social strata, which would entail more choice and less domination.

funnily enough there is no real glass roof and it is possible to rise into free will, just not for those complaining about the restrictions which act as girders holding up the penthouse floor of the NWO.

yay

[baphomet]

Your argument about scopolamine is a bit of a dud - because as others have mentioned it is easily available over the counter.

I know about avils, I am referring to pure scopolomine! Did you watch the documentary? All 9 parts?? That makes a mockery right there of anyone who says that all drugs should be legal and freely available! If criminals in this and other countries were allowed to purchase pure scopolamine then like I said the world would rapidly descend into chaos and that movie proves it right there! Columbia is just a microcosm of what the rest of the world would look like! As I said in another thread, our government has a duty to protect its citizens and prohibiting drugs like that is the right thing to do!

The authorities have been giving people amphetamines for almost a century, in the military, and in factories in wartime to increase productivity. They didn't seem to have a problem with it then. Thousands of kids are given amphetamines every day for ADHD.

To say that there hasn't been a problem is not true! I once watched a film about a drug called yaba (Thai for 'crazy drug') which are little pink pills of amphetamines which have become a MAJOR problem in some asian countries, employers were giving it to their employees to increase productivity and it was causing a lot of very serious problems. The rate of people who the police had to shoot had sky rocketed because of this drug, there was plenty of footage of people kidnapping their children, grandparents, etc due to paranoid delusions and being shot. This is yet another microcosm of what would happen to a country if amphetamines like that were made legal except for the fact that it would be much worse!

Oh and to suggest that thousands of kids are given amphetamines for ADHD without problems is not true either!

"it is likely that actual use declines even when it appears to stay the same."

It seems more likely to me that you are just believing what you want to believe.

"The drug ceased to be used in psychotherapy because it became popular in recreational use which led to its prohibition. Many prominent psychotherapists protested this but they were not succesful. There is very little solid scientific evidence of harm caused by MDMA today (but a lot of confusion, and pseudo- and bad science)"

Yea I have seen films about this but to my recollection many of the prominent psychotherapists you speak of were against its recreational use and most other psychotherapists would be also!

There is scientific evidence to suggest that there is harm caused by ecstasy and I know this to be a fact myself but it is easy for you to turn a blind eye to anything that goes against your preconceived notions and label anything that challenges your view as "pseudo-science" which is IMO exactly what has happened here!

If as you say there is no evidence to suggest that it is harmful then surely we should not make it more widely available until it is proven to be harmless?

"but a very cursory glance with an open mind at the situation reveals that the prohibition of drugs does more harm than good and certainly does more harm than the drugs themselves would if they were legally available to responsible adults."

Are you suggesting as others have that all drugs be legalized? And given to "responsible" adults? Who decides who is a responsible and who defines responsible? This is fucking madness and thankfully it will never happen!!

The people who say that now would not be saying the same thing if the reality of their misguided wish became apparent! They might think differently about the legalization and availability of drugs like chloroform or rohipnol if they or their children were knocked out and brutally raped or given scopolamine and had their organs removed or lost all their life savings and helped criminals load all their possessions into a van! This has already happened to countless people and I would challenge them to tell that to the victims of these crimes, they would probably get knocked the fuck out at the very least and for damn good reason!

A world where all drugs are freely available is a scary thought, it would not be the hippie utopia that some people naively think it would thats for sure! Just because MDMA can TEMPORARILY increase feelings of love, empathy, etc in some people doesn't mean that it would bring about world peace if everyone took it, this is pure fantasy!

"various experiments around the world [Holland, portugal, switzerland, etc] have shown, legalisation or decriminalisation does not increase consumption. In fact, in most cases it reduces consumption. When people talk about legalisation the main opposing argument is the expected increase in consumption, and yet this is a complete myth."

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/pot/a/bldea050426_3.htm

 

"Making drugs legal does not mean they become any more or less available"

Yes it does!!! I have personally witnessed several heroin droughts over the years where people were selling nothing but sugar mixed with bonding agent and people didn't even bother trying to get on! It prevented me from relapsing at least once because I knew there was no way I was going to get a decent taste!

"MDMA is most likely harmfull. Baphomet claims that he already KNOWS this. Just like Christians KNOW there is a god, and racists KNOW that blacks committ more crime. We have science to establish these thigns and science at this point has not been able to prove any significant damage from MDMA even though many many millions of dollars have been thrown at researchers who are trying to prove such damage [and no money is being provided for the other side!]. So despite this skewed scientific approach we still have no reasonable evidence that MDMA is damaging."

No, not most likely I said that I know for a FACT that it is harmful! How??? I have conducted extensive research on a real live human brain.. My own! There are not two sides to science as you have made out, only one! There have been studies carried out by scientists at Johns Hopkins University as well as The National Institute of Mental Health and other organisations who all concluded that it causes mental impairment and from what I have read it has already been PROVEN to be harmful! It easy for you however to disregard this and label it as pseudo science and wait for some real pseudo science to come from "the other side".

And BTW, Christians only have FAITH! And in some places blacks do commit far more crime than other ethnicities and this can easily be proven so I'm surprised you would use those examples to make your point. I don't really give to much credibility to anything scientists say anymore, I go with what I know. Scientists initially said that buprenorphine wasn't addictive but I found out the hard way that it was, science also initially said that marijihuana wasn't physically addictive but I know that it is! Science is also proving more and more everyday that it causes mental impairment, memory loss, etc and this I already know to be true, I don't need to wait for some guy in a white coat to tell me that!

So despite this skewed scientific approach we still have no reasonable evidence that MDMA is damaging. We do however have plenty of evidence that meth is damaging. when we talk about damaging drugs, let's make sure we separate them into what they are. You can have two very closely related drugs with very different damage profiles. Inf act, you can have one that is very dangerous and another that isn't dangerous at all. Let's stick with science rather than conjecture about where MDMA fits into this. There are plenty of other factors that may cause your preception of MDMA damage. For example, in my rave crew it was all those who also dabbled in meth who got fried, but those who only took MDMA mostly fared quite well. Those who were mroe into psychedelics and only took MDMA occasionally are completely normal. Again,one could draw all sorts of conclusions from this, but without eliminating variables one is likely to draw the wrong ones.

I agree that methamphetamie appears to be more damaging than MDMA but its not called MethylenedioxyMETHAMPHETAMINE for nothing, they're not exactly chalk and cheese. I used to party too believe it or not (all though admittedly I did spend much of my time in the car park) and many of the people I know who took hundreds of pills are definitely feeling ill effects from it. I noticed that you added the words "mostly" and "occasionally" in there so I'm sure you know what I'm talking about

"Imagine if MDMA was available from the chemist [chemist only - non prescription]. You could get it at the strength you feel most comfortable with and there would be no surprises. There would be no adulterants, no toxic manufacturing residues, and no ripp offs. The price could be the same as you currently pay. So if the chemist buys it at $2/tab, sells it at normal chemist mark up of $8 per tab, the government could put an additional $12 tax onto this without anyone complaining about the price. Imagine what could be done with the $12 in terms of drug education and harm minimisation!!!!

That 4.4t shipment the other day was over 12,000,000 pills by my calculation, so that shipment alone represents 144 million in lost tax revenue."

If MDMA was available from the chemist non prescription I believe there would be far more people using it and rates of use would no doubt rise. There would be an extra burden on our health system (especially mental health) which is already stretched to breaking point! It is a harmful drug whether you like to admit it or not and our government should never condone the use of such substances! It has a duty to protect all its citizens from stupid decisions that may harm their health and I wish they had done a better job of this in my case and I also wish they had done this for drugs like nicotine which killed my father, instead they tax it and profit from it and put a little into "harm minimisation" like you suggest.

That said, I will definitely be using ayahuasca, iboga, salvia, etc in a country where legal and I may decide to have a line of coke one day or relapse and start using heroin again so you may call me a hypocrite and you might have a point but it still does not change my view on the role of government!

[reptyle]

For all the perspectives on the effects of legalisation, does anyone have a guess at how long it would take to re-establish the cultural framework within which it would be acceptable to "knowledgeably" (i was gonna say safely but...i drive a car.) partake of the full benefits of our free-will.

More to the point, i wonder about healing the illness that seems to have been spread by "the man" which infects the minds of anyone who has ever bought, sold or ingested a banned substance. The paranoia, the fractal program which once initiated bring closed conversations, lies, conspiracy, fear and often horrific and lasting damage to the psyche of those experiencing the fear of participating in their natural symbiotic relations.

This imposition into mind space is the true evil of the goodie baddie paradigm, it is Mara thwarting attempt to taint the honest goodness and standing in the path of the guides he taunts those with life to lose, slowly destroying their will to persist in freedom.

Mara gets one star for his hard work. And two flowers to send him off to sleep.

In the end we win, If we are GoOD.

[MindExpansion]

Rightio, just let me start with this:

I wish they had done a better job of this in my case and I also wish they had done this for drugs like nicotine which killed my father

I'm sorry about your father but was it the nicotine or the smoking that killed him, they are not one and the same, i.e one chemical vs 4000.

I don't believe that pills OTC would be a good idea because I think use would rise, and I do think there is evidence to show that unreasonable use of MDMA can be damaging, i remember reading about lesions that it can supposedly cause on the brain (not exactly sure about this, just a vague memory). My approach would still be more regulated. Go to see your doctor, tell him you want to use MDMA, have him get your history, do a check up particularly of the cardio system to ensure your heart functions and BP are normal so as to limit the chance of complications with MDMA, get some basic advice on safer use, i.e how much water to drink and how much MDMA one might take. I think for this to work new regulations regarding responsibility would need to be drawn up so that if someone went and OD'd or had a heart attack or something along those lines they couldn't turn around and say 'but doc said i'd be safe' then sue.

Write up a script that allows say 4 doses of MDMA to be provided from a pharmacy once a month and have it repeat monthly for a year or so before needing to go get another.

Charge a little cheaper than the illegal pills to undercut that business, because by limiting number of doses provided you will still allow for a black market to exist but this black market would be reduced significantly.

This is still safer than alcohol use, I don't need a checkup to go and drink my liver/brain into a state of dysfunction, hell I don't even get proper education on the effects of ethanol on my body.

And baphomet, I am under no delusions that a world of unregulated amphetamines of any kind would be a hippie utopia, but I do feel that a world of sensibly regulated access would reduce risk to peoples health and provide a better education system about these drugs while generating revenue for that education and for other health care/other uses in general. And as far as scopalamine is concernced and other things along those lines, don't legalise access to the pure chemical, but let people grow the plants containing them if they want, I say the same of psylocin/cybe, mescaline, THC, and all other directly plant derived substances, all only for personal use, by limiting the number of plants that can be grown rather than just outright banning them.

Peace,

Mind

[occidentalis]

I am not going to bother replying to many of your points, because it is clear that you have a strong opinion that will not be changed. But a few points below:

I know about avils, I am referring to pure scopolomine!

What do you think is in Avils?

Did you watch the documentary? All 9 parts?? That makes a mockery right there of anyone who says that all drugs should be legal and freely available! If criminals in this and other countries were allowed to purchase pure scopolamine then like I said the world would rapidly descend into chaos and that movie proves it right there! Columbia is just a microcosm of what the rest of the world would look like! As I said in another thread, our government has a duty to protect its citizens and prohibiting drugs like that is the right thing to do!

Sorry man, but if your argument requires me to watch a 9 part documentary then it is not a very good one.

Colombia is fucked up for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the fact that the prohibition of drugs creates a black market which fuels levels of criminal activity high enough to cause political and social instability. If the drugs were legal, this would not be an issue.

To say that there hasn't been a problem is not true!

I was not saying that I believe there hasn't been a problem - I was saying that the authorities didn't seem to think it was a problem. The point was that we should not trust anything the government says about the reasons behind prohibition, because they do not stick to them themselves when it suits them.

Yea I have seen films about this but to my recollection many of the prominent psychotherapists you speak of were against its recreational use and most other psychotherapists would be also!

Certainly, and I understand why they would say that. Because the drug has high potential for abuse.

I am not condoning abuse, just saying that people who wish to use the drug should be able to. Use is not the same as abuse.

If as you say there is no evidence to suggest that it is harmful then surely we should not make it more widely available until it is proven to be harmless?

No, it should be not the role of the government to protect people from harm they may cause themselves out of their own stupidity.

Are you suggesting as others have that all drugs be legalized?

Yep

And given to "responsible" adults? Who decides who is a responsible and who defines responsible?

You can pick the responsible ones quite easily - they are the ones who do not suffer major drug related illnesses, because they used drugs in a responsible manner.

That said, I will definitely be using ayahuasca, iboga, salvia, etc in a country where legal and I may decide to have a line of coke one day or relapse and start using heroin again so you may call me a hypocrite and you might have a point but it still does not change my view on the role of government!

OK, so you accept that drug use can have benefits as well as risks. That is a good place to start from.

You also seem rather hung up on the notion of drugs being harmful. Let's look at some other things that are harmful:

Cars

Guns (specifically created to cause harm)

Electricity

Spoilt food

Fatty food

Scopolamine

Alcohol

Cigarettes

Swimming

The sun

These things can all kill you. Some of them are statistically quite likely to be your cause of death in our society!

However, in all cases, the risks are controlled, in some cases through a system of licencing, in others through education, common sense, and darwinian selection. This allows these things to be used in the safest way for the highest benefit.

These are all things that you are likely to come into contact with at some time in your life, and maybe every day. But most people chose to drive a car, because although it is a very risky activity and has countless negative effects on the environment and society, it offers a high level of convenience which supposedly offsets the damage and the risk of personal injury or death.

People want to use drugs. This has been the case for ever, and is not going to change any time soon. That demand can either be supplied by criminals, who do not have good standards of quality control, or it can be supplied by the Government, who currently oversee the supply and quality of many other dangerous substances and activities. What makes you think that the criminal underworld are the best people to regulate this?

[baphomet]

"What do you think is in Avils?"

"Sorry man, but if your argument requires me to watch a 9 part documentary then it is not a very good one"

Sorry mate but that couldn't be further from the truth, I highly doubt you know the slightest thing about scopolamine judging by some of the things you are saying and I was trying to provide a quick and easy way for you to educate yourself on the matter before continuing on with this discussion. Obvioulsly you chose to ignore it so there's not much point going on with it really, just be aware of the fact that as I said earlier, the documentary I posted makes a mockery of people such as yourself who say that all drugs should be legal and freely available!

"You can pick the responsible ones quite easily - they are the ones who do not suffer major drug related illnesses, because they used drugs in a responsible manner."

Yea right, just like I can tell the people who talk about drugs as if they have some kind of in depth knowledge of what they speak about when in fact they are almost completely clueless. Like those who make uneducated offensive statements like the one I just quoted!

Edited August 11, 2008 by baphomet

[apothecary]

I highly doubt you know the slightest thing about scopolamine

....

Like those who make uneducated offensive statements like the one I just quoted!

[Jesus On Peyote]

It sounds like alot like your opinions on the matter stem from the abuse you mention that youve gone though Bap, and thats kind of understandable but think how much more information you could have had if there was a gov backed scheme to inform people smartly and supply clean chemicals.

Your bad experiences shouldent stop a million other people from having a good one.

[baphomet]

I stand by that sina! Just because someone has taken a few avils or grows and uses datura doesn't mean shit! I am talking about pure scopolomine and its use by criminals overseas!

[Jesus On Peyote]

Keyword- overseas.

[Jesus On Peyote]

db

Edited August 11, 2008 by Jesus On Peyote

[Torsten]

I am not going to bother arguing with baphomet simply because he makes assumptions and statements that he declares as fact which can't actually be backed up. Much of what is being discussed here has been researched very well and it is infantile for baphomet to argue that he knows better than the results collected from trials in many countries which all contradict his statements. The following is posted to make sure that others don't believe the simple minded hype he presents as fact.

* Legalisation does not increase consumption anywhere this has been tried. Not even when it was tried for heroin in the UK. How can anyone claim the opposite when EVERY trial so far has shown that this is a myth? Only ignorant people can still make this claim.

* Criminalisation does not make any difference to supply. heroin droughts [or shortages in any other drug] are caused by supply shortages from source countries, not by law enforcement efforts. In fact, increased law enforcement efforts targetign one substance often cause an increased availability of that substance because prices go up and criminal networks try to cover their market share.

* The only research that conclusively proved MDMA to be damaging was done by Ricaurte who was funded by the US anti drug lobby, and his results were retracted a few months later when it turned out he had 'accidentally' used methamphetamine in his research. Like I said, I don't believe MDMA to be harmless, but I also don't buy into the ignorant media hype. Just because you and your friends got fried doesn't mean it was MDMA. That's why we have controlled scientific studies, where other factors are excluded. Factors such as self medication, other drug use, and prior mental health.

* Just because two chemicals have a common part in their name does not mean they share pharmacological actions and certainly does not imply anything about toxicity. 3,4-dimethoxyamphetamine for example is inactive and non-toxic even though is is an amphetamine and it has the structure that most closely resembles MDA.

* In science there are often two sides. Funding greatly influences results of studies to the point where it is not wise to trust ANY non-independently funded study regardless of what the topic is.

[JDanger]

* The only research that conclusively proved MDMA to be damaging was done by Ricaurte who was funded by the US anti drug lobby, and his results were retracted a few months later when it turned out he had 'accidentally' used methamphetamine in his research. Like I said, I don't believe MDMA to be harmless, but I also don't buy into the ignorant media hype. Just because you and your friends got fried doesn't mean it was MDMA. That's why we have controlled scientific studies, where other factors are excluded. Factors such as self medication, other drug use, and prior mental health.

Link

[chilli]

Apparently most of the threads that I participate in degenerate so I will say no more.

Some people think a thread degenerates whenever people disagree, don't worry about it. I for one value your contribution to the forum, and I'm sure others do as well.

But yeah, I think keeping it sweet helps to get your point across.

[Torsten]

It is nice to have vigorous dicussions. What is not nice is baphomets tone and the way he discusses. I've had a lot of complaints about him. For baphomet there is no other opinion possible even though he never actually produces anything other than his own conjecture. Like saying that things are 'fact' even though no scientific evidence exists to support his 'facts' and because no evidence exists he is unable to actually furnish any. He discounts any other views and regularly insults people in the process.

The discussion POV he currently carries in this thread is not an unusual one. It is a discussion I have on a weekly basis. But rarely does it get as annoying and frustrating as most people either claim truth in science or truth in their belief. Baphomet is claiming both even though science clearly contradicts him. It's as annoying as creationists using their fucked up view of what constitutes science to further their agenda. In fact, it is as fucked up as our governments who use the same technique to manufacture consent.

[AndyAmine.]

Just because you and your friends got fried doesn't mean it was MDMA. That's why we have controlled scientific studies, where other factors are excluded. Factors such as self medication, other drug use, and prior mental health.

I know that was a reply to Bapho but it also covers my post.

What I was getting at besides my own issues which certainly relate to meth however I also feel I suffered regular damage from excessive mdma use both oral and IV, is that the people I know that got fried from taking only 'pills' were IMO damaged mostly from dodgy pills which commonly throughout the late 90's early 2k's had meth and other drugs in them.

You only have to know some of the crews from Melbourne at the time to know how many fake 'pills' were being made back then.

Edited August 12, 2008 by AndyAmine.

[chilli]

Torsten, I see how he would annoy a lot of people, he exasperates me a lot of the time too. I was going to add "and fact based" after "keeping it sweet" but lots of people have already pointed out how most of what he says is bare assertion.

The thing is, I think a lot of people have similar views to Baphomet, but aren't as convinced as he seems to be, so as they follow the conversation and automatically identify with Baphomet's "mind map" they may benefit from seeing their own "common sense" views juxtaposed and opposed by reasonable arguments from others. In this way at least I think he makes a valuable contribution, like a kind of devil's avocado.

I also think he has a couple of fair points of his own in his more reasonable moments, although I agree it would be nice if he would tone it down sometimes and provide a more evidence for some of his more, shall we say, confident assertions.

LOL @ MORG re: 9 part documentary.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Sublime Crime

[rahli]

"What do you think is in Avils?"

Pheniramine maleate

Link

[AndyAmine.]

^^^ They changed the ingredients a while ago ^^^

Used to be 'Hyoscine' but they changed it, now the only one I know of that has Hyoscine in it is 'Kwells'

[occidentalis]

Right

thanks for correcting me guys

[FancyPants]

Pheniramine maleate

Link

And they're incredibly useful when I have a big dose of codeine or oxycodone for pain. One Avil or Avomine (avomine has promethazine theoclate) 15-30mins before a large dose and you won't get nauseous, wont get itchy, and it will potentiate the opiates enough that you don't need quite as much of the codeine or oxy.

Plus they're awesome for hangover queasies LOL.