Posts by Russell Brown
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Theres a reason why conservatives hate harm reduction, as you can see from the above list ranking common drugs from most harmful to least harmful.
This is the British expert committee list, isn't it? Caused quite a stink when it was published, but their reasoning was fairly explicit. Although I suspect the relatively high placing for cocaine and the low one for meth was to do with local conditions -- cocaine being ubiquitous in Britain and meth fairly rare: it'd reverse in New Zealand.
MDMA in its unadulterated form is a VERY safe drug
The death per dose is often said to be around one in a million, but that comes down sharply if you can eliminate risky behaviours (drinking too little or far too much fluid) and environments (badly overcrowded clubs).
The study that showed neurological damage in rats eventually (and infamously) proved to have been accidentally conducted not with MDMA, but with methamphetamine.
I always thought the Sydney police statement where they virtually begged people to neck an E rather than get drunk for New Year's Eve 2000 was a classic. It's not hard to understand their thinking there.
But I'd still debate the prudence of using MDMA on a weekly basis for an extended period. I've seen people do that and they turned into idiots. The very long-term consequences of manipulating serotonin levels are unknown, but you could say the same thing about SSRIs, I guess.
The thing is most of us can handle booze relatively maturely, andmany people I know can handle all manner of other substances maturely as well, why on earth should they have to risk prison to do so?
We'd probably differ on P. Some people certainly handle that "relatively maturely" (although the neurotoxicity thing is hard to get around), but the proportion of people who really don't is just a bit too high.
It's going to be interesting to see Matt Bowden pursue legitimate trials of methylone (ie: Ease) later this this year. I had a couple of really pleasant nights out on it, with friends, when it was legal. One nice thing: wine tasted lovely, but you could spend an hour yarning over a single glass. Again, there are questions over long-term toxicity, but it seems better in that respect than either MDMA or alcohol, and certainly meth.
But, again, you never really get a good look at these things until Joe from the suburbs gets onto them ...
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is that right. let me know when you decide to move on from snark and ill-informed moralising on this issue. there are other forums that offer informed and interesting debate.
Well, given a unanimous decision by the rules committee on a compromise (one that Obama's side could actually have rejected in favour of a 50-50 split in MI), you'd think everyone would now move on.
But, no, the Clinton supporters heckled and jeered the party's own officials in the presence of the press.
And I genuinely don't understand most of what people write on sites like Corrente. They're not just off in their own world, they're using their own language.
And I thought that Hillary comparing her plight in Florida to that of the Zimbabwean opposition was fairly tasteless too.
So yes, I do think it's fair to say that "some of the Clinton hardliners" are acting angry and crazy, and I think it's not really fair to characterise that observation as "ill-informed moralising".
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If I were conspiratorially minded I’d make a connection between that and Could the Republicans Pick the Democratic Nominee? -- The Untold Story of How the GOP Rigged Florida and Michigan.
Well, it seems the party has reached a compromise over Michigan and Florida. No sign, unfortunately, of some of the Clinton hardliners ceasing to act crazy.
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i just don't have any love for him...
There's still no call to call him an "arrogant condescending little know it all cunt" though is there? You've thrown around a lot of abuse since you started posting here. People will be thinking you're bitter. Maybe you should think of a nice thing to say next time ...
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Annoying little twat. I just want to swat him and say " look bro dont be such an arrogant condescending little know it all cunt cos it alienates people."
I don't get that at all. In fact, I was struck by his authentic good nature in Making Tracks.
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__My point was that we, surely, only to be "protected" from a minority of the people and those should be the most dangerous rather than the most unpopular.__
Well, various drugs that are currently illegal (and legal as well), are to a lesser or greater extent, dangerous to self, or to others. But yes, very political.
One of my problems with the communitarian Left, as exemplified to some extent by Tony Blair is its willingness to proscribe behaviours that are "harmful" to society, but which might actually be no more than inconvenient or annoying. ASBOs are a classic example: they allow the creation on demand of actual criminal offences.
With respect to illicit drugs, the criminal sanction on, say, possessing LSD or psilocybin, is punitive and wrong. You can read The Doors of Perception as a lovely piece of writing, but if you try and replicate it, you risk a criminal conviction that could severely hamper your freedom of movement for the rest of your life.
But legalising all drugs isn't any panacea. Any degree of social sanction of P would bring it to whole new bunches of people, 10% of whom would develop a real problem with it. And real problems with P are real problems.
Ironically, methamphetamine as an illicit drug, and the eventual popularity of smoking the stuff, are a consequence of tighter restrictions on legally-prescribed (and, frankly, less harmful) amphetamines. The guy Kim Hill spoke to this morning about that was fascinating.
Even now you have the stituation where where physics students take Ritalin to cram for exams, while poor folks make themselves crazy on P. It's all amphetamines. And it's really hard to regulate effectively.
I was quite excited about the new "Class D" provision in the Misuse of Drugs Act, which permitted but regulated certain recreational drugs. It's just a shame the first candidate was BZP.
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Call me a puritan, but I find "fun" that doesn't benefit others or engage with the broader world to be downright solipsistic, and thus revolting to me. At a deeply philosophical level to me I find that kind of self indulgence quite abhorrent.
I also hold the accurate perception of reality and rational reasoning as being core to what it means to be a human being. I distrust self indulgence and self delusion as having any merit, even if some people consider it "fun".
Okay, back in the house and settling down with -- no, really -- a glass of sav blanc. I'm not pretending it is benefiting humanity, but I am quite enjoying it after a long week.
In the spirit of robust debate, let me say that your argument is self-serving, selective, and censurious. It recklessly presumes the experience of others, and generalises with remarkable abandon.
Ok Russell, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but not much - from experience I'd say one average strength joint probably has about the impact of three or four glasses of wine.
And no one's making you smoke a whole joint as much as no one's making you drink four glasses of wine in a sitting. I'd go so far as to say that only a tiny minority of pot smokers (certainly over the age of, say 25) would actually smoke an entire joint in a sitting. I know of lots of people who will cheerfully polish off a whole bottle of wine (eight standard drinks) in a sitting.
The just-think-of-the-children argument is a canard in the way you've put it. It's quite socially acceptable in New Zealand to say, drink more than would be wise if you had to drive a car at a barbecue when there are children around. Are you seriously saying the non-drinker who has a couple of tokes is some kind of monster?
And as for alcohol not "radically altering perception" ... tell that to the cops on a Friday night, anywhere. You seem to regard moderation as a given with alcohol and an impossibility in the case of any other intoxicant. That's just not rational. (Personally, I find moderating alcohol intake more challenging that taking it gently on any illicit substance I might occasionally imbibe at my advanced age. I'm sure I'm not alone.)
And as I said, I place the utmost value on the clarity of perception. Drugs degrade your ability to interract with people in anything but a facile way because drugs ultimately are about what you experience, not how you interract with the world = solipsism = navel gazing = narcissism.
Bollocks. I've had some of the best times of my life in crowded rooms and open fields, in shared experiences with lots of other people -- dancing, talking, revelling in community -- having taken illicit drugs. I've had brilliant times doing similar things on legal drugs. Music was often involved. The difference in principle is not really apparent to me.
I've seen people lose the plot on all kinds of substances, and I've seen my father, a lifelong smoker, succumb to lung cancer. So I'm not buying your argument, such as it is.
But there are certainly better things than drugs. Seeing my own children come into the world was more exciting, more profound and way trippier than anything I've experienced from ingesting some mere substance.
Cheers!
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I'm not going to swallow the red herring about cigarettes and booze. cigarettes may give your cance but don't alter your perceptions drastically, and neither will a civilised glass or two of sav blanc. Everything else does - no one can deny that.
It's kind of hard to know where to start with that argument ...
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Oh, and my most-viewed YouTube clip evah ...
Ali Williams dumps George Gregan. 64,000 views and 115 trans-Tasman comments.
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If it's links ye want try my favourite new thing: Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe.
Watch Brooker take the piss out of Craig Parker.
Ah yes. I put up just the Craig Parker bit myself a while ago:
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=hOBLKGWTLsw
16,000+ views and a continuing lively conversation as to whether or not Craig Parker is or is not a cockend.
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