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caseysdream

Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:28 am

Joined: 20 Nov 2006 Posts: 36

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I have just read through a discussion on what is a stimulant. Actually it was more about the definition of drug classifications. So lets try to get back on track. Speed is speed. It doesn't matter if it is a diet pill like those that were popular in the seventies or the cocaine of the eighties or today's popular crystal meth. These are some of the most dangerous drugs available to users and abusers. Speed has certain very addictive properties. It is these addictive properties that make these drugs the ones most cited as to why drug prohibition should continue.
Speed is dangerous. If the anti-prohibition movement is to succeed it has to have a plan for how to handle speed use. The deaths of Len Bias, River Phoenix, and John Belushi were enough to wake up many users. But those deaths were many years ago. Hopefully, there will not be another tragic death. We have to come up with a plan that insures that people know that speed kills. It kills really without warning. One night you do some coke and everything is fine. Another day you do a couple of lines and next your friends are not calling 911. Maybe your driving along one night and instead of pulling over to rest you pop a couple of hits of speed. Before you can pull over your heart is pounding and before you can slow it down it just stops.
So here is the discussion I want to have. How to we educate people, especially young people with out resorting to fear. Or can we even have that conversation without pointing out the danger speed represents.

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CaseysDream

fotomatt

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:38 pm

Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 35

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Before we start having this discussion with kids (or anyone else) perhaps we should get our facts straight:

"Speed" refers to amphetamines, including its variants -- dextroamphetamine and methamphetamine. It may also be known as Crank, Crystal, Ice, Dexys, Meth, and many more.

However, none of those terms refer to cocaine, which, while having some similar effects, is quite different chemically (and, often, socio-culturally).

The claimed "danger" of amphetamines seems to arise primarily from their criminalization, rather than from the drug itself. Amphetamines have a long history of medical use, with relatively few related deaths. Given the more than 37,000,000 prescriptions for Adderall (amphetamine/dextroamphetamine) filled during 1999-2003, the US FDA could find no increased risk of sudden death among Adderall users beyond the normal rate of the general population. As such, the phrase "speed kills" would seem to be inaccurate, based largely upon fear and overblown anecdotal evidence which, even when true, still arises primarily from the prohibition of the drug rather that the drug itself.

BTW:
Len Bias died from a heart attack after ingesting too much cocaine, not amphetamines.

John Belushi and River Phoenix both died from an overdose of an injection of cocaine and heroin in combination. Such a combination is often referred to as a "speedball."

While the term "speedball" can be used to mean the simultaneous use of any opiate with a stimulant, its most common usage is in reference to heroin and cocaine (not speed). One of the real dangers of combining heroin and cocaine is that, when taken simultaneously, the cocaine wears off faster than the heroin, potentially leading to a delayed overdose (i.e., respiratory depression). Ironically, if Belushi and Phoenix injected methamphetamine, intead of cocaine, with their heroin, they might still be alive, since methamphetamine is much longer acting than cocaine.

weirdharold

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:33 pm

Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 237 Location: Mississippi

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I have talked to many who have survived an overdosed and they claim their actions were intentional. Would you not call that suicide? Our laws have disrupted the drug marketplace to a point there is no need to discuss drugs and their danger. I will say again "it is the laws," not the drugs we must address.

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Harold W. Ard

fotomatt

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 1:40 am

Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 35

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weirdharold wrote:

...many who have survived an overdosed [sic].... Would you not call that suicide?

Since they survived, I would have a very hard time calling it a suicide.

If by "intentional" you mean that they intended to kill themselves, then you could properly call it an attempted suicide or a failed suicide, but not properly a "suicide," which by definition requires that the person dies.

However, I'm guessing that those persons were saying that they intentionally ingested/injected a large quantity of substance X, not that they were intending to kill themselves with such an injection. Please clarify.

weirdharold

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:07 am

Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 237 Location: Mississippi

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I am not very good with the pen, you are correct. It should be attempted suicide. My data base is not on paper but it is vast and far reaching. What I am saying: Use the drugs that have been found in a deceased overdosed person to determine what drugs are dangerous to form a drug policy is just as insane as the person taking the drug. Please do not use the actions of diseased minds to form drug policy.

I would like to see laws taken off the books that destroy our constitution, punish the mental ill, and create a violent drug marketplace.

Weirdharold has a lot more to say here. Start at bottom for a better understanding

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Harold W. Ard

rita

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:38 pm

Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 162 Location: Arizona

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caseysdream wrote:

So here is the discussion I want to have. How to we educate people, especially young people with out resorting to fear. Or can we even have that conversation without pointing out the danger speed represents.

First off, you can't educate others unless you first educate yourself. "Speed kills" is a catchy phrase, but saying it don't make it so. Overdosing on meth may make your heart race and you may think you're dying, but in 25 years of being around meth and meth users, I have never known meth to kill anybody. So, just what is the "danger that speed represents"? Oh, your face may break out; staying up all night, of course, can lead to sleeping all day, which can definitely have a negative effect on personal relationships and job security. Constant use -- not sleeping for days at a time -- can most assuredly cause some mental confusion, hearing voices, paranoia. That's not the drug, it's actually the effect of not dreaming. Meth also causes dry mouth, which over time damages your teeth. Going "cold turkey" from this terrible drug involves sleeping for several days.

The drug warriors would have you believe that meth users are violently antisocial, but when meth users are arrested, they are placed directly into the jail's general population -- where they sleep for days.

The real danger of using meth is that it can eventually lead to violent home invasion by riot-geared, ski-masked "law enforcement" officers who will hold you and your family at gunpoint while they ransack your home.

weirdharold

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:01 am

Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 237 Location: Mississippi

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rita: You are speaking my language. How you gonna teach what you do not know?

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Harold W. Ard

Tired_of_the_lies

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:36 pm

Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 12

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I hear ya Rita! I just made a similar post in the meth forum in response to someone talking about the new designer "crystal meth". Its sad to find ONDCP lies and misinfo coming from people smart enough to realize that the drug war is a mistake!

rimchamp77

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:16 am

Joined: 17 Nov 2006 Posts: 60 Location: Philomath, OR

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Tired_of_the_lies wrote:

Just a couple of stupid questions:
1] When amphetamines were legal was Crystal Meth sold over the counter or behind the counter?
2] Same question for Crack and Cocaine.
3] Was heroin available exclusively in injected form before it was banned with criminal penalties? {btw, I've asked this question several times to people who tell listeners that it was sold side by side with aspirin - with aspirin causing many more problems than the heroin.]
4] Were drugs like PHP, angel dust, and other street variants sold over or behind the counter prior to prohibition?
Then why shouldn't we refer to all variants of formerly legal drugs that were not legally available prior to prohibition as "designer drugs"? Those drugs are versions of the legally available drugs designed for use that tends to make it more potent and addictive than what it was prior to ban. I know that marijuana was widely used in smoked form prior to ban - but how much marijuana was used with other systems that delivered the drug in a slower manner. We should note that in 1937 close to 60% of the adult population were smokers. If marijuana were continually legal it would only stand to reason that a significant portion of those who quit smoking cigarettes would have switched to a less toxic delivery system for marijuana.

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rita

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 3:28 am

Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 162 Location: Arizona

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I take exception to the term "designer drugs" because I see it as just so much meaningless drugwar rhetoric, used by warriors to exacerbate the climate of fear and justify their increasingly violent "designer war" against harmless people.

Common sense, it seems, would define any man-made or altered drug as "designed." (Chemotherapy, for example, or milk chocolate.) Only in twisted drugwar logic are drugs all bad, and "designer" drugs really really bad.

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Keep it real.

rimchamp77

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:46 am

Joined: 17 Nov 2006 Posts: 60 Location: Philomath, OR

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rita wrote:

This is nonsense! In drug war parlance there are "good" and "bad" drugs. Since there are no standards for these designations we must assume that they are "bad" because the government says so. However, that said, it must be noted that before these drugs were taken off the shelf, there were standards for manufacture. There were disclosure requirements. Once they get on the streets, those who make drugs can alter those standards - to ensure more potency and more addiction. It's the delta [or change in effect] that causes problems. When the body has to make larger adjustments to accommodate the user decision to use a drug it more quickly becomes addicted because of the delta. It still takes time but the result is more severe.
The DEA implies [they never directly lie - the lies are of omission; deliberately withholding the truth] that these "designs" are intended to go around the actual law - since the product is different from what was taken off the shelf. What they don't tell the public is that the loriginal - not designed] drug that was banned was never nearly as toxic as the one on the street and that they can thank prohibition for that result! It's like magic. For no reason - other than mischief - these new versions of drugs that were banned without explanation or testing popped into existence out of fat air. It's incredible listening to a police officer explaining this to kids at a Meth Awareness assembly.
They pretend that Meth never existed before the mid 90s and state baldly "Meth suddenly emerged as a serious problem". I call it Switch and Bait. You ban a drug and then await the emergence of the more potent variety on the street and boldly state: "See I told you this was too dangerous to be legal." It's a variation of the Pee Wee Herman statement "I meant to do that." The listener just blithely assumes that the Meth on the street is identical to what was banned - or that if it wasn't banned that the version on the street would be identical to the one behind the shelves at the pharmacy. And, of course, that legal Meth would be easily available to teens and pre teens. Only those vindictive souls who want to believe authority figures when they sock it to addict believe this crap. But nearly everyone doesn't want to be labeled as a 'friend of drug dealers and addicts' much like Jesus was labeled as a 'friend of tax collectors and prostitutes' in his heyday. So the lies go mostly unchallenged.

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weirdharold

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:50 am

Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 237 Location: Mississippi

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Rimchamp: it seems to me you and rita are on the same page except for your first sentence, "This is nonsense!". Please do not throw me off course like that. I have not been right since my Congressman sent me a strong e-mail saying, "It is ok to have murders in my backyard so long as we keep drugs out of our neighborhoods." (paraphrased). It seem to me our prohibition laws create at lot of both.

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Harold W. Ard

Malakkar

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:28 pm

Joined: 09 Nov 2007 Posts: 3

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"Common sense, it seems, would define any man-made or altered drug as "designed." (Chemotherapy, for example, or milk chocolate.) Only in twisted drugwar logic are drugs all bad, and "designer" drugs really really bad."

For the record, milk chocolate is a mixture, not a chemical bond forming a new molecule, thus fails to qualify as a designed substance per se.

-Malakkar (defending definitions)

P.S. IMO, trying to define non-living substances in human terms should solely be relegated to literary function (metaphor, etc.), because trying to use them as the foundation for a real policy is ludicrous (not that people aren't trying).

rita

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:22 pm

Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 162 Location: Arizona

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Chocolate is, indeed, a drug, and adding milk and sugar to it makes it more palatable, therefore, more popular, making it, in my opinion, a designer drug. I could be wrong, of course, since the label "designer drug" is a creation of hysterical drug warriors.

The reality is that there are no "bad" drugs, only bad drug warriors, who say whatever they want in their quest to turn their war into a witch hunt and ARE NEVER HELD ACCOUNTABLE. (Candy-flavored meth, for example.) Anybody trying to refute their lies or make sense of their crap is labeled a drug addict -- after all, who really knows the effects of illegal drugs but those who use them?

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