New Legal Drugs Ready Already

[pongo]

@Albert: The thing you are maybe missing is that just as lots of people have a drink or two gradually without getting completely smashed, so equally people take other sorts of other drugs gradually or slightly without getting completely smashed. When you have a drink you get a little bit high. When you smoke a fag or drink a decent cup of coffee it alters your mood or spirit slightly.

 

It's the same. It can be a bit and sometimes or it can be excessive. The society is completely hypocritical about these issues as with so many others.

 

In my Boys Own Book Of Wonder there was an article about Gerald Durrell when he was a young man in Africa. His monkeys all smoked.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

People spout wonderfully poetic reasons why they smoke, drink, do drugs, get piercings and tattoos etc, but it usually boils down to four words - "Monkey see, monkey do". They see/know particular people doing it and want to identify with them, share an experience or aspire to be like them, perhaps they're pressured into it by their peers. Tribal behaviour. Thereon it becomes a habit.

That's certainly true to a degree but I don't think that is such a bad thing. If someone says how brilliant an experience on something is then it does make you wonder what it is like too.

However, I actually think that with alcohol and cigarettes there is also the 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' attitude as with illegal drugs, but there the reason is to emulate adults or be like an adult. That's what seems appealing to me from memory.

Though as Pongo says, the thing about trying drugs is really no different to trying anything new from information you have heard elsewhere.

 

I said 'such stuff' above, meaning the mind bending 'get me outta here' type stuff they use. I do not expect an 'out of mind' or 'out of body' experience when I light a fag, or when I eat a bacon butty between two slabs of buttered covered bread either - even when I know both are not good for me. Those kind of substances - mind bending - are very different, it's seems all mostly about escapism and wanting to feel 'really different than normal' at the drop of a hat to me. So the mind bending stuff they consider OK, I deem to be 'crap', as I don't want to lose that control of my thoughts.

 

I like a drink, but I like that cos it's tasty, and I can relax and socialise with my partner/mates and have a larf. I lose a certain amount of control, such as the ability to drive a vehicle etc. but that is within my control by restricting how much and how slow/fast I drink. But, yes I agree that past a couple, alcohol is often a form of escapism/relaxation too - though personally, I don't feel I have to get out of my tree to enjoy a night out, just have enough to feel 'relaxed' and enjoy the experience. Fags relax me too, and I enjoy the experience.

I think you are talking from a ignorance of what these illegal drugs do. I mean, you have got drunk before, so I'd assume you must be able to understand the reason behind taking particular drugs, of which many are less mind bending than alcohol.

 

As for escapism, your social drinking is escapist unless it is the case that the alcoholic drinks you have a far superior to any other beverage you have had. You could argue that your social arrangements encourage you to be in a pub where you have limited choice. But having a few drinks to feel relaxed is just escapist. You're escaping from what you should feel like. Same with someone having a spliff.

 

But you have to look at each drug in turn. Ecstacy is no more escapist than alcohol, except that when you reached the club you can take a pill and have your perceptions become gradually changed to one that is more empathetic feeling. If you take speed, it just sort of speeds you up. Cocaine just imparts a sense of confidence for a short while. None of these are significantly mind-altering. If you're talking about 'out of body' then ketamine would be close, too much of that and your senses shut off - it's an anaesthetic.

 

People all escape, some use drugs to do it, and some use different drugs and at different degrees or times depending on who they are and what their life is like. But alcohol and tobacco is no different, your use of alcohol is just a lot less escapist than a lot of other peoples.

 

Your smoking is however somewhat different than the use of ecstact and some other illegal drugs in that you are an addict. Your escapism takes the form of sorting out your cravings or satisfaction attained from having nicotine back in your body. Sorry, I don't give the 'enjoyment' statement much credit when your motivation to smoke is determined by your desire to have nicotine.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

But I do think legislators, when you consider the views of the drugs misuse advisory committee, are not well educated on all the issues either. Overall, I think it would be better to licence and tax some of these mind-bending substances and control them, and with that better control the tendencies of some to seek out the more noxious and dangerous substances. Like you say, people do a variety of things for a variety of reasons and that is unlikely to change. But personally, I don't see why the state should go past education into criminalisation when it comes to some of the less noxious stuff such as these 'legal highs' - as that will encourage nothing but additional chemical experimentation, until eventually something comes out that does kill lots of people, say, two years after them taking it.

 

However, all that said, I can understand government thinking on the impact of a society where mind bending drugs abound. Where no one would do any work, and it would be a fairly dangerous world to live in. Fags and booze haven't seen off society in 400 years, so are unlikely to I imagine.

 

Personally I think the government has much to do with the drugs problem we have, as well as the booze problem we have. They represent society. It's all down to stress, pressure, finance and greed IMO, and we all have to work at least 60% of the time simply to keep an overpriced roof above our heads. The demise of the churches and religion has much to do with it too, and those morals have not been replaced. All most of us do is work and pay taxes, and spend far more time doing it every year (and have now bailed out the banks for what benefit other than more work to us really?). Plus we generally don't give a shit about other people anymore (and vice versa of course), often not knowing who lives in the same street anymore.

 

Little wonder people are looking for escapes.

 

The more you dig into the why's and wherefore's of it all, and by that I mean all habits and addictions, the more you find it's all about nothing more than the failure of society - especially it's lack of cohesion and goals, selfishism, greed, unfairness, lack of morals etc. Who the hell wants to give up all these addictions, habits etc. and live till 90 in such a place - and then have all your belongings sold just to keep you in nappies and drool napkins?

I do think you talk a lot of sense here in terms of why drug use is so prevalent in society. Although I wouldn't frame it in terms of the use of modern drugs, such as mephedrone and others being used because they are mind bending and a different sort of society with new pressures and lack of moral restraints.

Morals restraints have never been good dampening the level of drinking in society and drinking is no different from the drugs you are referring to.

 

But what are these mind bending drugs you are referring to?

[Albert Tatlock]

@Albert: The thing you are maybe missing is that just as lots of people have a drink or two gradually without getting completely smashed, so equally people take other sorts of other drugs gradually or slightly without getting completely smashed. When you have a drink you get a little bit high. When you smoke a fag or drink a decent cup of coffee it alters your mood or spirit slightly.

 

It's the same. It can be a bit and sometimes or it can be excessive. The society is completely hypocritical about these issues as with so many others.

 

In my Boys Own Book Of Wonder there was an article about Gerald Durrell when he was a young man in Africa. His monkeys all smoked.

I agree...lots about these issues is often hypocritical e.g. when you consider fags and booze. And of course, finding a balance that is acceptable by society isn't going to be anywhere as easy as pretending you can simply legislate against it all and it will all just 'go away'.

 

Though as I said fags and booze have been a major part of society, and important and even cohesive to society (e.g. pubs) for hundreds of years. Mind bending shit is a different matter though IMO - alien, unwarranted, unpredictable, uncontrolled, unwanted and misunderstood to most in society. Most people don't understand what various drugs do to people, they have in mind just stereotypes I imagine. I also imagine there were cave leaders that were against booze when Ug! first discovered it, just as people thought Francis Drake was an idiot sucking on a roll up he'd brought back. The difference between fags and booze and other drugs is simply widespread use i.e. the bulk of the population have direct experience of them and have used them, and as bad/good as they can be, understand them.

 

I think however, there is a compromise to be had on the milder drugs. Most of the problems and 'get arounds' that have come with drugs have actually been created by their being made illegal in the first place e.g. various new forms of cannabis (might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and all that). I think relexation in the law is inevitable eventually, though it may well take a generation for it to happen, when people actually sit up and realise the consequences and problems that illegality has created, which are actually on a par with the consequences and problems created by alcohol prohibition in the US.

 

People just don't see it at the moment - and legislators are simply running scared.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I think this debate is missing out on some important facts.

 

The modern understanding or rather misunderstanding of other drugs has been shaped by the media and the government. Alcohol and tobacco are already heavily controlled substances. Having drugs heavily controlled and with severe punishments for use is the only manner in which the government can effect control over the population when it comes to drug use. Governments do not want people to take drugs, they aren't interested in their effects. What is known is that drugs COULD have an affect on people when taken regularly which can lead them to become unproductive in society. And no government is going to condone a situation where people are more likely to be less productive workers.

 

When you have an institution that runs to service the business system, why would it be keen to look at the facts on drugs? I think people have wishful thinking when they ask why the governments has missed an opportunity.

 

Albert Tatlock

Mind bending shit is a different matter though IMO - alien, unwarranted, unpredictable, uncontrolled, unwanted and misunderstood to most in society.

Illegal drugs are misunderstood. But not alien to those who use them, nor any of the others things. Just as warranted as alcohol.

[jeffontherock]

Read that if you dare.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html#ixzz0j2b7FJNs

 

Decriminalisation of drug use may not be such a bad thing after all.

Im getting a page not found error when I click this link......

Jeff

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I do want to know one thing, there has been a lot of media hype about mephedrone and it can be discarded given how inconclusive the information has been on deaths associated with it.

 

But this is a relatively new drug. Hasn't caused any social problems to anywhere near the degree of damage that alcohol and tobacco has done. It is largely unknown to most in the public about what it does - most public are satisfied in their ignorance by being told it is probably 'just bad'. Yet out of all the shitty media hype we now have a ban.

 

For something that is so little understood and where we don't know the social dynamics of drug use, are we quite content with letting police take kids and adults off the streets or out of their homes and punishment them severely for having mephedrone?

[Twonky]

For something that is so little understood and where we don't know the social dynamics of drug use, are we quite content with letting police take kids and adults off the streets or out of their homes and punishment them severely for having mephedrone?

 

Frankly I think the whole thing has been a fucking abomination and a total failure of democracy.

 

Notwithstanding my personal opinion that the government/police/courts have no right or business whatsoever to interfere in one's freedom to do as they will with their own bodies and minds as long as they harm no one else in the process, this whole thing has just been railroaded through by a rabid press and worthless politicians who would far rather be 'seen to do the right thing' than actually do the right thing, or, y'know, actually pay any attention to their own scientific advisers.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/charlie-brooker-newspapers-dangerous-drug

 

As I've already said, it's tragic because we really could do it differently here, a small self-governing nation that has the power to stick two fingers up at the rest of the world and have the courage to say, 'You lot are doing it wrong, this is a sensible drugs policy.....'

 

But no, the same empty platitudes, the same 'tough stance' that actively harms both drug users and the society around it, the same pointless soundbites trotted out on the radio that make no sense whatsoever.

 

And then our politicians tell us how different and unique the Isle of Man and its legislative system is..... Well yes, I suppose insofar as we made the same big fucking mistake on mephedrone that the UK is going to do, it's just that we fucked it up uniquely quickly.

 

I see on the front of the Courier this week that a coke dealer got seven years inside, no suggestion that he was supplying the drug to children or 'pushing' it on folks who didn't want it, no suggestion that anyone got harmed or committed any crimes beyond putting the drug into their body in the first place - just selling a substance to his mates for financial gain, seven years inside.

 

It'll cost us a fortune, it's made a criminal out of someone who clearly didn't actually harm anyone or steal anything, it'll fuck up his prospects for the rest of his life, and quite possibly leave him on welfare and benefits for the rest of his life too, and where was the crime? Who was the injured party?

 

Or you could viciously beat a man (breaking his leg in the process) and get three years: http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=43595

 

(Amusingly, a beating that was drugs related, anyone starting to join the dots yet?)

 

Or you could shag a fourteen year old girl whilst heavily under the influence of good old alcohol and get fifteen months: http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=8528

 

(I wonder if Tesco are going to be tried for supplying the drug in that case......)

 

Or how about being a sexual bully towards females, including eight year olds with learning difficulties? That'll be four years then: http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=43843

 

Because, obviously, selling a chemical compound to another adult who wishes to ingest said compound of his own free will, presents more of a menace to society than a full grown man being a sexual bully towards eight year old girls.

[triskelion]

However, people do take this stuff for various reasons. I think there are two options for the island:

 

1. To be unique, and licence certain stuff, tax it - and only ban it if it is proven to be a danger. What is licenced here could be based on what the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs say. The advantage of this approach in my eyes (still calling them 'legal-highs' because that is what sells them to would-be takers wishing to stay within the law) would be to push people away from Cannabis and other illegal drugs.

 

2. Be unique in terms of tackling drugs. Do more as to the 'why' people take these things? What is in/not in their lives that makes them feel they need to do so? Again, working with the likes of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and some kind of action plan that takes into account their advice in terms of the why's and wherefore's of it all - and try to enact some of their suggested solutions to the problem. A unique social experiment maybe, but one where with a little thought and commonsense, and facing up to reality, may well at least start to tackle the problem.

 

Criminalising every substance is doing nothing but leading to quick wins for the police, criminalising youngsters and wrecking their life chances of employment simply by experimenting, filling up the prison and costing Joe Public a fortune - and not tackling any of the associated issues. In this recent case, a couple of legislators on the island have, no doubt buoyed by the thought of a looming election, just followed the press here, followed the media outcry in the UK and followed what the UK government have been talking about doing. No one has listened to the experts, or attempted to enact their advice - the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Education is not just about those that take drugs/substances, that education needs to extend to legislators and the public if the problem is to be tackled properly anytime soon.

 

Chemistry has evolved a thousand-fold in just the last 50 years alone - and one substance will simply be replaced by another and then another ad-infinitum. Meanwhile the whole issue remains largely unaddressed.

The problem of the "Wait and see" approach to the dangers of certain substances is that by the time any danger is realised, you already have a whole legacy of problems to deal with. And even then there is no guarantee that people will stop abusing the substance even if the dangers are confirmed. For example cannabis, after years of people claiming it should be legalised, has been shown to cause serious mental health problems in users. But it takes years to accumulate this kind of evidence, and now that it is in place, how many people have listened to the experts?

 

The whole idea that prohibition 'doesn't work' because people will still do it isn't a particularly strong argument, because it essentially applies to all things that have been banned, ever. From the perhaps more extreme end of child ponography and slavery, to things like driving at more than 20 miles an hour on an estate.

 

Although media-fuelled hysteria has no doubt been a factor, the Government's reaction to mephedrone is consistent with its existing policy to recreational chemicals, so its hardly exceptional enough to be considered knee-jerk.

[Twonky]

The whole idea that prohibition 'doesn't work' because people will still do it isn't a particularly strong argument, because it essentially applies to all things that have been banned, ever. From the perhaps more extreme end of child ponography and slavery, to things like driving at more than 20 miles an hour on an estate.

 

Although media-fuelled hysteria has no doubt been a factor, the Government's reaction to mephedrone is consistent with its existing policy to recreational chemicals, so its hardly exceptional enough to be considered knee-jerk.

 

You're confusing banned things that actively harm others (slavery and child porn (or at the least the creation of child porn)), and things that may very well harm others based on evidence (speeding on a housing estate), with things that don't harm anyone at all apart from the user (choosing to partake in the use of drugs). ('Heroin users burgle houses' doesn't work by the way, because burglary is already a crime by itself.)

 

The government's stance on mephedrone isn't consistent because it still endorses the legality, usage, and taxation of both alcohol and tobacco - two recreational drugs with substantial track records of harm in every category going, which substantially exceed Class As such as ecstasy and unclassified (for now) drugs such as mephedrone.

 

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2007/03/lancet-and-drug-harms-missing-bigger.html

 

The science on this one can't be disputed, maybe we should just leave it up to God? He can't get it any more wrong than our politicians are......

[Twonky]

Yay for prohibition! It really doesn't fucking work.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rth6h/Newsnight_01_04_2010/

 

(Start from 34 minutes in.)

[- Paul -]

More hysteria on MR website this morning

'Crazy chemists' must be beaten - MHK

Published online at 07/04/2010 06:00:00

 

Use of mephedrone is becoming more widespread in the Isle of Man, according to an MHK who pressed for it to be banned.

 

On April 1, it became illegal to import, possess, or supply the so called 'legal high' drug, or possess it with intent to supply.

 

At the same time, the United Kingdom's home secretary is vowing to ban the substance, after it was linked to 25 deaths in England and Scotland, although anti-drugs campaigners are warning that replacement 'legal highs' will quickly come along.

 

North Douglas MHK John Houghton says further legislation is required, and 'crazy chemists' mustn't be allowed to run rings around politicians:

[thebees]

Let's look at these crazy chemists to whom the learned imbecile refers, shall we? Chemists, they are quite clever, they have GCSE's, A levels, a degree and possibly a doctors certificate, now compare this to our learned imbeciles......I'm not saying being educated to doctorate level is going to make these crazy chemists more knowledgeable than our governors but I know whose opinion I would trust. John Houghton is one of those people who sees a band wagon and just cannot help himself, straight on it, ignore the fact that he knows absolutely nothing about the subject, he could seem, at times, to be slightly bigoted and a tad ignorant but don't let that stop people voting for him.

[Twonky]

Next wave incoming.

 

Butylone and MDPV aren't new but I think they'll be pushed pretty hard from now on, as will Methylone. (In all honesty Methylone isn't half as nasty as Mephedrone, so that's no bad thing, but I have a horrible feeling ex-Meph users won't be satisfied with it and will end up looking elsewhere.)

 

Flephedrone (!?!?!?) is a new one on me I have to say, and we really are talking about brand new compounds here, the effects on the human body in the short term, let alone the medium to long term aren't even remotely understood.

 

(I've had a quick Google around and there's not much good info on Flephedrone.)

 

The 'crazy chemists' - (not so crazy they can't synthesise anything under the sun though......) - are basically going through Shulgin's work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin) and chucking in some new stuff of their own for good measure, tweaking molecular structures where necessary to avoid the wrath of the law and/or achieve the desired effect.

 

My interest in all of this is purely academic, in that I'm interested to see how completely and profoundly the Isle of Man manages to fuck up its drugs policy in the months and years to come (on top of the decades of fuck-ups that proceeded the current 'internet wave,' that is).

 

We'll probably end up with something similar to the USA's 'analogue law' - whereby any compound or substance that mimics the effect of something that's already illegal, is automatically illegal itself.

 

However, given that the the USA has the highest percentage prison population in the world, and again so for drugs related crime - don't bet the house on that fixing anything either.

 

It's almost as if, shock horror, there might be a better way of approaching this problem.......

[manxy]

Lose the psychotic and mental problems issue and I won't disagree with people taking whatever.

If I have to pay for someone who has taken drugs and affected other people through his/her interactions, then sod them. They knew what was happening or maybe neglected to listen to advice or just completely took the chance and I don't see why I have to pay for their care.

Their choice in taking what they want, but don't come crying to me if it goes wrong