Drug Legalisation (4 Viewers)

[funkshen]

99% of those arrests are dumb cunts with a stick of weed in their cargo pants/nautica shorts getting off at redfern station between midday-5pm and not seeing the doggies in time

 

[Blastus]

You have no right to tell me what to do with my body and I can defend my rights with force if need be.

 

[boris]

i would suspect a lot of drug convictions stem from being caught doing something else and being in possession
which makes you a fucking moron

 

[Chemical Ali]

drug convictions are racist against blacks

 

[Jimmy Recard]

Marijuana/cannabis accounted for 71% of illicit drug arrests in 2004–05.
In 2005, one in 10 prisoners was imprisoned for drug-related offences.

fuck why
fuck this system

!!!

 

[Graney]

Please read this post it is very insightful i think. This post Is not a prox y to argue for the legalisation of a particular drug, But rather an honest thought experiment imagine if scientists invented a new drug tomorrow. After exhaustive testing, they found it had no consequences upon human health, and did not cause anti social behaviour in users. It had no application for physical ailments, But brought happiness to many users, spiritual, intellectual and psychological satisfaction. There is no possible framework for this drug to ever be appoved for legal sale. I don't think it's widely appreciated how fucked up that is. recreational drug debates commonly get bogged down in arguing the harmfulness of particular drugs. Which misses the point that the government doesnt care in the slightest about whether a drug is harmful, it has no basis in policy. The government has simply decreed, via analogue laws, that no new psychoactive drugs will ever be consumed, even when they only enhance human happiness. Drug debates are framed as though the government simply interprets evidence about harm differently from it's critics. The reality is that the current legal framework mandates that the government must regard all psychoactive drugs as harmful all the time, regardless of evidence. Even if you hate a particular drug and its users in society, this degree of irrational absolutism should appall.

 

[Graney]

that post would read a lot better if my phone allowed more than one paragraph. Someone with a computer Please punctuate

 

[RANK 1]

Please read this post it is very insightful i think. This post Is not a proxy to argue for the legalisation of a particular drug, but rather an honest thought experiment imagine if scientists invented a new drug tomorrow.

After exhaustive testing, they found it had no consequences upon human health, and did not cause anti social behaviour in users. It had no application for physical ailments, but brought happiness to many users for spiritual, intellectual and psychological satisfaction. There is no possible framework for this drug to ever be appoved for legal sale, I don't think it's widely appreciated how fucked up that is.

Recreational drug debates commonly get bogged down in arguing the harmfulness of particular drugs, which misses the point that the government doesnt care in the slightest about whether a drug is harmful, it has no basis in the policy. The government has simply decreed, via analogue laws, that no new psychoactive drugs will ever be consumed, even when they only enhance human happiness. Drug debates are framed as though the government simply interprets evidence about harm differently from it's critics.

The reality is that the current legal framework mandates that the government must regard all psychoactive drugs as harmful all the time, regardless of evidence. Even if you hate a particular drug and its users in society, this degree of irrational absolutism should appall.

tl;dr the government has a shit policy on new and potentially life enhancing drugs

there we go, that good enough?

 

[Graney]

i mean you can argue that a particular drug should not be legal. But who could disagree that it should be systematically possible for a benign drug to be made legal, and a legal framework to assess drug harm should exist to approve drugs like this. Thread solved, please lock this thread moderators.

 

[funkshen]

the government does allow the consumption of psychoactive drugs though, and new ones at that.

most of them require a prescription, though, yet precisely because they can be harmful (in terms of dependency, body and organ function, etc). do you disagree with that?

and are we actually finding any benign drugs? various nootropics are a good example I guess... and for the most part, completely legal.

 

[Graney]

the issue at hand being that recreational use is never an approved cause for prescription, and why not? What do you define as benign? I can't think of a single drug that doesn't induce toxicity at some level, including water and oxygen. Countless illegal drugs have less toxicity and abuse potential than popular otc medications.

 

[funkshen]

i'm not disagreeing with you. it'd be great if recreational use was a legitimate cause for prescription. i'm not sure why prescription of recreational drugs is that important, though. as i said, there are legal psychoactive drugs available sans prescription. i'd also argue that, in reality, prescription of drugs for recreational purposes does occur, e.g. erectile dysfunction drugs, birth control, and marijuana. recreational drugs are legally distributed by medical professionals simply under the guise of treating medical disorder. regardless, prescriptions are still simply not a license for unfettered consumption. they come with instructions for dosage and use, precisely for the reason that medical professionals have a vital role to play in the responsible use and prevention of abuse of medications. i don't think prescription really jives with recreational use. if anything, the recreational drugs you speak of should be available OTC at the discretion of pharmacists. indeed the trend is towards self-medication (or 'patient-role' in treatment). doctors are also not at all trained to prescribe psychoactive drugs for recreational reasons either. their 'prescription' should be the domain of a psychoactives expert, if anyone at all.

also, would such drugs ever ever fall under the PBS?

of course there are countless drugs with less toxicity and abuse potential. but the statistics on OTC drug abuse aren't really that overwhelming (e.g. 1-5% of cases of unintentional drug poisoning, 10-15% rate of abuse among drug court clients), particularly compared to prescription medicines. the culprit is generally ephedrine (phased out/more difficult to acquire), followed by DXM (still a big concern) and small number of antihistamines (chlorphenamine and dimenhydrinate in particular). so i don't really see why prescription is the real issue. drugs are going to be abused one way or another.

also marijuana isn't toxic

 

[Graney]

my phone is too slow for this. THC has an ld50 like everything else.

 

[funkshen]

no. THC is simply one of the major psychoactive compounds in marijuana. if you're taking isolated THC then sure you can overdose. even in the highest quality marijuana, use is never toxic. you would have to consume an astronomical portion of marijuana to do so, which is for all intents and purposes, impossible. it makes no sense to talk about the ld50 of marijuana. the same goes for mushrooms.

isolated THC or psilocybin is obviously a different story. these are patently different products.

that wasn't even my point though. doctors are not equipped to prescribe recreational drugs. if this were ever legal, that would be the domain of a partyologist or funologist

 

[Chemical Ali]

the only reason marijuana is illegal is because of lobbying by corporations who make products that could be replaced by hemp-based products, and private prison corporations who want more drug arrests

 

[funkshen]

you forgot it keeps the black man down

 

[Lolsmith]

you forgot it keeps the black man down

yeah I've been told that it was made illegal because it was a nigger thing so the whiteys would stay away from it

that may or may not have been family guy though

 

[Graney]

I think you are obfuscating the point i was making. I only mentioned prescription because you brought it up. Your point about new psychoactives having an existing framework enabling legality, while valid, is besides what i thought was the obvious subtext, that there is no framework for a certain kind of purpose to be legally approved. It seemed you were saying 'you are mistaken, the prescription system facilitates new drugs', to which i must object the prescription system has limitations of use within the implied context i was referring, i wasn't advocating prescription at all, but pointing out how it failed where you were apparently claiming it had a role. Posting on my phone so slow, i will respond in 6 to 8 weeks.

 

[Lolsmith]

yo so Gr8ney why don't you have a computer

are you

malcolm naden

 

[Chemical Ali]

Malcolm naden breaking into farmers houses

to use their internet for bos