Don't do drugs, mkay?

08.04.06, 23:07

This article in today's online Telegraph was so good I just had to swipe it
and trample all over their intellectual property rights in pursuit of the
greater good.

Enjoy:

Only someone on drugs could think 'Just say no' would work
By Sam Leith
(Filed: 08/04/2006)

There was a solid thump as the back of the hippie's head hit the wooden
floor. The hippie was lying on his back, confused. His mouth was open and his
eyes were staring glassily at nothing much in particular. A member of the
venue's staff with a walkie-talkie crouched by him.

"Dude," said the man with the walkie-talkie. "Can you hear me? Hello, dude.
Do you know where you are?" The hippie continued to stare at the ceiling,
conscious, but not communicating. "Can we get a medic over here?" the man
said into the walkie-talkie. He set about trying to raise the hippie's head,
and pour water from a bottle into his mouth.

This was Tuesday night, a rock venue in Cambridge, where we were seeing
Mogwai - a band that specialises in producing ear-bashingly loud yet melodic
walls of guitar noise. They are the sort of band, the downed hippie had
obviously decided, that might sound particularly nice on ecstasy. Cabbaged
before the main act had even come on stage, he had to sit out the remainder
of the gig on a low stool, sipping quietly from a bottle of water and staring
benignly into the middle distance.

If you think he had problems, what of Mr A? Mr A is a 37-year-old who, we
learnt this week, claims to have taken 40,000 ecstasy tablets over nine
years, including 25 pills a day for four of them. Bloody hell. If we take
this - admittedly questionable - data as read, that represents a twentyfold
improvement on the previous documented record of 2,000 pills in a lifetime.

Mr A is unlikely to get it together to contact the Guinness Book of Records,
however, because he is a gibbering wreck. His short-term memory is so bad, he
can't go to the supermarket because he forgets what's in his trolley. He
suffers hallucinations, depression, and muscle seizures so severe he
sometimes can't open his mouth.

Unfortunately, the conclusion many will have drawn from the tale of Mr A is
exactly the opposite of the one its shock-horror presentation hopes to lead
us to. They won't think, wow, this drug must be really bad for you: the man's
a gibbering wreck. Of course the man's a gibbering wreck: he was taking 25
doses a day of a drug with a powerful impact on the central nervous system.
They will think, instead, wow: gibbering wreck or not, he is still alive. It
suggests to the layman, in fact, that the toxicity of ecstasy is
astonishingly low.

I am not a pharmacologist. But I'd guess if you drank 25 large espressos a
day for four years, you would be a gibbering wreck. If you took 25
paracetamol tablets a day for four years, you would like as not be stone
dead. The effects of taking 25 Imodium a day for four years do not even bear
thinking about.

This is not to say that ecstasy is good for you. Just ask Mr A, if he can
concentrate for long enough to give you a straight answer. There are
indications that long-term use is associated with depression and memory
problems. In the short term, it causes mood swings. Its use is also
associated with very perilous behaviour, such as dancing maniacally until you
overheat and collapse, or drinking so much water you poison your system.
Nasty adulterants are present in most pills. It would be best if nobody took
ecstasy.

How to stop them, though? Not the way we're currently going about it. The
iron orthodoxy in public life is to treat all illegal drugs as if they were
morally and pharmacologically identical. This is counterproductive nonsense.
Talking about any illegal drugs calmly or even positively is regarded
as "irresponsible", and suggestions of drug use are a cheap way for the press
to seek a political scalp. Drugs are regarded as a blanket evil.

Perhaps this is a reasonable position to take for the public good. The
trouble is, it's a position that will serve the public good only if the
sizeable minority of people who use one or several of the wide spectrum of
different drugs available believed it for a second. And they don't.

Every time a raver reads that "ecstasy kills", they will look about them at
hundreds and thousands of their contemporaries, or even at Mr A, and they
will think: "No, it doesn't." Every time the example of Leah Betts is wheeled
out, they will consult their dim understanding of statistics and wonder what
it means that the totemic instance of a death from a drug taken by the
million, over nearly two decades, happened in 1995 - and was from water-
poisoning, not directly from the drug itself.

Thousands of people continue to take ecstasy because it can produce feelings
of great spiritual and somatic warmth and wellbeing. And they take it because
they calculate, rightly, that it is very unlikely to kill them. If we want to
stop them, we're going to have to do better than repeat, like South Park's Mr
Mackey: "Drugs are bad, 'mkay?"
    • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 08.04.06, 23:15
      I am kinda lost here. What IS his point then? That we should educate people or
      throw them into rehabs? I am not too sure what he is trying to say really...
      • usenetposts Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 08.04.06, 23:17
        I think he is trying to shock those who don't have an addiction yet from
        risking getting one.

        I give him ten out of ten for that.

        I think he is also illustrating that once the problem starts, there's no easy
        answer to it. I can sure think of an answer, but it's not an easy one either.
        • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 08.04.06, 23:33
          I see. I don't really think he said anything we don't know yet but, definitely
          a lot has being said about it, no doubt.

          "Thousands of people continue to take ecstasy because it can produce feelings
          of great spiritual and somatic warmth and wellbeing".

          He is right to a point. After the chemical dependence sets in for good, it's
          not about having fun any more because no matter how much of the drug you take,
          the heavenly bliss effects will eventually wear off. What you are stuck with is
          a pure chemical dependance from which there is only one way out...a
          detox/rehab. The problem is that most of the druggies don't have enough will
          power to do anything. Or are just plain scared. All they know is to live from
          one injection to another, one snort to another, one joint to another.

          That really is a huge problem. Certainly not an easy one.

          smile

          • dandywarhol Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 01:22
            As I read it, the author is basically decrying the current method of using
            shock-and-horror to scare people away from drugs. Unfortunately, he also makes
            the point that there really isn't a reasonable argument against them either. As
            he says, 25 pills of anything every day for four years is likely to do major
            damage to you. And the vast majority of people who use/have used X haven't
            suffered much if at all. OMG, it makes you dance, the horror! It's quite
            possible that eating British beef in the 1980's was far far more dangerous than
            any drug addiction for all we know. That "downed hippie" was no doubt just fine
            the next day, bar some symptoms indistinguishable from a hangover. And if he'd
            been piss drunk, there's good odds he would've been yelling at people and
            starting fights instead of sitting on a stool calmly sipping water. But guess
            what's legal and what's not.
            • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 04:25
              "And the vast majority of people who use/have used X haven't
              suffered much if at all. OMG, it makes you dance, the horror! "

              Are you serious? 25 pills of ecstasy aday for 4 years is not gonna harm you?!
              Where did you get that from? The 60's hippie got a little high from bit of
              weed and that was it. Even though E is not as trong as crack or heroin, it is
              still addictive as hell. It's a mind altering drug and, like any other, when
              abused, will lead to serious problems.

              www.drug-rehabs.org/faqs/FAQ-ecstasy.php
              The long term effects of that drug haven't been studied in depth yet because
              the drug is relatively new. We do have large numbers of E addicts in rehabs
              today and try telling them it's a piece of cake to get off this thing. Most of
              them are chronic relapsers and they bounce back and forth like a yoyo.

              • brookie Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 05:31
                I hate drugs, never did never will. But a good friend of mine used to heroin
                and now she can't live without methodone. She tried to withdraw quite a few
                times but every time she did, she was on the floor. So don't muck around guys.
                • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 06:41
                  No kiddn'.
                  Heroin is not only the most expensive but also the most difficult drug to come
                  off. We knew a guy whom we personally visited in a rehab when he was about to
                  be released. The guy ran his own automechanic shop and made decent money but
                  almost all of it went into his dope so he could sustain his daily fix. It had
                  taken him 3 trips to the rehab before he could kick the habit for good. He said
                  it was a total nightmare. The physical and psychological pain is said to be
                  extremely hard to cope with.
                  Not worth it.
                  • brookie Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 07:26
                    True, terrible shit. And methadone it's not a panadol. She takes 60 ml daily!
                    People can pass out on 5.
              • dandywarhol Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 08:02
                Um, the vast majority don't do 25 pills a day for 4 years. One or two pills on
                the weekend is hardly comparable. If that guy is the result of 90,000 pills of E
                then I think you can safely conclude that you shouldn't take 90,000 pills of E.

                People can become dependent on anything they like to do. Of course it's
                difficult to cease doing something pleasurable - and as long as you're able to
                function and contribute to society I really don't care what you do in your free
                time (that doesn't harm other people). Most people are in rehab because they
                either a) can't manage to moderate their use, and thus can't function in society
                anymore, or b) are forced into it by a fucked-up legal system that doesn't
                understand that drug users (other than alcohol and pharmaceutical users, of
                course) can be productive members of society. Just because something is
                addictive doesn't mean we should ban it - at that rate we should end up banning
                the Internet because of people who get addicted to it. Most people can handle
                their drugs just fine without it impacting the rest of their life. Reminds me of
                this fine satire: www.theonion.com/content/node/28331
                • brookie Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 08:31
                  With my post I ment strong addiction, not a couple of funny pills every
                  weekend.
                • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 10:10
                  >I really don't care what you do in your free time

                  neither do I.


                  > Most people are in rehab because they either a) can't manage to moderate
                  their use, and thus can't function in society


                  Of course, or they wouldn't be there...that's a no brainer.

                  A rehab is for drug addicts and rememeber, they ALL start somewhere...if it's
                  those two little E's on week-ends, so be it. It's only after your brain is
                  totally fried from all the dope that you can't function in the society. But
                  it's coming...sooner or later. A typical snow balling effect - whatever you are
                  on, it will always catch up to you.

                  One person might need a year before increasing the dose. Others will start a
                  lot sooner. No two people are alike.

                  Like with ANY other drug (prescription or street) you are bound to build up a
                  tolerance so sooner or later you will need double of what you are taking now to
                  get the same buzz. After a while it won't even work but you will keep
                  increasing the amount.
                  Nothing new at all.

                  Go around and ask people that are in rehabs about the beginnings of their
                  addiction. ALL OF THEM will tell you they thought they could always put breaks
                  on how much they took when they first started. Every single one of them!

                  If you think you are different, than you are already in denial. That's a
                  problem right there.


                  >Most people can handle their drugs just fine without it impacting the rest of
                  their life.

                  Oh, really? That's news to me. And what drugs are you talking about?

                  Drugs kill, destroy families, they bring pain and suffering to the usesrs and
                  their loved ones.

                  Nothing good has ever come out from using drugs. The only question is how soon
                  you will get hooked on.
                  Time will tell.



                  • dandywarhol Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 12:50
                    You can't make blanket statements like "If you think you are different, than you
                    are already in denial. That's a problem right there." or "The only question is
                    how soon you will get hooked on." The fact is, there are lots of people in the
                    world who regularly use recreational drugs and get on just fine.

                    More importantly, there are plenty of examples of other addictive, possibly
                    ruinous behaviors that are accepted and even celebrated by society (alcohol and
                    gambling for the big two). We've already seen what happens when a very popular
                    vice gets banned - all Prohibition did was move drinking into speakeasys and
                    allow organized crime to become too strong to kill.

                    If everyone you talk to is in rehab, then you're going to think everyone ends up
                    in rehab. But there isn't remotely enough rehab space for everyone who uses
                    drugs, so clearly most people don't end up there.

                    And nothing good has ever come out of using drugs? You must be kidding. Sgt.
                    Pepper and Revolver alone disprove that statement.

                    I'm not going to continue arguing. It comes down to whether you think people
                    should be responsible for taking care of themselves or whether you think people
                    can't handle their lives and need Big Brother to control things for them. A
                    perpetual nanny state is not what I want.
                    • usenetposts Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 18:31
                      What we have to attain to is a world in which people who trust themselves with
                      drugs and who choose to use them can go places that are segregated away for the
                      purpose. We live on quite a large planet, and it seems that we are trying to
                      make the planet so homogenous, that every country will be a carbon copy of each
                      other.

                      In fact what we need is different regimes with different styles for different
                      tastes, and the ability to go there and be part of the regime that takes your
                      fancy regardless of where you were born. The key would then be that each of
                      these places couldn't interfere with the other places.

                      I wouldn't care if there was a very large Islamic country as long as the people
                      who wanted a strict Islamic rule were there and contained within a guarded
                      perimeter, and didn't have access to the wherewithal to invade other countries
                      or expand out of their borders. Likewise people who want a no-holds barred
                      drugs culture, or who wished homosexual behaviour to be the norm, or who wish
                      to screw hookers in the open air on the village green, or masturbate in public,
                      or who have other asperations from society that mainstream society cannot
                      assent to without offending the majority - they should each have their space
                      set aside for it, where we don't have to come in contact with it.

                      I personally don't want my kids coming in contact with any drugs, including
                      tobacco and alcohol, and so I would rather be in a society where people didn't
                      do that and went elsewhere to do it if they had to.

                      Certainly imprisoning people for drugs at our tax payers' expense is stupid
                      when the addicts of the world could be given for their personal use, for
                      instance, Colombia.

                      In exchange I would be more than happy to take those Columbians who are
                      heartily sick of the whole drugs culture that has ruined their country, and
                      test their skills. Those of them that had skills we could use and could prove
                      themselves drugs-free could come to our countries and take the places of the
                      addicts who could go to their homes.
                    • kylie1 Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 09.04.06, 21:38
                      No one is arguing, dandywarhol. I thought you wanted to talk and I was more
                      than ready to discuss this with you.

                      > More importantly, there are plenty of examples of other addictive, possibly
                      > ruinous behaviors that are accepted and even celebrated by society (alcohol
                      and
                      > gambling for the big two).

                      If it's ruinous behavior, how acceptable can it be? What's glamourous about it?
                      Have you been to any GA meetings? Have you ever seen what it does to people in
                      REAL life? the tragedy it brings to husbands, wives and their kids?

                      All I can say, that most people who call themselves "week-end" users never
                      really know or think about the long term effects of the drug of their choice.
                      When you have a drink, it will come out of your system sooner or later. A few
                      social drinks never hurt anyone. When you mess around with your brain's
                      chemical structure, you're setting up yourself for a lot more surprises. This
                      in itself is not a responsible behavior as far as I am concerned. If people
                      crave more dopamine to feel better about themselves, then I would ask if they
                      can still be happy folk without it.

                      I don't think you need a nanny. You are an adult. You are your own nanny no
                      matter what anyone says.
            • ianek70 Give people facts 09.04.06, 19:46
              dandywarhol napisał:

              > As I read it, the author is basically decrying the current method of using
              > shock-and-horror to scare people away from drugs.

              When I was at school we had these health and safety lectures, usually given by
              doctors or other visiting experts.
              I don't know about shock and horror tactics not working - we had a slide show
              about avoiding horrific accidents and even today I'm excessively wary of
              escalators, "Now, children, this is the pattern you get torn into the skin of
              your arse if you sit down on an escalator."
              A doctor told us of the dangers of smoking - he told us very few doctors smoke,
              he used to but had stopped decades ago after a huge effort (however he liked a
              nice cigar on special occasions), although some surgeons, for example, have the
              occasional ciggie because it's such a stressful job. He told us exactly why
              smoking is harmful, and also why it can relax you, and he showed us a set of
              healthy pink lungs in a big jar, and a set of smoker's shrivelled brown lungs
              in a slightly smaller jar. And he was happy to answer questions.
              Another doctor came to talk about drinking, and he asked us to raise our hands
              if we drank alcohol. Nobody put their hand up, because we were only about 14 at
              the time. Then he said, "I'm not a policeman, or a teacher, or your mother. I'm
              a doctor, I like a drink myself, and I know what percentage of kids your age
              drink." So most of the hands went up. He showed us slides of healthy livers,
              slightly damaged livers and completely f**ked livers, statistics about knife
              attacks and photos of what happens if you drink and drive. He warned us that
              some pictures were going to be horrible, and we didn't have to look, but
              because he was totally honest everyone paid attention. Kids were asking
              intelligent questions, and he was completely open.
              For the talk on drugs they brought in a policeman. "Drugs are bad, and they're
              illegal. Any questions?" Why are they bad? Because they're illegal. Why are
              they illegal? Because they're bad.
              Nobody was interested, the whole thing was over in a couple of minutes because
              a cop was not a reliable source of information.
              The whole "drugs are drugs and they kill you" approach doesn't work, and never
              will.
              • kylie1 Re: Give people facts 09.04.06, 22:33
                A cop doesn't know why drugs are bad? I have a problem believeing it.
                We had Constable Dizzy (a lady) talk to my kids about drugs when theyw ere in
                High School. She sure never went wishy washy about it. She brought former drug
                addicts with her, rehab couselors and paramedics. No BS there.

                Still, a lot of kids experimented. Some made it fine. Others didn't.Some kids
                will take it seriously, others will smirk and say: " Yeah, yeah, talk to the
                hand...".

                After all, it's all in your head.
                • ianek70 Re: Give people facts 10.04.06, 16:07
                  kylie1 napisała:

                  > A cop doesn't know why drugs are bad? I have a problem believeing it.

                  I'm sure he knew, it just wasn't his job to explain things.
                  That's the "Just Say No" approach, as opposed to the more effective "This is
                  why you should say no" apporoach.
                  • bengateau Re: Give people facts 12.04.06, 13:02
                    I agree with Ian. People should respect teenagers intelligence, and give them
                    enough cold facts so they can realise on their own what they are getting into if
                    they do. For example, when people are tripping on LSD, what actually happens is
                    the acid is causing neurons in their brain to misfire. So instead of going from
                    A to B to C to D, they go from A to M to Z to B. To me, that info is a lot
                    scarier and more effective then someone who's straight-as saying "drugs are
                    bad... so don't take drugs... coz they are bad...". Also, alcohol kills
                    braincells, so it is not true that it's harmless. And people are more aggressive
                    when they are drunk then when they are stoned.
                    I think proper education and informed choices are the answer.
    • nasza_maggie Re: Don't do drugs, mkay? 10.04.06, 00:43
      Trainspotting put me off any drugs.
      And watching my mates look like total idiots after spending 20 quid on a pill.
      To be honest I don't think I know anyone who got into it and is now completely
      off it....
      But then again, I'm from Londonsmile
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