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F-ES Sitecore30-Mar-17 23:19

30-Mar-17 23:19

It's not just taking drugs "on the job" that is the issue. It's funny, but all my life you could always tell a regular cannabis user. It's something in the way they talk, the deadness in their eyes, their general intellect. Too much prolonged use permanently affects the brain, purely anecdotal but there was no scientific evidence to back it up, and from the back of that is what most of the non-objection from legalising these drugs comes from. It's only now that long-term studies *are* being concluded and the link between prolonged drug use and mental functioning, mental health and so on is coming through...something anyone with two eyes in their head has known for decades (just because evidence is anecdotal doesn't mean it isn't valid). What's probably going to happen though is what happened with cigarettes etc, the government will legalise it before the long-term effects are known and by then it'll be too late.

Jon McKee31-Mar-17 0:05

Jon McKee

31-Mar-17 0:05

I believe this is too generalized. I've known stoners that act as you describe. I've also known ones that went on to lucrative careers. The determining factor seems to be whether they have control of their enjoyment or not - much like alcohol and literally any other drug on the market (anyone have to deal with the spaz-tastic caffeine addict?).

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 0:09

31-Mar-17 0:09

I've known smokers that haven't got lung cancer, drinkers that haven't lost jobs due to alcohol abuse. I'd never dream of using those cherry-picked examples to downplay or minimilise the danger of those drugs though.

Jon McKee31-Mar-17 15:33

Jon McKee

31-Mar-17 15:33

I'm not downplaying any dangers. I'm also not being alarmist. People will use regardless. The only difference is whether you take self-destructive, generally non-violent people and toss them into jail to learn externally destructive behavior. All funded by the taxpayer.

Consider that being self-destructive with alcohol has no legal consequences. As soon as this becomes externally destructive the law steps in with punishment. This makes sense, does not violate free will, and responsibly uses taxpayer money. It would be ludicrous if police broke into your home, arrested you, and put you in jail for sipping a Scotch at the end of the day. What justifies this scenario for marijuana but not alcohol?

PeejayAdams31-Mar-17 0:09

31-Mar-17 0:09

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
It's funny, but all my life you could always tell a regular cannabis user.

True. But you can also easily spot regular users of tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, valium or any other substance regardless of its legal status.

Relative levels of damage are hard to quantify. I seriously worry about what Red Bull and its like are doing to the younger generation - diabetes from the sugar; kidney (and possibly brain) damage from the absurd levels of caffeine; cancer-of-the-everything from the taurine; the risk of being clobbered to death by a passing stranger on account of the bloody awful smell of it, etc., etc.. Would I advocate making it illegal? No. Would I advocate making it very clear to the public how dangerous it is? Most definitely!

Slogans aren't solutions.

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 0:15

31-Mar-17 0:15

PeejayAdams wrote:
But you can also easily spot regular users of tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, valium or any other substance regardless of its legal status.

Can you? *shrug*

PeejayAdams wrote:
Would I advocate making it illegal? No. Would I advocate making it very clear to the public how dangerous it is? Most definitely!

Alas we still don't really know the exact dangers to the public which is the issue. The thing about many legal drugs is that they are fine in moderation (obviously smoking isn't included here, if it was up to me that would be banned too), but if drugs like cannabis are not fine in moderation then they probably shouldn't be legal. And so far the evidence seems to be showing that to be the case. People should also remember that these drugs have got a lot more powerful in recent years than the odd joint you used to have in your parent's garage in 1970.

PeejayAdams31-Mar-17 0:37

31-Mar-17 0:37

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
Can you? shrug

Yes, very easily!

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
obviously smoking isn't included here, if it was up to me that would be banned too

Would that make it go away? I suspect it would have the opposite effect simply because it's worked that way with everything else that's ever been banned.

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
if drugs like cannabis are not fine in moderation then they probably shouldn't be legal

If we substitute "alcohol" for "cannabis" in that sentence, does the same apply?

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
People should also remember that these drugs have got a lot more powerful in recent years than the odd joint you used to have in your parent's garage in 1970.

That's certainly true when it comes to cannabis. The reason for that being that where there used to be a ready supply of relatively mild Middle Eastern resin, the market is now dominated by domestically farmed "skunk" due to stronger customs controls on things coming abroad - yet another unfortunate, unintended and utterly counter-productive consequence of the failed War on Drugs.

Slogans aren't solutions.

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 1:03

31-Mar-17 1:03

PeejayAdams wrote:
Yes, very easily!

We'll need to agree to disagree on that then. If that forms any part of your argument I have to say it's a very weak argument.

PeejayAdams wrote:
Would that make it go away?

No. However even a ban on smoking in public has reduced the number of people who smoke. Banning it entirely would probably reduce that even more. Not to zero, obviously, rape and murder are banned also but they still happen.

PeejayAdams wrote:
If we substitute "alcohol" for "cannabis" in that sentence, does the same apply?

Of course, but alcohol is fine in moderation, something backed up by many studies so at least we are fairly certain where we are with drugs like that.

PeejayAdams31-Mar-17 1:51

31-Mar-17 1:51

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
Banning it entirely would probably reduce that even more.

That would be why so very few people take cocaine these days, then.

My entire argument (which has nothing whatsoever to do with how easy it is spot a caffeine freak, by the way) is that banning anything invariably seems to lead to an increase in its consumption. Banning has been repeatedly tried and failed with various substances, so why do we insist on trying the same thing again and again in the hope of getting different results? We all know the definition of insanity, I hope.

Prohibition benefits organised crime, it does not benefit society as a whole.

Slogans aren't solutions.

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 2:36

31-Mar-17 2:36

PeejayAdams wrote:
That would be why so very few people take cocaine these days, then.

That has no relevance to anything I said. When you typed your initial reply you probably thought "I can't wait until he says that banning it would stop it and then I can drop this zinger!". Did you actually read my reply before saying that nonsense?

PeejayAdams wrote:
banning anything invariably seems to lead to an increase in its consumption

Banning smoking in public lead to a decrease. One that has had knock-on health benefits to such as a decreased in smoking-related diseases. So you're wrong. 100% wrong.

PeejayAdams wrote:
Prohibition benefits organised crime, it does not benefit society as a whole.

Prohibition does indeed benefit organised crime but you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. As for it not benefiting society....wow.

Nemanja Trifunovic31-Mar-17 2:44

Nemanja Trifunovic

31-Mar-17 2:44

PeejayAdams wrote:
tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, valium

The fact that some poisons are easy to get does not mean we need to make others easily available too. I'd actually focus on reducing the use of the "legal" ones. There is absolutely no good coming from any of them.

utf8-cpp

PeejayAdams31-Mar-17 3:06

31-Mar-17 3:06

Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
The fact that some poisons are easy to get does not mean we need to make others easily available too. I'd actually focus on reducing the use of the "legal" ones. There is absolutely no good coming from any of them.

I'm 100% in favour of reducing the use of all toxins.

The point, I'm making, is that the illegal nature of some and the legal nature of others highlights the absurdity and the ineffectiveness of prohibition. Education is the answer, pouring billions down the plug-hole on an ineffective solution is not.

Slogans aren't solutions.

W∴ Balboos, GHB31-Mar-17 1:01

31-Mar-17 1:01

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
(just because evidence is anecdotal doesn't mean it isn't valid).

Nor does it validate it.

We live in a time where the concept of fake news is 'outed' - that, it turns out, is how marijuana became illegal in the first place - fake news, movies, and the lot.

Back to your anecdotes - by the same token:
1 - nor does it make it true.
2 - you interpret what you see through thoughts already predefined - cherry picking.

Why "Cherry Picking" ? Because, you have no idea how many of the people around you enjoyed their weed. No idea what percentage are in that category you ply as evidence. You know what you want the evidence to prove and decide it proves it - certainly based upon how you described it.

Humans are exception driven: you notice things that stick out, ignore the normal. It's actually the route of most bigotry (racial/ethnic of all sorts) as you see an evil-doer and can identify their 'group'. If they look "ordinary" - you don't assign them to a group. And people in 'groups' who don't do anything to attract your attention - well, they don't attract your attention.

I know user/dealers who went on to graduate degrees at top-level universities - in science and math. They were particularly innovative. Guess what - like your anecdote above, it proves NOTHING!

Without any information beyond your anecdotes, your information is tragically flawed.

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 1:07

31-Mar-17 1:07

So to sum up you think anecdotal evidence is meaningless, ergo your own prejudices are correct and everyone else's are wrong. It doesn't sound like a very solid argument, sounds a little bit contradictory and illogical to be honest.

W∴ Balboos, GHB31-Mar-17 1:20

31-Mar-17 1:20

Actually - if you read a bit more open-mindedly, you'd so I deliberate give an anecdote and point out it means "NOTHING" using the upper case to shout.

I was, rather, trying to show you that you've found people matching your pre-conceived notions on the effects of drugs. I expanded upon this by giving, very briefly, a description of how humans take note of things that stick-out. Give them excessive weight in their decision making. Take it a step further, if it matches something they want to believe - it's proof . . . never mind 10,000 counter examples!

That's how we evolved - it's a sensible strategy for survival in the wild, taking note primarily of exceptions - but it, as numerous other instincts - begin to fail in our current environment.

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 1:46

31-Mar-17 1:46

All I'm saying is that my anecdotal evidence is now being backed by proper scientific evidence so my anecdotal evidence was (in this instance) seemingly correct.

W∴ Balboos, GHB31-Mar-17 2:16

31-Mar-17 2:16

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
my anecdotal evidence is now being backed by proper scientific evidence

Proper? How So?

My real life was all scientific training, but fortunately, a step back from the type of things that make the news - no politics or agenda for determining if a reaction is first or second order. In other words, real science where you seek THE answer - whatever it may be. The crap you see on TV, hear on the radio, or read essentially any place you (and the public) are likely to look is (except in the rarest of instances) all couched in trying to prove AN answer.

Anecdote Time:
A prolonged radio report on how people who drink six or more cups of coffee/day have twice as many heart attacks as the general population. They also noted that tea drinkers, even heavy ones, had fewer heart attacks than the average population. So, they went and publicized their accusation against coffee and left it at that. Problem: the idiots (proper scientific research it was claimed) did not take into account that, in the USA, where the study was done, there was a well know combination: "Coffee and a cigarette" - vs. tea drinkers, who rarely if ever smoked. You do know that most smokers die from the heart disease it causes long before cancer.

They didn't look for other correlations; just declared it cause and effect - because that's what they were looking to do: associate coffee with heart attacks.

Now, they note that coffee drinking helps prevent prostate cancer! Or was that last week?

So, your "proper scientific evidence" - I doubt it. Too much politics involved to get an honest answer. They'll find the group they want to poll to get the answer they're paid to get.

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

F-ES Sitecore31-Mar-17 2:25

31-Mar-17 2:25

W∴ Balboos wrote:
Proper? How So?

Proper as in done by proper scientists to a proper scientific method.

W∴ Balboos, GHB31-Mar-17 3:13