Only users lose drugs

TJ can you provide me with the source for that – Very interested to know what data sets that are used in that ta.

TJ can you provide me with the source for that – Very interested to know what data sets that are used in that ta.

It's David Nutt's research, him of opening his mouth and getting the boot fame.

tron – Member

This is collated from the best evidence we have for the relative harm from drugs

What's the scale?

I think it is an arbitrary relative index

The full report including methodology is available on line

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00638/Professor_Nutt_pape_638397a.pdf

No one take "E" and goes out fighting on a Saturday night, nor do they go robbing folk to pay for their next "E"

I agree with most of what you say TJ, but that isn't true, it's just a stereotype. I'll agree that other drugs are more consistent with those behviours, but there were and are plenty of tossers on pills out there.

I'd also link the explosion in skunk use to how easy it is to grow. Personally, I view that as a negative result of the war on drugs. IME, most people don't want to smoke skunk but they don't have a lot of choice.

Its a sterotype for sure but a fairly accurate one – bad "E" with amphetamine in it makes folk a bit stroppy but MDMA is not a drug that make folk stroppy.

I'd also link the explosion in skunk use to how easy it is to grow. Personally, I view that as a negative result of the war on drugs. IME, most people don't want to smoke skunk but they don't have a lot of choice

exactly, and soap bar is only fit for the bin.

K

I'd also link the explosion in skunk use to how easy it is to grow. Personally, I view that as a negative result of the war on drugs. IME, most people don't want to smoke skunk but they don't have a lot of choice.

The rate of marijuana farming certainly correlates with loan sharks operating in an area, purely because it's seen as an easy way of getting money to pay them back.

I think this chart tells us all we need to know.

Agreed TJ, but some people just ARE stroppy regardless of what they take. Nowt wrong with a bit of squalid now and again 😉

What drugs for trail centres?

LOL@ samuri – bored are we?

Retro, I think it is what they would refer to as psycotic episodes. Basically people just wigging out, according to her 9 out of 10 people threatening self harm going missing also say that they have smoked a lot of skunk. Not scientific at all so feel free to flame 😉

Pigface / retro.

There is some link between cannabis use( Its existed pre skunk as well) and psychotic episodes. However medical opinion is very divided as to what this link is.

3 hypotheses.
1) Trigger. cannabis can act a trigger for psychotic episodes in vulnerable individuals.
2) cause – cannabis causes psychotic episodes
3) coincidence. cannabis is used by people who have psychosis

here is a real problem with the evidence/ research on this. Non problem users do not come into contact with police or health services so are discounted. Most drug users who have psychotic episodes are actually multiple drug uses including alcohol users. Numbers of psychotic cannabis users are very low. This makes it very hard to work out waht is happening as you don't get a full data set to work with

Myself I believe in the trigger hypothesis

I think drugs are something you grow out of, my land lady the copper was telling me about the number of people really damaged by skunk, way more that smack. It is the TVP's biggest problem round here.

Well, you know, apart from booze, the most popular drug in the country. Or maybe sugar should also be considered a drug – after all, it is used as a stimulant and has not beneficial effect in itself.

Sugar is the real gateway drug – it's the substance that kids start using and abusing to change their mood and body chemistry. Alcohol, tobacco, cannabis etc all flow from there.

I'd also link the explosion in skunk use to how easy it is to grow. Personally, I view that as a negative result of the war on drugs. IME, most people don't want to smoke skunk but they don't have a lot of choice.

From 10 years of experience I think the major sea change in the type and providence of cannabis in this country came as a direct result of the 'war on terror' and the increase of security at the ports and airports. Living in a port city between 2000-2004 we noticed a drastic reduction of availability after 11/9 etc.

This has led, from my point of view, to the following:-

Cessation of importation of large quantities 'regular' quality hash and weed / skunk of lower THC content (lower THC/CBN ratio's) and small volumes of stronger and rarer varieties of Skunk i.e. Named strains which were enjoyed occasional as a special treat much like a fine wine or whiskey.

Shift towards the necessity of homegrown and mass commercial grow shops in the UK producing very strong strains of high THC content Weed (High THC/CBN ratios)

Basically everyone has had to start growing to cover the loss of major quantities of imported weed. Everyone grows the strongest weed possible as they know even if its not grown well it'll still be strong enough to sell.

There has been a tendency to selectively breeding weed with a very high THC content and a very low CBN content – the effect is to create strains which have stronger psychoactive effect and thus a higher risk of psychotic effects (CBN's counteract the psychotic effect of the THC to some degree).

So effectively the govt. stopped the import of normal strength weed which was the day to day smoke of many people and forced them in to smoking the only thing that is availiable, very very strong weed. Its either that or quit.

The Govt. should take control of the situation – legalise, regulate the supply and control strength like alcohol and tax it.

If they keep to current pricing structure (i.e. £20-£25 eigths) inclusive of tax then no-one is going to bothered and many would be happier due to ease of sourcing. The large majority would have a choice not to smoke ridiculously strong weed all the time which as has been shown is more a risk to future psychotic behaviour.

At the moment its pretty much like going to a bar and being told you can either drink 80% rum or Absinthe.

TJ – I've seen some pretty outrageous behavior from usually pretty well adjusted people off the back of an MDMA comedown!

legalise them
regulate them
make the safer
tax them

put massive criminal gangs out of business overnight
bust the budget in a few years
of course the daily wail masses would sh!t the bed

there are no ilegal alcohol stills despite the very hi tax

Seriously GW? Not something I have seen. MDMA comedown IME makes folk just lie about on sofas all day.

hahaha.

The scale on that graph is "score"

wtf?!

thats BAD science kids! just say NO!

arbitrary relative index

of what?
"badness"?
an arbitrary relative index of the increase in bannanas

The types of drug use that I consider "acceptable" are those which do not have a material adverse affect on the lives of people who do not indulge.

So the main ones that fall outside of that category appear to be tobaco and alcohol. 😕

Olly – read the original report before you criticise a serious piece of research. Its an attempt to quantify the relative harm levels of each drug – thats harm to the individual and to society. Serious scientists devised this used reputable methodology. No one serious has critised the methodolgy.

its a relative index – so the scale is arbitary but the relative values are valid

TJ – I don't mean the next day, I mean like the Tuesday to Thursday after a heavy weekend. seen it in a few people and heard other people say they get it too, like a wound up aggressive road rage sorta explosive frustration/anger short temper type of thing.
Eg. one of the nicest guys I've ever met, real soppy hippy dippy sorta bloke got cut up ever so slightly by another driver (just not paying attention) driving home from work followed the driver and went back and keyed **** out his car – totally out of character.

good drugs:

weed
shrooms
xtc/mdma

bad drugs:

coke
ket
heroin (although i know of a few people who are addicted, but carry on (relatively) normal lives)
and generally stuff you sniff/inject

I think it was Ronald Raygun in the 80's when he launched the "war on drugs" who suggested that cannabis had increased in strength from '75-'84 by as much as 25% and then again in the 90's Jack Straw said a similar thing suggesting that the strength on cannabis had gone up 13% or something from the mid eighties to today, in all, if their figures are correct a 320% increase in strength since the 70's…which would mean that in reality cannabis as a plant ceased to exist around the late 80's and just became a blob of THC, the active ingredient…Clearly something ain't straight…Like most things in life it's a bit more complex than just shouting Skunk, and hoping that you'll scare a bunch of kids…Latest (believable) stats. show cannabis available from something like 2% TCH to about 12% TCH, same as it ever was really, it's just that he higher end of the market is more readily available.

Mushrooms are class A now…completely off the scale in terms of harm/effects/whatever measurement you care to use.

Legalize? What company would take on the manufacture and distribution of substances that can and do kill people regularly, given the legal implications and cost of cigarette based lawsuits. Decriminalization of users is about the most you could hope to achieve I reckon.

i dunno about 'shrooms

we had a load at uni one time

and my mate pulled the largest most munting girl you could imagine they spent 12 hours in his room doing all kinds of depraved sh!t which he thought was great the next day

however after a good nights sleep he was absolutely properly distraught

Legalize? What company would take on the manufacture and distribution of substances that can and do kill people regularly, given the legal implications and cost of cigarette based lawsuits. Decriminalization of users is about the most you could hope to achieve I reckon.

never underestimate the ability of capitalism

kimbers sounds more like your mate actually had beer

nickc – the drugs that most people would consider as candidates for legalisation do not kill people – like MDMA and cannabis – they simply do not kill. Deaths actually attributable to MDMA rather than contaminents of dehydration or polyphamacea – almost nil

What company would take on the manufacture and distribution of substances that can and do kill people regularly, given the legal implications and cost of cigarette based lawsuits.

Possibly the same companies that can afford to pay the cost of cigarette based lawsuits because they make a **** fortune selling cigarettes?

I was thinking more about the killers, Heroin and Coke, but I've no problem with MDMA/dope being legal. Apologies for not being clear, I was typing in a hurry eariler

Nae worries Nick – one of the issues with this sort of debate is that different drugs get lumped in as all being the same.

heroin is very safe as well strangely enough – if its pharmaceutical grade thus clean and clean needles and so on – again you don't hear about the non problem junkies. Its widely used in medicine.

coke leads to heart attacks and strokes tho

Heroin and Coke are less lethal than cigarettes though, and given the profits involved you'd expect the sums to make sense. Licence it properly and force businesses involved to support rehab etc and the situation would be an improvement IMO.

Not sure about coke rich – killed one of my friends and badly damaged another. I nowadays see it as one of the worst of the drugs because of the damage it causes

if its pharmaceutical grade thus clean and clean needles and so on –

Aye, good point.

Legalize? What company would take on the manufacture and distribution of substances that can and do kill people regularly

I feel fairly sure we ould persuade a few honourable capitalists 🙄 since we have the tobacco industry and the arms industry for example. I am sure they could take the PR hit as they seem to be ok with the death bit of their current business empires.
I bet Tesco and the other high street giants would happily sell it if they were allowed and it was socially acceptable as they also seem OK selling beer and fags.

Good call OHH, I joined the grow your own brigade about 10years ago and we grew some "dirty weed" in the cellar. It's not as easy it's made to look though, back then we could get all the kit required without too much attention from the police but now it's a bit more scrutinised…however the old gear…dodgy solid as we called it was kicked right into touch once we all got use to skunk and all it's derivatives but it really is heavy going and started to take it's toll on me and allot of others…ok we did smoke a a lot! I would still say it's better to get local grown gear from some like minded smoker as opposed to trawling round shady dealers haunts for ropey solid thats come from??? but moderation is the key to skunk otherwise yes it can really mess with your head.
Two kids and a serious interest of biking have knocked the habit for me though….still blumin skint mind.