Liberty Is Dangerous

[GIThruster]

Let's see a comprehensive list of works of art that'd never have been if not for drugs.

Trolling for the cause of drugs may just seem an innocent distraction to you, but I lost a friend in high school to drugs and his criminal parents who thought it was okay to mix pot with alcohol with quaaludes. Cliff was in and out of coma with all sorts of wild, terrifying hallucinations tormenting him for a week before his teen heart gave way. Both his parents went to prison, and rightly so. Cliff's siblings found new parents who didn't think it was okay to test drug interactions on children.

At 16, Cliff was the best freestyle frisbee athlete I knew. All his motion was a work of art, and the planet has been cheated of that because of scum-sucking drug aficianados' reckless attitudes about drugs. Honor student, liked by all the students, life ended before it began because his parents shot the gun into the air and the bullet came down in their own home.

[ladajo]

It is true that like drinking and smoking, drug using parents tend to have children that follow suit more so than "clean" homes.

[Betruger]

Yeah ok GIT. Nice appeal to emotion. I had a couple of dead friends to cocaine, a few absurdly dangerous ethylic comas for some otherwise truly classy girlfriends, one friend was serious hash mover and got pulled out of his "normal" kid life by cops in the middle of class never to be seen again, and over a dozen friends more or less addicted to various crap, some of the worst ones I had to watch drop thru every level of addiction, usually having to blow em off around the time they started trying to sell me their stuff.

But yeah. Liberty is too dangerous. Let's just pull the blanket back over ourselves lest we learn to survive danger by mythical things like dead-simple discipline.

Religious belief in politics is just as dangerous as any other religion. Politics will do jack shit to do what's needed for Man to mature past these and every other currently unimaginable peril that the future holds. The only answer isn't some nanny hand holding state entity, but culture.


"Survival of the meekest."
This same dynamic is at work in other domains. Civics for one - few Americans nowadays know or care to learn the brass tacks of their government. Barely any know or care to seek and expose political corruption... It's just this kind of complacency that is rotting the USA from within. Completely unbalanced hedonism - no knowledge or care for minimizing negatives, just splurge on positives even if excessively, even if at the cost of those same positives.

Same story at global scale - we could be at or past post-scarcity if more effort was put into sciences... All that crappy glitter and bling blang that most world population craves could be had a hundred fold. We could probably have at least some moderate life extension.. And so on.

A person not prepared to deal with the real world is not healthy. Even if in that sheltered environment he's bottled up in, he's flushed pink and wholesome in every other way. It's just a pretty face on life support.

[GIThruster]

The only answer isn't some nanny hand holding state entity, but culture.

Okay, so why can't we see the same common sense social sanctions against drugs that we see with cigarettes? You don't see a Hollywood celeb's flouting their smoking because of the social sanctions against. So why is it okay for Brad Pitt to cheer on the cannabis crowd? Madness. . .truly madness.

We see the stupidity with drugs that we do, because too few are willing to stand up and call druggies what they are--dopers.

BTW, we should probably mix in the loss of life from Ecstacy too. When a beautiful 25 year-old barmaid who's just married suddenly dies of heart failure, or a 21 year old honors college student, or someone at a rave mixing X with viagra for "party cocktails", when people die this way most others say nothing. Why is it politically correct to make a big deal out of someone smoking a cigarette, and not someone risking their life in the more immediate sense?

[Diogenes]

Yeah ok GIT. Nice appeal to emotion. I had a couple of dead friends to cocaine, a few absurdly dangerous ethylic comas for some otherwise truly classy girlfriends, one friend was serious hash mover and got pulled out of his "normal" kid life by cops in the middle of class never to be seen again, and over a dozen friends more or less addicted to various crap, some of the worst ones I had to watch drop thru every level of addiction, usually having to blow em off around the time they started trying to sell me their stuff.

But yeah. Liberty is too dangerous. Let's just pull the blanket back over ourselves lest we learn to survive danger by mythical things like dead-simple discipline.

Religious belief in politics is just as dangerous as any other religion. Politics will do jack shit to do what's needed for Man to mature past these and every other currently unimaginable peril that the future holds. The only answer isn't some nanny hand holding state entity, but culture.


"Survival of the meekest."
This same dynamic is at work in other domains. Civics for one - few Americans nowadays know or care to learn the brass tacks of their government. Barely any know or care to seek and expose political corruption... It's just this kind of complacency that is rotting the USA from within. Completely unbalanced hedonism - no knowledge or care for minimizing negatives, just splurge on positives even if excessively, even if at the cost of those same positives.

Same story at global scale - we could be at or past post-scarcity if more effort was put into sciences... All that crappy glitter and bling blang that most world population craves could be had a hundred fold. We could probably have at least some moderate life extension.. And so on.

A person not prepared to deal with the real world is not healthy. Even if in that sheltered environment he's bottled up in, he's flushed pink and wholesome in every other way. It's just a pretty face on life support.

If these deaths were caused by an infectious disease would you sanction quarantine?

[CKay]

The argument that they have a right to do this is nonsense.

The INJURY that one person does to another with drugs, is introducing them to it. That one act sometimes has horrible consequences for the injured person.

I was introduced to paragliding by a friend.

It is, unfortunately, a dangerous activity - statistically far more dangerous than, for example, taking ecstasy.

Should paragliding be criminalised and those caught indulging in recreational aviation face punishment, prison even?

[choff]

The argument that they have a right to do this is nonsense.

The INJURY that one person does to another with drugs, is introducing them to it. That one act sometimes has horrible consequences for the injured person.

I was introduced to paragliding by a friend.

It is, unfortunately, a dangerous activity - statistically far more dangerous than, for example, taking ecstasy.

Should paragliding be criminalised and those caught indulging in recreational aviation face punishment, prison even?

Locally we've had 5 young people die recently from taking E cut with PMMA, no recent deaths from paragliding.

[ScottL]

The argument that they have a right to do this is nonsense.

The INJURY that one person does to another with drugs, is introducing them to it. That one act sometimes has horrible consequences for the injured person.

I was introduced to paragliding by a friend.

It is, unfortunately, a dangerous activity - statistically far more dangerous than, for example, taking ecstasy.

Should paragliding be criminalised and those caught indulging in recreational aviation face punishment, prison even?

Locally we've had 5 young people die recently from taking E cut with PMMA, no recent deaths from paragliding.

Anecdotal evidence that should be dismissed. I think these arguments should follow facts (ignoring my own inclination toward allowing drug use.) It may be logical to permit some drugs over others, a softening of drug laws so to speak, but without adequate numbers....pointless. Ckay's point is valid if the numbers are true. Where do you set the "too dangerous" limit? If you're setting it at drug use, then you'll probably have to eliminate various other physical forms of entertainment.

[CKay]

I was introduced to paragliding by a friend.

It is, unfortunately, a dangerous activity - statistically far more dangerous than, for example, taking ecstasy.

Should paragliding be criminalised and those caught indulging in recreational aviation face punishment, prison even?

Locally we've had 5 young people die recently from taking E cut with PMMA, no recent deaths from paragliding.

1. Ecstasy cut with something else is no longer ecstasy (you can thank prohibition for creating a completely deregulated market that supplies contaminated drugs).

2. Like Scott said - that's just anecdotal evidence.

To make an informed judgement about the relative risks we'd need to know the numbers of ecstasy users vs. paragliders and the number of fatalities.

In the UK there are about 5,000 active paragliders with on average 2 deaths per year, gving a fatality rate of 1 death per 2,500. Compare that with around 30 fatalities per year out of roughly 1,000,000 mdma users, giving 1 per 33,000. Paragliding is an order of magnitude more dangerous!

Even equestrianism has a higher level of risk than ecstasy use - from WikiP:

David Nutt, a former chairman of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, stated in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in January 2009 that ecstasy use compared favorably with horse riding in terms of risk, with ecstasy leading to around 30 deaths a year in the UK compared to about 10 from horse riding, and "acute harm to person" occurring in approximately 1 in 10,000 episodes of ecstasy use compared to about 1 in 350 episodes of horse riding. Dr. Nutt notes the lack of a balanced risk assessment in public discussions of MDMA.

And here's some anecdotal evidence: only a couple of months back my friend told me of a local girl - one of his daughters friends - who was killed when her horse got spooked and reared up. Mum discovered her, family devastated, popular lass with a bright future ahead of her, etc.

So isn't it time we had a moral crusade against the evil horse riding craze that's robbing our kids of their future? And anyone who gets caught doing equestrianism should get a criminal record, repeat offenders banged up with murderers and rapists - it's for their own good!

[ladajo]

Paragliding is a personal choice, it is not addictive where your will is permanently supplanted by chemical imbalances. (Cue arguement about adreneline)

Controlled drugs are controlled for that reason. They are physically dangerous, and/or addictive. Taking them creates a physical desire to take more. This is occurs outside of your ability to reason.
It is like giving a loaded gun to a child to play with. Something bad is more than likely to happen.

Police: Mom killed two children, two others and herself after taping herself smoking meth

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/16/mo ... z1jivKdxoX

[CKay]

Paragliding is a personal choice, it is not addictive where your will is permanently supplanted by chemical imbalances.

By 'will' you mean 'free will'? If so, please give a clear, unambiguous definition of free will.

Controlled drugs are controlled for that reason.

The reason is more about moral panic than harm reduction.

They are physically dangerous, and/or addictive. Taking them creates a physical desire to take more.

I doubt that ecstasy is any more addictive than paragliding. If I'm unable to fly on a good day, with nice Cu's and a high cloud base, I experience physical effects - poor concentration, irritability, knots in my stomach etc - that may be interpreted as symptoms of a mild psychological addiction (mdma is considered to be only mildly psychologically addictive).

And what's a 'physical desire'? How is that different from other types of (non-physical?) desire? Or are you perhaps talking about physiological dependency - for example that exhibited by alcoholics, for whom suddenly cutting alcohol intake can induce life-threatening seizures?

Sorry, but afaik there's zero evidence for such physiological dependency with mdma use (or cannabis, cocaine, lsd, ketamine, psilocybin...).

[ladajo]

Sorry, but afaik there's zero evidence for such physiological dependency with mdma use (or cannabis, cocaine, lsd, ketamine, psilocybin...).

Here is where I tap out (again). I learned a long time ago not to argue religion. Enjoy your drugs and try not to harm others. Also do not expect me to support any of my tax dollars going to social programs and medical that enable your usage or "recovery". Accept your personal risk, and do not expect to mitigate it at the expense of others.

Police: Mom killed two children, two others and herself after taping herself smoking meth

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/16/mo ... z1jivKdxoX

[kcdodd]

So why do we jail those who are "hit by the bullets fired into the air"?

[CKay]

Enjoy your drugs

Don't do drugs of any kind, thanks all the same - and that includes alcohol.

And, considering your attitude towards addictive substances (and alcohol being physiologically addictive), I'm guessing that you must surely be a teetotaller too?

[CKay]

Police: Mom killed two children, two others and herself after taping herself smoking meth

Yep, I saw that the first time you posted it.

Shall I repost my story of the young girl tragically killed by her horse?