And you guys thought *I* was nuts.

[Diogenes]

I think this explains a lot:

The PTSD Party

My co blogger thought:

"M. Simon had a rather brilliant post about PTSD the other day, and rather than leave a comment I thought a new post was in order. "

“We must have done the right thing — look how far you’ve come!”

It is my belief that more than a little of this craziness is a response to PTSD. The above by my co blogger is a series of short life histories of guys like Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili.

Root causes my friends. Root causes.

I'm still waiting for the first condemnation (besides myself) of sex with liver.

I'm waiting to hear your opinion of whether or not we should use "Prohibition" on children. Are you in favor of children using drugs and alcohol, or should it be prohibited? Obviously by your logic, if it didn't work in this case, it must be completely abandoned.

[Diogenes]

One has to wonder if they were huffing the He in order to gain some sort of dizzy spell buzz for lack of O2. It seems kids these days will huff most anything to see if they can "mind alter".

That is my understanding as well. From what I have seen (never tried huffing or "bagging") kids do that from about age 8 or 10 until they are old enough to score pot. If pot is plentiful and cheap they rarely do that sort of thing again. As far as we know pot (without any other drug) has never killed anyone. In 5,000 years. Even if it has killed a few the death rate is much lower than for those trying to get high from oxygen deficiency.

DEA Judge Young (now deceased) determined in uncontradicted court proceedings that the ratio of get high dose to lethal dose for pot is >40,000 to 1. i.e. you would need to smoke a ton in well under an hour. That ton would be much more dangerous if it was dropped on you.

For alcohol the ratio is 4 to 1. (.1% blood alcohol vs .4%) or 5 to 1 if the current .08% standard is used. That stuff can kill you. And does. About 1,000 Americans a year from overdose.

Harm reduction my friends. Harm reduction.

Oh yes, now I see! Making pot legal would have saved this girl's life! She wouldn't have felt any need to try an oxygen deprivation high, because she could have gotten as high as she wanted on more freely available pot!

The notion that children should never have been allowed to learn that there *IS* such a thing as getting "high" simply isn't on your radar.

[Diogenes]

Ok, but you once again skip the part about risk to others, and indirect risk.

Yeah. I left out traffic fatalities from alcohol intoxication which would have greatly skewed the results. Not in favor of alcohol.

And the poor job performance of alcoholics. And the wife beatings. And bar fights. In fact alcohol is the only known drug that induces violence. i.e violence well above the usual rate (incidents per 100,000).

So yeah. That should be included as well.

Given your criteria alcohol should definitely be illegal.

Or more heavily regulated at least. I'm still mulling over my license idea for drugs and alcohol, and i'm not noticing anything which doesn't seem to be an improvement to me.

As long as legal alcohol sales and penalties for legal sales are sufficient to discourage a black market, it would seem to be an optimization to regulate the usage of such stuff to separate those who can handle it responsibly from those who simply cannot.

[ladajo]

Kids have been reporting for 30+ years that illegal drugs are easier to get than alcohol.

Showed you several times you are wrong with this statement. I showed you the contemporary studies that disagree. So have others.

Now if you have been keeping up even the NIDA says addiction is a genetic disease. So right off the bat 80% of the population is going to have zero problems with drugs. And of that 20% half according to the NIDA will run into environmental conditions that will trigger addiction.

Nope, they say that genetics can be a FACTOR. They do not say it is the sole reason. Stop with the spin.

I still find it amusing that you think that child abuse is the primary reason for PTSD, and thus drug and alcohol abuse. Very narrow view. again, the spin. I can guarantee you, again, as I have before, that my two siblings that went down the drug road were never child abused. Quite the contrary. I can also tell you with certainty that neither my mother's or father's genetic lines have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. Doesn't seem to fit your model. Seems that there was some other 'trigger' mechanism.

[GIThruster]

Kids have been reporting for 30+ years that illegal drugs are easier to get than alcohol.

I dunno who you're quoting here, but this seems pretty obviously wrong. I haven't taken a pole, but I'd bet most homes in America have a few bottles of booze around, and only a tiny fraction keep illegal drugs in the house. My parents had gin, and wine, and whiskey and ale sitting around that even as a child I could get access to, but no grass, or cocaine, or speed, or LSD.

If kids are reporting that illegal drugs are easier to get than alcohol, they're lying. If what they mean is drugs are easier to get than purchasing alcohol underage, that's a different thing, and a good thing, IMHO.

[Skipjack]

I think pretty much every kid here has tried a sip of some alcoholic beverage once before they are legally allowed to drink. Most kids hate it and dont try again until they have reached the legal age and are in a social environment that encourages them. My dad let me try a teaspoon of red wine when I was 4 or so. I hated it (like most kids do, because they expect something sweet) and wondered why adults would willingly dring something that tastes that bad. My dad of course loughed and so did everybody else arround.

[MSimon]

I think this explains a lot:

The PTSD Party

My co blogger thought:

"M. Simon had a rather brilliant post about PTSD the other day, and rather than leave a comment I thought a new post was in order. "

“We must have done the right thing — look how far you’ve come!”

It is my belief that more than a little of this craziness is a response to PTSD. The above by my co blogger is a series of short life histories of guys like Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili.

Root causes my friends. Root causes.

I'm still waiting for the first condemnation (besides myself) of sex with liver.

I'm waiting to hear your opinion of whether or not we should use "Prohibition" on children. Are you in favor of children using drugs and alcohol, or should it be prohibited? Obviously by your logic, if it didn't work in this case, it must be completely abandoned.

Drugs and alcohol for kids? Only if they have PTSD from child abuse. When I was recovering from my Dad's beatings you couldn't keep me from alcohol. I was an alcoholic at age 16. Didn't fully recover until around age 28.

You can't keep pain relievers from people in pain from age 12 or 14 and above.

So instead of attacking symptoms why aren't you going after root causes and helping to destroy the left in America to boot?

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/02/the-ptsd-party/

and:

Tyrants and PTSD

The cartels thank you D for your willful ignorance and thus your support.

It must be very satisfying to be against drugs while giving the drug cartels your support. Otherwise why would you do it?

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

A better example of Planck's contention couldn't be found. No amount of evidence will convince you. Fortunately your cohort is dying off and I have won the battle with the kids. I give it five more years or so.

You might also like this: Obama financed by the drug cartels:

http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/02/0 ... r-related/

In the comments.

Now why you would want to support people who support.... I get it. You are an amateur when it comes to battles. You can't take a loss to gain a win. And that after nearly 100 years of losing. It just goes to show you the value of government propaganda on the weak minded.

But - as I said - I'm beating the government. It is now just a matter of time. How much time? Well that depends on how much the cartels are paying the government to keep prohibition going. Fortunately most Republican politicians are stupid and cheap. They objectively support the drug cartels as a matter of "principle." It doesn't take too much to buy that sort. Obama? Well he is nominally a legalizer. They are going to have to pay him a LOT to get him to change his tune. It seems they have found the right number. And I suppose it IS GOOD to have an ally in the White House. As long as he stays bought.

And numbers? Over 65% of American adults say prohibition isn't working. So far only 45% nationwide are willing to throw in the towel. That number goes up a few % every year and recently it was reported that it is now above 50% (I think that is a bit too optimistic - in any case the trends are obvious.).

I have also observed that many anti-prohibition organizations are throwing in the towel. They no longer say: "we must keep prohibition running." What do they say? "What set of regulations can we get?"

Stones - Time Is On My Side

[MSimon]

Oh. Yeah. Fast and Furious was designed to use Drug Prohibition against our 2nd Amendment rights and for the most part the 2nd Amendment faction misses the whale (Drug Prohibition) and focuses on the possum.

Ah. Well. More evidence of the pernicious effect of government propaganda on the weak minded.

It will get rectified in time. I have the kids. OTOH it is up to the rest of you to get them on the right. And you are doing a lousy job. For people who are supposed to know that children are our future (I helped raise 4) you are doing poorly. The left gets them early and you obviously know how it is: unlearning those early lessons is near impossible.

My kid's politics - libertarian mostly. #1 daughter is still somewhat in thrall to the left but she is training in chem E so a few years in the field will probably fix that. Plus rumor has it that her current boyfriend is an EE. There is hope for her yet. ;-)

So who on the right is getting the kids? Ron Paul. That should be a clue. But according to Santorum it is a counter clue. "We don't want no steenkin libertarians." OK. Rick. Fine by me.

[williatw]

Oh. Yeah. Fast and Furious was designed to use Drug Prohibition against our 2nd Amendment rights and for the most part the 2nd Amendment faction misses the whale (Drug Prohibition) and focuses on the possum.

Ah. Well. More evidence of the pernicious effect of government propaganda on the weak minded.

It will get rectified in time. I have the kids. OTOH it is up to the rest of you to get them on the right. And you are doing a lousy job. For people who are supposed to know that children are our future (I helped raise 4) you are doing poorly. The left gets them early and you obviously know how it is: unlearning those early lessons is near impossible.

My kid's politics - libertarian mostly. #1 daughter is still somewhat in thrall to the left but she is training in chem E so a few years in the field will probably fix that. Plus rumor has it that her current boyfriend is an EE. There is hope for her yet.

So who on the right is getting the kids? Ron Paul. That should be a clue. But according to Santorum it is a counter clue. "We don't want no steenkin libertarians." OK. Rick. Fine by me.

I am pretty much a life long democrat, though I did vote for my states republican governor Voinovich. Consider myself a conservative democrat, pro-gun(CCW holder), as I have gotten older becoming more libertarian. I think a Libertarian is a conservative if they were really a conservative. Anti war on drugs--fast and furious was obviously not a mistake was deliberately an attempt to go after 2nd amendment, holder is a lying sack of excrement(and I voted for obama geez). Like Ron Paul on the republican side too bad he isn't doing better in the polls. I agree with most of his positions I have heard about. Obama is spending money like a drunken sailor on leave does not seem to take trillion dollar deficits seriously. Don't know who I am going for in the fall...only thing I like about Obama is that he is good at offing terrorists. Dread the idea of his picking more SCOTUS judges. Keystone pipeline decision blows. Not that big a Romney fan..he not as stupid as Bush grant you he would probably spend less of our money.

[MSimon]

Oh yes, now I see! Making pot legal would have saved this girl's life! She wouldn't have felt any need to try an oxygen deprivation high, because she could have gotten as high as she wanted on more freely available pot!

The notion that children should never have been allowed to learn that there *IS* such a thing as getting "high" simply isn't on your radar.

How exactly are you going to stop it? I can't wait to see your plan. By the time I was six or eight the "holding your breath until you get dizzy" bit was well known among my cohort. That would have been about 60 years ago.

This might work: outlaw stupidity. Enforcement begins at age one. That will work. Now what happens when the definitions of stupid change?

Darwin is always at work. I don't see why you object. A tragedy to be sure. Inevitable as well. You suck up your losses and carry on.

[MSimon]

williatw,

Thanks for that!

[MSimon]

D,

It is ignorance that kills.

Here is why your side is losing so badly in the drug debate.

1. 80% of the population will never have a drug "problem". Ever. Genetics.
2. Of the remaining 20% only 1/2 will ever have a "problem"

So you go around parading the worst cases and tell folks: this is sure to happen to you if you ever try the stuff.

3. The bad stuff doesn't happen to any of the 80% if they ever try the stuff. Nor does it happen to half the 20%. In fact most of those folks report that the "irresistible attraction" is a rather unpleasant experience.

Your credibility is then shot. No wonder you wish that people had no knowledge or experience with getting high. It ruins your political position.

We see that in the stats. Of those over 18 and below 60 about half have used an illegal drug. That number goes way down for the over 60 crowd. So who are the legalizers? The under 60 crowd (generally).

The best general education on opiates can be found in this Consumers Union report:

http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library ... cumenu.htm

[ladajo]

We see that in the stats. Of those over 18 and below 60 about half have used an illegal drug.

I see you have adjusted your numbers down from the last go around.

That number goes way down for the over 60 crowd

When we looked at the distributions last time, the idea to consider was that the lifetime users dropped significantly because they died off sooner.
Death would make the most sense, given that the "I have tried drugs in my life" and the more recent users suddenly seem to vanish from the numbers, and the distribution curve plummets leaving more non-users than users.

I have taken all the age/use summary data from the last 12 years of the National Household Surveys and plotted them. You get a better look than the summary curves that were posted, and you can isolate trends as you wish. I did this in an effort to check for what I would call 'Generational' trend shifting. Ie. How would a person born back at the beginning of data collection travel through his life in relation to usage (risk?) percentages of his peers. One of the key points it showed is that continued usage over a life (establishing personal maturity?) does go down some, but not as much as you think. There was also somewhat of an increase(hump) for folks that lived through the 60/70's in usage, but not a lot. Might have been a collection artifact. It made for some interesting hobby pondering.
I am interested to update it again after a few more years of data are available. Most importantly, it did seem to show that overall usage is trending slightly down to some degree.

I can email them to you if you wish. But they do not support your arguments.

[MSimon]

Let me also note that no one but me has condemned sex with liver.

Doesn't anyone else wish to see this vile practice outlawed?

Is that a dead liver or a live one? Are you condemning necro-liverphilia or liverphilia?

Live liver from a large dead animal.

Although beating hearts should be considered as well. Some people will do anything to save some effort.

OTOH perhaps the practice ought to be encouraged for its contraceptive effect. We will need studies. And volunteers. Video at 11.

[MSimon]

When we looked at the distributions last time, the idea to consider was that the lifetime users dropped significantly because they died off sooner.

When you consider that the most prevalent drug (pot) increases life expectancy by 4 years (last time I looked) I think you will need to find another explanation.

We can do some math. 18 + (2012 - 1967) = 63.

Which is to say the over 65 crowd was not exposed to the illegal drug culture before their own acculturation to the available drugs.