My understanding of why drugs are illegal.

[Loony Le Fist]

There body, their choice, besides, someone taking a kilo of meth would be dead. Lastly people invented meth because clean, good amphetamines and cocaine are really expensive and hard to come by, because of prohibition. It's a substitution drug, legalize.

Absolutely. Pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine (aka meth) is way different than the street stuff. It's an excellent stimulant with low side effects--very useful for treating obesity, resistant cases of depression and ADHD. It is actually safer than a lot of over the counter drugs. Adderal used for treating ADHD is amphetamine, (without the methyl group) and it works in exactly the same way.

[Marshal of the People]

There would be no government under communism, no government to exert authoritarian measures. A communist government is the epitome of oxymoron comrade. There would be no state to rule over a producing class. The state is an organized force that solely exists to suppress and exploit a producing class, that being the proletariat. Under full communism, which is the abscence of a class system and the abscence of a state without money predicated on a gift economy and mutual aid, all drugs would be free for everyone to freely use. Without the shit we live under today people won't do drugs for the same reason, people won't be chasing that initial high to escape a shitty life. People will be doing drugs for the enjoyment of them, they would be a past time for people, for their enjoyment. I don't think that the worker's council, labor union, collective, community, commune, or whichever would ban drugs, for the purpose they would take under communism would be different than their purpose under capitalism. People will also look for ways to make the drugs production safer, and to make the drugs safer to consume, so that people aren't being harmed by the drugs or the process in which they're created.

You have the terms government and state confused. A government is a governing body of a community, it can be a direct-democracy a soviet-democracy etc. A state however is different, a state is hierarchical institution which rules over and controls people, nations, etc. It is generally authoritarian due to the fact that it is controlled by an oligarchy. In modern times government are usually controlled by states though it is not necessary for a government to be subordinate to a state at all.

[Sinister Intents]

Absolutely. Pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine (aka meth) is way different than the street stuff. It's an excellent stimulant with low side effects--very useful for treating obesity, resistant cases of depression and ADHD. It is actually safer than a lot of over the counter drugs. Adderal used for treating ADHD is amphetamine, (without the methyl group) and it works in exactly the same way.

When I was a kid Adderal fucked me up I hated taking it

[Loony Le Fist]

The prohibited drugs are banned because they are harmful to people, even marijuana is very harmful to a persons body.

Have you even bothered to look at the research on this? If you haven't I'll be happy to brush you up.

[Loony Le Fist]

When I was a kid Adderal fucked me up I hated taking it

I had quite a different experience. But hey everyone's different. If it doesn't work for you, then don't take it.

[Sasha]

Yeah, that always suprised me as Ritalin chemical name is methylphenidate, I thought aderal was really close related (i don't know shit about chemistry, so maybe I just missed something.

[Loony Le Fist]

Yeah, that always suprised me as Ritalin chemical name is methylphenidate, I thought aderal was really close related (i don't know shit about chemistry, so maybe I just missed something.

Methylphenidate blocks the reuptake (destruction of it through enzymes) of dopamine. Cocaine works the same way. Amphetamines (in general, but not all) work by increasing the production of dopamine. 4-Flouroamphetamine is an odd one out--it actually increases both dopamine and serotonin production. Chemically they are actually a bit different. But the result is the same--more dopamine.

[Sasha]

Methylphenidate blocks the reuptake (destruction of it through enzymes) of dopamine. Cocaine works the same way. Amphetamines (in general, but not all) work by increasing the production of dopamine. 4-Flouroamphetamine is an odd one out--it actually increases both dopamine and serotonin production. Chemically they are actually a bit different. But the result is the same--more dopamine.

Intresting, that explains maybe why before I was on Ritalin to my suprise cocaine always seemed to yield better self treatment results than speed.
Thanx.

It's all rather intresting, MDMA is also amphetamine yet its effects are so different, what a molocule extra here and there can do.

[Loony Le Fist]

Intresting, that explains maybe why before I was on Ritalin to my suprise cocaine always seemed to yield better self treatment results than speed.
Thanx.

It's all rather intresting, MDMA is also amphetamine yet its effects are so different, what a molocule extra here and there can do.

MDMA is badass. And it's so unique too. 4-FA (mentioned above) gets close in terms of experience qualia--but it's just not the same. Alexander Shulgin is truly a genius.

Too bad MDMA is illegal. It could do a lot of good for people with PTSD, social anxiety and psychological trauma.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Drugs are illegal for many different reasons depending on the drug, I shall explain based on each one.

Marijuana - In the late 30's William Randolph Hearst (newspaper giant and fascist sympathizer) ran a smear campaign against weed to protect business interests in the lumber and paper industries. If people were allowed to grow it in mass, it would have thousands of uses, undermining many different business interests. Part of the smear campaign included racism against Mexicans by pointing out that they used marijuana recreationally and that it led to crime, violence, etc. All bullshit obviously.

LSD, DMT, Mushrooms, etc - These are illegal because of tests done by the CIA. They determined that people on psychedelic drugs had the ability to open their mind and change their way of thinking. LSD in particular was tested frequently and the people on it questioned the government and all authority in general. Timothy Leary (Harvard professor who was a huge fan of the drug) was called "the most dangerous man in the country" by Nixon. Why? Because he urged young people to drop out of school, travel the country, and take LSD. And people did do that, and many of those people would later go on to be involved in protests and anti government activities such as establishing small communes throughout the country. The CIA didn't like that, so LSD was made illegal in the late 60's.

Meth, cocaine, heroin, etc - These are illegal for many reasons, one because producing meth actually is very dangerous. With heroin and cocaine, intelligence agencies are the biggest drug traffickers in the world. When the U.S. went into Afghanistan, the country had eradicated almost all opium fields. Then, after U.S. involvement, the country becomes the world's leading opium producer. With coke, look no further than the anti-Marxist contras in the 80's which used it to synthesize crack and smuggled it into poor black neighborhoods to make money to fund these contras. The illegal drug trade is very profitable and very useful to the CIA for a number of purposes.

Only now does the government not care so much about weed legalization because nobody has the ability to really use it for uses other than getting high anymore as we live in such a globalized society dominated by technology anyway, and the businesses under previous threat no longer have that threat. They'll never budge on the other drugs though.

[Goblin]

I'm all for the legalization of drugs. As i mentioned in another thread a few days ago, the war on drugs does more damage than good. One does not have to be a genius to see that.

But i think treating cannabis as some sort of miracle herb is fucking stupid. Don't get me wrong, pot is by no means a dangerous drug in itself. As people have pointed out, alcohol is more dangerous. But calling it harmless is silly. THC is not good for your brain, especially if you already suffer from mental disorders. Excessive use of cannabis can worsen the symptoms of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. And i can't imagine inhaling cannabis smoke does much good for your lungs

As for why drugs are illegal, i think Sinister Intents got it right with this post:

Drugs are illegalized to target the poor and ethnic communities, as well as some being dangerous to produce, and certain drugs go against the interests of businesses such as marijuana. The tobacco companies and companies that produced paper were against hemp because hemp is often better at making paper and marijuana is a much better recreational drug than tobacco.

[Loony Le Fist]

I'm all for the legalization of drugs. As i mentioned in another thread a few days ago, the war on drugs does more damage than good. One does not have to be a genius to see that.

Agreed.

But i think treating cannabis as some sort of miracle herb is fucking stupid. Don't get me wrong, pot is by no means a dangerous drug in itself. As people have pointed out, alcohol is more dangerous. But calling it harmless is silly. THC is not good for your brain, especially if you already suffer from mental disorders. Excessive use of cannabis can worsen the symptoms of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. And i can't imagine inhaling cannabis smoke does much good for your lungs

I agree. The way some people treat marijuana it reminds me of the homeopathic medicine movement. But it does have actual medical uses, and it works well. You need not smoke it. You can vaporize it, or use edibles.

[Slavic]

But i think treating cannabis as some sort of miracle herb is fucking stupid. Don't get me wrong, pot is by no means a dangerous drug in itself. As people have pointed out, alcohol is more dangerous. But calling it harmless is silly. THC is not good for your brain, especially if you already suffer from mental disorders. Excessive use of cannabis can worsen the symptoms of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. And i can't imagine inhaling cannabis smoke does much good for your lungs

Every single drug whether synthesized, extracted, or consumed raw has negative side effects. The reason why cannabis is considered a medicinal herb is because its medicinal benefits have been proven to outweigh its negative side effects.

That being said, there is no such thing as a wonder drug and those who see cannabis as a "miracle herb" and a panacea are just delusional or ignorant.

[Slavic]

You have the terms government and state confused. A government is a governing body of a community, it can be a direct-democracy a soviet-democracy etc. A state however is different, a state is hierarchical institution which rules over and controls people, nations, etc. It is generally authoritarian due to the fact that it is controlled by an oligarchy. In modern times government are usually controlled by states though it is not necessary for a government to be subordinate to a state at all.

Regardless; in a communist society, if said local government stated that I could not recreationally use drugs, then I have to right to not obey by said laws. If said government were to enforce those laws upon me, I would reject said government's legitimacy over my body and refuse to comply.

Recreational use is fine, I would support government measures to control use in the workplace and when heavy machinery is involved. Those two things move beyond private drug consumption and into the public sphere.

[PigmerikanMao]

So if someone took a kilogram of crystal meth a day for a year they would be fine?

If a person ate 5 tons of hamburgers a day would they be fine? No. But you don't ban food.

[tachosomoza]

Drugs are illegal because of religious puritanism with a hefty dose of racial animosity thrown in. In the 1930s, people thought that marijuana would make their daughters go out, sleep with non white men, and bring home mixed race babies. That was a bad thing that got people disowned and killed.

They also thought that cocaine made black people unruly and led them to question the racist status quo.

[synthesis]

So if someone took a kilogram of crystal meth a day for a year they would be fine?

They'd be dead within an hour, you idiot. Should we criminalize suicide as well? Because to engage in that sort of behavior you'd have to be suicidal and in that case people need a lot more than just a government penalizing them for their issues.

They also thought that cocaine made black people unruly and led them to question the racist status quo.

I actually just found out that employers in the U.S. used to "encourage" black people to take cocaine to make them more productive and to, in the words of the 19th-century medical establishment, make them "impervious to the extremes of heat and cold." The first law prohibiting cocaine in the U.S. originated from a mining county in Colorado; thus when the bourgeois prescription betrayed its "side effects," they could literally blame the victim. The rest of the section in that link is pretty fucking crazy.

[tachosomoza]

http://www.thenation.com/article/178...an-drug-policy

The author, a distinguished physician, wrote: “[The Negro fiend] imagines that he hears people taunting and abusing him, and this often incites homicidal attacks upon innocent and unsuspecting victims.” And he continued, “the deadly accuracy of the cocaine user has become axiomatic in Southern police circles…. the record of the ‘cocaine nigger’ near Asheville who dropped five men dead in their tracks using only one cartridge for each, offers evidence that is sufficiently convincing.”

Cocaine, in other words, made black men uniquely murderous and better marksmen. But that wasn’t all. It also produced “a resistance to the ‘knock down’ effects of fatal wounds. Bullets fired into vital parts that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the ‘fiend.’”

Preposterous? Yes, but such reporting was not the exception. Between 1898 and 1914, numerous articles appeared exaggerating the association of heinous crimes and cocaine use by blacks. In some cases, suspicion of cocaine intoxication by blacks was reason enough to justify lynchings. Eventually, it helped influence legislation.

Around this time, Congress was debating whether to pass the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, one of the country’s first forays into national drug legislation. This unprecedented law sought to tax and regulate the production, importation and distribution of opium and coca products. Proponents of the law saw it as a strategy to improve strained trade relations with China by demonstrating a commitment to controlling the opium trade. Opponents, mostly from Southern states, viewed it as an intrusion into states’ rights and had prevented passage of previous versions.

By 1914, however, the law’s proponents had found an important ally in their quest to get it passed: the mythical “negro cocaine fiend,” which prominent newspapers, physicians and politicians readily exploited. Indeed, at congressional hearings, “experts” testified that “most of the attacks upon white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain.” When the Harrison Act became law, proponents could thank the South’s fear of blacks for easing its passage.

[BIXX]

In regards to synthesis' post: They used to give folks in call centers speed. (Source: knew a guy who was given speed to make him more productive).

[Loony Le Fist]

Here's a chart of which drugs are actually more harmful. I don't think it's quite right, but it certainly shows there is no correlation between harm and legality.