3 ms·

By "dangerous" I meant in the typical, colloquial sense (e.g. more likely to kill you in a shorter amount of time or what have you)...

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
"colloquial sense" ... "or what have you" This right here is why we don't have a sensible drug policy; many, many people think like this when approaching the subject.
- wfunction 11y ago
  I was merely trying to describe a category of drugs so that I can ask a question about it; you can name it whatever you want so that you can answer it, but your condescending tone and lack of an answer isn't exactly helpful in responding to the question. If you don't like my category you can always feel free to ask your own questions about other ones instead of changing mine.
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    Sorry if it came across as condescending; I'm just tired of the lazy "drugs are more dangerous than tobacco" argument because it's easy to repeat, but essentially meaningless. Answering your question is difficult because very few countries have legalised 'the most dangerous' drugs. Let's take Portugal as an example, though. It decriminalised heroin in 2001; for the sake of argument, let's agree that heroin is at least very slightly more dangerous to the individual than tobacco. Portugal now has a way, way lower incidence of death due to overdose than almost every country in Europe [1]. That's not relative to numbers taking heroin, that's relative to the population, so even if heroin use has rocketed (which it hasn't; lifetime use has increased from 0.7% to 1.1% [2]) lives have still been saved overall. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decriminalised-drugs-14-years-ago-and-now-hardly-anyone-dies-from-overdosing-10301780.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Observ...
shawabawa3 11y ago
I think you've taken in too much drug war propaganda. Heroin, if unadulterated, is incredibly safe. There are virtually no long-term health effects, and most overdoses/deaths are caused by it being unknown quality or cut with dangerous substances.[1] The only reason it's dangerous is prohibition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  So heroin isn't clinically addictive and one can't overdose on it?
  - adrusi 11y ago
    Heroin isn't significantly more addictive than cigarettes. You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities. If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive on heroin, but also it doesn't destroy your body long term). Perhaps heroin could be adultrated with a chemical that causes nausea when consumed in an amount proportional to a dangerous level of heroin. This would help heroin users build the same negative associations with high doses that cigarette smokers do, and could make them unable to consume more.
    - hvindin 11y ago
      While I enjoy the concept that heroin might be in some way similar to nocotine beyond both of the substances being tangible psychoactive, it does frighten me that this is actually an opinion people legitimately have. Given that when the supply chain of heroin is disrupted the most statistically significant cause of eratic behaviour in users is that it just hurts so much I suspect its a little different to nicotine. If you are interested in understanding drivers of addiction I would recommend looking at cases where people are forced into withdrawals. For example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395915002455 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395915... Although I recall another article published ages ago (early 80s) which had an interesting economic analysis of the elasticity of heroin prices, to paraphrase, resulting from what is essentially inflicting pain on users until they will pay yur asking price. I would love someone to draw the connections to nictonine withdrawals

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

"colloquial sense" ... "or what have you" This right here is why we don't have a sensible drug policy; many, many people think like this when approaching the subject.

wfunction 11y ago
I was merely trying to describe a category of drugs so that I can ask a question about it; you can name it whatever you want so that you can answer it, but your condescending tone and lack of an answer isn't exactly helpful in responding to the question. If you don't like my category you can always feel free to ask your own questions about other ones instead of changing mine.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  Sorry if it came across as condescending; I'm just tired of the lazy "drugs are more dangerous than tobacco" argument because it's easy to repeat, but essentially meaningless. Answering your question is difficult because very few countries have legalised 'the most dangerous' drugs. Let's take Portugal as an example, though. It decriminalised heroin in 2001; for the sake of argument, let's agree that heroin is at least very slightly more dangerous to the individual than tobacco. Portugal now has a way, way lower incidence of death due to overdose than almost every country in Europe [1]. That's not relative to numbers taking heroin, that's relative to the population, so even if heroin use has rocketed (which it hasn't; lifetime use has increased from 0.7% to 1.1% [2]) lives have still been saved overall. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decriminalised-drugs-14-years-ago-and-now-hardly-anyone-dies-from-overdosing-10301780.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Observ...

shawabawa3 11y ago

I think you've taken in too much drug war propaganda. Heroin, if unadulterated, is incredibly safe. There are virtually no long-term health effects, and most overdoses/deaths are caused by it being unknown quality or cut with dangerous substances.[1] The only reason it's dangerous is prohibition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
So heroin isn't clinically addictive and one can't overdose on it?
- adrusi 11y ago
  Heroin isn't significantly more addictive than cigarettes. You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities. If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive on heroin, but also it doesn't destroy your body long term). Perhaps heroin could be adultrated with a chemical that causes nausea when consumed in an amount proportional to a dangerous level of heroin. This would help heroin users build the same negative associations with high doses that cigarette smokers do, and could make them unable to consume more.
  - hvindin 11y ago
    While I enjoy the concept that heroin might be in some way similar to nocotine beyond both of the substances being tangible psychoactive, it does frighten me that this is actually an opinion people legitimately have. Given that when the supply chain of heroin is disrupted the most statistically significant cause of eratic behaviour in users is that it just hurts so much I suspect its a little different to nicotine. If you are interested in understanding drivers of addiction I would recommend looking at cases where people are forced into withdrawals. For example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395915002455 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395915... Although I recall another article published ages ago (early 80s) which had an interesting economic analysis of the elasticity of heroin prices, to paraphrase, resulting from what is essentially inflicting pain on users until they will pay yur asking price. I would love someone to draw the connections to nictonine withdrawals