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Spice is throwing up problems not seen with other drugs
- therealidiot 8y agoI've reached the article limit, despite having never browsed
- mrhackerpoland 8y agoIt's somtimes based on the IP.
- veganjay 8y agoThat happened to me as well. Try opening the page in a private Firefox window. That worked for me.
- take_5 8y agoI got caught by a dark pattern asking me subscribe with an x to close option. Clicking the x option navigated me away and then informed me that I'd reached an article limit when I tried to go back to the article. Might just be my fat fingers(they are not fat) but its still not a great user experience.
- sergiosgc 8y agoUse Firefox Reader View after the page covers the content with the article limit banner. Reader View is an icon that appears on the right side of the address bar.
- severine 8y agoEven better: These extensions let you open the page directly in Reader View, the 1st via context menu, the 2nd via list of sites to be always opened in Reader View: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/reader-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/reader-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/automatic-reader-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/automatic-reader-vi...
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- blentrop 8y agoI use Firefox Focus
- electic 8y agohttps://outline.com/uzZP8x https://outline.com/uzZP8x
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoWhat are we going to do? Should some kind of 'Basic Assistance' include fairly unlimited metered doses of whatever drugs a person may want? Fully legal, regulated, and taxed? What would an idealised harm reduction programme look like?
- cf498 8y agoJust make it a legal produc. The question is how many people would use some RCs or drugs with extreme side effects when they had access to ordinary weed. Also, something like opiates can be unbelievably cheap. There is a reason laudanum was the drug of choice of the poorest segments of society. Its byproduct of the existing poppy harvest and many countries currently have to spend money to get rid of it by washing any poppy seed before selling it. Without having to worry about blowing through a month wage in no time because of the black market cost, the resulting withdrawal and suffering the effects of what ever it was laced with, almost all unwanted side effects would be gone. The question is what do you do with drugs who change the behavior of the user dramatically to the degree that they become a risk to others. We currently have that problem with alcohol and see the side effects in violent and reckless behavior. From domestic violence to drunk driving. The answer might be to shift the approach from restricting possession to restricting consumption and being under the influence in certain areas or situation where they might become a danger to others. The only open question I see is how to deal with expensive, addictive substances that change the behavior of its consumers. Crack comes to mind.
- bfuller 8y agoGermany and other places do opiate maintenance with diamorphine (heroin). You go in and get to shoot up as much as you want then go about your day. Sounds nice.
- hguhghuff 8y ago>> sounds nice Sounds shit to me but I fully respect any system that allows it. These people can probably get on with some sort of life in between their hits instead of spending their lives trying to get in a position to get high agsin.
- vertex-four 8y agoSee, weirdly, part of the solution here is to not get all up in people’s business over drugs - if it were less risky to use more traditional drugs, people would do that instead. They use spice because it’s (supposedly) hard to get done for it - working around the system that seeks to prevent them from using their drug of choice. The other part of the solution is to provide actual help to people, not contingent on things like “priority need” (aka you can’t generally access housing help as a man without children), and before people wind up being forced to disclose a criminal record to any potential employer.
- DanBC 8y ago> They use spice because it’s (supposedly) hard to get done for it - working around the system that seeks to prevent them from using their drug of choice. That's not why people in England use spice. They use spice because they wish to get heavily intoxicated, and spice does that cheaply and easily.
- GordonS 8y agoIf cannabis was legal, I'm pretty sure the majority would use it instead of spice. Hell, if cannabis had been legal before spice became a thing, I'm sure spice never would have become a thing - indeed, a whole host of synthetic analogues for a variety of drugs would probably never have come into existence.
- DanBC 8y agoThe article is not talking about the majority, but about the several thousand or so people who are homeless and about 10,000 or so more people who are prisoners. People who want to use cannabis will use cannabis. It's trivially easy to get hold of, and it's mostly dealt with by warnings or cautions. Approximately no-one is using spice because cannabis is illegal. Alcohol is legal, but that doesn't stop a few people from drinking litres and litres of shitty white cider or industrial vodka. Go and talk to street homeless people sometime.
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- philipkglass 8y agoHad plain old cannabis been legalized 20 years ago, I doubt that these synthetic cannabinoids would have become notable articles of commerce. Maybe a handful of adventurous psychonauts would use contract research laboratories to make small quantities and post trip reports. But cannabis wasn't legalized, so hundreds of chemicals with sort-of-similar effects, selected more for "not technically banned yet" than "believed to be safe for human consumption," are being tested on human subjects without safeguards.
- hguhghuff 8y agoSo right. By desperately hanging on to criminalization of pot, politicians have created a much worse situation. My question is, is spice an issue in the places where pot is legal?
- cf498 8y agoYou can witness the same in Russia with opiates and their desomorphine / crocodile consumption.
- hguhghuff 8y agoI don’t think people last long on crocodile do they?
- cf498 8y agoNo they dont. I was referring to your comment about creating a worse situation.
- etatoby 8y agoMaybe they won't last long on Spice either. Maybe that's the entire point, the UK Government's "final solution" to the "homeless problem." I hope I'm wrong and it's just the free market taking advantage of the weakest. Somehow that's preferable to a concerted effort to get rid of the unfit.
- mrhackerpoland 8y agoCannabis is Adiyogi's favourite food. And Adiyogi is one of the most influential thinker of his time who barely got any recognization for his work when thinkers like Aristotle appear pale in comparison to his work. If Cannabis helps someone think clearly, why should it be banned and these alternatives popup in vaccum where the treatment of cannabis is either grey or black.
- simen 8y agoYou're going to use a mythological figure to prove that cannabis makes you think more clearly? I think you've smoked a bit much there, buddy. If we look at the scientific research, certain studies have claimed that aspects of creativity could be enhanced with cannabis (often based on self-reports rather than objective measurements), but those results are inconclusive at best. Cognitive impairments due to both acute and chronic cannabis use are much more well-documented. Here is a review of executive function deficits due to cannabis use: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037578/ Here is a study that found low-potency cannabis had no effect on creativity, while high-potency cannabis impaired divergent thinking: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-014-3749-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-014-3749-1 If you want to argue that cannabis should be legal, I have no issue with that. But the way to go isn't to say "it's a cognitive enhancer", which it is not to the best of our scientific understanding.
- mrhackerpoland 8y agoAbout Adiyogi being a myth, we've established archeological proof of the sites, so it's not simply a myth, it's debatable. What should i read from the link you posted, if it's you reading that text and accepting it as 'truth' then let me tell you, it's nothing more than your belief (ground for a shared madness or religious maybe?). It's not science, I've experience in academia, i already know how the data is cherry picked to match the narrative of the person or whoever is paying for the study. I won't accept it. As for me, I've been using Cannabis for years, i already know what it has changed in my life. It's all positive.
- CuriouslyC 8y ago
- madnerd 8y agoHe who controls the spice controls the universe.
- arountheworld 8y ago> drugs that hit the same brain receptors as cannabis but are more potent and addictive Okay, why there are using cannabis as an example and not other substances that react with those receptors, like chocolate? It is better as they abstained from using the term "synthetic marijuana", but you can still sense an agenda. Things like this put me off from reading news pieces. If I see so much foul language and twisting things to put a certain angle on the topic - on the topic I am fairly knowledgeable, then how much propaganda is being served in the topic I know little about? This is a disgrace to journalism. Apologies for my rant.
- gaspoweredcat 8y agoits actually something of a bit of poor research on behalf of the article combined with a slight naming issue, originally "spice" when sold as a commercial product initially contained 2 synthetic cannabinoids JWH-018 and one other which i cant remember off hand. later on other brands using different mixes came about one of the biggest being called "Black Mamba" this too was generally a mixture of synthetic cannabinoids sprayed onto smokable herbs, but then came the psychoactives bill which banned most of these chemicals meaning that they started to be produced illicitly and also led to the mixture of chemicals used in them being even further twisted. this brings us to now and while fringe analogs of synthetic cannabinoids are no doubt still being used and by no means are they likely to be good for you the problem chemical is actually more likely to be MDPV or a derivative of it (methylenedioxypyrovalerelone if memory serves correctly) otherwise known as Monkey dust or simply "Dust" it wouldnt surprise me to see some form of dissociative analog in there too, something like 3MeO-PCP MDPV is not a cannabinoid but more a stimulant of sorts which gives a very short high with very long acting unpleasant side effects. of course its highly unlikely we will ever know exactly what is in that crap but one thing is for sure you have one and only one thing to blame for the problem and that is the prohibition of other substances proven to be less harmful. were we to make a sensible move the likes of the one Portugal has it would likely alleviate the problem greatly, even simply legalizing the sale and recreational use of cannabis would likely greatly reduce the problem (whilst also creating businesses, jobs, tax revenue and tourism to name but a few economic benefits) how do i know all this stuff? experience i have no shame in admitting i became interested in psychoactive chemicals at one point in my 20s and spent a few years deeply researching and trying a staggering number of chemicals both the classical psychoactives we all know and a large number of "research chemicals" MDPV was in fact one of said chemicals, i only did it once and i did it via insuffluation it gave me a 15min buzz followed by 3 days of no sleep, twitchyness, paranoia and toward the end a similar situation to amphetamine psychosis including hallucinations, from what im told smoking it only serves to intensify all of this. of all the chemicals i tried there were few i could label as fundamentally "bad" but MDPV was definitely one of those few i fully agree with you that at this stage any comparison to cannabis is pretty idiotic, not only do we not actually know what is in the stuff but even if it were synthetic cannabinoids and nothing else theyre likely now so far removed from the original substance that they have totally different effects just look at what happens when you modify something like amphetamine, both MDMA and Meth are amphetamine analogs but you dont see many people homeless, toothless and brainless due to an MDMA addiction. a quick read of PIHKAL or TIKHAL will show you just how much the effects of a chemical can change with only a tiny modification its a shame that people arent more biochemically aware or theyd know that articles like this are packed with poor information but sadly thats not the case so we end up with people demonising other substances based on poor information from supposedly trustworthy sources
- fizx 8y agoThe article undersells how potent "spice" is--up to 50,000 times stronger gram for gram than pure THC. You're in the LSD world of micrograms having effects, and also the research chemicals world of not knowing what you're getting. The potency allows easier smuggling, where only a few grams at a time are imported, then diluted/cut on arrival. The ease of smuggling is perhaps the largest economic factor in the drug's rise.
- disgruntledphd2 8y agoMuch like heroin only became popular in the US following the criminalisation of opium. I suppose there are parallels with the current opioid epidemic these days, in that restriction tends to cause more problems than it solves (at least in this area of policy).
- drewmol 8y agoThis is an interesting phenomenon. Enforcment of prohibition and regulation of a substance is less effective as value to volume ratio increases, but as 'potency' increases so does public support for regulation/prohibition. In the US, THC is increasingly difficult to prohibit even in states that still try, partly due to the industrialization of creating concentrated forms, and it's relative ease of smuggling vs raw marijuana.
- dbmikus 8y agoA small anecdote, but when I was in high school they started drug testing if you participated in or used any non-essential services, like parking or playing on a sports team or joining a club. The effect was that a lot of people that smoked cannabis switched to spice. It was also legal at the time, so it was potentially easier to get. In my opinion, the policy bit the school in the ass because spice had a considerably stronger and more harmful effect than cannabis.
- black6 8y agoSame deal when I was in the Army. Soldiers started smoking Spice and K2, which was just some plant substrate laced with a compound cooked up in a Chinaman’s laboratory, always one methyl group ahead of the regulators. Much scarier than any of the combat hazards I was exposed to.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 8y agoDude Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.
- bootsz 8y agoAsian American, please!
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoBut he is presumably talking about a man from China who has never been to America. What if Chinaman is actually be the accurate term here lol.
- bootsz 8y agoThis isn't a guy who built the railroads here, this is a guy.... This entire sub-comment thread is just quoting a scene from the Big Lebowski, in case you haven't caught on :)
- m-i-l 8y agoAlso published today "Spice: a lethal epidemic fuelled by austerity": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/29/spice-lethal-epidemic-austerity-drug https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/29/spice-...
- Urdoinnitrong 8y agoThe original spice chemicals were pretty good. Only serious side effect was extreme tiredness the next day. Besides that they were good and trippy. Then the government banned that chemical so they keep modifying the structure to the point that some of them are really evil. This issue could probably be solved by legalising normal weed.
- BugsJustFindMe 8y ago> chemicals sprayed onto dried plant leaves and smoked. Huh. Why? What's the point of spraying them on dried plant leaves? Nostalgia?
- xyzzy123 8y agoInteresting question! Yeah, nostalgia or... inertia maybe? I think the original synthetics were developed as “legal highs” and thus filled a particular demand for “smokable leaves that get you high” as a substitute product for weed. And when you think about it there are practical advantages. The form factor is not bad, compatible with your existing lighters, papers, pipes and so on and takes up “the right amount” of space (harder to lose but still concealable). Lungs are an excellent drug delivery system. You can also use it out in the open since there are existing (legal) things it could be. You could distribute it “pure”, but it would be a lot more fiddly (tiny bags) and require a fragile (and suspicious) glass pipe, lightbulb, alufoil or what-have-you. Harder to maintain for your “addict on the go”. From a marketing perspective, much more threatening (crack/meth associations). “Injectibles” have similar (but worse) downsides. A pill, or snortable powder could work? Probably these do exist already - lots of dodgy pills around, some of them are bound to have these actives. Generally slower onset though and less of a high than smoking the same thing. Also somewhat different market. Have not seen synthetic edibles or oils but no reason it couldn’t be done. If you were going to “startup the heck out of it” you would probably go for some kind of juul-like vape. Subscription, of course....
- kitcar 8y agoTo enable them to be smoked cheap and easily - which in return means the user feels the effects almost immediately. Same reason why majority of users smoke rather than eat cannabis.
- draw_down 8y agoCan’t simply legalize cannabis though. Too dangerous, you know.
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