7 ms·

From a societal POV, we need a Government-regulated drug harder than Alcohol or Tobacco. Similar in function to Soma. Maybe marijuana can fit the bill. It does

From a societal POV, we need a Government-regulated drug harder than Alcohol or Tobacco. Similar in function to Soma. Maybe marijuana can fit the bill. It doesn't make sense to 'outsource' production of narcotics to antagonistic nations or criminal enterprises.

asdff 5y ago
You can get edibles now that are dosed at 5mg increments and are the size of an antihistamine.
semanticjudo 5y ago
By just about any measure alcohol is a "harder" drug than marijuana but certainly more broadly acceptable.
- foolfoolz 5y ago
  i have had a theory for years if you sold any drug like meth or cocaine in an advil bottle with a label on the side saying “take at most 1 tablet every 4 hours, do not exceed 6 tablets in one day. do not use for more than 2 days in a row” etc then the vast majority of people would not have any issue with it. the people who are already abusing it would continue to abuse it. most people can be around hard addictive drugs ingrained in society like alcohol and do just fine
  - crate_barre 5y ago
    Meth in a bottle is called Adderral. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/94rk1a/how_is_meth_different_from_adhd_meds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/94rk1a/how_is_m...
    - dkdk8283 5y ago
      And us socially acceptable in the bay area to be dependent
    - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
      > Meth in a bottle is called Adderral. No, it's not. Please stop spreading this age-old myth*. You can literally buy prescription meth in a bottle, and it's called Desoxyn. Adderall is extremely similar, because amphetamine is quite similar to meth (just an inferior version IME). D-meth is probably 20-30% more potent than d-amp dose for dose, but with somewhat reduced unwanted peripheral (body) side effects. The other main differences are meth releases some serotonin (not nearly as much as MDMA) while amp releases almost none, and that for whatever reason methamphetamine takes 3-3.5 hours to reach peak blood concentration when taken orally, whereas amphetamine peaks much sooner. * I get it, the point isn't literally that it's meth, just that it's similar. But it's silly thing to say rhetorically when you can literally get prescription d-methamphetamine in the US under the brand name Desoxyn.
      - crate_barre 5y ago
        I think the answer is in the middle. I don’t want to propagate a myth, but I do want to shed light on the fact that this isn’t a benign drug. It’s an amphetamine, many people want to sugar coat it like it’s this particularly saint-like medication (I mean the damn thing let’s you get a high salary job - don’t you disparage my Addy). Adderral and Vyvanse do have added ingredients that thwart abuse (mostly slows it down, can never truly stop abuse on such an addictive substance). In any case, high dosage of Adderral (or consistent use) has very similar effects to Meth use (obviously not methhead no-teeth level stuff, but definitely euphoria, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, insomnia, drastic appetite suppression, irritability). Psychosis can also occur on Adderral. A nicer version of Adderral without all the anti-abuse stuff is Dexedrine, you get a more pure amphetamine and is generally smoother since it doesn’t have the Levoamphetamine that creates the characteristic ‘lethargic’ feeling after the initially speedy-rush. The funny thing about all of this is that it’s legal, and I shit you not, me and my doctor would speak about finding ‘smoother’ meds (imagine two crackheads discussing what would be a nicer high), all totally legal and not frowned upon. One hell of a PR job by team ‘legal speed’ :) Glad I’m off that shit because I really did feel and act like a Meth-head by the end of it.
        __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    - goatsi 5y ago
      Meth in a bottle is called Desoxyn (methamphetamine hydrochloride). https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm
      - crate_barre 5y ago
        Hah, and it’s prescribed for ADHD, and all the other stimulants are amphetamine derivatives. Who are people kidding?
        goatsi 5y ago
        Methylphenidate is a non amphetamine derivatived stimulant, and is widely used for ADHD treatment.
        crate_barre 5y ago
        Have you ever taken Ritalin? I’ve taken it along with XR version of Concerta. I can paste the wiki stuff about how it’s essentially similar to Meth, but I get it, it hurts peoples feelings. Look, you can’t bullshit someone that’s been on this stuff, it’s a serious drug.
        goatsi 5y ago
        >I can paste the wiki stuff about how it’s essentially similar to Meth Yes, drugs that get classified as stimulants due to their physiological effects will have some similar effects. Different mechanism of action though, and not derived from amphetamine. >it’s a serious drug. Yes, as opposed to all the light and fluffy drugs.
        edgyquant 5y ago
        People with ADHD (like myself) don’t get the same effects from amphetamines as those without it. When someone with ADHD takes adderal it just makes them focused with a little euphoria when they initially begin taking it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Having never done weed, if I smoke one will I preform worse at cognitive tasks than I would if I had a beer? I know, comparing uppers and downers, not the same effects, etc.
  - semanticjudo 5y ago
    Depends on a few factors like what task, innate ability, etc. Which is not a non-answer - it is THE answer: in my experience, some things are easier on one than the other and vice versa. FWIW, here's my definition of a "hard" drug: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29028924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29028924
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    They're not really comparable. It mostly comes down to dosage, if you have a beer I don't think you'll be much worse than if you were sober.
  - mdpye 5y ago
    It's difficult to say what an equivalent dose might be and this is just my experience, but... Definitely cognitive tasks would be considered more impaired by weed than beer, at "roughly equivalent to a pint" level. Likely neither would be a big deal. Weed is neither upper, nor downer really, it an hallucinogen. That means less ordered thinking. Quite possibly an increase in creativity and lateral concept matching (say, making or appreciating witty comments) but also an impairment to short term memory and direct logical reasoning. For motor skills and reaction times, beer definitely hits harder.
    - mdpye 5y ago
      Oh, and on dosage, I'm from the UK. In my experience in the US a single joint is rolled to a potency I'd consider equivalent to "a mug full of whisky", not a pint of beer!
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    In my experience I can code on alcohol (unless I get completely shit faced.) Weed makes me more creative and I want to code more, but I also make a lot of mistakes that I wouldn’t normally. This is why I quit cannabis, in math classes I would mess up simple things like forgetting to multiply by -1
netizen-936824 5y ago
What, exactly, in a drug's pharmacology or chemical structure makes it "hard"?
- semanticjudo 5y ago
  it's a good question - I avoided it in my own response with the clever use of quotation marks. But to answer, I think the term is used colloquially all of the time and of course is open to interpretation. I would suggest it has nothing to do with a drug's pharmacology or chemical structure but rather the degree to which a drug when taken in easily-consumed quantities can shape our perceptions of the world, the likelihood of negative externalities due to consumer behavior and the probability of becoming addicted to the drug. A mixture of those things makes a drug "hard" in conversational language e.g. something that dramatically changes a persons perceptions, frequently has negative externalities and can cause addiction with short-term sustained use is a "hard drug". Like alcohol. When addicted to such a drug, the negative externalities typically expand in scope and severity and if the use scales to a significant portion of the population would generally be regarded as an undesirable state for society to be in.
- vinceguidry 5y ago
  Good question. If you were to go by relative effects on consciousness, alcohol is a far harder drug than cannabis. Lots of illegal drugs are, alcohol is much worse than we believe.
bluejellybean 5y ago
Society does, it's called Oxycodone. The results of it have been quite devastating.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  In Britain at least diamorphine hydrochloride (heroin) can be prescribed to individuals.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    In case you're interested, in my reply I've mentioned why the UK is an exception and is able to prescribe diamophine. Apologies if you're already aware.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "The results of it have been quite devastating." They've been devastating for good reason, which is that with oxycodone the long proven, well established administration and monitoring protocols for narcotic opioids were not observed. Essentially, every narcotic opioid ever discovered or used has addictive properties and thus they all have the potential to addict users. Opiate addition takes a very pernicious form because withdrawal makes the addict feel so absolutely rotten which is instantly fixed by restoring the level of drug to its normal 'maintenance' levels. Opiates come in a huge range of types and strengths. Some are considered sufficienty mild or innocuous to sell OTC without a script, others are considered too powerful and dangerous to ever sell legally even though they do have legitimate medical uses, heroin (diacetyl morphine) falls into this category in most countries as it's considered too 'hot' to handle/administer - although the UK is one exception where it's used for intractable pain (as in terminal cancer). (The UK struck out/did not sign the section that covered the complete prohibition of heroin in the international treaty on banned narcotic drugs because its doctors used the rationale that heroin is actually a more effective painkiller in terminal cancer cases over morphine (which in fact it is by a reasonable margin) - thus addiction was a secondary consideration in such dire circumstances. Whilst the UK, didn't ban heroin for medical use, it agreed to the other provisions of the treaty - those concerning its illegal trade, and possession, etc.) As I said, ALL opioids that induce narcotic and pain-reducing effects have the potential to be addictive - even mild OTC ones. I'll use myself as an example here. Years ago, I used to take OTC painkillers for the occasional headache of the type that included both codeine and paracetamol (acetaminophen) and whilst they cured the pain I found the headaches becoming more frequent which then led me to take more tablets. Eventually, it dawned on me that the codeine was the reason for the increase in frequency of the headaches - not what caused them in the first instance. I then switched to the paracetamol-only tablets and the frequency of my headaches subsided to the frequency that they were originally. Of course, in my case, withdrawing from the codeine was was trivial - just a simple matter of switching to codeine-free tablets, but it's anything but simple for a heroin addict - in most cases it's a fucking painful 'nightmare' of the worst kind. Right, I've taken a long time to get to the point which is this: simply introducing a new opioid drug, especially so a powerful one such oxycodone, without keeping in place all the existing protocols that cover the medical administration of opoids which have existed for well over 100 years is a recipe for an unmitigated disaster - and that's exactly what happened. We know that Purdue Pharmaceuticals and its owners - that ragbag mob the Sacklers - were the irresponsible pushers of oxycodone, but in many ways it's how we'd gotten to the point where oxycodone was so widespread that it's had such a devastating impact on the population that is so damning and it still must be explained in detail. What's never been explained to me or, for that matter any other member of the public, why the FDA didn't nip this potential problem in the bud at the outset when it originally approved oxycodone. Moreover, why did the second line of defense fail so catastrophically - that is, why didn't the medical profession - all those doctors prescribing oxycodone - use their knowledge of opiate addiction (which is basic 101 pharmacy knowledge required for them to pass their medial exams), stop the opioid crisis before it took hold? The opioid/oxycondone crisis is one of the greatest failings in public health administration in modern times. Purdue and the Sacklers started the crisis but why public health administration failed so catastrophically has never been answered.

asdff 5y ago

You can get edibles now that are dosed at 5mg increments and are the size of an antihistamine.

semanticjudo 5y ago

By just about any measure alcohol is a "harder" drug than marijuana but certainly more broadly acceptable.

foolfoolz 5y ago
i have had a theory for years if you sold any drug like meth or cocaine in an advil bottle with a label on the side saying “take at most 1 tablet every 4 hours, do not exceed 6 tablets in one day. do not use for more than 2 days in a row” etc then the vast majority of people would not have any issue with it. the people who are already abusing it would continue to abuse it. most people can be around hard addictive drugs ingrained in society like alcohol and do just fine
- crate_barre 5y ago
  Meth in a bottle is called Adderral. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/94rk1a/how_is_meth_different_from_adhd_meds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/94rk1a/how_is_m...
  - dkdk8283 5y ago
    And us socially acceptable in the bay area to be dependent
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    > Meth in a bottle is called Adderral. No, it's not. Please stop spreading this age-old myth*. You can literally buy prescription meth in a bottle, and it's called Desoxyn. Adderall is extremely similar, because amphetamine is quite similar to meth (just an inferior version IME). D-meth is probably 20-30% more potent than d-amp dose for dose, but with somewhat reduced unwanted peripheral (body) side effects. The other main differences are meth releases some serotonin (not nearly as much as MDMA) while amp releases almost none, and that for whatever reason methamphetamine takes 3-3.5 hours to reach peak blood concentration when taken orally, whereas amphetamine peaks much sooner. * I get it, the point isn't literally that it's meth, just that it's similar. But it's silly thing to say rhetorically when you can literally get prescription d-methamphetamine in the US under the brand name Desoxyn.
    - crate_barre 5y ago
      I think the answer is in the middle. I don’t want to propagate a myth, but I do want to shed light on the fact that this isn’t a benign drug. It’s an amphetamine, many people want to sugar coat it like it’s this particularly saint-like medication (I mean the damn thing let’s you get a high salary job - don’t you disparage my Addy). Adderral and Vyvanse do have added ingredients that thwart abuse (mostly slows it down, can never truly stop abuse on such an addictive substance). In any case, high dosage of Adderral (or consistent use) has very similar effects to Meth use (obviously not methhead no-teeth level stuff, but definitely euphoria, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, insomnia, drastic appetite suppression, irritability). Psychosis can also occur on Adderral. A nicer version of Adderral without all the anti-abuse stuff is Dexedrine, you get a more pure amphetamine and is generally smoother since it doesn’t have the Levoamphetamine that creates the characteristic ‘lethargic’ feeling after the initially speedy-rush. The funny thing about all of this is that it’s legal, and I shit you not, me and my doctor would speak about finding ‘smoother’ meds (imagine two crackheads discussing what would be a nicer high), all totally legal and not frowned upon. One hell of a PR job by team ‘legal speed’ :) Glad I’m off that shit because I really did feel and act like a Meth-head by the end of it.
      - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
  - goatsi 5y ago
    Meth in a bottle is called Desoxyn (methamphetamine hydrochloride). https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm
    - crate_barre 5y ago
      Hah, and it’s prescribed for ADHD, and all the other stimulants are amphetamine derivatives. Who are people kidding?
      - goatsi 5y ago
        Methylphenidate is a non amphetamine derivatived stimulant, and is widely used for ADHD treatment.
        crate_barre 5y ago
        Have you ever taken Ritalin? I’ve taken it along with XR version of Concerta. I can paste the wiki stuff about how it’s essentially similar to Meth, but I get it, it hurts peoples feelings. Look, you can’t bullshit someone that’s been on this stuff, it’s a serious drug.
        goatsi 5y ago
        >I can paste the wiki stuff about how it’s essentially similar to Meth Yes, drugs that get classified as stimulants due to their physiological effects will have some similar effects. Different mechanism of action though, and not derived from amphetamine. >it’s a serious drug. Yes, as opposed to all the light and fluffy drugs.
      - edgyquant 5y ago
        People with ADHD (like myself) don’t get the same effects from amphetamines as those without it. When someone with ADHD takes adderal it just makes them focused with a little euphoria when they initially begin taking it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
tomjen3 5y ago
Having never done weed, if I smoke one will I preform worse at cognitive tasks than I would if I had a beer? I know, comparing uppers and downers, not the same effects, etc.
- semanticjudo 5y ago
  Depends on a few factors like what task, innate ability, etc. Which is not a non-answer - it is THE answer: in my experience, some things are easier on one than the other and vice versa. FWIW, here's my definition of a "hard" drug: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29028924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29028924
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  They're not really comparable. It mostly comes down to dosage, if you have a beer I don't think you'll be much worse than if you were sober.
- mdpye 5y ago
  It's difficult to say what an equivalent dose might be and this is just my experience, but... Definitely cognitive tasks would be considered more impaired by weed than beer, at "roughly equivalent to a pint" level. Likely neither would be a big deal. Weed is neither upper, nor downer really, it an hallucinogen. That means less ordered thinking. Quite possibly an increase in creativity and lateral concept matching (say, making or appreciating witty comments) but also an impairment to short term memory and direct logical reasoning. For motor skills and reaction times, beer definitely hits harder.
  - mdpye 5y ago
    Oh, and on dosage, I'm from the UK. In my experience in the US a single joint is rolled to a potency I'd consider equivalent to "a mug full of whisky", not a pint of beer!
- edgyquant 5y ago
  In my experience I can code on alcohol (unless I get completely shit faced.) Weed makes me more creative and I want to code more, but I also make a lot of mistakes that I wouldn’t normally. This is why I quit cannabis, in math classes I would mess up simple things like forgetting to multiply by -1

netizen-936824 5y ago

What, exactly, in a drug's pharmacology or chemical structure makes it "hard"?

semanticjudo 5y ago
it's a good question - I avoided it in my own response with the clever use of quotation marks. But to answer, I think the term is used colloquially all of the time and of course is open to interpretation. I would suggest it has nothing to do with a drug's pharmacology or chemical structure but rather the degree to which a drug when taken in easily-consumed quantities can shape our perceptions of the world, the likelihood of negative externalities due to consumer behavior and the probability of becoming addicted to the drug. A mixture of those things makes a drug "hard" in conversational language e.g. something that dramatically changes a persons perceptions, frequently has negative externalities and can cause addiction with short-term sustained use is a "hard drug". Like alcohol. When addicted to such a drug, the negative externalities typically expand in scope and severity and if the use scales to a significant portion of the population would generally be regarded as an undesirable state for society to be in.
vinceguidry 5y ago
Good question. If you were to go by relative effects on consciousness, alcohol is a far harder drug than cannabis. Lots of illegal drugs are, alcohol is much worse than we believe.

bluejellybean 5y ago

Society does, it's called Oxycodone. The results of it have been quite devastating.

edgyquant 5y ago
In Britain at least diamorphine hydrochloride (heroin) can be prescribed to individuals.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  In case you're interested, in my reply I've mentioned why the UK is an exception and is able to prescribe diamophine. Apologies if you're already aware.
hilbert42 5y ago
"The results of it have been quite devastating." They've been devastating for good reason, which is that with oxycodone the long proven, well established administration and monitoring protocols for narcotic opioids were not observed. Essentially, every narcotic opioid ever discovered or used has addictive properties and thus they all have the potential to addict users. Opiate addition takes a very pernicious form because withdrawal makes the addict feel so absolutely rotten which is instantly fixed by restoring the level of drug to its normal 'maintenance' levels. Opiates come in a huge range of types and strengths. Some are considered sufficienty mild or innocuous to sell OTC without a script, others are considered too powerful and dangerous to ever sell legally even though they do have legitimate medical uses, heroin (diacetyl morphine) falls into this category in most countries as it's considered too 'hot' to handle/administer - although the UK is one exception where it's used for intractable pain (as in terminal cancer). (The UK struck out/did not sign the section that covered the complete prohibition of heroin in the international treaty on banned narcotic drugs because its doctors used the rationale that heroin is actually a more effective painkiller in terminal cancer cases over morphine (which in fact it is by a reasonable margin) - thus addiction was a secondary consideration in such dire circumstances. Whilst the UK, didn't ban heroin for medical use, it agreed to the other provisions of the treaty - those concerning its illegal trade, and possession, etc.) As I said, ALL opioids that induce narcotic and pain-reducing effects have the potential to be addictive - even mild OTC ones. I'll use myself as an example here. Years ago, I used to take OTC painkillers for the occasional headache of the type that included both codeine and paracetamol (acetaminophen) and whilst they cured the pain I found the headaches becoming more frequent which then led me to take more tablets. Eventually, it dawned on me that the codeine was the reason for the increase in frequency of the headaches - not what caused them in the first instance. I then switched to the paracetamol-only tablets and the frequency of my headaches subsided to the frequency that they were originally. Of course, in my case, withdrawing from the codeine was was trivial - just a simple matter of switching to codeine-free tablets, but it's anything but simple for a heroin addict - in most cases it's a fucking painful 'nightmare' of the worst kind. Right, I've taken a long time to get to the point which is this: simply introducing a new opioid drug, especially so a powerful one such oxycodone, without keeping in place all the existing protocols that cover the medical administration of opoids which have existed for well over 100 years is a recipe for an unmitigated disaster - and that's exactly what happened. We know that Purdue Pharmaceuticals and its owners - that ragbag mob the Sacklers - were the irresponsible pushers of oxycodone, but in many ways it's how we'd gotten to the point where oxycodone was so widespread that it's had such a devastating impact on the population that is so damning and it still must be explained in detail. What's never been explained to me or, for that matter any other member of the public, why the FDA didn't nip this potential problem in the bud at the outset when it originally approved oxycodone. Moreover, why did the second line of defense fail so catastrophically - that is, why didn't the medical profession - all those doctors prescribing oxycodone - use their knowledge of opiate addiction (which is basic 101 pharmacy knowledge required for them to pass their medial exams), stop the opioid crisis before it took hold? The opioid/oxycondone crisis is one of the greatest failings in public health administration in modern times. Purdue and the Sacklers started the crisis but why public health administration failed so catastrophically has never been answered.