5 ms·

You chances of drinking alcohol responsibly for decades are way, way better than your changes on not becoming an unemployable wreck in mere years on meth or her

You chances of drinking alcohol responsibly for decades are way, way better than your changes on not becoming an unemployable wreck in mere years on meth or heroin.

bdangubic 3y ago
an amazing sentence which sounds like it is rooted in something vaguely factual while in reality there is nothing factual that can support this claim
- jojobas 3y ago
  There's plenty to support this claim: consumption prevalence and disorder prevalence. Opiod users are vastly over-represented in all sort of statistics - addiction treatments, overdose deaths etc as compared with alcohol. 6% of alcohol drinkers are diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the number exceeds 50% for meth users. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912a1.htm
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    > 6% of alcohol drinkers are diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the number exceeds 50% for meth users. This seems like numbers you can not compare fairly. I would think if alcohol were illegal, a bigger percentage of users would be diagnosed with alcohol use disorder.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Diagnostic criteria are quite agnostic (badum-tss) towards the chemical in question. You could also argue that people consuming illegal substances are less likely to report for treatment and be diagnosed in the first place. Why is it so hard to accept that different substances are differently addictive and harmful, per capita? Would you shoehorn chocolate and coffee to the same bucket?
      - master-lincoln 3y ago
        I am just careful in this area because previous policies have not been based on scientific evidence, but political agenda (as expanded upon other-where in this thread). So I don't trust my common sense... I accept that different substances have different effects. Harm is a domain that is very broad and hard to quantify fairly I think. Does Meth cause more harm because more Meth addicts have fallen out of society than say Coke? If so, how can we make sure to differentiate between mere correlations and causal relations?
eru 3y ago
That would be hard to get data on, because alcohol is mostly legal and meth and heroin are mostly illegal. So you have a huge confounder: it seems likely people who are willing to do illegal acts, are more likely to become unemployable. So if meth was legal, and alcohol was illegal, the situation might be reversed. (I'm not saying this is true, but to make your statement you'd need to carefully exclude the possibility of this effect.) Btw, heroin and other concentrated drugs are popular partially because we banned comparatively milder and bulkier alternatives. Eg opium ain't as hard as opium, but it's just as forbidden, and its bigger bulk makes it less profitable to smuggle.
- cwkoss 3y ago
  Meth is legal, sometimes. It's called desoxyn, and can be prescribed for ADHD or weight loss. Also chirality-flipped meth is available over the counter as a nasal decongestant
  - conradev 3y ago
    Over the counter… with an ID. It’s not on shelves precisely because it is so similar to meth
    - bratgpttamer 3y ago
      It's not on shelves because it's a precursor chemical to actual meth manufacturing, not because it's a dangerous drug (otherwise it'd be Rx-only, like the other meth-like drugs). https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/meth/cma2005.htm https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/meth/cma2005.htm
      - Paul-Craft 3y ago
        Neither ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, or phenylpropanolamine are the reversed-chirality methampetamine. "Regular" methamphetamine is dextromethamphetamine; the other version is levomethamphetamine.
    - heavyset_go 3y ago
Eisenstein 3y ago
Yet we give amphetamines and opiates to people under prescription en masse without such a thing happening with more prevalence than alcohol.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  Yep, and I tell you what: on the rare occasions when I have accidentally doubled my dose of Adderall, I do not like the way it makes me feel one bit. An actual addict would probably be taking 10x or more of my prescribed dose to get their high. I wouldn't be able to enjoy the high because I'd feel like I was literally dying.

You chances of drinking alcohol responsibly for decades are way, way better than your changes on not becoming an unemployable wreck in mere years on meth or heroin.

bdangubic 3y ago

an amazing sentence which sounds like it is rooted in something vaguely factual while in reality there is nothing factual that can support this claim

jojobas 3y ago
There's plenty to support this claim: consumption prevalence and disorder prevalence. Opiod users are vastly over-represented in all sort of statistics - addiction treatments, overdose deaths etc as compared with alcohol. 6% of alcohol drinkers are diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the number exceeds 50% for meth users. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912a1.htm
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  > 6% of alcohol drinkers are diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the number exceeds 50% for meth users. This seems like numbers you can not compare fairly. I would think if alcohol were illegal, a bigger percentage of users would be diagnosed with alcohol use disorder.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Diagnostic criteria are quite agnostic (badum-tss) towards the chemical in question. You could also argue that people consuming illegal substances are less likely to report for treatment and be diagnosed in the first place. Why is it so hard to accept that different substances are differently addictive and harmful, per capita? Would you shoehorn chocolate and coffee to the same bucket?
    - master-lincoln 3y ago
      I am just careful in this area because previous policies have not been based on scientific evidence, but political agenda (as expanded upon other-where in this thread). So I don't trust my common sense... I accept that different substances have different effects. Harm is a domain that is very broad and hard to quantify fairly I think. Does Meth cause more harm because more Meth addicts have fallen out of society than say Coke? If so, how can we make sure to differentiate between mere correlations and causal relations?

eru 3y ago

That would be hard to get data on, because alcohol is mostly legal and meth and heroin are mostly illegal. So you have a huge confounder: it seems likely people who are willing to do illegal acts, are more likely to become unemployable. So if meth was legal, and alcohol was illegal, the situation might be reversed. (I'm not saying this is true, but to make your statement you'd need to carefully exclude the possibility of this effect.) Btw, heroin and other concentrated drugs are popular partially because we banned comparatively milder and bulkier alternatives. Eg opium ain't as hard as opium, but it's just as forbidden, and its bigger bulk makes it less profitable to smuggle.

cwkoss 3y ago
Meth is legal, sometimes. It's called desoxyn, and can be prescribed for ADHD or weight loss. Also chirality-flipped meth is available over the counter as a nasal decongestant
- conradev 3y ago
  Over the counter… with an ID. It’s not on shelves precisely because it is so similar to meth
  - bratgpttamer 3y ago
    It's not on shelves because it's a precursor chemical to actual meth manufacturing, not because it's a dangerous drug (otherwise it'd be Rx-only, like the other meth-like drugs). https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/meth/cma2005.htm https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/meth/cma2005.htm
    - Paul-Craft 3y ago
      Neither ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, or phenylpropanolamine are the reversed-chirality methampetamine. "Regular" methamphetamine is dextromethamphetamine; the other version is levomethamphetamine.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago

Eisenstein 3y ago

Yet we give amphetamines and opiates to people under prescription en masse without such a thing happening with more prevalence than alcohol.

Paul-Craft 3y ago
Yep, and I tell you what: on the rare occasions when I have accidentally doubled my dose of Adderall, I do not like the way it makes me feel one bit. An actual addict would probably be taking 10x or more of my prescribed dose to get their high. I wouldn't be able to enjoy the high because I'd feel like I was literally dying.