5 ms·

> the bit about GHB being a powerful CNS depressant is just as true about alcohol In the US, a "standard drink" is 14 grams of pure alcohol. It's the equivalen

> the bit about GHB being a powerful CNS depressant is just as true about alcohol In the US, a "standard drink" is 14 grams of pure alcohol. It's the equivalent of a typical can of beer. 3.5 grams of GHB can trigger unconsciousness, and 7 grams is potentially lethal. If this is "just as true", I think our definitions of truth are wildly different. EDIT: If you feel the need to reply to this comment, please read the entire thread first and realize there's nothing "between the lines" of the comment. I have no agenda here. I'm not making a policy argument. I'm not advocating for or against GHB or any other substance. You don't need to tell me what the LD50 is for any particular substance (chances are I already know).

threedaymonk 13y ago
Potency is a pretty misleading comparison. There are drugs that are prescribed in μg (mcg) doses, and drugs that are prescribed in mg - mistaking μg for mg has caused deaths. The LD50 of caffeine for an average male is about 14 g. That's the same (in terms of mass) as the alcohol in a beer. Does that make caffeine more or less "powerful"? It takes something like a hundred cups of coffee to reach caffeine's LD50; for alcohol, it's slightly over one bottle of strong spirits. Despite caffeine's higher potency, it's a lot easier to kill yourself by drinking too much whisky than too much coffee.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  I cannot begin to understand what point you're trying to make. The person I was replying to was explicitly comparing the potency of GHB to alcohol, both depressants commonly encountered in a highly concentrated form. Making this about caffeine or any other substance that can be lethal in small amounts seems a non-sequitur.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    The point is that what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass. We don't generally consider capsaicin to be more powerful than alcohol even though, purely on the basis of how much you have to ingest, it's far easier to kill yourself with it.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      > what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass Um, OK, that may be true for you, and maybe even for society at large, but I've personally never heard such a thing before right now. It's certainly not how I would define the words. To address the point I think you're trying to make (which still doesn't make much sense to me), in the forms they are commonly encountered in, GHB is unquestionably much more dangerous/"powerful" than alcohol. So I still don't see why my comment attracted this sort of argument.
      - pstuart 13y ago
        > much more dangerous Only if taking the same amounts, which is ludicrous. Alcohol is plenty dangerous already and we're all ok with that.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        I think you think I'm making some sort of profound safety and/or merits-of-substance and/or political argument. I'm really not. Edit: Regardless, I surrender, this conversation is both useless and utterly uninteresting because nobody is talking about the same thing I am. I deeply regret having entered it.
        pstuart 13y ago
        I'd love to hear what point you were trying to make. All I saw was hand-wringing over a "dangerous drug". GHB is now known as a date-rape drug, even though the leading date-rape drug is alcohol. Your dialog seemed to be buying into the fear. disclaimer: I personally advocate for the legalization of all drugs.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        > I personally advocate for the legalization of all drugs. So do I. That doesn't prevent me from objectively analyzing the relative potency of two drugs. Not every comment about drugs is a policy argument, and not every statement that one drug is more potent than another is designed to further an agenda.
  - shabble 13y ago
    There seem to be 2 confused issues in this (sub)thread. Firstly, the Therapeutic Index argument (ratio of effective dose to dangerous/fatal dose), for which the 2 drugs are (very) roughly equivalent, based on some back-of-envelope estimates (~10:1 for EtOH, 14:1 - 3:1 for GHB). The second is the 'commonly encountered form' argument, which I think was your main point, and appears to be misunderstood. Alcohol, with the benefits of being legal and easily available, is available in known purity solutions anywhere from 1~90%. The biggest problem (AFAIK) with things like GHB in a bar/club environment is the fact it must be concentrated enough to be small enough to easily smuggle in/out. It has specific other unfortunate properties as well, like being very destructive to many types of plastic. Dosing with an eye-dropper into an existing drink is apparently quite common, and I can easily imagine this leading to accidental overdosing in a crowded/loud/intoxicated environment. You must also account for the fact that there's not nearly the same quality control in terms of purity from batch to batch, which combines badly with the low Therapeutic/Effective Index. The other difference is, even if your bartender is serving you 180 proof rum, he's probably not going to let you chug the whole bottle of it, regardless of demand.
wavefunction 13y ago
Well, a "dose" of GHB is more like 1 gram or less, so I'm not talking about equivalency by weight. Now I really am blowing up my spot ;) I should also note my experience was back in the 90s when it was still legal in my locale
mikeash 13y ago
Just comparing quantities isn't all that useful. Availability needs to be compared, and how much one would "usually" take. With 7 grams being potentially lethal, it's roughly similar to Tylenol (not recommended to exceed 4 grams), caffeine (foolishly extrapolating the LD50 in rats to a human puts the lethal dose at around 10 grams), aspirin (similar to caffeine), and a lot better than capsaicin (foolishly extrapolated lethal dose around 2 grams).
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Since you and threedaymonk both seem to be making a similar argument that makes absolutely no sense to me in context, I'll just point you at my reply to him.
peteretep 13y ago
Your head is liable to E-X-P-L-O-D-E when you hear that there's a drug for sale - nationwide - that's a CNS depressant, where 1 gram of is FATAL. Can you believe that? And yet they sell this thing called "nicotine" to people as young as 16! Perhaps effect per weight is a shitty measure?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Ugh. I was going to just step out, but I can't let this pass, because it's incredibly insulting. I'm not arguing for the banning of a substance. I'm not arguing one substance is subjectively better than another. I don't care that GHB or any other drug is being used in studies. You're reading something into my comments that simply is not there. Please stop it.
  - peteretep 13y ago
    What was your comment about then? You appear to be comparing simply effect per weight, and drawing conclusions from that?
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      My comment was about what was, in my view, an objectively inaccurate characterization of alcohol being "just as powerful" a CNS depressant as GHB. That is all it was. If you want to argue about something else, I'm not the opponent you're looking for.
      - peteretep 13y ago
        If you were right, people would routinely refer to nicotine as being the most powerful street drug, given it's punch-per-gram ratio.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        Yes, it turns out that my use of "power" and "potent" as synonyms is not universal. My deepest apologies for my inexcusably moronic assumption that people used a particular word the same way I do. Are we done now?

threedaymonk 13y ago

Potency is a pretty misleading comparison. There are drugs that are prescribed in μg (mcg) doses, and drugs that are prescribed in mg - mistaking μg for mg has caused deaths. The LD50 of caffeine for an average male is about 14 g. That's the same (in terms of mass) as the alcohol in a beer. Does that make caffeine more or less "powerful"? It takes something like a hundred cups of coffee to reach caffeine's LD50; for alcohol, it's slightly over one bottle of strong spirits. Despite caffeine's higher potency, it's a lot easier to kill yourself by drinking too much whisky than too much coffee.

nknighthb 13y ago
I cannot begin to understand what point you're trying to make. The person I was replying to was explicitly comparing the potency of GHB to alcohol, both depressants commonly encountered in a highly concentrated form. Making this about caffeine or any other substance that can be lethal in small amounts seems a non-sequitur.
- mikeash 13y ago
  The point is that what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass. We don't generally consider capsaicin to be more powerful than alcohol even though, purely on the basis of how much you have to ingest, it's far easier to kill yourself with it.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass Um, OK, that may be true for you, and maybe even for society at large, but I've personally never heard such a thing before right now. It's certainly not how I would define the words. To address the point I think you're trying to make (which still doesn't make much sense to me), in the forms they are commonly encountered in, GHB is unquestionably much more dangerous/"powerful" than alcohol. So I still don't see why my comment attracted this sort of argument.
    - pstuart 13y ago
      > much more dangerous Only if taking the same amounts, which is ludicrous. Alcohol is plenty dangerous already and we're all ok with that.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        I think you think I'm making some sort of profound safety and/or merits-of-substance and/or political argument. I'm really not. Edit: Regardless, I surrender, this conversation is both useless and utterly uninteresting because nobody is talking about the same thing I am. I deeply regret having entered it.
        pstuart 13y ago
        I'd love to hear what point you were trying to make. All I saw was hand-wringing over a "dangerous drug". GHB is now known as a date-rape drug, even though the leading date-rape drug is alcohol. Your dialog seemed to be buying into the fear. disclaimer: I personally advocate for the legalization of all drugs.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        > I personally advocate for the legalization of all drugs. So do I. That doesn't prevent me from objectively analyzing the relative potency of two drugs. Not every comment about drugs is a policy argument, and not every statement that one drug is more potent than another is designed to further an agenda.
- shabble 13y ago
  There seem to be 2 confused issues in this (sub)thread. Firstly, the Therapeutic Index argument (ratio of effective dose to dangerous/fatal dose), for which the 2 drugs are (very) roughly equivalent, based on some back-of-envelope estimates (~10:1 for EtOH, 14:1 - 3:1 for GHB). The second is the 'commonly encountered form' argument, which I think was your main point, and appears to be misunderstood. Alcohol, with the benefits of being legal and easily available, is available in known purity solutions anywhere from 1~90%. The biggest problem (AFAIK) with things like GHB in a bar/club environment is the fact it must be concentrated enough to be small enough to easily smuggle in/out. It has specific other unfortunate properties as well, like being very destructive to many types of plastic. Dosing with an eye-dropper into an existing drink is apparently quite common, and I can easily imagine this leading to accidental overdosing in a crowded/loud/intoxicated environment. You must also account for the fact that there's not nearly the same quality control in terms of purity from batch to batch, which combines badly with the low Therapeutic/Effective Index. The other difference is, even if your bartender is serving you 180 proof rum, he's probably not going to let you chug the whole bottle of it, regardless of demand.

wavefunction 13y ago

Well, a "dose" of GHB is more like 1 gram or less, so I'm not talking about equivalency by weight. Now I really am blowing up my spot ;) I should also note my experience was back in the 90s when it was still legal in my locale

mikeash 13y ago

Just comparing quantities isn't all that useful. Availability needs to be compared, and how much one would "usually" take. With 7 grams being potentially lethal, it's roughly similar to Tylenol (not recommended to exceed 4 grams), caffeine (foolishly extrapolating the LD50 in rats to a human puts the lethal dose at around 10 grams), aspirin (similar to caffeine), and a lot better than capsaicin (foolishly extrapolated lethal dose around 2 grams).

nknighthb 13y ago
Since you and threedaymonk both seem to be making a similar argument that makes absolutely no sense to me in context, I'll just point you at my reply to him.

peteretep 13y ago

Your head is liable to E-X-P-L-O-D-E when you hear that there's a drug for sale - nationwide - that's a CNS depressant, where 1 gram of is FATAL. Can you believe that? And yet they sell this thing called "nicotine" to people as young as 16! Perhaps effect per weight is a shitty measure?

nknighthb 13y ago
Ugh. I was going to just step out, but I can't let this pass, because it's incredibly insulting. I'm not arguing for the banning of a substance. I'm not arguing one substance is subjectively better than another. I don't care that GHB or any other drug is being used in studies. You're reading something into my comments that simply is not there. Please stop it.
- peteretep 13y ago
  What was your comment about then? You appear to be comparing simply effect per weight, and drawing conclusions from that?
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    My comment was about what was, in my view, an objectively inaccurate characterization of alcohol being "just as powerful" a CNS depressant as GHB. That is all it was. If you want to argue about something else, I'm not the opponent you're looking for.
    - peteretep 13y ago
      If you were right, people would routinely refer to nicotine as being the most powerful street drug, given it's punch-per-gram ratio.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        Yes, it turns out that my use of "power" and "potent" as synonyms is not universal. My deepest apologies for my inexcusably moronic assumption that people used a particular word the same way I do. Are we done now?