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"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, m

by nmjohn 12y ago

"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, meth as desoxyn, and heroin as diamorphine? So to call them hard drugs is a bit of a misnomer used to unfairly elicit a negative connotation. While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal act to a conversation on health effects and what we as a society can do to help those who have become dependent on these substances, as opposed to taking the inhumane approach of locking them up and throwing away the key."

dinkumthinkum 12y ago
It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.
- nmjohn 12y ago
  I'd say "it is kind of high schoolish" to change the phrasing of my statement by adding the "Oh ya" and "so haha" making the statement sound silly by word choice, and not actually countering the argument whatsoever. As a fact, those drugs are used by doctors commonly. And the idea of a drug being considered a "hard drug" is entirely based in opinion and semantics. So your outrage is entirely your opinion, which you have every right in the world to, but it does not make me wrong; it means we view something differently. If you don't think opioid painkillers should be considered hard drugs, nothing I say can change that, so here is a challenge to you. Get a prescription for oxycontin. Take it everyday for two months then stop. Come back 2 days later and tell me if you still feel that way.
  - dinkumthinkum 12y ago
    No, I think it is entirely appropriate. What you wrote is this sort of smart aleck sort of response. It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I don't think it adds much, it's just typical way of trying up define problems out if existence.
    - nmjohn 12y ago
      The idea was to highlight the smart aleckness of your response, but my goal clearly failed. But I'm really not quite sure what you are even trying to argue at this point. The original question posed was how to respond to the comparison of the legalization of marijuana to hard drugs. > It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence from real life and online forums, but I very much believe that this is false. Many people know cocaine is used as a prescription drug, few people know desoxyn is meth, and fewer still know about heroin. It is for this reason I made that a point of how to respond, in an attempt to question the distinction between legal and illegal drugs and to persuade the conservative viewers (the hypothetical scenario implied fox news) that there is still a conversation to be had, that the question is not already answered like most would believe.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      Most people are unaware that meth is legal and less scheduled than pot, that heroin is used as a painkiller (and was a trademark of Bayer), and that ketamine is only Schedule III and regularly given to children.
- electronvolt 12y ago
  Pointing out that what are usually stigmatized as 'hard drugs' are used in medical situations is meaningful, because it puts into question the categorization of a substance as 'hard' versus 'soft' drugs, which is reasonable. Your characterization of all 'hard drugs' as 'chemically addictive drugs that are more dangerous than things like marijuana' also is at odds with the governmental classification system and the public debate: many people would put things like LSD (no known LD-50 in humans and in no way chemically addictive) in the realm of 'hard drugs', and nobody talks of tobacco as a hard drug (despite it being one of the most addictive drugs available, with a lot of dangers to one's health; certainly 'more dangerous than marijuana' and 'chemically addictive' by every study/classification I've seen), or alcohol as a hard drug (again, chemically addictive and quite bad for your body). People would probably also not classify Adderall (amphetamine salts) as a 'hard drug', despite it having similar effects as meth (methamphetamine salts) and similar symptoms for overdose, addiction, and withdrawal. (I don't know amounts or the like, so I'm not going to claim adderall is 'the same as meth', or 'as safe as meth', but it is in many ways a similar substance. As a side note, the way you take in a drug has a large effect on its half life, and to my understanding, therefore its addictiveness; if I remember the drugs class I sat in on in college, drugs with short half lives tend to be much more addictive than drugs with long half lives. Your classification system becomes even weaker if my memory is correct, as the uptake + half life of /the same or almost the same drug/ will differ depending on if you're snorting it, injecting it, smoking it, etc. When, then, is a drug 'hard' or 'soft'? What sort of addictiveness do you use if you can snort or orally take a drug?) Classification systems like 'hard' and 'soft' for drugs are not rationally constructed, they exist because of public debate and because of what is and isn't legal. I don't think anyone could argue with your assertion that there are many drugs that are chemically addictive and more dangerous than marijuana: every study I've seen basically puts marijuana as 'not chemically addictive' and 'less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco', for instance. But the "hard drug"/"soft drug" classification is in many ways a red herring and socially constructed, it isn't really based on scientific facts. (As a side note, alcohol withdrawal is one of the /most dangerous/ drug withdrawals to go through. It can /kill/ you, unlike the withdrawal from many 'hard drugs'.)
  - dinkumthinkum 12y ago
    I think you're quibble about LSD and tobacco and alcohol is just more of this playing coy stuff.
- smsm42 12y ago
  Speaking of use by doctors, you call those "hard drugs" as opposed to marijuana. Marijuana is "schedule I" drug, which means no accepted medical use and no possibility of safe usage even under medical supervision. So it's more dangerous than most of the drugs you call "hard", if you believe the government. I'm not sure though even the government believes itself on that - but this is the sorry state of the matters. If we're talking about "high schoolish", you can't really get much worse than that. >>> This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly. Highly addictive substances definitely exist. Barbiturates are highly addictive, so is alcohol, so it tobacco. The humanity learned to live with the latter, and we seem to be able to manage the former without going to full-blown war.

by nmjohn 12y ago

dinkumthinkum 12y ago

It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.

nmjohn 12y ago
I'd say "it is kind of high schoolish" to change the phrasing of my statement by adding the "Oh ya" and "so haha" making the statement sound silly by word choice, and not actually countering the argument whatsoever. As a fact, those drugs are used by doctors commonly. And the idea of a drug being considered a "hard drug" is entirely based in opinion and semantics. So your outrage is entirely your opinion, which you have every right in the world to, but it does not make me wrong; it means we view something differently. If you don't think opioid painkillers should be considered hard drugs, nothing I say can change that, so here is a challenge to you. Get a prescription for oxycontin. Take it everyday for two months then stop. Come back 2 days later and tell me if you still feel that way.
- dinkumthinkum 12y ago
  No, I think it is entirely appropriate. What you wrote is this sort of smart aleck sort of response. It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I don't think it adds much, it's just typical way of trying up define problems out if existence.
  - nmjohn 12y ago
    The idea was to highlight the smart aleckness of your response, but my goal clearly failed. But I'm really not quite sure what you are even trying to argue at this point. The original question posed was how to respond to the comparison of the legalization of marijuana to hard drugs. > It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence from real life and online forums, but I very much believe that this is false. Many people know cocaine is used as a prescription drug, few people know desoxyn is meth, and fewer still know about heroin. It is for this reason I made that a point of how to respond, in an attempt to question the distinction between legal and illegal drugs and to persuade the conservative viewers (the hypothetical scenario implied fox news) that there is still a conversation to be had, that the question is not already answered like most would believe.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Most people are unaware that meth is legal and less scheduled than pot, that heroin is used as a painkiller (and was a trademark of Bayer), and that ketamine is only Schedule III and regularly given to children.
electronvolt 12y ago
Pointing out that what are usually stigmatized as 'hard drugs' are used in medical situations is meaningful, because it puts into question the categorization of a substance as 'hard' versus 'soft' drugs, which is reasonable. Your characterization of all 'hard drugs' as 'chemically addictive drugs that are more dangerous than things like marijuana' also is at odds with the governmental classification system and the public debate: many people would put things like LSD (no known LD-50 in humans and in no way chemically addictive) in the realm of 'hard drugs', and nobody talks of tobacco as a hard drug (despite it being one of the most addictive drugs available, with a lot of dangers to one's health; certainly 'more dangerous than marijuana' and 'chemically addictive' by every study/classification I've seen), or alcohol as a hard drug (again, chemically addictive and quite bad for your body). People would probably also not classify Adderall (amphetamine salts) as a 'hard drug', despite it having similar effects as meth (methamphetamine salts) and similar symptoms for overdose, addiction, and withdrawal. (I don't know amounts or the like, so I'm not going to claim adderall is 'the same as meth', or 'as safe as meth', but it is in many ways a similar substance. As a side note, the way you take in a drug has a large effect on its half life, and to my understanding, therefore its addictiveness; if I remember the drugs class I sat in on in college, drugs with short half lives tend to be much more addictive than drugs with long half lives. Your classification system becomes even weaker if my memory is correct, as the uptake + half life of /the same or almost the same drug/ will differ depending on if you're snorting it, injecting it, smoking it, etc. When, then, is a drug 'hard' or 'soft'? What sort of addictiveness do you use if you can snort or orally take a drug?) Classification systems like 'hard' and 'soft' for drugs are not rationally constructed, they exist because of public debate and because of what is and isn't legal. I don't think anyone could argue with your assertion that there are many drugs that are chemically addictive and more dangerous than marijuana: every study I've seen basically puts marijuana as 'not chemically addictive' and 'less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco', for instance. But the "hard drug"/"soft drug" classification is in many ways a red herring and socially constructed, it isn't really based on scientific facts. (As a side note, alcohol withdrawal is one of the /most dangerous/ drug withdrawals to go through. It can /kill/ you, unlike the withdrawal from many 'hard drugs'.)
- dinkumthinkum 12y ago
  I think you're quibble about LSD and tobacco and alcohol is just more of this playing coy stuff.
smsm42 12y ago
Speaking of use by doctors, you call those "hard drugs" as opposed to marijuana. Marijuana is "schedule I" drug, which means no accepted medical use and no possibility of safe usage even under medical supervision. So it's more dangerous than most of the drugs you call "hard", if you believe the government. I'm not sure though even the government believes itself on that - but this is the sorry state of the matters. If we're talking about "high schoolish", you can't really get much worse than that. >>> This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly. Highly addictive substances definitely exist. Barbiturates are highly addictive, so is alcohol, so it tobacco. The humanity learned to live with the latter, and we seem to be able to manage the former without going to full-blown war.