5 ms·

This article fits in with another thread here earlier today where I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently comm

by jrapdx3 12y ago

This article fits in with another thread here earlier today where I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I'm not sure what makes it so hard for some people to grasp the intrinsic dangers of ingesting "designer" drugs. Our physiology is complex and quirky, rendering all drugs capable of unpredictably causing serious side effects. And even if that's a rare event, in the case of barely (or not at all) studied compounds, it's still like playing pistol roulette with live rounds. There's risk for the chemist too. While we might admire the skill to design and synthesize a novel compound, it's foolish to do so outside of a fully equipped and qualified lab to assure safety for the chemist as well as the environment. Of course, working in such a lab would no doubt imply a level of scrutiny about what the chemist is trying to do. So obviously a designer drug is likely to be produced in conditions that don't favor purity and careful testing. It's no wonder there are tragic outcomes, but it seems human nature to try to do something "against the rules". But it's an entirely different matter when rules are the "laws" of legislatures vs. the laws of Mother Nature. She never cares what we "believe" or desire. Designer drugs will continue to be a problem. The best we can hope for is that bad outcomes will yield here and there a clue to something useful. It's a shame, seems so often we have to learn the hard way.

vinceguidry 12y ago
I'd much rather take an illegal drug than a legal, 'under the radar' one. The personal risks of possibly getting thrown in jail are vastly dwarfed by the risks of ingesting an untested and completely unknown substance. The sad thing is that even the illegal ones often involve a terrible externalized human cost. Illegal drugs are consumed at scale, exploiting the producers and transporters, legal ones are consumed individually, personalizing the risk. I've nothing against the yearning to alter one's consciousness, however temporary it might be. But alcohol might be the only way to do it without assuming either great personal risk or great moral hazard. And alcohol can be so, well, boring. One of the great sadnesses of the world we live in.
- lostgame 12y ago
  Alcohol: • makes people vomit • makes people fight and argue with each other • is incredibly easy to take to excess • physical addiction entirely possible • damaging to liver + kidneys Cannabis: • makes people lazy • makes people hungry • makes people generally friendlier • capable of curing cancer as well as many major diseases • not physically addictive So wait, what?
  - spacehome 12y ago
    Alleviates symptoms of chemo, yes, but curing cancer? Is this a recent finding?
    - austerity 12y ago
      Yep. Not sure how good this particular source is but it was in the mainstream news recently. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cannabis-helps-shrink-aggressive-brain-cancer-in-lab/513078-2.html http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cannabis-helps-shrink-aggressive-...
      - spacehome 12y ago
        Biology is hard and confusing. If it's just one experiment, I would hold off before drawing conclusions. There's a long history of studies and experiments that appear to show something which is then later discredited.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Nursie 12y ago
  >> The personal risks of possibly getting thrown in jail are vastly dwarfed by the risks of ingesting an untested and completely unknown substance. False dichotomy in the modern age, unfortunately. You have no way of knowing what's in that illegal drug. It might be (and often is) exactly the same stuff.
barrkel 12y ago
I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I can see your line of thinking: X has risks, X should not be done, thus make X illegal and X will not be done and the risk will no longer exist. But that's not the way the world works. Making X illegal does not prevent X being done. Instead, it creates incentives try and find people doing X and put them through the criminal system. That introduces a whole separate set of risks. And making X illegal reduces the probability that problems created by X will be treated in time. Another set of risks. Etc. The question you should be asking is: are the risks of X greater than the risks of making X illegal?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  While I agree that is the appropriate question to be asking, it's worth considering the length and complexity of the drug pipeline for creating new legal drugs, as a way of estimating the risk of new illegal drugs, which go through nothing like the same degree of testing: http://www.pacificbiolabs.com/drug_stages.asp http://www.pacificbiolabs.com/drug_stages.asp A new legal drug in its first iteration frequently through animal models frequently has a breakdown of 80% or more effectiveness, with the balance of the population mostly experiencing no effect and a small remaining fraction experiencing negative side-effects. The drug will then be tweaked and twisted to increase the size of the population it is effective on and drop the size of the negative side-effect population to as close to zero as possible. This is a hugely expensive process. It is where a good fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go into the development of legal drugs wind up, and it is necessary because biochemistry differs very significantly across individuals. What the makers of illegal designer drugs appear to be doing is more like a developer who says "works on my machine" and then ships. No testing, no QA, no coverage... just ship based on a single working instance in a particular environment. That's a recipe for disaster, and while the disasters are mostly recoverable, the process is fraught with risk. This does not mean that making it illegal will change anything, because near as we can tell from the data the law barely changes human behaviour. Making abortion illegal does not change it's rate but just makes it unsafe. Making murder legal would not result in a vast increase in the rate of murders--it would result in blood-feuds and other mechanisms that the codification of law was designed to prevent. People don't refrain from murder because it's illegal (for the most part) but because they believe it's morally wrong. The law follows from that widespread moral belief, not the other way around. So legalization and regulation may well be the best way to go, but given the ordinary standards of drug development that might create an underground grey-market where things are almost as bad, safety-wise, as they are now. A carefully targeted criminalization, that focuses solely on drug makers rather than distributors or users, might be a better solution. So long as we keep in mind that the goal is to minimize harm, including the harm done by law enforcement.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deciplex 12y ago
The problem is, that the same cultural stupidity that sees us pass new laws banning the newest designer drugs, is also the one that sees us banning relatively harmless and well-understood substances that have been used by humans for tens of thousands of years. And, I don't think it's possible to rhetorically separate the two in a way the public can digest. That is not to say you can't draw a logical distinction between the two that supports banning or strictly regulating the production and sale of one, while leaving the other alone - in fact I would say you've got a good start on doing that already. However, the distinction is subtle, and will be totally lost on a population that has had anti-drug propaganda shoved down its throat by the state for the last four or five generations. Any nuance in your argument will be seized on by drug warriors to justify banning the sale of e.g. marijuana or peyote, etc., and bring offenders into to the ever-growing all-consuming all-powerful prison complex.
Nursie 12y ago
'Designer' drugs are produced in well-equipped modern labs, for the most part in China. Most of them are more complex to synthesise than illegal drugs and aren't coming out of some kitchen chem lab, but a well equipped industrial setup. In their country of origin the business seems legal so they come under no scrutiny.
kragen 12y ago
Synthesizing legal "designer drugs" is safer for the chemist than synthesizing illegal drugs, because they are very unlikely to get arrested, have their lab equipment confiscated, and lose their career. Similarly, taking legal "designer drugs" may be safer for the user than taking illegal drugs, despite the extra risk of serious side effects, not only because there's less risk of getting arrested, having your children taken away, etc., but also because if something goes wrong, you have recourse — you can sue the pharmacy if the drug is contaminated, they can refer you to a legal collection agency if you don't pay them rather than to the Mafia, etc. Of course, we could eliminate this ridiculous dilemma between the risk of novel side effects with "designer drugs" and the risks of illegality with the better-known recreational drugs, simply by making those drugs legal, although that will increase usage. That also has the additional benefit that it removes much of the stigma and danger from things like hobby chemistry. So far, it seems to be working well in Colorado and the Netherlands.

by jrapdx3 12y ago

vinceguidry 12y ago

I'd much rather take an illegal drug than a legal, 'under the radar' one. The personal risks of possibly getting thrown in jail are vastly dwarfed by the risks of ingesting an untested and completely unknown substance. The sad thing is that even the illegal ones often involve a terrible externalized human cost. Illegal drugs are consumed at scale, exploiting the producers and transporters, legal ones are consumed individually, personalizing the risk. I've nothing against the yearning to alter one's consciousness, however temporary it might be. But alcohol might be the only way to do it without assuming either great personal risk or great moral hazard. And alcohol can be so, well, boring. One of the great sadnesses of the world we live in.

lostgame 12y ago
Alcohol: • makes people vomit • makes people fight and argue with each other • is incredibly easy to take to excess • physical addiction entirely possible • damaging to liver + kidneys Cannabis: • makes people lazy • makes people hungry • makes people generally friendlier • capable of curing cancer as well as many major diseases • not physically addictive So wait, what?
- spacehome 12y ago
  Alleviates symptoms of chemo, yes, but curing cancer? Is this a recent finding?
  - austerity 12y ago
    Yep. Not sure how good this particular source is but it was in the mainstream news recently. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cannabis-helps-shrink-aggressive-brain-cancer-in-lab/513078-2.html http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cannabis-helps-shrink-aggressive-...
    - spacehome 12y ago
      Biology is hard and confusing. If it's just one experiment, I would hold off before drawing conclusions. There's a long history of studies and experiments that appear to show something which is then later discredited.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Nursie 12y ago
>> The personal risks of possibly getting thrown in jail are vastly dwarfed by the risks of ingesting an untested and completely unknown substance. False dichotomy in the modern age, unfortunately. You have no way of knowing what's in that illegal drug. It might be (and often is) exactly the same stuff.

barrkel 12y ago

I commented about using any drug entails some finite risk of bad effects. The apparently common belief that "designer drugs" shouldn't be "illegal" is certainly not supported by the article. I can see your line of thinking: X has risks, X should not be done, thus make X illegal and X will not be done and the risk will no longer exist. But that's not the way the world works. Making X illegal does not prevent X being done. Instead, it creates incentives try and find people doing X and put them through the criminal system. That introduces a whole separate set of risks. And making X illegal reduces the probability that problems created by X will be treated in time. Another set of risks. Etc. The question you should be asking is: are the risks of X greater than the risks of making X illegal?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tjradcliffe 12y ago
While I agree that is the appropriate question to be asking, it's worth considering the length and complexity of the drug pipeline for creating new legal drugs, as a way of estimating the risk of new illegal drugs, which go through nothing like the same degree of testing: http://www.pacificbiolabs.com/drug_stages.asp http://www.pacificbiolabs.com/drug_stages.asp A new legal drug in its first iteration frequently through animal models frequently has a breakdown of 80% or more effectiveness, with the balance of the population mostly experiencing no effect and a small remaining fraction experiencing negative side-effects. The drug will then be tweaked and twisted to increase the size of the population it is effective on and drop the size of the negative side-effect population to as close to zero as possible. This is a hugely expensive process. It is where a good fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go into the development of legal drugs wind up, and it is necessary because biochemistry differs very significantly across individuals. What the makers of illegal designer drugs appear to be doing is more like a developer who says "works on my machine" and then ships. No testing, no QA, no coverage... just ship based on a single working instance in a particular environment. That's a recipe for disaster, and while the disasters are mostly recoverable, the process is fraught with risk. This does not mean that making it illegal will change anything, because near as we can tell from the data the law barely changes human behaviour. Making abortion illegal does not change it's rate but just makes it unsafe. Making murder legal would not result in a vast increase in the rate of murders--it would result in blood-feuds and other mechanisms that the codification of law was designed to prevent. People don't refrain from murder because it's illegal (for the most part) but because they believe it's morally wrong. The law follows from that widespread moral belief, not the other way around. So legalization and regulation may well be the best way to go, but given the ordinary standards of drug development that might create an underground grey-market where things are almost as bad, safety-wise, as they are now. A carefully targeted criminalization, that focuses solely on drug makers rather than distributors or users, might be a better solution. So long as we keep in mind that the goal is to minimize harm, including the harm done by law enforcement.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deciplex 12y ago

The problem is, that the same cultural stupidity that sees us pass new laws banning the newest designer drugs, is also the one that sees us banning relatively harmless and well-understood substances that have been used by humans for tens of thousands of years. And, I don't think it's possible to rhetorically separate the two in a way the public can digest. That is not to say you can't draw a logical distinction between the two that supports banning or strictly regulating the production and sale of one, while leaving the other alone - in fact I would say you've got a good start on doing that already. However, the distinction is subtle, and will be totally lost on a population that has had anti-drug propaganda shoved down its throat by the state for the last four or five generations. Any nuance in your argument will be seized on by drug warriors to justify banning the sale of e.g. marijuana or peyote, etc., and bring offenders into to the ever-growing all-consuming all-powerful prison complex.

Nursie 12y ago

'Designer' drugs are produced in well-equipped modern labs, for the most part in China. Most of them are more complex to synthesise than illegal drugs and aren't coming out of some kitchen chem lab, but a well equipped industrial setup. In their country of origin the business seems legal so they come under no scrutiny.

kragen 12y ago

Synthesizing legal "designer drugs" is safer for the chemist than synthesizing illegal drugs, because they are very unlikely to get arrested, have their lab equipment confiscated, and lose their career. Similarly, taking legal "designer drugs" may be safer for the user than taking illegal drugs, despite the extra risk of serious side effects, not only because there's less risk of getting arrested, having your children taken away, etc., but also because if something goes wrong, you have recourse — you can sue the pharmacy if the drug is contaminated, they can refer you to a legal collection agency if you don't pay them rather than to the Mafia, etc. Of course, we could eliminate this ridiculous dilemma between the risk of novel side effects with "designer drugs" and the risks of illegality with the better-known recreational drugs, simply by making those drugs legal, although that will increase usage. That also has the additional benefit that it removes much of the stigma and danger from things like hobby chemistry. So far, it seems to be working well in Colorado and the Netherlands.