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You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve

• vinceguidry 12y ago
  A once-daily dose of cocaine or heroin is not likely to lead to serious dependence or health effects. So long as the dose and frequency remain constant, one should be able to ride that horse forever. Americans have forgotten just how ubiquitous drugs that are now illegal used to be, and how often they were used. Amphetamines used to be commonly prescribed by doctors, for just about anything. Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker. I read an article recently about a guy who became addicted to smoking opium. He said it took a long time and steady increasing doses before he finally reached the point where he was addicted. Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Provisioning notes from the time period reveal shockingly massive quantities.
  • foobarian 12y ago
    > Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker Not exactly a glowing endorsement of taking the drug.
    • fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      JFK then? He made frequent use of the stuff.
      • zurn 12y ago
        According to rumors JFK used dexamphetamine. Probably Hitler also had access to the better amphetamines. Contrary to common belief meth is significantly different and nastier (neurotoxic). There's a section of meth vs amphetamine on WP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology - scroll to "Comparison to amphetamine pharmacodynamics"
    • visarga 12y ago
      And he died soon after he took meth. Not exactly indicating responsible use.
  • simplexion 12y ago
    A better example of useful drug dependence would be Paul Erdős. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
  • wwweston 12y ago
    > Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Apparently this is a common view, but not one settled as correct: http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-water-myth.html http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-wate...
• Devthrowaway80 12y ago
  One of the 4 founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital was addicted to both cocaine and morphine and was able to remain functional while addicted for the rest of his life. I think it's easy to mix up the effects of the illegality of certain drugs with the effects of the drugs themselves. Impurities and poor injection hygiene are probably a large part of the health effects of these two drugs currently, and they are a result of their black market status. I'm not saying you should go out and pick up an opiate or coke addiction, just that the difference in effect is sometimes more a result of the war on drugs and less a result of the drug itself. Bathtub gin made people blind during Prohibition too. I think the addictive potential of those drugs are overstated as well - most people who try heroin or coke do not wind up becoming addicted, just like having your two glasses of wine don't make you into a raging alcoholic. There appears to be a subset of people who are predisposed to becoming addicted to drugs, but that does not translate into "try heroin, become a junkie." The basis of the drug war is not rooted in any sort of rational division of drugs by harm. Anti-opiate laws were enacted to target Chinese immigrants, anti-cocaine and marijuana laws targeted blacks and Mexicans, anti-everything else laws were enacted in the 60's in response to anti-hippie hysteria. If we really based things on harm, psychedelics and marijuana would be legal, and alcohol would be illegal - alcohol being a cause of more than twice the deaths in the US than all other substances combined, and is a factor in a huge number of violent crimes.
  • mc32 12y ago
    There are outliers and exceptions to lots of things, but that does not necessarily mean that therefore it's appropriate to extrapolate to the population at large. When people say window washers should wear safety equipment do we also say, well, there have been cases where window washers have fallen ten stories and survived, in order to color the hazards? There are also very many legal prescription drugs to which when people become addicted to them, lead to dysfunction. Just because an addictive substance is 'clean' and legal does not mean it's healthy for people to ingest at will. Drugs are like gambling. They hardly bring any good and potentially bring lots of bad. Do you think it would be good to push opiates on the Chinese, or push MJ on Mexicans and blacks? Would that be justice? While we may agree that punishment is disproportionate, or unjust, ridding society of substances that incapacitate people to varying degrees, is not too bad a thing. Would we rather have an intoxicated population, one less capable of making everyday decisions even-headed? Anyhow, your argument is beside the point. Japan has harsh drug laws and it mainly affects its own people, same with Cuba, Russia and other non-US puppet regimes, so it's not as though it's a uniquely american invention to subjugate classes or people no, rather, it was an attempt by social engineers to rid societies of what they perceived were ills which affected society.
• wwweston 12y ago
  > You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health. FWIW, I've never had alcohol, but after reading advice like this in the popular press, I asked both my cardiologist and GP whether this would be a good addition to my life. Both said there probably wasn't any harm in it if I was already doing it, but that they would not recommend starting, and that of all the things I could do that might improve my health, improving my diet and regular exercise were better choices (and less likely to have negative side effects). (A urologist I saw actively advised against alcohol consumption, but that advice seemed limited to easing specific conditions). YMMV, and doctors don't know everything.
  • blueprint 12y ago
    However, did they tell you anything of substance when they said to improve your diet? Unfortunately, I know all too well that proper nutrition is tossed aside in medical school. Why? I'll tell you my hypothesis. I think it might just be correct. Proper nutrition would cause most people, especially those with chronic conditions, to get better very quickly and stay that way. Guess who would lose a lot of money if that happened? And guess who also has their puppet strings tied to most parts of the medical industry?
• carb 12y ago
  > You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life ... this will likely extend your life and improve your health. This is only seen in tests with small animals such as mice or rats. Please cite a source showing that this result is also seen in humans.
  • collyw 12y ago
    Mediterranean diet has been show to be healthier overall than the beer drinking diet of the north of Europe.
• campers 12y ago
  Not necessarily (getting addicted that is), or even likely http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-... Some interesting studies in that article. Environment and personality has a dominant role. Rats in boring cage will prefer the drugged water, but put them in a cage with toys and other rats to be social with then their use of drugged water goes down significantly. And we've seen the same in humans. A significant percent of US Vietnam war soldiers were on heroin, but 90% quickly kicked the habit on returning home to a better place. Likewise for medical patients on temporary strong opiates. Sure that % of people who do get addicted is significant and need support, but definitely a change in the way of viewing the issue.
• joesmo 12y ago
  You're obviously not familiar with the effects of any of these substances. Plenty of people live normal lives taking opiates every day (in obviously large amounts due to tolerance). Likewise, alcohol is far from the harmless substance you paint a picture of, easily as damaging or more damaging than any illegal substance. The point is that the only difference here is between social acceptability and social unacceptability. There is nothing inherent in heroin or cocaine that's more dangerous than alcohol (quite the opposite in fact, especially in regards to heroin and opiates). So no, these substances do not have effects so different from others that they need to be in a separate category. If they did, alcohol would be classified right along with them. This socially acceptable/unacceptable classification is often mistaken for something else, in this case, a difference between the effects of chemicals themselves. That is, of course, as the powers that be want it to be.
  • vidarh 12y ago
    Heroin/optiates are particularly interesting to me because of how huge the gap between the risk of pure versions of the safer opiates are vs. the risks incurred by addicts who end up shooting up street-quality heroin. E.g. a common route to shooting up heroin that's often cut with anything from other drugs to 50% brick dust, or worse, is to start with strong prescription opiates like codeine or oxycodone (or, indeed, prescription heron - see below), become addicted, and rather than have healthcare systems treat this properly, risk having the prescriptions withdrawn if the doctor gets suspicious, get forced onto the black market, eventually find that too expensive, and try heroin as a far cheaper alternative (despite costs than can be tens to hundreds of times more expensive than the cost of medical grade prescription heroin). Heroin itself is commonly prescribed as a safer alternative to morphine in some countries (UK for example) for things like post-op pain under the names diacetylmorphine or diamorphine - primarily because you need much smaller doses to get the desired effect with heroin than morphine. There's pretty much no scenario where someone who is willing to risk injecting themselves with an unknown mix of substances of unknown purity, and the potential to include stuff like brick dust, bought at rates extortionate enough to drive quite a few into crime or prostitution, would not be vastly better off with easy access to a $10-$20/day medical grade supply (an amount in line with actual costs of medical grade heroin) of a drug that is safe enough that we regularly hand out prescriptions for just as risky substances solely for pain management (e.g. an ex of mine gets ongoing prescriptions high doses of tramadol and cocodamol (codeing + paracetamol/acetaminophen) for period pain - high enough doses that she avoids taking them as much as possible because she finds the effects deeply unpleasant). I've pointed out before that I personally see anyone who still votes to continue the current legal regime for drugs as morally not much better than a serial murderer given the amount of deaths - and other suffering - these laws cause, even if you ignore all the misery around the illegal production and focus only on users.
• richardw 12y ago
  There is likely a continuum of risk associated with all of these substances, but our society thinks of them only in a binary fashion. X is ok, Y is illegal. This becomes a problem when some teenager tries one and then thinks that "they've been lying to me about this", and assumes that everything goes. There are risks but binary thinking isn't the right way to manage them.
• stplsd 12y ago
  >Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences. This only because heroin is illegal. Pure heroin is very gentle and harmless drugs. The worst you can get from pure heroin is constipation. While it may be unpleasant compare it to the effects of long term alcohol use which includes cirrhosis, serious heart problems, etc.