What recreational drugs should you take?
May 11th, 2007 by FrankI saw this a while back but couldn’t remember where, then I found it again today. Some people have been saying it for years, but it’s good to have some scientisty people going on about it. It’s a study challenging the UK’s drugs classifications. Read about it in the Telegraph or see the proposed table at Howstuffworks.
howstuffworks:
A study surveying health, crime and science professionals regarding the dangers of a set of 20 legal and illegal drugs, published in The Lancet in March 2007, found that alcohol and tobacco, which are legal in Britain and the United States, are considered by experts to be more dangerous than ecstasy and marijuana, which are illegal in both countries.
I don’t drink - or smoke tobacco. And it pisses me off that if I wanted to take the recreational drug of MY choice I’d have to break the law. It makes no sense when as Mike Skinner will tell you, it’s more likely to be alcohol drinkers that will wreak havok on themselves and others than, for example, marijuana users. C’mon Gaybo, don’t let them shut you up that easily.
howstuffworks:
“Tobacco and alcohol together account for about 90 percent of all drug-related deaths in the U.K.” Yet both of those substances are legal. In the United States, a study published in the journal of the American Medical Association in 2000 shows that 95 percent of drug-related deaths in the United States are from alcohol and tobacco use.
And just in the spirit of fariness, i should include the following quote. Then I’ll hand you over to Mike Skinner.
howstuffworks:
Of course, the legal status of drugs like alcohol and tobacco skews the results. Their legal status makes them far more available, so an accurate side-by-side comparison with a drug like heroin on all three criteria is impossible. Availability will always affect social effects of any given drug.
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May 11th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I hear what you’re saying Frank! Make cigarettes and alcohol illegal, they’re as bad as drugs. It should be an election issue really…;P
May 11th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
can you imagine what would happen… I’d say it would be the one thing that would cause a revolution…
May 11th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
How right you are. Sad isn’t it?
May 12th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Not really.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Up the revolution,
drugs girls feck
May 13th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Drugs are banned for a reason-they cause insanity. I know many of people who wound up in psychiatric institutions after smoking a joint. Stop this evil trade now-stamp out drugs in society.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:51 am
And another thing, it’s marijuana that has Africa in the state it’s in.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
You are not addressing the issue of teen use of marijuana. Pot-smoking stunts the emotional growth at a time in a teen’s life when they should be learning to deal with emotional and social/psychological issues. If they escape this necessary rite of adulthood, they seldom ever reach emotional maturity, and will continue to find a means to avoid confronting difficult situations after passing adolescence.
The legalization of marijuana for medical purposes is an entirely different subject. There is no reason why it should not be included in the treatment of illnesses; of course there is the debate surrounding abuse in this regard, but that is there regardless of the drug involved.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Sorry Idyllwilde, but you could just as easily make the same arguments regarding alcohol.
Governing the use of something and whether it’s legal or illegal are two separate, though related arguments.
Alcohol is most likely more dangerous a drug than marijuana but alcohol is legal and marijuana is not.
It doesn’t add up.