Drug laws and... science?

Great Debates
21

This seems to be the fancy version of the argument that amounts to the impossible demand for consistency advanced by stoners everywhere. It goes like this (and we’ve all heard it):

a) marijuana is illegal
b) alcohol is worse than marijuana
c)alcohol is not illegal

therefore consistency demands that we make marijuana legal or alcohol illegal. Since we don’t do the latter, we must do the former.

We can all also quote lines like “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”.

The truth is that nothing is immune from history. Alcohol and tobacco are so well-established culturally for historical reasons that banning them is impossible - the consequences would be worse than not banning them (as the 1920s demonstrated). No doubt if someone only just now discovered alcohol, it would probably be banned too. But that didn’t happen and it is too late. In effect, alcohol and tobacco have been “grandfathered” out of the banning process. In a similar way (albeit in a different context) bicycles as a class get a free pass from product liability laws, notwithstanding the risks of riding them on roads, which they would be very unlikely to get if they were invented just now.

It is also important to note that heroin, etc, do not have the market penetration of alcohol and tobacco. That is part of the reason why it is possible to say of alcohol and tobacco that they cause more harm than any of the illegal drugs - the very fact of legality necessarily contributes to this.

No doubt there are those who would say that banning heroin, etc has proved as unsuccessful as banning alcohol proved to be. That is a matter of political judgment. But I am not addressing whether or what we should be banning, merely the argument based on asserted inconsistency.

To suggest that we should used evidence based science for all political decisions of this sort, as though we must look only at the research relating to the medical and biochemical consequences of various drugs and nothing else before deciding to ban them, is just perfect-world undergraduate idealism. Different drugs come with different cultural baggage that can’t be simply ignored.

There may be good arguments for the relaxation of the bans on some presently illegal drugs or for the implementation of bans on some presently legal ones. But drawing parallels between different drugs and then asserting that they should be treated “consistently” is not one of them.

22

As a former smoker who feels like an idiot for thinking I was dependent on that stuff for over 10 years, I want to beat this preposterously false meme over the head with a fucking hammer. It’s worse than a silly email-style false “fact” like a duck’s quack not echoing; it’s an excuse to not quit, and hearing it saps you of hope when you desperately want to.

Put it this way:

Heroin Withdrawal

  1. muscle and bone pain
  2. insomnia
  3. diarrhea
  4. vomiting
  5. cold flashes with goose bumps
  6. involuntary movements
  7. death

And that list is not conclusive. Some of these can last for months, or, in the case of the last one, permanently.

Compare to:

Nicotine Withdrawal

  1. you really want a cigarette, until you realize absolutely nothing bad will happen if you don’t get one. Go to step 2.
  2. . . .
23

Just because opiates have more severe physical withdrawal symptoms doesn’t mean they’re more or less addictive than nicotine; it just means they may have more potential for physical dependence, which is not the same thing. Also, “death” is not a real symptom of opiate withdrawal; opiate withdrawal is unpleasant but almost never fatal. Withdrawal from alcohol, barbiturates, or benzodiazepines, on the other hand, can be much more dangerous.

Your list of nicotine withdrawal symptoms – just cravings and nothing else – is incomplete. Most people experience more severe withdrawal symptoms in addition to the severe craving for another cigarette. A quick Google search produces the following list of symptoms:

[ul]
[li]Irritability[/li][li]Depression[/li][li]Insomnia[/li][li]Fatigue[/li][li]Inability to Concentrate[/li][li]Headache[/li][li]Cough[/li][li]Sore throat[/li][li]Constipation, gas, stomach pain[/li][li]Dry mouth[/li][li]Sore tongue and/or gums[/li][li]Postnasal drip[/li][li]Tightness in the chest[/li][/ul]

I think the fact that some people addicted to nicotine are willing to do awful things for another dose of nicotine shows that nicotine addiction is real and can be quite severe. We just hardly ever see people resorting to that kind of thing because nicotine is so easily available.

It’s the craving and psychological component that defines “addiction”; otherwise you could say both nicotine and cocaine are not addictive, since cocaine doesn’t produce significant physical withdrawal symptoms like opiates do.

24

Hobgoblins, kobolds and fairies notwithstanding I don’t think that consistency is something to be avoided and that it needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

That’s both an appeal to history and a bit of a strawman. Sure, nothing is immune to history but unlike history, the present and the future can be changed, and made better. Of course there’s a reason for things being the way they are, but we should continually be evaluating those reasons and if needed make changes to improve the situation.

I don’t see why you would use heroin as an example here when the study shows that if any drug is to be kept away from people it is indeed heroin. Whether the ban has been successful or not has also not been on the table.

This is a pretty huge strawman. To provide an article that shows inconsistency between evidence based science and political reality does not equate what you’re saying here and neither does any of the following posts. I don’t know who or what you are arguing against here but it’s not the ideas put forward in this thread.

Actually I do think that comparisons between the effects of drugs and the legality of them is quite relevant and I fail to see how it couldn’t be. The opposite sure can’t be true.
Bans usually don’t work very effectively, they cost a lot and cause a lot of damage. If you want people to use a product less, a better way is usually to offer a superior product. In this case you might be able to reduce the usage of alcohol by making available less dangerous drugs. That those happen to be Ecstacy and Cannabis (for example) are actually quite baffling to me and causes a knee jerk reaction. It somehow feels wrong that I would tell my children “No kids, I won’t buy you booze for your party, it’s too dangerous, you’ll have to stick with Ecstacy and Poppers”. Of course, my reaction is based on exactly the information that this article contradicts.

25

I think you’ll find the proper term is Mythical-Americans.

26

That actually proves his point to some degree, which is that regulation and illegalization of controlled substances has been based at least in part on racism.

27

As in cocaine, they meant both powdered and rock, correct? I’m wondering if they seperated the two they might have different scores.

28

Consistency is actually very important in the law, because laws (should) have a purpose. If the idea is to just throw a bunch of random rules at the populace in order to keep them on their toes, generate some revenue through fines and imprison otherwise harmless, productive citizens – then sure, let’s stay the present course with regards to drug prohibition. But these laws are sold to the public as necessary in some way, usually to keep us safe from dangerous substances a la FDA, but often ostensibly to prevent crime. The argument for banning some drugs is that they cause or aggravate criminal tendencies in the user. So when it turns out that the most dangerous drugs are the legal ones, while illegal drugs are safer, it removes any legitimacy from drug prohibition.

Further, we find that prohibiting drugs causes crime, and that the interests of crime prevention would be better served by legalizing these substances and keeping their trade above board and well-regulated. So what is left? Well, let’s take your cue and look at history. It turns out that illegal drugs are those that were historically used by minorities or various countercultures, while the drugs that are legal were historically used by everyone and/or the white, ‘civilized’ majority. The conclusion is that drug prohibition is simply a tool left over from our racist, intolerant past. It causes more crime than it prevents, stifles freedom by criminalizing harmless hobbies, and is simply not relevant in this day and age.

All this by simply analyzing the inconsistency of our laws. You may disagree with my conclusions, but it is simply false that consistency is undesirable or irrelevant.

29

With tobacco, they meant smoked, snorted and chewed, right? Not to mention that some people inhale tobacco smoke into their lungs while some people just hold it in their mouths before exhaling. Furthermore, snorted vs injected vs smoked heroin, LSD orally or through the skin, marijuana smoked or vaporized, etc.

The point being that there are a plethora of ways to take any drug, and the studied effects of one method aren’t generally applicable to the others. Just look at good old H2O. It is relatively benign when taken orally, but often fatal when inhaled. :wink:

30

The two drugs are more or less the same, chemically – crack is just cocaine mixed with baking soda and then sold in smaller units. But since the usual method of ingestion of crack is smoking rather than snorting like it is with powdered cocaine, you get a big dose of cocaine to the brain in only a few seconds, which makes the euphoria more intense but shorter-lasting, increasing the addictive potential of the drug. Of course, you could smoke cocaine too, or inject it, which would result in a similar high, but most people go the snorting route with powdered cocaine and the smoking route with crack, so the two probably would have different scores if separated.

31

Oh so since it almost never happens it never happens. Right. And Olestra almost never gave people leaky anuses.

Ooh a Google search! Well that’s just the be-all, end-all then and my 8 years of trying to quit, along with the dozens of conversations I’ve had with fellow quitters since I succeeded means nothing. Damn me. But even giving those the credence that they probably don’t deserve (it says nothing about how severe they are, how long they last, or how common they are) . . . the humanity! Postnasal drip is just not worth saving thousands of dollars per year, my health, and my quality of life. It’s JUST.NOT.WORTH IT!

Wait-- and where did this “fact” come from? You really think straight guys would suck a dick for a Camel if they quit selling them?

Yes, I’ll agree the psychological addiction to nicotine is pretty strong. It’s also largely bolstered by advertising, popular culture, and false memes like “nicotine is more physically addicting than heroin.” And it’s 100% in your head, capable of being spirited away by willpower alone, with no negative consequences whatever. Note that my post was a response to someone commenting on its physical addiction.

32

6 of one, half dozen of the other. You can buy weed in different strengths, ranging from quite bad ditch weed to intense, carefully cultivated types grown hydroponically. If you roll up a joint or blunt of regs (low impact grass), you’ll be a little drifty but not “lie down on the floor and giggle” high.

Also, I’ve heard that mixing weed with tobacco for joints is MUCH more common in Europe than in the US (where it seems to me to be rare). But in the US, weed smokers will often roll blunts, large joints rolled in tobacco leaves/the outside leaf from a cheap cigar, instead of papers. Is that done in Europe as well?

33

It happens rarely enough that opiate withdrawal is not considered to be life-threatening.

I guess I didn’t make it clear in the last post that the fact that it was a Google search was precisely the point – a simple Google search shows the incompleteness of your list of nicotine withdrawal symptoms. It’s easy enough to find further details; here’s another list of symptoms from a 1966 US Public Health Service study, detailing symptoms and the percentage of the males and females in the study who suffered from each symptom during withdrawal:



**Symptoms        Males       Females**
Nervousness     65          77
Drowsiness      59          61
Anxiety         53          58
Lightheadedness 44          32
Headaches       41          47
Energy loss     39          52
Fatigue         38          42
Constipation /
Diarrhea        27          38
Insomnia        29          32
Dizziness       26          25
Sweating        18          10
Cramps          16          23
Tremor          15          15
Palpitations    12          21

The worst symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, like heroin withdrawal, are usually over in a few days, but like heroin withdrawal, it depends on the individual; nicotine withdrawal symptoms can last up to six months in some cases.

Scare quotes notwithstanding, yes, it’s absolutely a fact that people will do that kind of thing for nicotine. For example, from the previously mentioned Consumers Union report, chapter 25:

I went and looked up the original 1948 American Journal of Psychology article by Dr. Arntzen, and it was quite interesting. The behavior he recorded showed that most of the chronic drinkers among the smokers were more addicted to cigarettes than to alcohol.

True.

Now this is just untrue. It’s in your head and capable of being spirited away by willpower only as much as any other addiction. It sounds like you experienced virtually no symptoms yourself, which is certainly something to be thankful for. But others have different experiences.

You’re absolutely right, I completely missed that part of the post you were responding to, and you’re definitely right about that–the withdrawal symptoms from opiates are almost always worse than the withdrawal symptoms from nicotine, in intensity. The addictive potential, however, is another matter.

34

And yet this still does not = “doesn’t happen.” Lots of things that aren’t considered life-threatening will kill you. I saw a guy die on a bicycle a few months ago. Opiate withdrawal can and does kill, and nicotine withdrawal doesn’t.

Again: so? Your worst symptom (diarrhea) is paired with another symptom and still only occurs in about a third of cases, and it still doesn’t say how severe or how long-lasting. When you’re detoxing from a serious opiate addiction you have to go to a hospital. There’s just no comparison at all. The thought is ridiculous. To think it, I suspect you’re A) a smoker, who has B) never witnessed opiate addiction.

Hard to imagine a study that applies less. Did you even read that? It specifically qualifies during war time. During a time when tomorrow is barely even expected, much less guaranteed. Hell, a lot of non-smokers even smoke when they know they’re about to die. It’s just one of those weird things people do when they’re staring down the barrel of their own mortality.

Oh really? And tell me, what negative consequences are going to come from quitting?

Oh no, mon frere. Like I said, I tried for 8 years to quit. I experienced all the irritability, stomachaches, headaches, feelings of desperation . . . until I realized I was just experiencing what everybody tells me I’m supposed to experience, and if they’re really there at all they’re absurdly mild compared to the rewards of getting my freedom and my health back.
So, am I right? Smoker?

35

Nitpick: powdered cocaine is the hydrochloride salt of cocaine, a result of the chemical purifying and concentration process. Crack is cocaine that has been cooked with a mild alkaline substance such as baking soda to convert it back to the original base compound. Cocaine is easier to smoke in this form than the powdered hydrochloride. You may recall the case of Richard Pryor getting severely burned in an accident involving the use of ether to “freebase” cocaine- that was an older more difficult method of converting cocaine to a smokable form. Howeever you’re correct that the main difference is the speed and power of the “rush” from smoking cocaine instead of snorting it.

36

Geez, I suffer from at least half those symptoms every time I go on a low-carb diet.

37

But that has nothing to do with my point, which was that nicotine withdrawal symptoms aren’t just the single-item list you posted, and that most people experience them.

Not entirely correct. Not all opiate addictions and withdrawals are the same; some of them are quite similar to nicotine withdrawal, at least in symptoms and intensity. Not heroin, of course, so I won’t belabor the point.

Heh. Pretty much the opposite … I was raised a Mormon, and I’ve never smoked anything at all. On the other hand, I’ve seen my brother and a couple dozen other people go through intense opiate addiction and withdrawal. I’m not saying the withdrawal symptoms are comparable, just that 1) there are withdrawal symptoms associated with nicotine, and 2) withdrawal symptoms don’t really tell you how addictive something is.

No, the study is entirely applicable. You think people are whoring themselves out, or going without food when they’re already only getting 900 calories a day, in exchange for cigarettes for cigarettes because they’re worried about dying in the war? No, as the study specifically points out, it was because because they were desperate for another nicotine fix. The war is relevant because it caused a shortage of cigarettes.

As I’ve been saying … withdrawal symptoms. Of course, the damage that smoking does is enormous, and of course it’s worth feeling bad to stay alive and be healthier and waste less money.

Wait, are you saying that all the pain and discomfort you experienced was just because it was suggested you would experience it? That’s directly contradicted by rodent studies. Smoking causes changes in the way pleasure and pain are perceived.

And yeah, getting your freedom and health back is such a great reward that the suffering is worth it. But the suffering is still real.

Nope. I can’t even stand the smell of cigarettes, coffee, or alcohol. I’m certainly not arguing that anybody should keep smoking or that smoking is better than quitting. I’m just saying that nicotine is extremely addictive, which is why the best thing to do is to avoid smoking entirely.

38

Yes, thanks for clarifying that – I originally had a thing in there about it being the hydrochloride salt and it being convertable to the free base form for smokability, but somehow I erased it during a revision and ended up murkifying what I was trying to say. Which was pretty much like you say: there’s no big difference between crack, cocaine hydrochloride (powder), or the free base in terms of its effect on the brain; the difference is in the ingestion method, and how fast it gets the drug to the brain and what size of a dose it gets there.

39

a-HA! The only person with less credibility in this argument than a smoker: a NON-smoker!

Ok, that’s kind of a joke. But seriously, I’m just going to throw my cards down here: I know what I know from living through and studying nicotine addiction for well over a decade, and a 60 year old paper of dubious relevance just isn’t going to change that. The idea that nicotine is more physically addictive than heroin is so absurd to me that if you tried to argue it in real life with anything approaching the earnestness that you’re showing here, I’d turn right around and start walking the other direction. And if you’re only arguing that nicotine has withdrawal symptoms other than wanting a cigarette, then I say to you a third time: so what? It is my opinion that the withdrawal symptoms from nicotine are almost completely psychosomatic, but even if we assume they are 100% physical they are not in the same ballpark as heroin withdrawal. They’re not even the same sport. That’s what my point was, and I stand firmly behind it.

40

I’m not saying nicotine is more physically addictive than heroin, as I’ve repeatedly stated. At least, not if you’re defining “physically addictive” as “intensity of acute withdrawal symptoms.” However, it’s been proven that nicotine is extremely addictive; I’ve provided just the first relevant study I found in a quick search of my library to demonstrate that people will do pretty much the same thing to get more nicotine that they will do to get more of any other drug they’re addicted to, to the point of going without food, degrading themselves, committing crimes, etc. That’s an addictive drug.

I’ve provided references showing that people will prostitute and starve themselves in order to satisfy nicotine cravings, and I have, in my interviews of methadone clinic patients, gotten quotes from several people who were heroin or cocaine or amphetamine or alcohol users as well as smokers who have said they found it harder to give up smoking than any of the other drugs. Usually not because of the acute withdrawal symptoms, but because of the cravings after the acute withdrawal symptoms are over. My point was that nicotine is intensely addictive, not that its withdrawal symptoms are similar to heroin’s.