Re above change “non-episodic” to “episodic”.
Although I’m sure Sua will point this out, this is obviously an unfair analogy. The drunk driver already poses a significant threat to others, whereas the high marijuana user who stays at home probably does not pose any more threat than someone who is drunk at home. And the “gateway” hypothesis is far from being “undisputed”; read a few of the Great Debates discussions on the topic.
I have always personally thought excessive use of drugs or alcohol is a terrible idea (I’ve never done any sort of illegal substance), but recently I can’t really find a solid reason to prevent people from harming themselves if they are intent on doing so. As long as they don’t endanger others with their actions, I can’t see any reason why their “pursuit of happiness” should be infringed upon–my opinion of the prudence of those actions is irrelevant from the legal standpoint. As much as I’d hate to see anyone succumb to addiction, I can’t find any legal justification for the illegality of any drug when alcohol and tobacco are legal.
Something tells me this topic has drifted far enough that it will end up in GD if it continues much longer.
Astro, you make some good arguments, but I tend to disagree,
being basically a drug liberal, at least wrt pot. But it’s
refreshing to see a more balanced discussion thread than you
find on the pro-legalization sites, because with those I find that I’m just preaching to the choir.
Having said that, I think the current state of where we are
with tobacco is clearly demonstrates the degree to which
anti-smoking propaganda and marketing restrictions can reduce use, even while the product remains legal. With the absence of billboards and diminishing mass-media marketing of tobacco, one can almost imagine that one lives in a tobacco free world. Not that we don’t see smokers standing outside office buildings getting their nic-fixes, but there’s no question that tobacco use is way down compared to years ago. The social acceptability of tobacco has gone the same way. All this has been accomplished without putting anyone in jail for possessing or selling tobacco.
With regard to pot, I think a similar scenario would work even better, because from the POV of those who want to use it, there is no need for anyone to sell it anywhere. Would-be tokers would have to grow their own, in their own homes, and that would be the only way they could get it. This has two significant advantages: (1) there would be no need to repeal prohibitions against dealing; and (2) parents
would presumably be able to prevent their adolescent kids
from cultivating.
I’ll agree that marijuana use can lead to other drugs, but only because it’s illegal - you have to know people in the drug underground to get it, if you could buy it legally you would never have to come into contact with harder drugs.
I think tobacco is more of a gateway drug than marijuana. I know many cocaine users who don’t use pot, but they all smoke cigarettes.
What is this in reference to? Something I missed?
Did the creator of this chart claim that he was documenting ALL the effects of illegal drugs? If he didn’t, then he wasn’t lying.
Sheesh!
Mr (or Ms) Cornpone, yes in fact they were lying. Not to get into too much of a semantic wrangle here, but let’s say we take the opposite tack. I am trying to get my friend to start doing drugs, so that I can mooch off of him.
In my effors to convince him, I trot out list after list of facts of how great drugs are, how they have been shown to enhance creativity (some of them), how great they make you feel, etc. but I purposely neglect to tell him of all the negative side effects. Would you not agree that I was lying to him (or at the very least severely misrepresenting the truth, which is nothing but a euphemism for ‘bald-facedly lying’)?
Anyway, the fact of the matter is that many of these statements paraded out in front of us under the guise of D.A.R.E. are lies. Take for instance the ‘fact’ that LSD has been proven to cause chromosomal damage. This is a lie.
In fact, this is a lie just like my example. If you pour acid into a beaker full of cells, many of them will experience severe chromosomal fragmentation. Of course, there is no proof that this happens inside the body, and in fact many otherwise healthy substances have the same exact effect in vitro.
D.A.R.E. and the like are nothing but rotten (and badly made) propoganda.
“The number of potential medical problems stemming from alcohol abuse, including death, far outweighs the adverse effect of cocaine.”
That’s bullshit. The reason there are lots of alcohol problems is BECAUSE it’s legal. In those stats you said that 75% of the adult population drinks…now please tell me what percentage of the adult population are casual cocaine users…I’d guestimate about 1%. If that. Alchol abuse is a problem, but if 75% of the US used coke, I think you’d see an ENORMOUS problem with ODs, heart attacks, strokes, coke driving accidents, etc. Far more than from alcohol. Now, I’m not saying that they should ban alcohol, as I drink (in moderation). However, unless you’re severely allergic to alcohol (or beer ingredients), no one dies from just one beer. People die from just one line. Not often, but they do. Alcohol in excess is bad…very bad, and I think being drunk is far worse than being high with pot or the like…but moderate drinking has health BENEFITS…not risks, and it takes either an addiction or abuse to really make alcohol bad…it doesn’t take much coke to do that.
Jman
I was going to walk away from this, having crossed the line, but recent posts have raised some interesting points.
Jman, I think we are talking at cross-purposes. I never said that alcohol is more likely to cause medical problems than cocaine. Actually, one of my points is that it is extremely difficult to uncover statistics on the likelihood of adverse results from the use of cocaine (and therefore we cannot make a comparison between the dangers of alcohol and the dangers of coke). What I was saying is that alcohol has the potential to affect considerably more body systems (heart, liver, kidney, brain, etc.) than cocaine. As the Merck Manual noted, the reason for this is, ironically enough, because alcohol is such a weak psychoactive substance that people drink a relatively large amount of it, thus increasing toxicity.
jb, thanks for making my point much better (and much more succinctly) than I did.
Astro, others have addressed the points I would want to make. However, I have a challenge/proposition for you - I did a search and discovered no old threads in which the consequences, etc. of Dutch decriminalization of soft drugs were debated. If you are willing, let’s start such a debate in GD.
Sua
Despite what we are told, it’s really hard to have a fatal overdose on stimulants.
The analogy between doing a line and drinking a beer is messed up - someone who is drinking with the intention of feeling the effects of the alcohol generally will not have just one beer. Your average person will have to drink 4 or 5 to get a BAC of .10 - legally intoxicated but not seriously impaired, you probably couldn’t tell someone at .10 had been drinking unless you smelled their breath.
A person wanting to get high on coke, unless they have built up a tolerance, will only do one smallish line at a time, and that one line will get them so they are feeling it, though it may not be obvious unless you know they did it and are looking for symptoms - just like drinking about 5 beers.
Now, let’s say a drinker starts drinking to excess - a problem I used to have once I got fairly drunk was I’d think ‘I feel great, if I drink more I’ll feel better!’ and then I’d end up shitfaced. If a person drinks just 5 times the amount of alcohol that it takes for them to get a bit tipsy, they will probably die without prompt medical attention.
If a casual cocaine user for some reason does the equivelant of 5 lines, they will be overamped, sweaty, jittery, generally not enjoying themselves - but in no danger of immediate death.
I have known people who have consumed an entire 8th of an ounce of cocaine at once, to avoid arrest. Let’s see, a 1/4 gram will give you about 4 lines, about 3.6 grams in an 1/8 of an ounce - that is more than 50 times the usual dose you need to feel high. I have never known anyone to OD on cocaine.
You are MUCH more likely to die of a lethal overdose of alcohol than cocaine.
And I can assure you that casual cocaine users make up more than 1% of the population. I’d say about half the people who work in tech support use cocaine or other ‘hard’ drugs.
Who in this discussion has actually USED cocaine themselves? I’m not talking about ‘I knew a coke addict’ - if you knew they had a problem with it and you didn’t party with them they probably WERE seriously addicted. You can’t judge moderate use of alcohol by the effects it has on hard-core alcoholics, you need some experience of what having a few drinks does to you (and most people do).
I was kinda scared the first time I used coke because of all the bad stuff I heard about it - I was kinda disappointed. From my experience it is one of the safest drugs IF YOU DON’T LET IT CONTROL YOU.
Wow. this is really amazing. I was unaware that scientific research could and should only be done by simply checking with your associates.
To spell it out: the fact that you personally do not know anyone who died from cocaine overdose is immaterial. They exist (or did). I personally know/knew several.
The fact that you think that half the people that work in tech support use cocaine or other drugs does not equate to any reasonable conclusion about the population as a whole.
If the raw number of people dying of alcohol abuse is larger than the raw number of people dying of cocaine overdose, it speaks to the fact that more people use and abuse alcohol than cocaine.
I don’t know if too many people are still reading this thread but, to get back to the original question “Is there any evidence that Cocaine used in moderation is bad for you?”, the answer is, of course, yes. I will present anecdotal “evidence”, but it is evidence nontheless.
I work at a city hospital. We often provide medical care to people who get into serious trouble solely on the basis of “moderate” cocaine use. Any amount of coke can cause a heart attack, cardiac arrhythmia (serious heart beat abnormality), kidney failure, psychosis, or, worst of all, IMHO, a stroke. Have you ever seen a twenty-one year old who can’t speak or move their right side? I’ve seen all of this in weekend snorters, ‘good kids’, etc.
The Russian roulette analogy posted near the beginning of this thread was compelling, and accurate.
I think the biggest danger of using cocaine in moderation is the cessation of moderate cocaine use, in favor of excessive use.
Realistically, while physical dependency isn’t proven, psychological dependency is WELL proven. Some people can be successful in ‘chipping’ with heroin, and I’m sure others are equally successful with cocaine, but why would you risk it?
Bill McKim’s “Drugs and Behavior” is a good text on the subject of drug effects. It’s a nice read. Very general, but for an introduction to the subject, it’s a good jumping-off point.
Some people already addressed this point, but the comparison of alcohol to cocaine isn’t really fair. The reason alcohol is so problematic is that it’s so widespread - if you could pick up a baggie of coke at the corner store once you were 21, I think we’d see problems immediately.
I realize the OP didn’t mention any intent to start using cocaine, but if it was a ‘feeling out’ post, please, for your own sake, avoid it.
wring, I wish I had a cite for you, but let me assure you that it is EXTREMELY hard to OD on cocaine. It is a very rare occurence indeed.
That said, though, KarlGauss is on the money. Moderate cocaine use does have some nasty side effects. Not in all users, but enough that it’s scary. Panic attacks, stroke, heart attack, and the like.
But keep in mind that this will probably not happen to most casual users. Still (as in the roulette analogy) 1 out of six ain’t great chances.
I myself don’t do it because I have enough trouble regulating my neurotransmitters on my own. Don’t need a possibly (probably, in my case) addictive substance wacking around with my mental works.
And the only reason it is legal for medicinal purposes is because these people are qualified and know the full extent of the effects the drug can have in a medical setting. on top of that, at least you can be guaranteed that a Doctors supply is 100% squeaky clean.
I’m with DVous Means tho…it truly ** doesn’t ** take a Rhodes scholar to work out it’s bad for you! Come on…anything that alters reality has to be bad for you!
Adolph Peewee (if that is your real name), I am going to have to take major exception to what you wrote. Mind altering drugs have been with us since the beginning, and only recently have they been demonized and blamed for many of society’s failures. Peyote, psychedelic mushrooms, yage and the like are/were instrumental in the development of culture, society, and religion.
In point of fact, the LD50 of LSD is astronomically low, as is marijuana.
On the other hand, youve got shit like jimsonweed and PCP, neither of which I would touch with a twenty foot pole or a dead kitten.
jb, I too, wish you had a cite. Perhaps we are talking about two different things tho. For example : I know that it is possible to overdose on sleeping pills, alcohol, in that the person can consume more than the body can process, and, the person dies. and one correctly says that the person died of an “overdose” of that substance.
Now, I’m not a medical examiner. so, if the person died because they injested so much cocaine in a single session that their heart went into hyperdrive and stopped beating, while that clinically might not (and I’m don’t know that it isn’t)be considered an “overdose”, I’d have no difficulty with saying the person died of a cocaine “overdose”.
They injested sufficient quantitites of cocaine quickly enough to cause thier death.
So, if you’re talking about the semantical possible differences between a “clincally defined” overdose, and “merely” a “drug induced death”, Fine, I guess, but hardly relevant to the discussion.
I think (and like you, I’m not too sure) that what you described would be a cocaine overdose. I would define an overdose as “taking so much of a drug that the normal effects of it (faster hearbeat, or depressed CNS activity, or whatever) become too great to handle”.
I just now remembered one of the places I read this. A forensic pathologist wrotea book about his career. I don’t have the book anymore, and I don’t recall its or his name, but I can tell you he did the autopsies of Belushi (John, not Jim’s career), secondary autopsy of Sunny von Bulow, and a bunch of others I can’t recall.
It was the Belushi chapter that mentioned this. His first name may be Cecil, although I may be thinking of Cyril Wecht or whatever the hell his name is. Then again, it could very well be Dr. Wecht who wrote it. Damn this feeble brain!
jb
p.s.- did you guys know that Jack Nicholson was present that night at Belushi’s? Robin Williams and a bunch of other people too, but I don’t remember (see feeble brain comment above).
ok, then, I don’t think cocain overdose would be rare. I’ve known personally quite a few folks who died of drug overdoses, and while heroin certainly took it’s proper toll, cocain was no slouch. (I work with convicts)