What is with these anti-drug commercials?

[HeartOfGold]

Ok, just once more. Just one.

Read this, it was in my very first post.

Concerning the use of “our tax money” on “this bull shit:” that commercial was probably funded by private organizations or grants for specifically this purpose (if you have a problem with governmental grants for such things, you should consider this while voting for your congressmen).

I was refering to your tax dollars as “governmental grants” and contributions from the beer, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies (as well as the other groups that have contributed) as “private organizations.” If you have a problem with the government spending your money on such causes, don’t vote for officials that support it (or if you are really daring, don’t pay your taxes). On the same note, if you don’t want companies to contribute (that aren’t required to do so by law, which would just go back to voting) don’t buy their products, don’t purchase their stocks, or do write them really nasty letters.

In conclusion, I never said that government grants were not involved with the campaign. I never said outside organizations were not involved with it. I’ve done my best (as far as time and motivation allowed) to point out where they were involved. Finally, if you don’t like the system, vote in favor of those who think like you. I can’t stress that enough.

[Desmostylus]

*Originally posted by Ilsa_Lund *
**Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters from Hamlet. The movie was based on the characters, who of course died in the paly. I saw “Rosencrants” and couldn’t pass up the opportunity. **

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead” is a direct quote from Hamlet, you idiot. One of the English ambassadors says it to Horatio.

*Originally posted by Ilsa_Lund *
Whoosh.

Yeah, right. :rolleyes:

[neutron_star]

Partnerships – The Campaign cultivates partnerships with civic, service, and faith–based organizations to strengthen local anti–drug efforts. Among the partners are more than 40 of the nation’s largest and most influential organizations including Community Anti–Drug Coalitions of America, the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, the Prevention Through Service Alliance, National Middle School Association, NAA Foundation’s Newspaper in Education Program, Girl Scouts of the USA, Boy Scouts of America, Youth Service America, YMCA of the USA and more.

Your post makes it seems like these organizations are help footing the bill for the commercials. I doubt that’s the case. They’re probably just moral partners helping to spread the propaganda, as you surmised in your first post with that quote. Notice that the Partnerships entry is under the heading “Non-Advertising Outreach.”

Media outlets that receive paid advertising are required to match the value of those ads with in–kind public service. This pro bono match can take many forms, such as free advertising space or time, newspaper inserts, and sponsorship of community events. The pro bono match will bring the total value of Campaign advertising to $2 billion over five years.

Think about this one for a minute. The media outlets want the advertising money from the government, but you don’t really think they’re actually concerned for your well-being, do you? They’re businessmen. They don’t want to sell what amounts to half-price commercials.

Note the line “This pro bono match can take many forms.” Want more elaboration on that than is provided? Here you go:

The media are given the option to fulfill the balance of their obligation with entertainment or community affairs programming, related local or national community events, web site content, in-school programs, and other in-kind donations approved by ONDCP

Bolding mine. They don’t want to waste a valuable 30 seconds of commercial time with a PSA against drug use when they could be selling that time to a drug pusher like Budweiser. So they have the writers covertly work anti-drug elements into the plots of shows, as Apos mentioned on the second page of this thread. Not just propaganda, but hidden propaganda. You’d think it would have been a big story, but then where do we get our big stories? Oh yeah. Major media outlets…

[Ilsa_Lund]

*Originally posted by Desmostylus *
**“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead” is a direct quote from Hamlet, you idiot. One of the English ambassadors says it to Horatio.Yeah, right. :rolleyes: **

Fuck you, jackass. Of course it’s a quote from the play. Does that change the fact that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters from Hamlet? No! Moron.

Yo mamma was a :wally

[Ms2001]

*Originally posted by HeartOfGold *
Mr2001: I was just wrong on the gateway drug thing, I suppose. IMHO, your money won’t be “wasted” on the “war on drugs” much longer. I hope the price does get entirely shifted from taxes to private organizations.

Private organizations paying for the Holy War On Drugs? Not likely. The commercials, sure. But the law enforcement and imprisonment? Billions of dollars a year? I think even Anheuser-Busch and R. J. Reynolds would rather spend that kind of money getting drugs legalized (so they can produce and sell them), than spend it on cops and prisons.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

*Originally posted by neutron star *
**
A much more likely theory, one which The Master Cecil himself supports, is that pot happens to be the drug of choice for many people who are naturally lazy. **

Or perhaps are self-medicating for severe (possibly undiagnosed) depression. The so-called “amotivational syndrome” almost perfectly mirrors the symptoms of clinical depression. I have suffered from depression for most of my adult life, and smoked pot on a daily basis for almost ten years, with no ill effects. I have problems with the medications, I’ve been on Navane, Zoloft and Prozac, and they all had nasty side effects and quit working after a few months. They’re also freaking expensive.

I started smoking weed when I was eighteen, smoked for over a year, then quit. Within six months, I was in a psych ward after a suicide attempt. Started smoking again and…

For the next decade, I suffered from frequent bouts of depression that would last for days or even weeks at a time, but I never felt like killing myself. I also suffer from PMS, and just before my period, I get into this state where I feel so uncomfortable inside my own skin I want to claw the flesh from my bones. A couple hits from a pipe of mj, I’d be fine. Helps with the weepiness and the poor concentration that hits me around that time of month too…

Since moving to Lost Wages, I have quit smoking pot (except for very occasional social use) because it’s next to impossible to get a decent job in this town without having to pee in a cup or get some hair clipped first. My psychological state is at sub-basement level. Right now, because of severe back pain and the fact that I’m going to school, I can only work part time so my financial situation is pretty scary Last January, I lost my job (my supervisor didn’t even know why he was ordered to fire me), and my situation between then and finding my current job, I would become so angry and depressed, it was frightening. I smashed a keyboard when I was having problems accessing job search websites. I would get dressed to go job hunting and then start crying so hard that my tears washed my makeup off. If I could have just smoked a bit of weed I could have pulled myself together and gone jobhunting. Instead, I crawled back into bed.

I considered suicide on a daily basis, and still more than just toy with the idea more than occasionally.

I never had these kinds of emotional jags when I was smoking weed. [/hijack]

Anyhoo, the point I was trying to make before I went off on a tangent was that “amotivational syndrome” has long since proven to be a myth, yet the Partnership For a Truth Free America still plays that card in its PSA’s. Of course, several months after word got out about the PSA with the flatlined EEG stating that "these are the brainwaves of a fourteen year old after smoking pot) was actually that of someone in a coma, I turned on the TV late one night and saw it- six months after it had supposedly been pulled.

These PSA’s make me sick. They cite worthless statistics, quote studies that have been refuted done by discredited scientists, and use scare tactics instead of facts. I have arrived at the conclusion that these PSA’s aren’t designed so much to keep people from smoking pot as they are to frighten the American public into thinking that legalization would be a bad thing.

Which would benefit the pharmaceutical companies immensely. Prozac, the generic, goes for about eighty bucks for a month’s supply. If pot were legal, a lot of folks would grow it in their basements for free, or buy legally available weed for probably twenty bucks for a months supply (assuming you only smoke a joint or two a day to keep the blues away.) And since the drug comanies can’t patent it, they’re out all that lovely, lovely money…

[II_Gyan_II]

Time for some opinions and links…

Background: 23, male, college student. Smoked marijuana 8-10 times, drank bhang a few times, did psilocybin mushrooms 4-5, LSD 10+, cocaine 1, speed 1, ecstasy 2, salvia 1, morning glory seeds 1.

Rant:

Every drug is different in effects and dangers. Illogical to lump them under a common label.

The following factors should be included as context, when discussing drugs:
[ul]
[li]Dosage and toxicity at various doses: A drug may depress respiratory system at a high dose, but not be a problem at a lower one. [/li][li]Purity: Drugs are illegal. Hence, there’s no QA out there. Street heroin can be anywhere from 5%-95% pure.[/li][li]Adulterants: What’s the other 95% in 5% heroin?[/li][li]Method of administration: IV, Oral, Nasal, IM…etc Onset, duration, intensity, physical effects may vary.[/li][li]Psyche of User: Open towards drugs or ignorant or paranoid?, implusive or cautious, extrovert or shy, optimist? These do make a difference to the drug experience…[/li][li]Set of User: Mood the user is in just prior to ingestion and during experience (depressed/anxious/implusive/joyful) and what the user expects the drug experience to be like. These expectations, in drugs like LSD, often serve as self-fulfilling predictions.[/li][li]Setting: environment (home, outside, club, surrounded by strangers or friends, music, control over what you’re doing or where you’re going)[/li][li]Physical effects during experience: pupil dilation, heartrate, breathing…[/li][li]Psychological effects during experience: paranoia, euphoria, empathy, anxiety, anger…etc[/li][li]Long-term physical effects from casual use: alcohol/cirrhosis, speed/weight loss or liver problems…[/li][li]Long-term psychological effects from casual use: depression, memory & learning[/li][li]Long-term physical effects from chronic use: physical dependence or organ damage…[/li][li]Long-term psychological effects from chronic use: long-lasting depression, memory impairment…[/li][/ul]

Now, when considering whether a drug should be legal/illegal, IMHO, you should construct a model where the drug is legal and then enumerate the unacceptable or risky elements within that model. So, under this method, the following health hazards of heroin are not considered: HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, collapsed veins. Why? Because pure heroin is relatively non-toxic (cite, cite 2 (search for non-toxic), cite 3(search for toxic)). The “health hazards” disingenuously listed by the DEA for heroin relate mostly to IV administration (e.g. sharing of dirty needles), adulterants, unknown dosage (due to unknown purity). These all directly stem from heroin being illegal. If heroin were legal and regulated, you would be able to buy say, a 100 mg tab of 100% or 90% heroin, cut with harmless adulterants. Users wouldn’t then even have to inject it, due to the purity. So, DEA and NIDA warnings about drugs should be taken with a pinch of salt. Other things to look out for, are how deaths due to drugs are calculated and presented. Should a death due to street heroin caused by adulterants, be counted as a heroin death? What about death due to Ecstasy, when death is due to excessive rehydration, leading to hyponatriema, and not by Ecstasy, per se? How are these deaths even verified? In Julie Holland’s book (linked below), it’s mentioned that a drug is associated with a death, if there’s anecdotal information to suspect use of the drug. IOW, if I take a pill, believing it to be Ecstasy, and then collapse and subsequently die, and my friend reports to the police that I consumed Ecstasy that’s the end of the matter, as far as verifying what I actually consumed. Never mind that lot of these “Ecstasy” pills do not even contain MDMA or just MDMA. What about all the deaths “due” to cocaine? Jacob Sullum says the following on 1988 New York homicides identified as “crack-related”, in his book(linked below): 85 precent grew out of black-market disputes, while about 7 percent occured during crimes committed to support a crack habit and Only one homicide out of 118 involved a perpetrator who was high on crack. The most common motive for the black-market homicides was “territorial dispute,” followed by “robbery of drug dealer,” “assault to collect debt,” “punishment of worker,” “dispute over drug theft,” and “dealer sold bad drugs.” Should these killings even be counted as symptoms of the drug, when considering a legal model? These anti-drug organizations, like any politically backed venture have an agenda. And that agenda isn’t necessarily virtuous, pure or possessed with an honest outlook, despite the PR.

On analysing the drug war and possible reform, here are some links to books and articles
[ul]
[li]Economist 9 article survey, outlines the current War on Drugs, the economics behind drug production and distribution, drug use and abuse and social implications. Explores alternative public policy.[/li][li]Saying Yes:In Defense of Drug Use by Jacob Sullum, editor at Reason[/li][li]From Chocolate To Morphine: Everything You Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs by Winifred Rosen[/li][li]Ecstasy: A Comprehensive Look at the Risks and Benefits of MDMA by Julie Holland, M.D.[/li][li]Erowid: A site that claims to provide balanced information on drugs. Doesn’t explicitly advocate drug use. Comprehensive repository on drug information.[/li][li]Lycaeum: mostly concentrates on technical information about drugs.[/li][/ul]

[eman77]

(slight hijack) Want an unbiased drug site? Try www.erowid.org
Should give you an idea of what’s harmful and not harmful for the most part.

[eman77]

Maybe I should’ve double checked the post above me before I posted.

[neutron_star]

*Originally posted by Thea Logica *
Or perhaps are self-medicating for severe (possibly undiagnosed) depression. The so-called “amotivational syndrome” almost perfectly mirrors the symptoms of clinical depression.

Good point. I should have included it in my post. In fact, I do it myself. I’ve been on 3 or 4 SSRIs, plus Wellbutrin, Buspar, and Sinequan, a tricyclic. Nothing works. So I guess I self-medicate. Opiate pills make my stomach hurt. Alcohol and benzodiazepines (individually or together) make me feel bad more often than they make me feel good. But pot works. Not always, but often. Wake and bake always works. It’s the only thing that’s consistent with this damn depression.

I’m still trying to explore my options with conventional medicine, but they are rapidly running out. My doctor says she won’t tell me to stop smoking pot, as it’s the only relief I get. She gets a lot of respect from me for holding that opinion.

For the next decade, I suffered from frequent bouts of depression that would last for days or even weeks at a time, but I never felt like killing myself. I also suffer from PMS, and just before my period, I get into this state where I feel so uncomfortable inside my own skin I want to claw the flesh from my bones. A couple hits from a pipe of mj, I’d be fine. Helps with the weepiness and the poor concentration that hits me around that time of month too…

Since moving to Lost Wages, I have quit smoking pot (except for very occasional social use) because it’s next to impossible to get a decent job in this town without having to pee in a cup or get some hair clipped first.

Damn. I can’t imagine how rough that must be.

I don’t get PMS (what with my Y chromosome and all), but the “I feel so uncomfortable inside my own skin…” line rings very true with me at times. My wife does get PMS and claims pot works great at alleviating those feelings. Due to random drug testing, she is no longer able to get that relief.

I considered suicide on a daily basis, and still more than just toy with the idea more than occasionally.

I never had these kinds of emotional jags when I was smoking weed.

I’ve never been quite that bad, but I’ve been close. Lately, it’s been creeping up on me more and more, owing possibly to the fact that at the beginning of May I had two jobs and now I have none. Both layoffs and neither company wanted to see me go.

You know, I hear talk of a vast land called Canada, where drug testing isn’t nearly as pervasive as it is here. I hear of people walking down the streets smoking joints of much better pot than I’ve ever tasted without getting arrested. I hear of people growing houses full of pot in BC and, when caught, barely getting a slap on the wrist. Small, personal, grow ops rarely get any attention at all. I want to move.

Which would benefit the pharmaceutical companies immensely. Prozac, the generic, goes for about eighty bucks for a month’s supply. If pot were legal, a lot of folks would grow it in their basements for free, or buy legally available weed for probably twenty bucks for a months supply (assuming you only smoke a joint or two a day to keep the blues away.) And since the drug comanies can’t patent it, they’re out all that lovely, lovely money…

Ah, but they can patent Marinol and spend (and, of course, charge) a fortune for making synthetic THC. That’s profitable, so it’s fine. The government acknowledges that cannabis contains THC. They still, however, deny any concrete evidence of medical benefits from cannabis, despite their own studies to the contrary, and despite the fact that Marinol has been on the market for years, approved by their own FDA.

Odd, that.

Gyan9, that’s a very impressive and comprehensive list. It really illustrates the innumerable shades of grey that actually constitute what is, to many, a black-and-white issue.

Oh, and:

morning glory seeds 1

Yeah, once was enough for me, too.

I puked several times after drinking a vile concoction I made as a teenager after reading about LSA on the web. I didn’t trip at all. Another homebrew attempt was at getting DMT from Phlaris grass. Too late, I found that I would have had to grow a couple pounds of it to get even one dose, and my parents were already scratching their heads over my “high school science project” box of canary reed grass that I kept maintaining even after graduation, so that whole thing didn’t really pan out.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

neutron star, is there much demand for massage therapists in Canada? Sounds like it might be a good place to move to when I finish school…

[lezlers]

You resurrected this threat to ask that, thea?

I would’ve thought you’d known better…

[lezlers]

THREAD dammit, THREAD!!!

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

I didn’t really intend to resurrect the thread. Gayn9 posted a link to his post in another thread I started, and when I saw neutron star’s post, I couldn’t resist.