News Is Biden's daughter's drug habits news worthy

[chemisttree]

Hard drugs is a political not a medical term.
Did cannabis suddenly become more dangerous when it was upgraded from class c to class B?

Yes it did become more dangerous.

Nationally, skunk smokers are ending up ill in hospital in record numbers, with admissions soaring 73 per cent. The number of adults recorded as suffering mental illness as a result of cannabis use has risen sharply from 430 in 1996 to 743 in 2006.

The government data shows how the damaging effects of the drug have swept across England. Hospital hotspots for cannabis abuse include Manchester, London, Cheshire and Merseyside.

And, as the debate over the drug's dangers continues, figures released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Abuse (NTA) show that more than 24,500 people are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis – the highest ever.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/mental-illness-soars-in-uks-skunk-hotspots-397449.html

Why is MDMA class A when it is safer than horse riding?

Because the criteria for classification as a Class A drug have less to do with death rates and more to do with the fact that when it was classified as Class A, it had no medicinal use and was believed to be a hallucinogen like LSD.

 

[mheslep]

Yes I am serious. Both are addictive,

Like a BB air-gun and a 38 calibre pistol are both lethal weapons.

 

[Proton Soup]

a social worker for a Delaware child-welfare agency

yeah, it might be newsworthy.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Why is MDMA class A when it is safer than horse riding?

Because the criteria for classification as a Class A drug have less to do with death rates and more to do with the fact that when it was classified as Class A, it had no medicinal use and was believed to be a hallucinogen like LSD.

And its fairly commonly used as a date rape drug.

 

[Woody101]

You can list the traits, but just because they share the traits, that doesn't mean they share them equally. That's a pretty basic logical fallacy that would allow you to throw sugar and chocolate into the same category!

The level of addictiveness, level of mood alteration, and level of damage are just not comparable. In particular, alcohol is not inherrently chemically addictive. Certain people are succeptible to alcohol addiction via genetic defect, but that disease does not affect a large part of the population (9% according to the wiki). That is stakly different from hard drugs (or even nicotine or caffiene, for that matter), which can cause chemical addiction in virtually everyone who uses them.

Alcohol also has a safe dosage, so use does not automatically imply misuse or any negative consequences at all. Hard drugs do not have dosage levels where they have limited physiological effects (that, of course, would defeat the purpose for taking them).
It helps to point out the logical flaw and rediculousness of the claim to push it to it's logical extent. You are the one who is broadening the definitions and criteria to the point of uselessness in order to include alcohol in the same category as hard drugs. By broadening it further, chemisttree emphasizes the logical flaw and forces you to (traps you into) address[ing] it. Ie, now that you acknowledge that broadening the criteria too far results in rediculousness, you should make an attempt to justify why your broadening of the criteria doesn't also result in rediculousness.

Wow only 9% of the population is genetically predispositioned to becoming an alcoholic, I just checked the population of the U.S. and as of July 08 it was 303,524,640 and 9% of that is a bit over 37 million, quite an insignificant number indeed. One does not have to be an alcoholic to abuse alcohol unfortunately. In Rapid City, SD they have arrested over 300 for DUI since the first of the year. That is about 3 a day. I am sure that many of them were not alcoholics but that makes little difference.

I spent 30 years in management and safety in the trucking industry and I cleaned up over 100 truck wrecks, 10 of them were fatals with a total of 14 fatalities. Every one of those 10 fatals involved alcohol. In one instance our driver was drunk in 7 it was drunk drivers hittng our trucks and in two instances it was people under the influence using our trucks as a means of suicide. One by throwing himself under the wheels as the truck pulled away from a cafe and another where a young lady, under the influence, had a fight with her boyfriend, demanded that he stop and let her out. When he did, she ran out into the freeway and stood in front of our truck. Our driver tried to stop and tried to evade her but she moved back in front of the truck. I doubt seriously that you can get the same results with coffee or chocolate.

Just a thought but if alcohol is not addictive, why did so many people risk fines and jail to drink it during prohibition when they could have just drank coffee or ate a Hershey Bar.

In my previous post I said the guy who hit and killed 2 people got 7 years, I was wrong he only got 4.

 

[jaap de vries]

I remember from working for the Salvation Army that alcohol is a hard drugs...when you are adicted to it. However, recreational use is possible. I love to watch football with some friends and some beers. I wondered if I could enjoy the game if me and my friends would shoot up some heroin first. The problem with hard drugs is that recreational usage is not really possible. A serious alcohol adiction is right up there with other hard drugs.

 

[russ_watters]

Wow...

Yes, alcohol abuse is a big problem. But neither that fact, nor any of what you just said has any relevance whatsoever to your previous claim or the flaws in it I pointed out. In fact, the issue of drinking and driving is actually quite similar in most respects to the issue of driving while texting/talking on a cell phone. Both activities are otherwise legal but are extremely dangerous when combined with driving and as a result are both illegal while driving (in a growing number of states for cell phone use).

Just a thought but if alcohol is not addictive, why did so many people risk fines and jail to drink it during prohibition when they could have just drank coffee or ate a Hershey Bar.

I said alcohol is not chemically addictive. Alcohol is psychologically addictive in the same way that any enjoyable activity is, especially since alcohol is associated with other fun activities, and that made it very difficult to change behaviors. I was careful to specify because i figured if i didn't, you would throw up the psychological addiction concept as a red herring argument. The big difference between a psycological addiction associated with specific other activities and a chemical addiction is a key point here. People who are actual alcoholics need alcohol all the time, whereas people who drink socially might not be able to fathom watching a football game without a beer in their hand, but they aren't going to get drunk on Monday morning instead of going to work, unlike a crack addict or alcoholic, who will do precisely that. Social drinking is not inherrently life destroying, whereas alcoholism and hard drug usage is.

And also, what does addiction have to do with doing illegal things? Do people drive over the speed limit because they are addicted to it?

 

[russ_watters]

I remember from working for the Salvation Army that alcohol is a hard drugs...when you are adicted to it. However, recreational use is possible. I love to watch football with some friends and some beers. I wondered if I could enjoy the game if me and my friends would shoot up some heroin first. The problem with hard drugs is that recreational usage is not really possible. A serious alcohol adiction is right up there with other hard drugs.

I'll agree with that.

 

[Proton Soup]

alcohol is definitely physiologically addictive. you can even kill someone who is a hardened alcoholic if you cut them off abruptly.

 

[russ_watters]

alcohol is definitely physiologically addictive. you can even kill someone who is a hardened alcoholic if you cut them off abruptly.

See:

Physical addiction to alcohol occurs in consistently heavy drinkers. Since their bodies have adapted to the presence of alcohol, they suffer alcohol Withdrawal if they suddenly stop drinking.

http://www.addictionwithdrawal.com/alcohol.htm

In other words, the abuse leads to the addiction, not the other way around (unlike, say, nicotine). The abuse of the damaging substance forces the body to make adjustments to protect itself. These adjustments cause the addiction/withdrawal symptoms, not the substance itself. So the alcohol itself is not physically addictive...

...If you don't like that logic because it looks like a caveat, let me just bypass it: alcohol is not physically/chemically addictive for those who do not abuse it. The point, as before, is that alcohol can be safely used. Hard drugs have no safe dosage, nor are they ever inended to be used safely anyway (that last part applies to softer drugs like pot as well).

 

[Proton Soup]

See: http://www.addictionwithdrawal.com/alcohol.htm

In other words, the abuse leads to the addiction, not the other way around (unlike, say, nicotine). The abuse of the damaging substance forces the body to make adjustments to protect itself. These adjustments cause the addiction/withdrawal symptoms, not the substance itself. So the alcohol itself is not physically addictive...

...If you don't like that logic because it looks like a caveat, let me just bypass it: alcohol is not physically/chemically addictive for those who do not abuse it. The point, as before, is that alcohol can be safely used. Hard drugs have no safe dosage, nor are they ever inended to be used safely anyway (that last part applies to softer drugs like pot as well).

yeah, it's not very satisfying. there certainly are people who smoke (say an occasional cigar) but aren't heavy smokers. and it would take about 2 weeks for my body to adjust to life without caffeine.

i would prefer to just stick with recognizing that some drugs are a lot more addictive than others, and some are a lot more damaging than others. and the amount of overlap varies, as do the mechanisms of addiction.