Weed triggers depression...

[Graag]

Drugs are useless, unless you want to make your life more difficult. And don't tell me I am wrong until you have done the research - which I have already done.

Snoopy,

"I believe drugs did a lot of good for people. And if you don't belive me take go home take out all your albums and all your tapes and all your cd's and burn them. Because all those musicians who made all that great music.... reeeeeaaal high on drugs."

- Bill Hicks

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Strangelove -

You are reading his words out of context, he said he was unaware there was something "inherently"
harmful about alcohol, there isn't unless used in it's pure form. Few products in life are inherently harmful, and it seems diluted alcohol used in moderation can have some beneficial effects.

It's posssible to dilute cyanide down to a dose low enough that it wouldn't kill you. Heck we even use botulinum toxin for certain medical purposes.

[Dr Strangelove]

Re: Re: Doesn't matter how much you dillute it, it's still a poison.

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


one to two glasses daily helps prevent colon cancer. One to two glasses of red wine daily help reduce plaque in your blood vessels.

The colon cancer prevention hypothesis has been disproved. With regards to atherosclerosis one glass is the optimum dose, but a half of an aspirin every other day works better.

[Ted Striker]

Alcohol is a toxic substance and does very damaging things to the body. It is especially damaging to the walls of the intestinal tract.

The beneficial effects of red wine are ONLY found in red wine, and it's not due to the alcohol, it's due to a chemical found in the skins of the grapes.

White wine doesn't have this benefit because the skins of the the grapes are removed before white wine is made.

[Shi Huangdi]

The scientific community is divided on alcohol use AFAIK. The majority viewpoint is that social drinking is ok and can even be beneficial in small proportions. There is a minority viewpoint however which claims that any amount of alcohol causes sluging in the brain and kills brain cells.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by orange


limited side-effects, perhaps, but I'd say it's much more dangerous than pot.

I agree.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Dr. Drew on love line is constently running on and on about how X case perminent chemical embalances in peoples brains. I don't know if its true but he is an MD and it is he's job to know these things.

He tends to be right about this sort of thing, so I believe that there is a chronic problem brewing for those who use a lot of X. I don't have to rely on him to tell me about the short term dangers, I've seen them myself with friends, visitors to our Emergency Department as well as the occasional mention on the police report in the local paper.

[Berzerker]

Strangelove -

It's posssible to dilute cyanide down to a dose low enough that it wouldn't kill you. Heck we even use botulinum toxin for certain medical purposes.

True, but I said FEW products in life are inherently harmful. Doesn't FEW means some are inherently harmful?

The colon cancer prevention hypothesis has been disproved. With regards to atherosclerosis one glass is the optimum dose, but a half of an aspirin every other day works better.

Does that mean alcohol is inherently harmful? Btw, do you know how many people die from aspirin every year? Several thousand I believe...

[Sikander]

I tend to think that as far as drugs go, there is no such thing as a free buzz. Everything that has an effect on you can harm you, either immediately and directly, or over time, or beyond a certain threshold of use, or simply by becoming a behavior that you are addicted to. Evil K talks about drugs like there is a magical line drawn through them, with the addictive drugs on one side of it, and the "safe" non-addictive drugs on the other. This is bull****. Addiction can occur physically to be sure, but this is rather simply eliminated by keeping the addict away from that substance until their body returns to normal.

Unfortunately this doesn't hardly work at all, because addiction is really a disease of the brain. It doesn't actually rely on any one drug, any drug will do in a pinch. It doesn't even have to be a drug, it can be another behavior like sex, or dangerous sports etc. All that is necessary is for you to have a strong reaction in your brain chemistry which is associated with the behavior / substance. The result is that there is a psychological craving for a substance that will easily outlast any period of abstinence. This is why people who show up at substance abuse programs are heavily counseled as well as cut off from the object of their addiction.

So IMO there are plenty of reasons to avoid drugs like the plague. Aside from the potential for triggering addictive potential in yourself, there are plenty of health risks in addition. I am not however for the continuance of the drug war. It isn't stopping drug abuse, it is incredibly costly, and it is hurting millions of innocent people, most of whom live in poor parts of the world. I would rather see safer cleaner drugs made available by the government at a price guaranteed to keep the illicit market weak, with the profits put into drug treatment programs. We put a bunch of cops out of work, a much larger group of thugs and criminals out of work, while we reduce petty crime from abusers looking for cash, and major crime in the form of a massive reduction in the murder rate from turf wars. The benefits for our friends south of the border will be even greater. Perhaps they can one day be able to trust more than half of their cops and government officials to not be corrupted by drug money.

[Berzerker]

Come to think of it, if alcohol in other forms doesn't convey the health benefits that wine does, maybe it isn't the alcohol in wine, but other ingredients. Or maybe the alcohol in wine triggers the other ingredients to act. Nah, it's probably the other ingredients that are producing a benefit.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Graag

Snoopy,

"I believe drugs did a lot of good for people. And if you don't belive me take go home take out all your albums and all your tapes and all your cd's and burn them. Because all those musicians who made all that great music.... reeeeeaaal high on drugs."

- Bill Hicks

Thats a bit bull

If there wasnt inside them, drugs couldnt "create it" out of thin air.


and if it couldnt get out without drugs, thats something that defines only them.

others who have it too can deliver it drug free also

[Starchild]

Alcohol (or more properly, ethanol) isn't the stuff in the wine that's giving you health benefits. The chemicals responsible for the lowered blood pressure come from the skin of the grape. The ethanol is the by-product of anaerobic metabolism of glucose. That's why non-alcoholic grape juice offers similar benefits but very alcoholic vodka doesn't.

And having written this, I see that Derek has already explained it....

[Graag]

Originally posted by paiktis22



Thats a bit bull

If there wasnt inside them, drugs couldnt "create it" out of thin air.


and if it couldnt get out without drugs, thats something that defines only them.

others who have it too can deliver it drug free also

I seem to be having some trouble making sense of that...

I take the Bill Hicks quote to mean that if you belive drugs are worthless and have no role whatsoever in society, you may as well not listen to music, as the artists are inevitably drug users, or influenced by drug users.
The point is not that the drugs created the music, the people created the music, but would they have created the same music without drugs?

I'm not sure I'm making sense here. Not enough drugs.

[Jac de Molay]

Sik--

I would rather see safer cleaner drugs made available by the government at a price guaranteed to keep the illicit market weak, with the profits put into drug treatment programs.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, but has this been the case for alcohol and tobacco? Both have been taxed heavily, with practically nothing going into treatment or prevention. Same with the tobacco settlement- almost nothing went back into education and prevention, with state governments using the windfall for other things.

Seems like any form of taxation, to date, has only punished and stigmatized users of legal drugs further.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Come to think of it, if alcohol in other forms doesn't convey the health benefits that wine does, maybe it isn't the alcohol in wine, but other ingredients. Or maybe the alcohol in wine triggers the other ingredients to act. Nah, it's probably the other ingredients that are producing a benefit.

But you can't get the other ingrediants without turning it into wine. Grape juice doesn't have the same effect.