Monday, February 09, 2009
Are we outnumbered?
This is kind of a spinoff to my most recent blog The hippy lobby never seems to die as I am concerned and I've shared this with Beth. That particular post dealt specifically with studies being done right now purporting to show the health benefits of lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD but I'm broadening the subject here to narcotics in general especially in light of the recent Michael Phelps bong show. Now as I expressed to Beth I had thought there was some kind of societal consensus finally evolving that illegal drugs are bad for you, even that hedonist Hef reportedly doesn't allow them in the Mansion but then reviewing the most recent blogs out there the number of people who see nothing at all wrong with using at least some of these drugs, put it this way, I find this counterconsensus if you will disturbing. To say that there is irresponsible drug use and then responsible drug use is like saying there's also responsible adultery which many people hold to also. Now getting back to my hippy blog even the heavy hardcore hallucinogens, otherwise reasonable people who should know better seem at least curious about them. There's an intellectual curiosity here and they defend it by saying that this normally political desire for moderation be applied here too. Now as positive a thing as moderation can be I say it doesn't always apply across the board this being one of those cases, it's a common error in moral reasoning to say moderation in all things. I find these thoughts mesmerizing in a bad way and so this hippy blog companion piece.
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"Hippy lobby" ? :) Apparently, there is something of a drug culture (aside from puffing a pipe and boozing like this old fossil).
ReplyDeleteIt must be the buzz, or maybe the old peer pressure thing. Some fairly rational folk think that
legalizing stuff would make it more manageable and less attractive. It is presently a huge, highly profitable underground business...and hardly needs a lobby! Most would say it
is bad for you, but, gee...so is my Prince Albert in the can and
Seagram 7 in the bottle. So, the problem, as usual....is us. Er..some of us: I grew up in the hippy era and never touched any of the stuff, and raised three kids that never did either. What to ya think...addictive personalities, maybe?
Well it's good to see we're in good company with you BB because heck I grew up never touching the stuff, but sometimes the way people talk it's like they say "kinda hard to tell my kid 'just say no' when I myself have done it" but I say, hey I CAN tell my kids that without a problem because I didn't! But this is why Z-man and I feel outnumbered, because everyone seems to have done it. Although I do wonder how much is peer pressure, and can some of the buzz (pardon the pun) be just people talking because they want to look like they are hip and cool even though they never have done drugs?
ReplyDeleteI was personally happy to see sponsorship taken away from Michael Phelps but a blogger friend whom I used to admire really threw me for a loop when he said he thought he was only stupid for getting caught and not sharing his bong, and I think he's just trying to be cool so people think conservatives can be cool, but I don't think that is cool myself!
Anyway, to make a long comment even longer (usually I don't rant like this but I am getting annoyed I guess) BB you touched on the idea of alcohol being bad for you, and many pro-drug people say to look at prohibition and how badly that went, and I say that is EXACTLY why I want to keep drugs illegal, because once opening the can of worms to legalizing them, well shutting that box just won't happen, so I really don't want them ever legalized.
As for smoking, a similar argument is made, except I don't think they knew many years ago how bad cigarettes are for you, but we do know how bad drugs can be for you (as my friend Z-man has discussed in his Hippy posting) such as bad trips or lasting effects from drugs that makes people do dangerous things to themselves or others. And I don't care if that is extremely rare or what, if there is a risk then I say it is immoral to make them legal. Even for medicinal purposes, you are putting people at risk, and that just never is right.
I think you're wrong Z. When it comes to drugs, moderation and dosage is the key. A couple of aspirin or ibuprophen can have amazing benefits in curing what ails you. However it you magnify that a hundred fold, then probably not so much.
ReplyDeleteSame with alcohol. Same with morphine. Same with cocaine or marijuana and yes even LSD I'm sure. Certainly I would say that drugs derived from nature (not manufactured say in so much as Crystal Meth [being an amalgamation of drano, cold medicine, et al.]) have healing properties and applications which are not entirely understood.
But I digress...what it comes down to with me is my own ability to make these decisions and be accountable for them.
I've seen the depths of seemingly unknown dimensions. And, I should say it is in large part having seen those dimensions that has allowed me to be so absolute in my cognition of reality.
BB I was really shocked to learn quite by accident in my googling one day that there are official studies being done right now on the supposedly beneficial aspects of the psychedelics. As Just Me said we're talking Harvard, John Hopkins and UCLA and I say that's insane so what is the agenda here? to narcotize the masses? I used to think Al-Qaeda was a bigger threat or will we destroy ourselves from within?
ReplyDeleteBeth what bothers me and thank you for your comment is this. I've harped quite recently on the fact that we conservatives aren't even on the same page when it comes to social issues like abortion, well you can add drugs to the mix. Apparently we're not all on the same page and makes you wonder maybe the common threads binding us conservatives together are shrinking from what they were in the old days. Now those who advocate the complete legalization of drugs, I'm still kind of investigating whether this is purely a political position of just throwing in the towel or something more. Is the motive here that they feel there is some positive benefit to drug use? The jury is still out on this, that is just why they feel drugs should be legalized, it's a mishmash of opinions but I like to get to the personal reasons why they feel the way they feel.
ReplyDeleteSoapie re those unknown dimensions of reality I've already blogged quite extensively about in my hippy blog about people being unknowingly dosed with LSD, apparently but I don't know why exactly an increasingly common practice say at parties and even work. So far I've not come across any person being the victim of this having had a positive and life-enriching experience. Just Me says it has to do with set and setting but for me personally the experience of hearing certain sounds very loudly and thus having a better knowledge of say how a refrigeration unit operates, I can do without this thank you. You know the other characteristic the dictionary gives for psychedelic drugs is increased sensory perception and that includes all the senses btw, yeah at first you might say that's interesting, you'll certainly never forget it for as long as you live so in that sense it's a memorable experience but doesn't it get annoying after a while? I'd rather go back to old everyday reality as such thank you, reality may bite but it is what it is, you have to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteSoapie, ever consider the idea that you were just lucky that the unknown dimensions you discovered did not cause you any harm, temporary or permanent?
ReplyDeleteI think the "conservative" answer to allowing drugs, as Soapie has alluded to, is to leave the government out of this decision, but just like the government intervenes with setting speed limits for safety (of the driver as well as anyone in the driver's path) so, too, I think the government has a duty to keep drugs illegal so that harm is not done during its use.
Another thing I meant to say, these really bad reactions people have from tripping, what the drugs are ok in a controlled- professional-medical environment crowd call "the rare adverse reaction", I don't think it's so rare. Probably a good healthy number of acid users will talk about their bad trips, well they talk about them enough to ratchet it above a rare adverse reaction so I think one side's not being completely honest. Oh I forgot, SET AND SETTING.
ReplyDeleteBeth is on to it. You're both missing the point I think. Drugs are illegal, it's against the law to speed. And yet...AND YET...people still die from drugs and people still die in car accidents due to speeding.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that with each passing day, I'm becoming further and further removed from the Republican party. The Republican party used to be the party of conservatism. And, as Reagan so eloquently proclaimed there is very strong corollary between libertarianism and conservatism.
Conservatism to me is the preservation of individual freedom and liberty. However, it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that the religious right and the social conservative movement are as culpable for implementing their own personal morality and decisions into a political party as the liberals are with using the Democratic party as a means to theirs.
But for me drugs ain't a religious right issue at all, for so many reasons I'm just against them. Even with pot, the people I've known who are regular potheads seem to have more mood swings when toking. Now admittedly this is purely anecdotal on my part, hardly a scientific study but with ALL the people I've personally known in my life who are habitual pot users the pot didn't seem to have the mellowing effect you'd think it would. They became harder to associate with, in short they became less nice as people. IMO it was the pot although I could be wrong, I'm not a scientist and though not hardcore like acid I think it affected their moods at the very least. It made them lazy too to the point where they lacked initiative. Potheads in the workplace are always asking you to do their work for them.
ReplyDeleteFrom experience Z, I will tell you that while the pot may have exacerbated those things, it was not the pot alone that was the cause.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day when I used to be a short order cook and then went on to work as a saute' cook at an upscale restaurant in Mpls, I used to toke up sometimes before work or when I went to take out the trash.
To this day I still look back on how exciting it was just being so relaxed while doing my prep work only to then slam through some of the most insane lunch rushes you could imagine.
Mark my word, if those kids were assholes or lazy to begin with, the pot wasn't the reason.
I had a friend who went skiing every single weekend. I thought he was doing it too much. He started with green squares, but pretty soon he was doing black diamonds.
ReplyDeleteI tried to tell him that he should stop, but he wouldn't listen to me. Even when I told him about a kid who had died while skiing.
Then he started skiing at night too. He was skiing at least three nights a week. And when he wasn't skiing, we would still be thinking about it, reading ski magazines and watching ski videos.
I went online and got all the statistics, I told him so many people died, broke limbs, got concusions, how many people got traumatic brain injury.
He didn't care. All he wanted to do was ski. Then it happened. He was skiing one night and he fell and broke his arm.
It cost him thousands of dollars and a broken bone, but he still wants to do it again.
We must make this dangerous activity illegal before more people get hurt!
Stupid, stupid argument, because as we have made mention several times but nobody has really addressed is that when you are on drugs, your mind if ALTERED. That means you think and react differently than you normally do. Could be harmless, or you could think martians are invading and start shooting at people wearing green shirts. People who ski do not have mind altering experiences that could cause them to hurt someone else like that. What you described in your stupid analogy was a person obsessed with a hobby, which bears no resemblance to a person addicted to mind altering drugs.
ReplyDeleteWhy’d you call my argument stupid?
ReplyDeleteI resent you calling my post "Stupid"
Do you call everyone that don't agree with you "Stupid"?
I didn't call your posts stupid, by the STUPID comparisons you made.
you are at the height of ignorance if you think you don't do stupid or illogical things yourself.
Get some manners. Miss know it all, but blogs like a 12 year old!!
That's strange
ReplyDeleteThe above post was by a different Just Me who must be a troll.
------
If the difference between skiing and drug use is that one alters your mind, then how would you define mind altering?
Is the adrenaline rush I get from skiing mind altering? What about the adrenaline rush from ski diving?
If the above adrenaline rushes are ok, what about the adrenaline rush from cocaine? If we could then extract out the pure adrenaline rush aspect of cocaine, and it felt just like a skiidiving rush, would it then be ok?
Are the hallucinations I have every night when I dream ok? Or is this a terrible and horrible mind alteration? What about when I have nightmares?
If the mind altering qualities of hallucinogens are bad, then maybe we should make dreaming illegal too! Especially if they are both caused by a similar neurochemistry.
The problem with Beth's argument is that 'drugs' don't typically make people kill each other cause they think martians are invading.
The risks you take when you post anonymously, Just Me, is that others can use your nickname.
ReplyDeleteBut as to your point, how can you compare things that occur naturally within your brain with a substance that unnatually causes your brain to see things that aren't real?
I think you are grasping at straws here.
Hi Z,
ReplyDeletePrescription Drugs are bad for you too if not used in the way they are prescribed by the doctor. In fact, Prescription Drugs should not even be used "In Moderation" without a Prescription, so if using these drugs in a medical setting is the issue, than I do not think that Moderation is the issue.
I agree with you that "Moderation" "doesn't always apply across the board" and I would say that Adultery is one of these cases.
For some reason, my reading and response to this particular post is going slowly. Things keep coming up that distract me from finishing, so for now, I'll just respond to the first two comments above.
ReplyDeleteBB,
The "More Manageable and Less Attractive" if legal idea doesn't work. It didn't work with Abortion. Legalizing that increased the occurrence of it.
Beth,
I've never touched the stuff either. I also never smoked or attended the parties where they served alcohol. I was a virgin as well until I was married, so I guess that makes me as "outnumbered" as they come, yet actually, I hung around a lot of others like myself. There is a good crowd there if you look for it.
Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and even Sex all have to do with Peer Pressure and wanting to be accepted. To avoid these things, a person needs to have a good self-esteem.
If legalizing drugs on the streets is the issue, that's totally absurd. I was under the impression that a lot of the "Positive" things that were being said about these drugs had to do with the medical setting and that's all. That's where I draw the line.
Psychedelic drugs are way worse than Alcohol, Cigarettes and even Marijuana. To even think about legalizing them is absurd.
There is a lot of medical stuff that is dangerous, in fact all of the prescription stuff is if used without the supervision of a doctor.
Soap,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we all need to make our own decisions and be accountable for them, yet inappropriate drug use has negative effects on people other than the person taking the drug. Drug addiction leads to all kinds of crime.
Z,
You and I may disagreement in relation to legalizing the Psychedelics in the Medical Setting, yet please don't get me wrong. I am as opposed to legalizing them on the streets as you are.
I was under the impression that the "set and setting" that Just Me was talking about was the setting of medicine, not using drugs on the streets. When there is a medical condition (also a negative), sometimes the negative of drug side effects is considered a reasonable risk.
Actually Just Me,
I think drugs are even more dangerous than skying and more likely to hurt others besides the one taking the drugs.
Yes Beth,
I agree with Just Me. Name calling isn't really necessary.
Just Me,
I agree with Beth in that an adrenaline rush without drugs is more natural than one produced by drugs.
There is no way to out law dreaming. Dreaming is something that is natural as well.
Drugs do lead to crime, Just Me. That's a known fact.
Soap, it's been said that pot is like taking a low dosage of a psychedelic. Whichever Just Me said: "Are the hallucinations I have every night when I dream ok?
ReplyDeleteI should say so since people under the influence of heavy drugs like LSD don't even have the ability to dream for a few nights. I say dreaming is healthy, the great mental flush but acid users don't always have this God-given innate ability to work out issues out while dreaming so that's why they're all f****d up in the head and hard to get along with.
"Or is this a terrible and horrible mind alternation?"
Well it is if you can't dream as I've just said.
I agree totally with Beth, the comparison of mind-altering drugs to skiing is not apt. A couple years back we had a tragic case in one of the boroughs of NYC where a guy on angel dust shot at several motorists and killed them because he took their headlights as beams of light that were threatening him. Add to this the tragic case of Art Linkletter's daughter who thought she could fly and so jumped out of a building to her death because she used acid six months before and had a flashback. Many people on acid see other people as demons and devils and so their perception of Reality is altered to say the least. Even the inventor of LSD, the late Dr. Albert Hoffman said that one of his first experiences with the drug was he thought he was possessed by a demon, thought his neighbor was a witch and felt that his furniture was threatening him. Doesn't compare to skiing in the least.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the strange fear that people have towards illegal drugs. The only conclusion that I can come to is that people are simply conditioned to fear them.
ReplyDeleteHold on, let me go pour myself a drink. Ahhhh, ok, isn't it nice to have a drink after a long day's work?
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Drugs.
Ethanol changes brain activity by binding to and stimulating a GABA receptor on brain cells. This is the same thing that barbituates, benzodiazapenes and many other drugs (including the 'date rape' drug GHB) do. In fact, if I mixed you a drink but used one of these GABA agonists instead of alcohol, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference, based on the how you felt after the drink.
Unlike ethanol, these other drugs are not metabolized into the toxic and carcinogenic molecule acetaldehyde, and therefore do not have the liver disease, cancer and brain shrinking consequences that ethanol does.
So why is it these other drugs are demonized and feared while at the same time alcohol is tolerated and used by most of the population?
Also, let's imagine four people:
A: Drinks occasionally for relaxing, fun and sociability. Is productive and successful in their career and family.
B: Drinks every day to sustain their addiction, an addiction which impacts their career and family life.
C: Smokes marijuana occasionally for relaxing, fun and sociability. Is productive and successful in their career and family.
D: Smokes marijuana Drinks every day to sustain their addiction, an addiction which impacts their career and family life.
How would you rank these people as individuals?
Before I deconstruct your comment Just Me I have to say I was more than aware of how passionate people are on the issue of abortion, few weeks back it brought out the gargoyle in people, but I have to say I am more than a bit surprised at how passionate some people are who favor drugs. I'm thinking maybe you're a Devil's Advocate but whatever, it adds a good blend to the mix...
ReplyDelete"I don't understand the strange fear that people have towards illegal drugs."
ReplyDeleteWell for starters isn't it nice to be clear-headed though? I mean to go for a nice walk and have your wits about you or to go in early to work and you can really pump it out and be productive cause of the same clarity of mind and thought?
"The only conclusion that I can come to is that people are simply conditioned to fear them."
or else too many bad trips so they decide to stay home. Your conclusion kind of steers in the direction of some kind of amorphous conspiracy, perhaps a subproject of the VRWC hatched in Hannity's house, to demonize the fun people can have with drugs, a variation of the old (and I might say overly used) H.L. Mencken maxim regarding puritanism. I never thought of this.
Your various subgroups deserve a separate post.
"So why is it these other drugs are demonized and feared while at the same time alcohol is tolerated and used by most of the population?"
ReplyDeleteWell I can come up with at least one. Let's say you have to go into work at 7 or 8 the next morning, you have a couple of belts early enough in the evening that it burns off by morning, it's your system and it works for you. The aftereffects of LSD use for instance, that may stay with you for some time. Does Christian Brothers leave a neurological imprint on the brain capable of producing flashbacks six months to a year later? NOTE: I am not talking about the D.T.'s or Delirium Tremens popularized in that classic The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland. I never understood these people, you buy a decent bottle of booze and it should last you a few days at least and they guzzle it down all in one evening.
Of your subgroups I find (C) to be the most idealistic: (C) Smokes marijuana occasionally for relaxing fun, sociability. I don't know anybody like this, truly. All the people I know or knew who smoked pot, the word occasionally is not in the lexicon. They even devise newer ways of toking, one guy even used some Reynold's Wrap Aluminum Foil and made some kind of funnel device, 'twould think it would be hell on the hands though. (D) Potheads who are also alkies, the two often go hand in hand. I'm not pro-pot btw but I think most of us conservatives are rather tolerant of these people, at best they can be annoying and so I've kind of tried to focus on the mindbenders in my blogging of late.
Just me,
ReplyDeleteAfter all that Z has said, you don't understand why people fear these drugs!? Aside from the comments above, there is more on "The Hippy Lobby Never Seems to Die" at...
http://not-the-left.blogspot.com/2009/02/hippy-lobby-never-seems-to-die.html
Your lack of understanding of these fears is what I don't understand.
He seems to be saying our fears are irrational, the result of conditioning he said. For starters let's say you don't have the worst trip with acid just for the sake of argument but still I don't like the feeling of not having a clear head, to not be clear-headed, to be under some sort of cloud for a time. He seems to be saying the government is keeping the fun cat in the bag, they don't want it getting out, it's so much propaganda. You know fear is a natural thing and it can serve us well, it can be a virtue but I was curious just the same whether Just Me/Some Guy actually uses these drugs or just prefers intellectualizing about them.
ReplyDeleteI don't really think that conditioning and subjective experience is the same thing, Z. Though it is good to be tooled with a few things other than subjective experience when giving an argument, to call it conditioning is like calling it brain washing and I wouldn't hardly ever call it that and yes, fear is a very natural and good thing to have when it's rational, which in your case, I'd say it is.
ReplyDelete"Though it is good to be tooled with a few things other than subjective experience when giving an argument..."
ReplyDeleteBut that's the whole strength of my argument here as compared with other social conservatives who merely talk about drugs. To be dosed unknowingly with LSD on two occasions AND you're a conservative to boot that gives it from a horse's mouth approach I would think. You can flip Just Me's point around and say all those positive experiences people had in those psychedelic studies are subjective experiences too so why are their subjective experiences superior to mine in understanding the nature of what we're talking about here?
Research is nothing more than a collection of subjective experiences, yet if the research is done right, the "Sample" taken will be from all walks of life; rich, poor, male, female, young, old, lots of different nationalities, city folk, country folk, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteThese are the things that make a research "Sample" superior to a "Sample" of subjective experiences collected by an individual like yourself, yet a lot of research now a days is done in such a sloppy way that the research has to be evaluated carefully before it can be taken seriously.
Well I can't imagine anyone taking LSD and not having that weird feeling. Ya wanna know something? I think in the majority of cases we all have the same symptoms or side-effects but people like me interpret and feel those sides as negatives whereas others are into the weird, they really dig that weird feeling or experience because it's different, to be different from other people in having increased sensory perceptions of things like going into a supermarket and hearing what other people can't hear, the constant humming of how the refrigeration works. Colors and lights and everyday shapes are so much brighter and sharper, all their essence is brought out especially on a bright, sunny and beautiful day. These are your unknown dimensions and it's why so many people find the use of the psychedelics interesting, it's different. Honestly I think the experiences are all the same Lista, for people like myself I can do without these added powers if you will, I find them disturbing, at best annoying on a good day but for the real devotees there's nothing like the Zone of the Weird.
ReplyDeleteWell, using LSD just for entertainment is foolish because of the risks.
ReplyDeleteMany people (I'm not one of them) like the whole psychedelic experience so someone else's negative experience becomes their positive experience, there's your subjectivity again.
ReplyDelete