For me the most impactful sentence here is the acknowledgement that the war on drugs failed. This is obvious to a lot of us, but to politicians to say this, could mean they are actually not tangled up with the drug lords. Cheers for Switzerland, hope the legal marijuana trials triumph with positive outcomes.
The war on drugs was widely successful when you start considering that it was never meant to combat drugs. It was a political maneuver to divide the populace.
Exactly, it’s not the war on drugs, it’s the war on blacks and the poor.
I thought the War on Drugs was a distinctly American thing, ya know, starting a war that’s doomed to fail.
Nope, here in Brazil they love to copycat the US where it fails the most, like education, healthcare, prison system and war on drugs. Sadly the whole south america follows this path at some degree.
The “War on drugs” has been a colossal failure.
Legalize, regulate and tax.
At least then you can take the money out of the cartels and despotic regimes. You can then use the tax money raised to offset the harm these drugs absolutely do through social policies and rehabilitation programs that actually work
Also helps ensure the drugs are clean. The US marijuana legalization process has absolutely not been perfect but the regime of testing for pesticides and mold is very effective.
If cocaine were legal and regulated you wouldn’t be hearing all these stories of people dying of fentanyl overdoses from doing shitty cut coke.
It does make me wonder where they swiss government will acquire their coke. With weed, it’s fairly easy to grow it wherever you need to, but with coke, you pretty much have to be in certain regions, yeah?
If that’s the case, is this still going to be supporting those same cartels? If more countries legalized, we could maybe hope to see legally grown, harvested, and processed coke without all the slave labor and shit. Could be a real boon for South American countries, too, if the cartels lost power, and the cocoa plantations could be nationalized.
I just woke up, so I may be just talking out my ass, though
Coca, not cocoa…
Good catch. I genuinely don’t know if that was me or autocorrect 😄
I’m honestly totally ignorant to whether they can be grown indoors at scale outside of their normal growing region, but that’s a good point to bring up.
Ethically sourced sustainable cocaine
The “War on drugs” has been a colossal failure.
That’s only true if you believe the lies that the “war on drugs” was actually about drugs. It never has been, it was always about having an excuse to incarcerate and beat down groups they didn’t like; minorities, the poor, and the left.
When you look at it that way, it’s obvious that the war on drugs is actually a really successful means to an end. Just try not to have a heart and think of the countless lives they ruined to keep a boot on peoples’ neck.
For waging a war on drugs, the US government certainly imported a lot of cocaine into the US.
The war on drugs has been a massive success.
It keeps people poor, desperate, and ashamed to engage in behavior rich people engage in.
that’s the war on poverty.
we are talking about the war on drugs.
It’s the same thing.
No, we keep it illegal and go the Ollie North strategy. Invent a more addictive form of cocaine (crack), and sell it to minorities to fund secret wars for oil in South America.
The soft legalization of medical marijuana in Thailand would affect Singapore’s stance on marijuana.
People. Cocaine is not maryjanes. You can get addicted badly to cocaine. There’s tons of neurological effects that will cause you to not function proplerly in society. By all means smoke your ganja but don’t equate hard drugs with it.
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People also confuse legalisation with general availability. The two are not synonymous.
I have a completely different problem with cocaine. Namely that it is extremely exploitive to the people who grow the coca. It takes about two acres of coca plants to produce just one kilo of cocaine. Obviously, that means the people who farm it are paid virtually nothing and live on starvation wages. If it’s really cheap in Switzerland, that makes it worse.
On top of that, coca plantations are responsible for huge amounts of deforestation in an area of the world that should not be deforested.
However- hundreds of thousands of people are working in coca plantations and own small coca farms and if this all ended, they wouldn’t even have the meagre wages they make from coca farming. So I don’t know what the solution here is.
wouldn’t legalizing it also solve that issue? It could be grown legally - much like legal marijuana.
Lots of highly addicting stuff is legal, I don’t care if people do cocaine. Make it legal and safely accessible so drug addicts can participate in society and not have to fund cartels
Many mistakes are available at highly competitive prices.
The question is whether or not a legal-in-some-circumstances is more effective at reducing social damage than keeping it illegal.
The same things can be said about maryjanes as well. And about alcohol. With cocaine it is just even more likely.
Idk, it seems like a pretty big jump in addiction potential. I don’t hear of too many people going into sex work to support their alcohol and cannabis habits.
I do support at least decriminalization of all drugs though. As long as it coincides with adequate education, harm reduction, and therapy resources.
Yeah it’s always the same thing. “Guys, you can smoke cigarettes, but weed will fry your brains and leave you completely useless to society. Legalizing would be a disaster”.
Not even close
Yes, light and legal drugs are not okay as well. They too may cause severe health (including mental health) issues, as well as addiction.
THC, alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine cause significant and measurable harm, and you’ll be much better off by restricting them long-term, unless you have medical indications to consume them.
If you need any of them to relax or to have a good party or to stay productive, remember it is NOT sustainable and actively harmful and something has to be done about the way you organize your life. You can’t go on like this forever, it will get you eventually
What consenting adults do with their body is their own business.
Bodily autonomy is an all or nothing thing. Whether you’re talking about abortion, gender affirming surgery, taking a dick in the ass and in the mouth at the same time, or shooting meth into your dick. It’s all the same thing.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but this brings up the next round of tough questions:
If your bodily autonomy is absolute, fine, but what happens when your choices and their impact start to spill beyond your own personal life?
If you want to go wild with hard drugs, okay fine, whatever. But when you need medical attention because of that decision, should insurance providers or the state be obligated to spend in order to treat you?
When your addiction costs you your job and support network, should the collective taxpayer have to subsidize your poor life choices?
I don’t mind the notion that individuals should have final say over what happens to their bodies, but that sort of assumption of responsibility, at some point, cuts both ways…and the flip side of some of these decisions would suggest that the individual should bear all consequences of their decisions…which seems unlikely in practice. We’re not going to see an addict rushed to an ER and the hospital toss them out into the street saying, “This was your decision! Sorry!”
And the mitigation measures seem equally unlikely to fly with the “strict bodily autonomy” crowd: increased insurance premiums or exception clauses in policies in order to keep expenses reined in for the rest of the policy holders/taxpayers who aren’t using their strict autonomy in a way that adversely affects others.
While it’s fine to conceptually discuss these decisions in a vacuum where it only affects the individual, in real life application, these decisions have impacts outside the individual in almost every case, which fundamentally shift the discussion.
I struggle with this line of thinking because there are so many legal things people can do to increase their probability of being a burden in the national healthcare system. Alcohol, junk food, working too much, gambling too maybe. I can’t wrap my head around a system that would be “fair” and not fall into a black mirror episode dystopian “good citizen” points system. I’d rather just pay more than my fair share, knowingly subsidise people who make bad choices, and not live in the dystopian society.
Theres a separate argument about the drugs increasing crime probability that I also don’t buy entirely. Those crimes are crimes already, so making these other “precrimes” also crimes seems a bit weird - not to mention wildly ineffective at reducing harm or use of the substances in question. I’m sure we can identify books and films that increase future criminal probability too.
Bodily autonomy does hold some water for me as an argument, but for me it’s more about finding a way to minimise societal harm while maximally hurting the businesses profiting from these dark economies we have created through prohibition. But this brings up another round of tough questions: do we do this for all substances? Forever? Is this really the path of least societal harm? (I honestly don’t know)
Then you charge people with the crimes they’ve committed. You hold people accountable for the choices they’ve made. It’s quite simple, in my opinion.
There are plenty of “hard drugs” you can do with very little damage to your body. Cocaine is not one of them. In fact, it’s one of the worst things you can do for your heart.
Nobody is saying that people should start taking cocaine. Just that you shouldn’t get your life ruined by having it / using it.
Also, knowing that what your getting isn’t mixed with mdma, amphetamines, ketamine and being able to properly monitor your dosage instead of guesstimating the purity and doing brain arithmetic is very helpful.
There’s a major difference in having the person who sells it to you wanting you to quit vs wanting you to consume more.
Ironically, cocaine would be safer if it were cut with those 3 drugs
You can get addicted to and fuck up your life with bud too my friend. It’s harder but it’s possible. Source, me.
Also, as the others said. Coke being illegal does nothing to stop its prevalence so what’s the point.
People should note that cocaine is the widest illegal drug used in Switzerland. Cannabis is second.
Man, I just don’t get how that many people would like coke. It’s a shitty high, that doesn’t last nearly long enough, that has massive implications for your long term health, and it costs way too much for what you get. $50 of weed = enough for a week+. $50 of coke = maybe 30m if you’re not sharing. I’m glad I never really got it, it’s too much of a rich persons drug for me to have ever been able to service an addiction to it.
idk man some of the stuff I’ve had kept me going all night off of just a couple lines.
Quality varies wildly.
Always found coke highs were like an hour or two max, maybe mine wasn’t best but all night? Mean it wasn’t nothing after an hour but it was at the stage where coke’s name should be ‘more?’. If it did that to me in my party days I’d have said it was cut with some speedy stuff. That said I had a decent tolerance to most things at that point so my experience may not be usual either but it may not just be quality level is all I’m saying.
I’ve found the initial rush of coke to last for maybe an hour or two, but then there’s an afterglow where you’re still feeling it but not to the same intensity. The problem is that people will want to re-up as soon as the initial rush wears off which causes a much higher rate of usage.
That wasn’t coke, that sounds honestly a lot more like meth to me bud
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You have it the other way around. Amphetamines last for QUITE a bit longer than cocaine does. Cocaine lasts like 90 minutes max, 30 minute peak at best if your body chemistry allows it. You can get high as fuck off a single dose of speed and be good for several hours, like a 4 hour peak.
Also, nobody is cutting that shit together, have you ever even done either of those drugs before? You’d know that you can’t mix the two, you’re either going to get high off the coke or the amphetamine, that’s because the coke will block amphetamines so you’re basically just going to get extra stimulation and that’s it.
Tolerance is wild. I’ve had a ball in the past and that’s like two weeks for two people. .2 is solid for a full night if being geeked.
I asked the fella I got it from, later: “yer regular peeps, do you mind telling me how much they’ll do in a night, average?”
He asked “on a weekend?” Yeah.
“They’ll buy a ball on Friday, then back for another on Sunday.”
Addiction is a bitch.
Your cocaine was cut with amphetamines.
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Worth noting that a gram of coke currently goes for a nationwide average of around 100-150 USD in Switzerland, and about 200-250 in the US, per the data I looked up.
Different supply levels of and ease of access to various drugs make them comparatively more or less expensive. Combine that will a user base of above-average wealth and it makes sense.
I agree regarding the absolute value of the two drugs though. Coke is fine, I suppose, but nothing I want to shell out the money for - but then again, I’m not in Switzerland so who knows.
Holy fuck prices have gone up since I got sober. The current Swiss price is higher than the street price where i am in the US in 2012 when I last did the stuff.
Note: unless you know someone, MOST cocaine you get (especially in the US) is complete shit and has been for decades. Likely less that half actually cocaine.
So unless you have a contact up the food and I mean really up the chain. You’re not getting cocaine in the US, you’re get a mix of street trash with some Fentanyl to make you get the numb lips, vibrate sense. (unless they put too much in and then you die)
This is the main reason that legalization and regulation should be considered, at least in my opinion. People are going to do drugs, until the end of time. Even if it means playing Russian roulette with Fentanyl, they are still going to do it. We should focus on harm prevention and rehabilitation, not punishment.
Yup, I had a friend OD a few years ago. Had moved out of the city and got clean. Came back visiting and was just going to have “night” out and got bad shit.
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A ball is around 200 here, 240 when scarce. So about 3.5 times less than what that guy was saying. 🤷♂️
Not really the same as cocaine, but I feel the same way whenever I see cigarette prices now. I remember being able to get a pack of GPCs for a dollar before I quit in 2000.
Not too sure, Germany should still be around 50€ / gram with Suisse for sure not 3x the price
I will happily edit in any corrections. This is just what I’ve found on Google. Haven’t done coke in years.
Aside from the price, in my opinion it’s far superior to weed. It’s a shorter high, but much better IMO. The price is the main reason I don’t use it.
I’ve heard it’s cheaper if you mix with baking soda or something and smoke it.
Maybe be thankful that you didn’t get it. I wish I didn’t.
I honestly don’t get how that many people would like drugs in general.
Like, if you need drugs to have a good time, you probably have mental health issues and you better solve those first.
You sound like fun, do you get invited to parties much?
Not the coke parties. I’m fine with that
I know this thread is about cocaine but you made a blanket statement about people using drugs having mental health problems. There’s plenty of recreational drugs out there and people use them for all sort of reasons, some of them might have mental health issues, none of them need your judgement.
And it’s not just the coke parties you don’t get invited to.
I didn’t say every one using drugs has mental health issues. Wrong user.
I will say that drug users live in this weird bubble that over normalizes it. Most people are “boring” and don’t do more than light drinking. We have parties. We have a good time. We don’t generally want to hang out with coke heads.
Sorry I thought i was replying to op’s smart comeback.
I will say that you too are putting “drug users” in one big bunch and judging them. No one wants to hang out with coke heads, I did mention recreational use. Your boring friends that only do light drinking are recreational drug users too BTW.
Not uberkalden, me.
Just making sure you don’t claim something on people who didn’t say it.
Also, your stance on me and other anti-drug folks as boring nerds who know no fun is hilarious to say the least and only reinforces the notion about drug heads not imagining what genuine fun even is.
Imagine that for a second. No coke. No weed. No alcohol. Just a company of close friends, evening talks, board games, and tea. You don’t need to alter your mind in a slightest, because you have a completely real, not externally induced, fun. That’s the kind of parties I throw and participate in with my friends, and it’s lovely and creates a lot of moments we all cherish for long, long time.
NGL you sound boring as fuck parroting the same tired shitty memes.
Yes, we drink tea and play board games
insert nerd emoji here
What exactly does substance use have to do with mental health?
Nobody uses drugs as a way of having a good time, they are used to enhance a good time. If you aren’t having a good time sober, you aren’t gonna have a good time peaked either unless you took a LOT.
If you’re having a genuinely good time, there’s little in there to improve. If you’re actually happy, or actually relaxed, or anything, really, you can easily get even to overwhelming levels without using anything - assuming you have a healthy psyche and are currently in a good condition.
But then people have anxiety disorders, they may be depressed, they might have BPDs, they may have extreme burnout - and then to curb it and have a truly good time they need substances - to let go, to induce positive emotions, to relax.
Honestly this shows even with casual alcohol drinkers - remove alcohol and the party will appear bland and empty to them, they won’t be able to open up and have equally good time. They would look for alcohol in order to make the party good again. This is very problematic. And the same goes for party drugs - go ahead, hold a party with friends into drugs, but remove the substances, alcohol, etc. Not such a wonderful time, huh?
People with healthy and good mental state and no addictions can absolutely have wonderful and amazing moments with their friends without “enhancing” their feelings in any way; there is no need to enhance anything, it peaks already. If it doesn’t, look up why.
Is it weird that this somehow makes sense with all the banking?
Why is it that the finance industry and cocaine seem to go together so often?
High stress
Need a lot of productivity
Cocaine is good for both of those
They should try meth then, far more efficient than coke at both.
Holy shit.
Well there’s your problem, it’s a lot easier to measure out if you do it by weight instead.
The best way to reduce harm with this drug to users and the planet is to get rid of the deadly impurities and high cost.
Yeah and lazy dealers, Jesus.
Maybe you wanted this word: sleezy
Might also add: greedy
Removing impurities is really tricky, but that said, it’s not like industry grade equipment and operations are being used here to manufacture it. There may be a simple step or two that would help significantly reduce impurities.
Your comment also made me realize for the first time, a lot of these illicit drugs are made by hobbyists, so to speak, not professional manufacturers. Just knowledge isn’t enough, and I say that as a chemical engineer. If I tried to synthesize anything at home it would have a high degree of impurity – even if I bought some nice lab equipment.
There’s probably a lot of benefit in having the government subsidize a pharma company to make high purity drugs. The impurities could be responsible for a lot of side effects.
I bet many go out of their way to avoid getting proper equipment because those purchases can get them on a list. It’s legally safer to produce sketchy shit, and since you’re breaking the law anyways, who cares if what you’re selling is really what you say it is.
Profit comes from volume, you can take the risk of selling to as many people as possible or you can inflate your volume with other cheaper shit and never even consider the bit of powder that remained in a lethal dose-sized clump as you mixed it.
That’s like saying that the best way to reduce harm from alcohol is to make good strong alcohol cheap so people wouldn’t drink eau-de-cologne and denaturate.
Problems with alcohol are not limited to it sometimes being mixed with poison.
Problems with cocaine didn’t start with it becoming illegal.
Let’s please not talk as if it’s normal to consume it.
EDIT: That said, I do sometimes consume alcohol.
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Let’s put it this way:
I have a few relatives believing in folk medicine,
a few other relatives believing in good holy USSR unfairly taken from us by evil fate,
a friend believing in esoterics,
a friend and a relative with alcoholism problems,
an acquaintance doing prostitution,
and some acquaintances believing in Russian neo-paganism (very far from actual Russian paganism) with all the history freakery attached,
and probably I’d know some blowing coke if it weren’t a thing best kept secret here due to inhumane laws.
That doesn’t mean any of those things are normal.
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Personally I find it weird how many more people do coke than smoke weed.
But then even more people consume alcohol, again.
Huh. You did a pretty good job destroying your own argument, its not often where I agree with someone before they convince me theyre wrong
Alcoholism is pretty normal in some countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholism-by-country
I think you two define normal differently
Author: normal = acceptable
You: normal = common
Ah, could be.
I meant “acceptably healthy” by “normal”.
You brought quite a lot of things together, and I’d say they should be addressed separately if you want to get your message across.
On my part, for example - USSR wasn’t holy, but its demise instead of improvement is a giant tradegy that still negatively echoes in the world history.
Someone else would say there’s nothing wrong with prostitution, for example.
Some would point out folk medicine is not all entirely wrong even by medical science standards and it becomes a problem when patients ignore science in favor of unproven methods.
And at the end of it, you end up with the comment that is half wrong, and the message poorly sent.
That’s just my 2 cents here.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? The fall of USSR was the second best thing that ever happened to the country I was born in. The first was the end of nazi occupation. Although the negative consequences are still echoing through the entire eastern block.
As I said - USSR was by no means holy, and some regions, particularly forcefully occupied states of Eastern Europe, gained quite a lot from its downfall.
I’m talking about a more global effect, particularly economic and political pressure USSR exerted on major capitalist powers. It was a simple sign: “the policies we implement do work, your workers can and will demand them, and you better do it or the same revolution will strip you out of all your riches”.
Pretty much since its inception, USSR was able to literally shift global policies regarding working conditions and universally available services. It’s after severe protests in pre-Nazi Germany and USSR that all major powers suddenly decided to shorten the work day from 10-12 hours to 8, then from 6 days a week to 5, introduced (except for US) full universal healthcare and higher edication, and many more policies we take for granted today.
Then, when USSR went into its demise, the improvements stopped. The income inequality rose significantly in most major economies, going straight up through the roof in the US, UK, Canada and Germany. Same happened to the post-Soviet countries themselves, even though it has been at first greatly compensated by the sheer volume of money coming from foreign investors. Social services started to receive less funding, and population is more in debt than ever.
If anything, USSR was the force that kept major powers in check and didn’t allow capitalism to do what it does best - concentrate wealth, population be damned. I know capitalism can look like magic when your country has got significant economic boost in living memory, but global trends show a very different picture.
It’s after severe protests in pre-Nazi Germany and USSR that all major powers suddenly decided to shorten the work day from 10-12 hours to 8
Some industries in the west has been adopting the 10 or 8 hour working day even before the soviet union has existed. And this is going to be only my personal speculations, but as the nature of the work itself has been changing over time, so did the time requirements.
from 6 days a week to 5
It’s funny that you mention that, because one thing that I distinctly remember from what my parents and grandparents has been telling me about the previous regime was something called “working saturday of honor”, when the workers were mandated to come work an extra day. Some of them were to compensate for the state holidays, some just to ramp up the productivity.
On my part, for example - USSR wasn’t holy, but its demise instead of improvement is a giant tradegy that still negatively echoes in the world history.
I agree, but that’s not the position I described.
Someone else would say there’s nothing wrong with prostitution, for example.
Definitely better than alcoholism.
Some would point out folk medicine is not all entirely wrong even by medical science standards and it becomes a problem when patients ignore science in favor of unproven methods.
The latter is what I meant exactly.
And at the end of it, you end up with the comment that is half wrong, and the message poorly sent.
That depends on reader’s interpretation, so you are basically ascribing your own choices to me. If something isn’t clear, it doesn’t mean you can pick the wrong variant and ascribe it to author of that comment. It just means you can ask.
My point wasn’t about the content of statements, but about how such wide statements going way beyond original question will inevitably cause conflict and will drive your point across less effectively.
But then, that’s just my opinion
Ah, well, it wasn’t my intention to persuade anyone or drive anyone to my side.
Problems with alcohol are not limited to it sometimes being mixed with poison.
Alcohol IS a poison…
Yes, I meant dedicated poison.
Source? Cutting cocaine almost always makes it safer, not more dangerous.
Tell that to my two infrequent user friends who decided to share some cocaine at home, after going out the bar, catching up after not seeing each other for a while who both died from fentanyl overdose.
Inert cutting agents that simply dilute the product are not type of impurities in the sense that I was talking about. And I think there’s clear.
Also. when inert cutting agents are used without the user knowing the potency they are more liable to overdose. Legal and regulated cocaine would not have fentanyl or levamisole etc, and the potency would be printed on the bottle.
I’ve had friends that were cocaine addicts and some that really hit the bottom. This seems insane to me, this isn’t a fun and easy drug like weed imo. I’ve always lumped coke with meth and heroin.
Its harm potential is somewhere in between. To put it in perspective, alcohol is worse than heroin. And like alcohol addicts, your friends should be able to get a clean and safe source to reduce damage, and the help they need without any fear of persecution.
You can’t criminalize problems away. It evidently didn’t help your friends.
What is the source of that image? I’m questioning its validity. They have cannabis as more dependency forming and physically harmful than GHB. Unless it means something it doesn’t say, like they’ve weighted the results by how many users there are of each drug or something.
LSD shouldn’t even be pictured… I question the validity, as well.
It’s completely bullshit.
I love GHB but it needs to be way higher on dependence. It’s extremely easy to be addicted to. Benzos as well. Benzos are just under heroin in levels of dependency.
Edit: full agree with you, LSD isn’t even on this chart if the chart was real.
I’d argue benzos should be higher than heroin for dependence. You can’t cold turkey a bad benzo addiction, but you can with heroin.
Yeah I’m guessing the source data for this chart is “random boomer’s feelings”.
You should totally question the validity, but I’d pause before dismissing it entirely. It’s supposedly based on an opinion survey of psychiatrists and a group of ‘independent experts’ (footnote incoming) published in the Lancet in 2007. Edit: I said things that weren’t true about the Wikimedia image that I have removed - it’s based on the table near the bottom of the article.
DOI is 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60464-4
You should ask our friend ANNA if she’S heard people talk about this during her time in the ARCHIVEs.
It’s not a completely objective harm/dependence measure, for sure, but the opinions of experts aren’t meaningless - it’s worth reading the article and judging the authors’ claims rather than this image. Though I will say the number of participants seems really low.
On LSD,
-
the opinion thing should be underlined and considered heavily (particularly in the UK, where rave culture is/was more top of mind than other places and LSD is/was in the mix, albeit I don’t think to the same degree as MDMA and other compounds), but also
-
as crazy as it may sound, dependency can develop in some users. I’d argue it looks VERY different than dependence to other substances (frequency is obviously much lower, given rapid tolerance, and some people may not call once a week or every two weeks dependency*), but it still exists. Given that this is basically an expert opinion poll it’s actually placed more or less where I’d expect to see it.
*Though in online discussion groups for folks interested in such compounds, those folks often do call that level of frequency a sign of dependency. Should note I’m talking specifically about macrodoses, not microdosing.
(Footnote) from page 1049: “These experts had experience in one of the many areas of addiction, ranging from chemistry, pharmacology, and forensic science, through psychiatry and other medical specialties, including epidemiology, as well as the legal and police services.”
-
Interesting - linking again, which pulled it from an expert survey in the UK.
I think they were asking for the source because the link you shared is just Wikipedia to a file. I was wondering about the original source of data too.
Edit: full link came out weird like yours. No wonder we were confused.
They end in .svg but load as a page - both yours and mine.
That wasn’t the case for you? Which browser/app?
Sync 👍
The data in the paper is obtained solely from questionnaire results obtained from two groups of people: the first comprised people from the UK national group of consultant psychiatrists who were on the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ register as specialists in addiction, while the second comprised of people with experience in one of the many areas of addiction, ranging from chemistry, pharmacology, and forensic science, through psychiatry and other medical specialties, including epidemiology, as well as the legal and police services; the experts are not named and were chosen by the authors.
Thanks for the graphic, but many of those are laughably wrong. I guess it depends on their specific definitions. But for example solvents do irreversible damage with every use; meanwhile heroin is a drug available with a prescription (usually just in hospital use) and doesn’t do almost any long term damage on its own.
Cocaine is also cardiotoxic at any level
I don’t think alcohol is worse than heroin by any means, although the harm that alcohol does is definitely underestimated.
I’d also like to say that I don’t necessarily think the use should be criminalized. Putting addicts in jail solves nothing and the justice system should be concentrating on the ones that sell it. Making it legal will just make more addicts, and won’t help the ones that currently are.
It’s also harder to stop abusing something if it’s sold in every city legally. Dealers go to jail and their numbers can be deleted.
Decriminalization but making the sale highly illegal while offering free rehab to the ones that need it is the way forward imo.
My friend’s brother just died of heroin overdose a few weeks ago and I just couldn’t help but feel for him. How many dark alleys did he have to go to to get his high? How many sketchy people were involved? Did he have access to clean needles? He overdosed alone, and likely felt subhuman due to being relegated to the fringes of society just to get his high.
Legalization would not have kept him from getting high, but it certainly would have enabled him access to clean drugs from a safe place, clean needles, and possibly made him viewed as someone who enjoyed getting high and not a piece of shit addict. He had a problem and it being illegal only made it worse for him.
Legalize it all. He was an adult, it’s his body. He can do what he wants with it, it’s nobody’s place to tell anyone what you can or cannot consume. He loved getting high on heroin and I don’t see a problem with that.
He was an adult, it’s his body
This seems to be widely questioned view as of lately 😞
I’m very sorry for your friend’s loss, and appreciate your empathy and desire to see less stigmatization for people who choose to use drugs.
Yeah there is no safe amount of cocaine to do. There is also no safe amount of alcohol to do. At least if shit is legalised people can decide to use cocaine or not with informed consent and can be sure they are actually getting pure cocaine.
I had a friends cousin die from using cocaine but it was because they had bought it off a street dealer and it was tainted with fentanyl. They just wanted to have a little extra fun on a night out on vacation. They’d be alive and well if cocaine was legal.
Prohibition doesn’t work. It just adds suffering and stigma to addiction. One of the biggest factors to addiction is isolation something that criminalizing health issues greatly contributes to.
If there’s no safe amount of alcohol to do, there’s no safe amount of weed to do.
Nonsense. Alcohol is a carcinogen, every part of your body it touches has an increased risk of developing cancer. It is directly neurotoxic. It damages the liver and stomache. A bottle of it can kill you. Stopping taking it can kill you.
Weed taken orally is physically very safe. It can still be habit forming and there are other unwanted side effects but to act like it is physically comaparable to alcohol is silly.
I say there’s no safe amount of cocaine because it is directly cardiotoxic and has been known to cause heart defects in healthy young men at moderate doses.
I don’t think ant drug should be illegal I just think people should be aware of the dangers of substances so they can make an informed decision.
You’re very confident, at least. I’ll give you that.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24118193/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6793471/
“We hypothesize that THC neurotoxicity is attributable to activation of the prostanoid synthesis pathway and generation of free radicals by cyclooxygenase.”, would make THC, by definition, a carcinogen.
I also agree with your last statement completely. My issue is that everyone touts weed like it’s God’s greatest gift to mankind, and it very clearly is not. Stoners are easily identifiable by their inability to think clearly and quickly even when sober for stints. Weed absolutely affects the brain.
But shouting it’s safety from the heavens is not at all responsible, simply because not enough research has gone into the substance. Even CBD is a neurotoxin, albeit with some observed neuro-protective properties: https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/how-the-brain-protects-itself-from-the-negative-effects-of-cbd/#:~:text=However%2C when CBD was applied,50%25 of the neurons died.
If those neuro-protective properties failed in other parts of the brain for reasons of age, mice brains being significantly different, medications, or health conditions, the results would be devastating.
Stoners are easily identifiable by their inability to think clearly and quickly even when sober for stints.
Sounds like just another dumb opinion.
Way to only respond to that.
And that’s not a dumb opinion, it’s something I’ve noticed from multiple close friends becoming heavy users, and then stopping use because they couldn’t think clearly. If you had read the articles, it’s actually from THC’s neurotoxic effects on the hippocampus.
Sounds like a you problem for selecting dumb asses for friends.
Ok, good to know. I also try to make sure people understand weed is addictive and has withdrawal symptoms and all that. You were the one who brought weed up originally though. And there is still no doubt that cocaine and alcohol are more dangerous than weed.
Weed can also cause cancer. In fact, it’s worse in terms of that.
Source?
I mean smoking anything will cause cancer but there’s no reason to think weed taken orally isn’t one of the most safe chemicals we have.
We can name the chemical to make sure we don’t think about smoking it. For example, I wouldn’t say this for THC. But weed is usually smoked.
There’s actually evidence to the contrary, but weed as a whole hadn’t really been studied enough to say with certainty: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24118193/ & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6793471/
Yes… from the perspective themelm argues. Any drug/substance can throw you in a downward spiral if you dont have a reason for living, meaning in your life.
Not the perspective I was arguing. I was arguing that people should be allowed to make informed decisions about what they want to put in their body and that criminalizing drug use doesn’t help anyone but criminal drug gangs.
I was agreeing with you… In the part that criminalization increases social isolation… It was just a remark towards @Sweetpeaches69, who tries reductio-ad-absurdum, which for weed (like any substance) has negative effects on the body, and mind (and in it’s specific case the mixture of the two - brain).
I was mostly trying to tell about the biggest impact of weed I can see (and so I write) is the use during difficult times in life (nobody became an addict out of a fulfilling and good life, fairly sure it is a saying even in English?) can exacerbate life problems.
OK, I think i see what you’re getting at.
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Yes but they aren’t legalizing it because it’s fun and safe they are legalizing it because jailing people over drugs does not help them and there is no point in filling your jails with such a high percentage of your population.
then why not decriminalize instead of legalize?
What difference does it make when the outcome is the same?
I’d say legalization is actually better in this case, as you can provide licenses to pharmaceutical manufacturers subject to QA regulations, lab accreditations, etc. Decriminalization just means that guy with 1:1 cocaine:fentanyl is probably getting a ticket rather than arrested.
[Was going to put a ‘doesn’t help when the guy overdoses’ comment here, but thinking about it now people do overdose (and die) on just cocaine too. One of the factors that make this a different conversation than cannabis. Don’t know the thresholds for overdose re: just coke, though]
And yet another factor is that cocaine is cardiotoxic. You’re literally killing your heart with every use.
Regulation and the obliteration of the illegal drug trade which directly harms millions in the pursuit of profit.
It should however, (and I cannot stress this enough) be privatized. This would be a fucking nightmare and simply move the profit motive causing the harm to another source
I wish it was legal in unrefined quantities. I don’t want a crazy addition, but maybe I’d like a tea with some extra kick now and then.
I don’t think that would be a good idea. We want it to be refined so it’s high purity and safe (or as safe as it can be).
If anything I would suggest the opposite – make it legal when refined, and have a government agency certify they meet a certain quality. You’d want to encourage people to take the refined version, which has known composition and materials. The unrefined street product would be illegal, but the only “punishment” would be confiscation. No jail time, except perhaps for manufacturers who are knowingly getting people sick with their product.
See its traditional use in leaf form. It’s way less potent and it’s a lot easier to tell if something is wrong with a leaf than if someone cut something into a powder post inspection.
Potency with coke is a real problem. It’s TOO good. And we get it refined in large part because of our silly policing policies around it. It’s silly to be policing a leaf the way we do when there’s coffee beans lining our shelves.
I agree with you. I know a lot of people who are cocaine addicts and their addiction makes them all incredibly unreliable. They stay up partying until 7am then crash for 12 hours the day of a big event. I’ve also known people who died due to tainted cocaine. It’s not a safe drug by any means. I’m all for decriminalization and treating it like a health issue, but it should not be taken lightly.
I know people who do a bunch of dumb things that are bad for their lives - and only their lives - but they don’t become a criminal in the process.
They aren’t criminal by any means, it just makes them really shitty people to be around :/
“Hey, remember that time the Swiss legalized blow before they legalized cannabis?”
Swiss cocaine so cheap and widely used they’re considering legalising it
As prices halve on ‘highest quality we’ve ever seen’, Bern says ‘war on drugs has failed’ and looks at it being sold for recreational use James Crisp, Europe Editor 21 December 2023 • 2:53pm Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe
Switzerland’s capital is considering legalising cocaine after admitting the “war on drugs has failed”.
Bern is weighing up a pilot scheme to allow the sale of the class A narcotic for recreational use – a radical approach which is thought to be a worldwide first.
Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe, according to the levels of illicit drugs and their metabolites measured in waste water, with Zurich, Basel and Geneva all featuring in the top 10 cities in Europe.
Prices of the drug have halved in the country in the last five years, according to Addiction Switzerland, and usage is rising. Some politicians and experts have criticised complete bans as an ineffective means of addressing the crisis.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.
“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”
Cocaine prices have fallen because the market is flooded with large amounts of the drug.
In 2022, more than 160 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Antwerp and Rotterdam alone, and much more got into Europe undetected.
While prices have dropped, purity has increased. In Switzerland, 70 to 80 per cent of the substances sold are now pure cocaine. ‘Legalisation can do better than repression’
Many European countries, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, no longer impose prison sentences for possession of cocaine, which is highly addictive, but nowhere has gone so far as to legalise it.
The plan will require existing national law banning recreational use of the drug to be changed, but Bern’s parliament supports the scheme, which would follow trials now under way to permit the legal sale of cannabis.
“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a member of the Bern council from the Alternative Left Party, which co-sponsored the proposal. “Control and legalisation can do better than mere repression.”
She said it was too early to say how the scientifically supervised pilot scheme would develop, including where the drug would be sold or how it would be sourced.
The sale of cocaine could be based on the model for selling cannabis but with stricter rules.
Any legislation would be accompanied by quality controls and information campaigns, Ms Chen added, with the aim being to curtail a currently lucrative criminal market.
Bern’s education, social affairs and sports directorate is preparing a report on the possible cocaine trial, although this does not mean it will definitely take place.
There will be many political hurdles for the proposal to clear before it can be implemented. Concern about potential dangers
Bern’s parliament leans towards the Left but the government of the canton of Bern, one of 26 member states of the Swiss confederation, tacks to the Right and may yet be able to block the required change in national law.
Still, the decision to go ahead could come in a matter of years, or earlier if the current cannabis schemes - where the drug is on sale at pharmacies - show successful results.
But opponents of the plan have voiced concern about the potential dangers.
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” said Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.
He said its risks were in a completely different league to alcohol or cannabis, citing links to heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety.
“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said
Wow, that’s so disgusting, 10 francs? Man, where though? Where did he get it for 10 francs though??
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,”
Isn’t sugar also strongly addictive, and very damaging to the body? Yet it’s marketed like there’s no tomorrow, and obesity doesn’t grow at an alarming rate?
I guess it all depends on your definition. If you take only one gram of sugar per day, you probably have a very weird diet (keto?). Even a slice of bread will get you above that. On the other hand, a gram of cocaine per day…
So they have a different dosage?
Like LSD is only on micrograms?
That’s not the issue. I can get a kilo of sugar for almost nothing.
so they are good on snow this year
At least someone is going to have a white Christmas
Swiss Sugar by Toblerone when?
I’m for legalizing all drugs but some drugs like cocaine should come with meeting with a therapist to see if you are doing the right thing for what ails you.
Not all drugs are medicinal and this is legalization for recreational use. It’s okay to enjoy a drug recreationally.
It is important to deal with any public health problems that arise from potentially more people being exposed to a highly addictive substance. But it’s quite clear this point that prohibition doesn’t work, so it’s much better to devote resources towards helping those with addictions.
I think a careful balance needs to be found somehow.
Speaking only from my own experience: I have never touched C, and that is undoubtedly because of its legal status…while I smoked for more than half my life, undoubtedly because of the tobacco industry’s highly effective influence through the 20th Century.
I remember when cigarette brands were ubiquitous at sports events and media. Race cars, movie stars, sport stars, soldiers…pubs, clubs, planes, trains and automobiles. It was everywhere - killing people in horrificly slow and painful ways, making everything and everyone stink, staining our hands, clothes, walls, teeth and facial hair, littering our town centres and countrysides alike. And this was all happening with our eyes wide open - it wasn’t ignorance. It’s only through decades of government intervention through health campaigns, law changes and huge taxation that the tobacco industry’s grip finally weakened enough for us all to realise the horror we had walked into with our eyes open. Slowly, some parts of the world have managed to walk it back and smoking is now in the minority, but you only have to look at vaping to see how ready corporate greed is to take advantage of our influential children.
I’m not saying the above to scare people into thinking legalising cocaine would be the same - I am just highlighting what happens when the corporate world is allowed to act with impunity. I don’t think it’d be long before cocaine was back in coca cola.
On the other hand, “the war on drugs” seems to do more harm than good.
So can we trust governments to properly litigate and control legal and responsible distribution? I don’t know the answer, and I have no solutions…but the stakes are high - and so while I hope for change, I am also wary of it.
Yes and someone with your “file” should know what they’re dealing with.
You can legalize even drugs such as but you generally need responsible people for that or not care about many deaths and addiction problems…
However, there should not be high punishment for using them.
Swiss guys, sitting on piles of cash and cocaine: “man, I don’t get it: everyone has cocaine, lambos and other stuff, what the fuss is about? Let’s just legalize all the shit, everyone has it anyway!”
Wait, should I be doing cocaine!?
For me If it’s not high quality it’s the most depressing drug the day after. It’s not worth the 30 minute high.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,”
So that’s a yes?
Seriously, it’s the first time I’m hearing cocaine advertised like a New Year Overstock Blowout at your local Ford dealership.
Haha that part definitely reads like a brag and an invitation.
it’s so cheap, you’re basically losing money if you’re not doing cocaine!
Real cocaine is not nearly as harmful as the amphetamines and opiates. I wish I could still get pure coke and molly.
“real coke” is just as bad as amphetamines. They’re both hardcore stimulants that can cause huge psychological addictions due to the huge amount of dopamine that they release.
False.
Please feel free to counter this journal article with more than ‘false.’
Can you show us where it says it’s as bad as opiates and amphetamines? I couldn’t find it.
I never claimed that. You said it was false that it can cause huge addiction issues. It can.
Addict
if its false then give some proof of your claim too. i’m also somewhat curious on what you even base that on
Uhh. Cocaine is demonstrably more dangerous than amphetamines or opiates. Cocaine is cardiotoxic at any amount, and the damage is cumulative. Neither of the other two do that.
Half of the US is on rx amps daily, and they aren’t dying if heart attacks left and right.
Lol what? Did you actually just say something this fucking retarded?
I got paywalled, anyone have a bypass link?
Copied the article in another comment. Just for You, have a nice day.
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I don’t see a bot summary comment, but @stoicferret did post the whole article content, props to them
It’s gone for me too. Weird
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