h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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My only experience with drugs is what is in the movies and on television.
That said, It seems like drug addicts, and specifically heroin addicts, are usually portrayed as sickly, skinny people. I don't like that corpse look. So please give these addicts some vitamins or something. I figure you
could make information available to the dealers on how to mix in the vitamins and suppliments. Their incentive to fortify their drug is that their client will hopefully live longer and buy more dope. Also, they could market their heroin, or crack, or what ever, as the cleaner - healthier - better drug. The addict will like it because they don't have to spend as much money on food, getting their daily dose in their daily fix. We like it because there are not so many sunken eyed-rail thin-pasty skined-dry tounged people out and about.
Winners all around.
vitamins and how effective they are
http://www.enviroal...ers.html#ADSORPTION
[dentworth, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Total Parenteral Nutrition
http://www.nlm.nih....master/a601166.html
It is possible (and therefore not "bad science" as some here are complaining) to provide total nutrition intravenously. [AntiQuark, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Overbaked
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/overbaked/
Take the further discussion here, please. [jutta, Feb 21 2007]
[link]
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You know, I don't often lash out about ideas but, in this case, I'll make an exception. This idea isn't worth the storage space it occupies. |
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common misconception about vitamins, the vitamins are only useful if food is taken in to aid in digestion, adsorption, and in some cases manufacture of other vitamins within the body. |
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[marked-for-deletion] advocacy and really bad science |
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It is calories that crack addicts need. Just cut in some powdered sugar, and sell that on the streets. I double-dog dare you. |
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I suspect you'd get better performance from opiate-laced broccoli, or some such tack. |
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I hear that opiates themselves are not that hard on your body, the problem is they make you not care as much about eating, sleeping indoors, bathing, or much of anything except opiates. |
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Injecting sugar would be bad news, and smoking it wouldn't help much. Vitamins aren't much of a different story, I suppose you could inject them, but like the others say it's actually calories that are needed. |
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i think [macncheesy] was coming from the 'if their gonna do it lets make it less damaging' point of view, rather than the, 'lets make some really good smack' point of view, which doesn't improve the science any, but I dont think he was being irresponsible, or crass. |
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It's stupid from the point of view of the criminal economy. Those involved in selling drugs are more interested in a speedy flow of the drugs and don't want to spend any time fannying around crushing Sanatogen capsules into the brown. Time is risk and time is lost profits. |
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Oh get real etherman, of course he/she was. isn't he? |
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whoa dentworth, more fuel for the invection oven.! |
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Seriously now: I, perhaps naively, thought that helping these addicts get the nourshement they aren't getting would be a nice thing to do. |
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Humoursly now: All the "marketing" angles were fun and funny. Marketing is so interesting to me. |
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Ideas like this make me believe in devolution... |
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Institutions and governments are the largest suppliers of narcotics -- tell them. |
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You could classify this with needle exchanges - a way to moderate the unheathy effects of street drugs. Needle exchange is also contraversial. |
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// My only experience with drugs is what is in the movies and on television // |
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This idea is an insult to anyone who's lost someone to heroin addiction, and to anyone with even a hint of a brain |
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The addicts themselves are more insulting. |
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//You could classify this with needle exchanges// Or combine them. Include a bit of vitamins and sugar solution in the syringe when exchanged. |
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I don't think we should encourage druggies, as they kill innocent people all the time to get money to support their habit. |
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[DF] Men kill people all the time as well. We should discourage people from being men. My point is that you are stereotyping. There are many druggies that don't kill people*. |
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Though this idea was written in an insensitive, childish way, the basic concept that it is humane to help people who can't help themselves is a sound one. A weak addict has a much lower chance of being able to make it through the withdrawl process than a strong one. |
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*(mildly off topic) There was a great public radio piece that aired a few weeks ago in the US that followed around heroin addicts, and I recall several were just normal business people who didn't have significantly different lives than anyone else, except they had less money and free time. |
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If we combine this with needle exchange, can we prefill the syringe with a highly concentrated dextrose solution? |
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See link above: Total Parenteral Nutrition is a medical technique whereby a patient can receive nutrition intravenously. |
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"TPN is used for patients who cannot or should not get their nutrition through eating. Your TPN may include a combination of sugar and carbohydrates (for energy), proteins (for muscle strength), lipids (fat), electrolytes, and trace elements. Your solution may contain all or some of these substances, depending on your condition. |
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Electrolytes include sodium, potassium, chloride, phosphate, calcium, and magnesium. Trace elements include zinc, copper, manganese, and chromium. Electrolytes are important for maintaining almost every organ in your body. They help your heart, muscles, and nerves to work properly and keep you from becoming dehydrated." |
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Thus, I think that the "bad science" comments are invalid, as are the "advocacy" allegations... what exactly is being advocated, the idea that drug addicts shouldn't be sick? |
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I'd imagine they're not sickly-skinny because of a lack of vitamins, but rather a lack of food. They're often more interested in getting high than eating. Even if they could stay sober long enough to eat, they'd rather spend their money on more heroin. |
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[marked-for-deletion] bad science. Besides, I'd bone it anyway, simply for promoting such a nasty drug for recreational use. |
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Then bone it, but the bad science claim has been refuted. The idea says //vitamins and suppliments//, and [AQ]'s link and anno propose suppliments that make this viable. |
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Fortified herons: herons in tiny little forts either side of a small lake, wearing small tin buckets as helmets, throwing tomatoes at each other |
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Boning it & MFD would only reduce the publics already limited understanding of drugs. It would be just like burning books. It doesn't make sense (Movie Rant: why didn't they burn the furninture in "The Day after tomorrow"? it burns longer and doesn't smell funny.) |
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Despite the general bad science I give it a Bun for the wider issues! Also see Trainspotting & Requiem for a Dream for a basic lesson in Drug culture, perhaps we can help solve it when we all understand it. Till then it is back to the Pagan Witch Burners on this thread. |
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I am annoyed at the idea that helping out heroin addicts is 'promoting' drug abuse. kindda like saying cardiac units promote heart attacks. |
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//I am annoyed at the idea that helping out heroin addicts is 'promoting' drug abuse. kindda like saying cardiac units promote heart attacks.//
Well, no. Heart attacks are involuntary (although I accept that they can be the result of lifestyle), and cardiac units treat the results. They do not make heart attacks safer in order that people may continue a lifestyle that makes them susceptible. Drug abuse is voluntary and the inherent danger is a disincentive (to anyone with a brain); thus, reducing that danger reduces the disincentive. |
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POC if you are in a library i would think books are the best thing to burn in that environment. |
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//Drug abuse is voluntary // |
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so the medical world are wrong about addiction being an illness. you should let them know. |
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If the drug becomes completely safe it would become much like Alcohol. Still a root cause of crimes & violence & car accidents but doesn't endanger the user any more than 9 pints of best. Would you apply the same rule to Beer or perhaps even chocolate [angel] ? |
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Of the topic...
As for the book burning you might accidentally burn all the technological advances from your now half starved civilisation (seeing as all the computers etc would have been destroyed by the extreme Damp & Low Temperature and the mains grid would be a bit unreliably. Not such a clever idea now?) A library has plenty of furniture to keep you going till you run out of food. |
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//so the medical world are wrong about addiction being an illness.//
I didn't say addiction was voluntary, but abuse is, and it is a prerequisite of addiction. |
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angel said: //but abuse is, and it is a prerequisite of addiction// |
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From what I understand, abusers don't think they'll end up addicted. |
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The original idea is still bad science. [macncheesy] only speaks of "vitamins or something", there's no support. You, [AnitQ] have done the homework for him/her. I do not withdraw my MFD, |
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The original idea also mentions "vitamins and supplements". It's not a stretch to imagine [cheesy] was generally talking about nutrients, which is far from bad science. |
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[dentworth], macnncheesy also refers to "vitamins and suppliments" which would fall under the TPN category. You have to be really irrational to say that macncheesy was talking about, and ONLY about, vitamins. |
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It always amazes me when the HALFBAKErs at the HALFBAKERY (you know, a place of HALF-BAKED ideas) insist on 100%, irrefutable, scientific proof, as well as case studies and a full business plan for ideas that are intended to be HALF-BAKED! |
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Coincidentally, this insistence on flawless viability usually is proportionally related to how much a HBer despises a particular idea. |
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One would think that a forum of novel ideas would be more open to accepting novel ideas. |
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didn't see the supplement thing, still don't like the idea. |
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If druggers follow the logic that extra nutrients aid in metabolising their heroin, they'll not buy into this plan. |
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Note: Sclerodex is a mixture of 25% dextrose and 10% sodium chloride. A primarily hypertonic agent, its effects are similar to those of pure hypertonic saline, but the reduced salt load offers certain benefits. It is not approved by the FDA for sale in the United States. Like pure hypertonic saline, it is somewhat painful on injection, and epidermal necrosis continues to be the rule whenever extravasation occurs. |
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//abusers don't think they'll end up addicted.//
...despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of previous abusers became addicted. What are they missing? |
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[marked-for-deletion] Dishwash. |
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Angel said: //What are they missing// |
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Several percentage points of IQ no doubt. But is it wrong to be stupid? |
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Yes. If you can be smart but chose to be stupid, you are reducing your life and the lives of the people who would benifit if you were smart. |
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Therefore we shouldn't have any form of welfare for people who get themselves into tough situations? Even the most basic help-you-not-die type of help? |
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you guys are fucking assholes. glad you have such perfect lives. |
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[Angel], did you ever ask yourself why people become drug addicts? Saying they're just stupid is not really answering the question, it is simply displaying your own lack of knowledge of their motivations.
I read once that many thousands of American GIs in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. It was found, however, that one year after returning home, 95% of these addicts had quit. This suggests to me that the causal link is that a miserable life leads to drug addiction, rather than vice versa.
You condemn drug addicts for being stupid; for sacrificing their long term happiness for short term pleasure. But can you really claim that you aren't guilty of the same thing yourself? Have you never watched tv instead of doing your homework? Never had a donut instead of going to the gym? Never hit the snooze button on the alarm clock? All sacrifice your long term happiness due to momentary weakness.
Drug addicts are often from very deprived backgrounds. Many of them have been abused as children. It seems to me that they deserve pity, rather than 'justice' - after all, what justice allows some people to grow up in a happy family and go to a good school and others to be born into miserable poverty? |
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The original idea is stupid, ignorant and unrealistic (not "bad science" or "advocacy"- let's not beat around the fucking bush here), and some of the annos are as Daffyducking crazy as hell. |
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Doesn't anything make you people angry? |
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Yeah - people sounding off without at least trying to explain their reasoning. |
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Heroine use is real. It's disturbing. It's destructive. It's lethal. |
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Having known actual, real humans who have had their lives irrevocably destroyed by heroine use, all I can say is that any idea that even hints that this should be perpetuated is a bad one. |
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Many of the annos (as well as the idea) were written by people who apparently know absolutely nothing of the real horror that is heroine addiction. |
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What? Heroin is bad for you? Come on, give us some credit. We all know how heroin shatters lives - we're trying to make it a little tiny bit less destructive. |
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(heroines, however, are good for you and may one day save your life) |
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//Maybe we could also put easily- absorbed nutrients in all ammunition// Or perhaps some sort of coagulant to stop the bleeding? I'd bun that. |
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(psst, [ziggy] said "real humans", not just a movie. though heroin abuse has affected people in my life, and I don't feel it has imparted any great knowledge more than anyone else here posesses.) |
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Perhaps true, but assuming [zig] was talking about movies is like calling him/her a liar, which is unjustified. |
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Anyway, back on topic. Does anyone know anything about coagulants? Could they withstand the heat of an explosion and still be effective? (later) Kidding, coagulants aren't on topic. |
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QUESTION: To say that decreasing the suffering of Heroin addicts by adding suppliments to their hits is bad, is it the same as saying "let them suffer". Or, worse yet, why not increse their suffering by making Heroin more deadly in some fasion...make them suffer more than they do currently? |
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People are taking this very seriously, aren't they? It's a shame that they seem to think that you are actually advocating drug use. |
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Wow kids, do any of you read the help file? The only sin here could be gross-out humor which I don't believe was the original intent. I don't see how it could possibly be WIBNI or advocacy, or bad science as it's been linked as possible. |
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There are more people who use heroin on a regular basis and lead perfectly normal lives than you'd like to believe. On top of which, modern studies are turning up results that it is not heroin that produces negative long-term effects on the body, but cutting agents. Logical conclusion: |
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Cut your dope with dinner! |
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Aside: Somebody start a new topic with the bloodless bullets and I'll give you a croissant. |
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[contracts], sorry to disappoint, but in addition to other examples, I've personally driven a girl (named Amy) to a methadone clinic. I won't even begin to talk about the shambles that heroine turned her life into. |
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I haven't seen "Requiem For A Dream" as you state that I have... have we met? |
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Furthermore, my comments had less to do with morality and more to do with the fact that any idea that fails to grasp the destructive nature of this and actually creates a means of condoning it or encourages its use by making it "not so bad" (which is, of course, an illusion) gets a no vote from me. |
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I suggest you can the bullshit and take a bath in the pool of reality for a few minutes... |
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As a minimum, [marked-for-deletion], bad science. |
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Out of curiousity, zig, what is your take on the clean needles thing? |
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The use of the word "Fortified" brings to mind "Heroin! Now part of this complete breakfast!" |
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[Zig] as [McnChs] suggested shall we post a "Deadlier than normal Heroin" on HB would you vote for that? Or perhaps "Heroin cut with Laxative" to flush nutients out of your system? Or better yet shall we discuss the topic? You seem to be all for hushing down any intelligent debate in favour of 19th Century Witch trial style "Evil" label. As I see it Fortified Heroin would not have encouraged her (your girl) to take Heroin. It was the addictive qualities of the opiate that did that. Clearly she was already happy with the idea of trying a highly adictve opiate so she would not have been standing out side her local dealer debating the pros and cons of fortification. I think it is fair to say that with or without additional nutients she would still have been a Heroin Junkie (albiet mildly more healthy). |
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//As I see it Fortified Heroin would not have encouraged her (your girl) to take Heroin. It was the addictive qualities of the opiate that did that.//
So what caused her to take it before she was addicted? |
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Who knows? What difference does it make? |
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//So what caused her to take it before she was addicted?//
Curiosity. Idle despair. The need to "escape". A total lack of regard for their own wellbeing. An uncontrollable urge to get higher than Jesus. All of the above. |
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She certainly didn't start heroin it to loose weight ! |
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Infact I doubt the risk to her health even came into consideration. |
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An analogy with the heroin situation would be a child falling down a well. Perhaps they were pretty stupid and irresponsible to be playing there in the first place, especially if they've been warned that it's dangerous. But would that stop you helping them back up? And if children frequently fell down that well, in spite of your best efforts to discourage them from going near it, wouldn't it make sense to put some emergency rations in there so the next one to fall down doesn't starve to death while waiting to be rescued? |
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//wouldn't it make sense to put some emergency rations in there so the next one to fall down doesn't starve to death while waiting to be rescued?// |
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Exactly my point... let's just make the well "safer" so that the kids don't view it to be so dangerous, and that way our best efforts to discourage from falling into the well will be even more confusing to them. |
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OK, [contracts], have it your way... to avoid a "scientific" discussion, let's go with [marked-for-deletion], advocacy. |
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While writing my last anno I began to see your point of view a little more clearly. I agree that making heroin safer will probably increase the number of people who use it. And I daresay you agree that people who are already addicted should be helped rather than just condemned. So, rather than being a question of principle, this really becomes a question of calculus: since both policies have good effects, and bad effects, we should choose the policy that produces the most net good. How to calculate that is another question... |
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Wasn't planning on it. Why? |
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By that rationale we should make heroin so dangerous that people are scared to use it. (hang on it already is and people aren't scared.) To use the inappropriate well analogy. On the industrial site where the well is located trespass is illegal and is guarded by security & sniffer dogs and surrounded by barbed wire, but the kids still want to play there, you shout at them today and they come back tomorrow any way. What we are proposing is throwing a mattress at the bottom. (Perhaps with educational school trips to see the well and to explain the dangers as an added bonus.) |
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Show me an addict who considered his safety before he started and I will show you a contradiction. |
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//Show me an addict who considered his safety before he started //
Thomas de Quincy. Author of "Confessions of an English Opium Eater". |
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Ah yes, and how about Arsenic with zinc, iron and multivitamins? So you feel like your REALLY not going to die of a vitamin defficiency before the arsenic kills you! |
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[contracts], then may I suggest "fortified methadone"? |
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Methadone is generally distributed in fruit juice, therefore baked. |
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Regarding the well analogy: Putting a food stash or bandages is not a way of promoting a life in the well. Anyone stupid enough to jump in the "well" and break there body needs all the help they can get. The food stash would not be the motivation they jump in. |
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[Petesauber] I woke the dog, laughing at that... |
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This is just another product that needs to be made more safe. |
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One of the reasons heroin has such a debilatating effect is because it supresses the appetite, and causes constipation which leads to digestive problems. So a vitamin supplement taken could not really help. Cutting agents (ie brick dust, talc etc)in heroin can have extremely adverse effects including death and sharing needles is a huge factor leading to deaths. Heroin users can live just as long as non users with little medical problems if managed correctly, but this is rarely possible. I think the only way to deal with drug abuse is to legalize everything and put in place harm reduction programmes. This isn't being pro-drug, but recognizing the problem of addiction and it's effects on the individual and society. People will always want to use recreational drugs (who here can say they do not drink tea or coffee, smoke or have an odd beer). Just as someone takes a painkiller to deal with physical pain, people can turn to drugs to deal with emotional hurt/problems. There seems to be a severely blinkered attitude to drug use, and america's "war on drugs" is immature and misguided. Its about time we all became a bit more tolerant and dealt with our taboos and issues ethically, rather than emotionally. |
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How can a vitamin supplement within the drug not benefit someone who does not eat and is constipated? Lace the heroine with a laxative too then. |
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I think the term "more safe" is just kind of misleading. You aren't making it any better, you're just trying to limit some of the ill effects of its use, which I think we can all agree is going to continue for a while, whether we like it or not.
Offering rehab programs doesn't incite people to become hooked to begin with, and neither do needle exchange programs. I seriously doubt any person on the face of the earth is going to say to themselves, "Gee, I wish I could do heroin, but I'm afraid I'll lose too much weight. What? What's that? They make it with nutrients in it so I won't get as sick!?! Sign me up!" Of course not. People who are going to do drugs, do drugs.
There is little or no thought put into the harmful (or helpful) side effects. A man who is overweight isn't going to choose speed over pot because it will make him lose his appetite, he is going to chose whichever one makes him feel better, or whichever one is in easier access. |
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And I am not trying to bellitle the harmfull effects of drug use, or the nature of addiction, or anything like that. I too have seen many people destroy their lives with drug abuse, including my best friend. If it provides a way for addicts to live a little longer, then that's more time to reach them and help them escape their addiction. |
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I completely agree that that is what she needs, but I don't think that this is a bad idea per se. Whether this idea is plausible or not is no longer the issue, what is is whether or not any similar program is worthwhile. The bottom line is that a person who wants to do drugs will do drugs. Education about the harmful effects helps some to fight the urge, but for most, it doesn't matter. Drugs make you feel good, and the tradeoff is a destryoed life, but that doesn't come until later. I would almost say that anyone who doesn't think that drugs can seem to be worthwhile in the short run is naieve and has never been around them or tried them. I'm not saying that they are worthwhile, but at a certain point in time, they can really feel like they are. If we can limit the harmful effects then why don't we? It won't encourage useage any more than filtered cigarettes encourage smoking. |
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I've added a link to overbaked. If you want to distribute your religious opinions, or explain to someone why their opinions are wrong for the third time around, that's a much better place than here. Thanks! |
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[But I disagree with the MFDs - I think people resent the idea for its insensitivity towards a difficult subject, not for formal problems, and it's better for the ensuing discussion to be here than to be gone.] |
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