quote:

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Writing in an academic journal, Professor David Nutt said taking ecstasy was no worse than the risks of "equasy", a term he invented to describe people's addiction to horse-riding.

Prof Nutt is the chairman of the Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which next week is likely to say that ecstasy should be downgraded to a Class B drug.

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quote:

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He said he wanted to compare the risks of horse-riding with the drug to open a debate about drug abuse and risk taking.

Prof Nutt told The Daily Telegraph: "The point was to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life.

"There is not much difference between horse riding and ecstasy."

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quote:

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"This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use."

There were plenty of other "risky activities such as base jumping, climbing, bungee jumping, hang-gliding, motorcycling" which were worse than which "many illicit drugs".

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quote:

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Prof Nutt wrote that "equasy", short for "Equine Addiction Syndrome", had caused 10 deaths and more than 100 road traffic accidents a year.

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quote:

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The council heard last year that deaths among ecstasy users had trebled from 10 to 30 a year over the past 15 years.

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I think the reporter just peer reviewed his work.
 

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Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
 
Yea, ok, so a few more deaths in the old ecstacy use, but in fairness to the good Proffesor, it doesn't say if the amount of regular horse riders is more or less than the amount of regular ecstacy takers. In terms of ratio, they may be the same.
 

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Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Good question. From the article, ecstacy has:

quote:

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...500,000 regular users and between 30 million and 60 million ecstasy pills in circulation in the UK.

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quote:

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We've had this conversation before. MDMA is safe. Ecstasy may or may not be, depending on what's in it.

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Thanks Juxtapose. I made a post before yours about the relative safety of MDMA and then deleted it, realizing we'd gone down this road before and I wasn't particularly interested in fighting that fight again.
 

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Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
I find it more interesting to compare any of it to nicotine use. We know for a fact that nicotine costs the health care system enormous amounts of money. It's easy to target compared to, say, the effects of obesity on health costs. The positive effects are minimal, the addiction enormous. Yet it remains legal year after year.

Why do we let the tobacco industry pay us off? Why don't we let other chemicals be sold like cigarettes? We seem to be stuck in an illogical spot (speculation of course including lobbyists), offering a deadly drug with few positive effects to anyone 18+ but not a number of less deadly drugs with more positive effects. I'm including currently prescribed medications along with future 'performance enhancing drugs' (NPR segment recently) and illegal drugs.
 

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Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
Yeah, I think history will judge poorly an age where tobacco and alcohol (two dangerous and highly addictive drugs) are perfectly legal, but MDMA (a safe and much less addictive drug) is a felony.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
imo outside of the controversy over whether or not it's a good thing to legalize drugs, I think that three drugs stand a good shot at being legalized: pot, ex, and shrooms.
 

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Posted by Mocke (Member # 11963) on :
 
About X -
It doesn't turn your brian into a sponge. Much like the guy who made up the autism-vaccination data, the guy who made this claim was using meth and claiming it was X.

It does cause a seratonin dump, leading to warm fuzzy feelings and a system overheat. The downside is that you then suffer seratonin deficiency and spend the next few days feeling depressed. AND any subsequent X use will never be as good as the first time.

And as of two years ago, the only death I had heard of resulting from X was a girl who drank too much water because of the overheating thing. If someone could point out other deaths, please do.

Also,
Most illegal drugs are illegal for a reason. I have never met a heroine/meth/coke addict who was a productive member of society.
 

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Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
 
Ive had friend who've done it. It is very bad, it deserves to be illegal. This whole argument is ridiculous, if something is bad without enough benefits to make it legal it will never be legal, and should never be socially acceptable. From this argument people tend to argue that alcohol and nicotine (and dare I say it caffene) are legal, but that's because it would be impossible to illegalize them, no matter how many people would wonder if banning ciggarettes whould help the US. And obviously alchol has enough benefits to society that it should never be illegalized. I know most of us are just joking but ecstacy is aweful for what it does to your mind in the PRESENT. no matter what long term effects it has or doesn't have it's dangerous and will cause much more problems if itbecame legal, because teens who usually ony break the law to drink would definatley take some "happy pills" if the were legal for anyone over 21. I listen to a lot of electronica music and I'm a teen. I could ge some if I wanted to, but I dont want too. I have some friends who do, but I don't talk to them so much anymore. Ecstasy makes you stupid and when somebody is on it they will be more likely to take oter drugs and overdrink. The reactions of these with ecstacy is what hurts you in h long term. Pot is so common at high schools that if ecstacy became slightly more acceptable it would cause deaths, evenif it doesn't really do much now. Rant ended. agree to disagree with anybody with an agument for it because this is hatrack! the best internet community ever
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

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if something is bad without enough benefits to make it legal it will never be legal,

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quote:

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And obviously alchol has enough benefits to society that it should never be illegalized.

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I don't find that to be obvious, provided you're talking about alcohol intended for recreational consumption. I do agree it shouldn't be outlawed though.
 

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Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Organized crime not raking cash in by the barrelful seems like a pretty big social benefit to me.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
Druglords have been known to provide support, whenever possible, to candidates and parties which have strict anti-legalization policies, as they provide the best long-term security for the black market.
 

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Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Juxtapose:

quote:

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And obviously alchol has enough benefits to society that it should never be illegalized.

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I don't find that to be obvious, provided you're talking about alcohol intended for recreational consumption. I do agree it shouldn't be outlawed though.

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I mean adults who drink responsibally it wouldn't be fair to them for alcohol to be banned. A lot of very good law abiding people i know would start riots of Wine was illegalized I'm not talking about recreational drinking which lets face it, is probably here to stay, but see where it might of seemed that I meant that.
 

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Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
Fewer teenage girls end up getting pregnant while horseback riding, than end up pregnant while on E.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 

quote:

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I mean adults who drink responsibally it wouldn't be fair to them for alcohol to be banned. A lot of very good law abiding people i know would start riots of Wine was illegalized [Wink] I'm not talking about recreational drinking which lets face it, is probably here to stay, but see where it might of seemed that I meant that.

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I know people who use illegal drugs in an otherwise responsible manner. These people are all law abiding citizens in every other respect. Also, I think "recreational drinking" covers pretty much all non-religious drinking. That includes a beer with dinner, or a glass of wine afterwords. If I'm misusing the term, I hope someone will correct me.
 

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Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
 
My first thought when I read the thread title was to say, "Yeah? Tell that to Chris Reeves, or, more to the point, his family!"

[ February 13, 2009, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: BandoCommando ]
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Alcohol and tobacco are not illegal because they got grandfathered in, basically. We care a lot more about individual deaths in our society than we once did.

For instance, most bridges, dams, and large buildings built before maybe WW2 or thereabouts had a number of deaths associated with constructing them. Nowadays we're far less tolerant of a half a dozen or a dozen workmen (in those days they were all men) biting the dust. Mainly, I think, because their widows and orphans now sue to be compensated, and the companies who want to make money have to make safety a primary concern.

Of course you know when people my age (50) were kids, we had all sorts of dangerous toys, were allowed to ride in pickup truck beds with no restraint at all, played all day in the woods or fields or city streets of our neighborhood with minimal adult supervision, etc. People tended to have more kids back then, and the ones they did have were more expendable. It was just considered part of life to have risks like that all around. Now we care more.

So drugs that were legal in the olden times, drugs that everyone got used to having around, that society accepted, were just grandfathered in. If a new drug were invented with the same risk/benefit ratio of nicotine or alcohol, it would totally be extremely illegal. And since we're preemptively outlawing new psychoactive drugs these days, I don't think new drugs ever will be legalized, or not for a long, long time.

I'm one who thinks all drugs should be legal to everyone. And then we should be taught that it's very stupid to use them in non-theraputic ways or doses. I think it would be best if drug use were left up to the individual, including all pharmaceuticals. The current monopoly on legal drugs that doctors hold is not a good thing, in my opinion.

Of course, I don't know what I would say to the families of the additional addicts that we would get from making drugs legal. Their lives are trashed, too bad? It seems sort of inadequate, you know?

After enough generations go by, though, the tendency to use or enjoy recreational drugs will be bred out of the population, the same way it has for alcoholics in some populations (southern European, for example) over the last 10k years or so, while it's a particular problem with other populations who have been more recently exposed, (Irish, Native American, etc.)

Any way you look at it, it's sordid and ugly and there aren't a lot of good choices. But I think legalization, along with limits to liability for the makers, is about the least evil approach. (If we don't limit liability for the makers, then any drug that people decide to abuse would be pulled from the market because of liability issues, and unavailable for use to treat illness.) Also, of course, keep age limits intact or even raise them to 25. (At what age do kids gain sense? It seems to keep going higher the older I get. ) Also, have a lot of education about the correct use of drugs to treat illness, and the bad effects of recreational use. And keep it illegal to drive or work while under the influence. Lower legal barriers to employers requiring drug tests from their employees. Help society deal in those ways. Increase funding for addiction rehab programs.
 

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Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
The current social norms in the US do not favor non-addictive personalities to have more children than those with addictive personalities. Therefore it would be hard to say whether or not the 'tendency' would breed out.

If I had to pick one class of medications which probably shouldn't be legal without a script it would be antibiotics. It's worth more to society to keep antibiotics working as long as possible than to let people buy all of them off the shelf.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
dabbler, it's sort of hard to think of this, but drug addicts' kids have much higher infant mortality rates, and much lower success factors throughout life. They can be brain-damaged at birth from exposure to drugs in the womb. They are at far higher risk for abuse and neglect. And on and on. Finally, they tend to use drugs themselves at higher rates than the general population. It's also true that addicts' marriages are at risk and they often have fewer children for that reason. For all these reasons, addictive tendencies for particular substances tend to die out of populations after several generations.

That's why some populations, for instance southern Europeans who have been exposed to alcohol for thousands of years, have a lot lower alcoholism rates than other populations like Native Americans or the Irish. My family is Irish (my mom's side) and alcoholics in her family number about 1 in 3 or 1 in 4.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I'd rather my kids do ex than smoke cigarettes.

I'd rather my kids do ex than play world of warcraft.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
Of course, if they do ecstasy they're much more likely to smoke cigarettes.

I don't know how it correlates to WoW though.
 

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Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
 
I honestly can't figure out why on earth people feel the need to legalize this type of thing. Do you honestly want your children taking this stuff? Do you honestly feel your life would be less meaningful without it?

I mean, it's not like horseback riding is really all that safe! In fact, if you participate in it without any of the safety equipment, then it does have a rather high incidence of injury. I personally know quite a number of "experienced" individuals who were injured by horses, though luckily no deaths. While I'm not saying we should make horseback riding illegal, I don't think that equating the safety of a drug to the safety of riding a horse is particularly satisfying.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
For me, the difference between drugs and equally dangerous non-drug activities is that non-drug activities like horse riding may have the same kind of mortality rate but have far fewer other non-mortality related effects.

And, plus, dangerous non-drug activities often have positive effects that reach beyond the actual activity, such as skill or strength or health. Very few drugs have positive effects that last beyond their usage.

For me, the mortality rate of the users is certainly not the only reason to keep drugs more difficult to acquire. If a teenager was going to take up drug use OR horse riding I would go for the horse riding even if it was more dangerous than drug use, because survival* looks a lot prettier and it's much more useful in the long run.

*By survival I mean minimal or no injuries. By minimal, I mean up to a broken limb. Brain injuries, back injuries and severe trunk injuries count as "non-survival".
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by DDDaysh:
I honestly can't figure out why on earth people feel the need to legalize this type of thing. Do you honestly want your children taking this stuff? Do you honestly feel your life would be less meaningful without it?

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quote:

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"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

Reverend Billy Sunday delivered this quotation during a speech at the beginning of prohibition. Many people believed and hoped that prohibition would make the above true. However, as they watched and waited, they realized that nothing was improved, and somehow, things had gotten worse.

The following are statistics detailing how much worse crime got:

* Police funding: INCREASED $11.4 Million
* Arrests for Prohibition Law Violations: INCREASED 102+%
* Arrests for Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct: INCREASED 41%
* Arrests of Drunken Drivers: INCREASED 81%
* Thefts and Burglaries: INCREASED 9%
* Homicides, Assault, and Battery: INCREASED 13%
* Number of Federal Convicts: INCREASED 561%
* Federal Prison Population: INCREASED 366%
* Total Federal Expenditures on Penal Institutions: INCREASED 1,000%

"Not only did the number of serious crimes increase, but crime became organized. Criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol or drugs, gambling and prostitution. In the process of providing goods and services those criminal organizations resort to real crimes in defense of sales territories, brand names, and labor contracts. That is true of extensive crime syndicates (the Mafia) as well as street gangs, a criminal element that first surfaced during prohibition."

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quote:

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Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese:
Often the question of legalization is about a bigger picture than the drugs themselves. One may dislike the drug in question -- even quite strongly disapprove of it -- and still believe it is better in the long run to legalize it.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Tatiana:
After enough generations go by, though, the tendency to use or enjoy recreational drugs will be bred out of the population, the same way it has for alcoholics in some populations (southern European, for example) over the last 10k years or so, while it's a particular problem with other populations who have been more recently exposed, (Irish, Native American, etc.)

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Darth_Mauve:
Fewer teenage girls end up getting pregnant while horseback riding, than end up pregnant while on E.

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quote:

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Originally posted by DDDaysh:
I honestly can't figure out why on earth people feel the need to legalize this type of thing. Do you honestly want your children taking this stuff? Do you honestly feel your life would be less meaningful without it?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Tatiana:

That's why some populations, for instance southern Europeans who have been exposed to alcohol for thousands of years, have a lot lower alcoholism rates than other populations like Native Americans

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quote:

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"recreational drug use" is not in and of itself something that must be smote from the hands of our chiddrens, lest we most all of us become hypocrites for drinking, smoking, and partaking of coffee and tea.

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Don't forget your audience. There's a whole lot of Mormons 'round these parts. And while we may be hypocrites for many reasons, for most of us, that's not one of them.
 

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Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
 
And Mormons aren't the only ones who decline drinking, smoking, etc.

If we are concerned with being hypocrites on drug use, I don't think the solution is to say its fine for kids to do any drugs that adults do. Rather, I think adults should stop doing the things they tell their children not to do.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Noemon, it's true that I misspoke in that first post. I didn't mean that any use at all would be bred out of populations, just addiction. Because in my family so many ordinary users are addicts, and the line between the two is so fine, I sometimes confuse them in my mind. Of course, I believe in not using at all ever to begin with. That way you never find out if you were one of the ones who would have become an addict.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Don't forget your audience. There's a whole lot of Mormons 'round these parts. And while we may be hypocrites for many reasons, for most of us, that's not one of them.

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quote:

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I could have mentioned 'vanilla coke' instead of coffee

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tatiana:
Noemon, it's true that I misspoke in that first post. I didn't mean that any use at all would be bred out of populations, just addiction.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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I could have mentioned 'vanilla coke' instead of coffee

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I don't know. I'm dubious that the majority of Mormons refrain from drinking Coca-Cola.

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quote:

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Cola counts the same as smoking.

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quote:

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Heck, the reasoning against recreational drug use can be easily extended to recreational sugar use.

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quote:

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"This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use."

There were plenty of other "risky activities such as base jumping, climbing, bungee jumping, hang-gliding, motorcycling" which were worse than which "many illicit drugs".

---

quote:

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I also don't see signs of society encouraging base jumping, motorcycling or any of the other activities.

---

quote:

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That's why some populations, for instance southern Europeans who have been exposed to alcohol for thousands of years, have a lot lower alcoholism rates than other populations like Native Americans.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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Cola counts the same as smoking.

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That's quite a stretch. One that I don't buy.

quote:

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Heck, the reasoning against recreational drug use can be easily extended to recreational sugar use.

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Not easily.

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What's a stretch? That caffeine is a recreational drug? I don't think it's bad for you like smoking, but the vast majority of caffeine use is not medicinal (I don't count the withdrawal headache prevention usage as medicinal, unless we count nicotine withdrawal prevention as medicinal too).

Remember, you were pointing out that LDS might not be hypocrites like some other segments of the population when it comes to recreational drug use, but then you pointed out that most LDS don't abstain from coca-cola, as far as you know. I'm just pointing out that the latter kind of invalidates the former point.

And yes, you can so easily extend the argument to sugar. At least I can: sugar is more prevalent, but no less prone to be used in concentrated form in order to achieve a temporary alteration of mood/feeling. People get addicted to it. It can ruin your health and make you die.

This applies to sugar more than other nutrients because of the nature of the way people sometimes use it, which is very similar to the way some people use drugs like alcohol and caffeine. (And, at least in my experience, sugar fills a behavioral niche in groups where other drugs are not tolerated.)

Note I am not for making sugar illegal or even adding a sin tax.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
KoM, the factoid is supposed to be true for southern Europeans only. And it explains why Italians, for instance, have a very low alcoholism rate compared to the Irish, or to Native Americans, or to various other people. I don't know what hard science backs it up, if any. It seems like it would be incredibly hard to control for other social factors. I think it is generally accepted that populations new to alcohol, particularly Native Americans and to a lesser extent the Celtic people of Ireland and surrounds, have far greater genetic susceptibility to alcoholism than peoples who have longer (measured in number of generations) exposure.

There are obviously a whole lot of factors that go into alcoholism, but simple genetics seems to be quite a large one. It certainly runs in families, and it runs in the same families that diabetes runs in.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 

quote:

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And yes, you can so easily extend the argument to sugar. At least I can: sugar is more prevalent, but no less prone to be used in concentrated form in order to achieve a temporary alteration of mood/feeling.

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In this case, though, the sugar is not causing the mood or feeling.
 

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Yes, Juxtapose, it is.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
If I show a steak to a dog, is the steak causing the dog to salivate?
 

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Juxtapose, you are completely missing the point. People use sugar to achieve an altered state. Honest. If you don't believe me, go read Overeaters Anonymous literature.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
I was missing the point.

'Scuse me.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
I'm not getting the connection between sugar and ecstasy here.

Sugar should definitely be used in moderation. LDS families as well as all other families should be careful how they use it.

Sugar's not on par with ecstasy, however. Ecstasy is a door into much worse stuff--meth, for example. We shouldn't isolate the effects just to the use itself. People using ecstasy are crossing a psycological line in a sense, getting that much closer to experimenting with heavier stuff.
 

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Posted by Loki (Member # 2788) on :
 
I'm actually qualified to post on this subject. I took Ex back in the early 80s when it was legal in a therapeutic setting and I can honestly say that I owe my life to that experience. I was and extremely high suicide risk and it completely turned my life around. Then it was made illegal, and became a street drug and the abuse started throughout society. But even so, probably more people die from Tylenol overdoses than ecstasy overdoses.

And I have ridden horses all my life. Is it an addiction? Sometimes when I see how much I pay for it I think it is! And I've been hurt way more by my horses than by any kind of drug.
 

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Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 

quote:

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Sugar's not on par with ecstasy, however. Ecstasy is a door into much worse stuff--meth, for example. We shouldn't isolate the effects just to the use itself. People using ecstasy are crossing a psycological line in a sense, getting that much closer to experimenting with heavier stuff.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Tatiana:
KoM, the factoid is supposed to be true for southern Europeans only. And it explains why Italians, for instance, have a very low alcoholism rate compared to the Irish, or to Native Americans, or to various other people. I don't know what hard science backs it up, if any. It seems like it would be incredibly hard to control for other social factors. I think it is generally accepted that populations new to alcohol, particularly Native Americans and to a lesser extent the Celtic people of Ireland and surrounds, have far greater genetic susceptibility to alcoholism than peoples who have longer (measured in number of generations) exposure.

There are obviously a whole lot of factors that go into alcoholism, but simple genetics seems to be quite a large one. It certainly runs in families, and it runs in the same families that diabetes runs in.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I actually don't teach my children that it's unhealthful. I teach them that we're not supposed to drink it.

---

I laud your accurate teaching method.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
And besides, everything I've read about alcoholism from the actual study of addiction suggests that these data are more reflective of societal attitudes towards alcoholism in western, central and southern Europe. There isn't less of it per se, and in fact the societal toll may be higher than in the United States. A greater amount of alcoholism simply goes unremarked here. You call your problems something else- unemployment (which owes partly to alcoholism), high rate of divorce (which owes partly to alcoholism), high rate of truancy (which owes partly to alcohol abuse at a young age), and so on.

The frank acceptance of alcohol abuse among adolescents in the Czech Republic STAGGERS me. I started drinking at around 18, which is still illegal in the states. The typical age here is 13 or 14, and that owes ENTIRELY to a system that ignores underage alcohol sales. 15 year olds can enter clubs and bars with impunity, and kids can drink in public, on the street, without reproach. There's something very wrong with that, I think.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I actually don't teach my children that it's unhealthful. I teach them that we're not supposed to drink it.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Xavier:

quote:

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Sugar's not on par with ecstasy, however. Ecstasy is a door into much worse stuff--meth, for example. We shouldn't isolate the effects just to the use itself. People using ecstasy are crossing a psycological line in a sense, getting that much closer to experimenting with heavier stuff.

---

But like marijuana, it's only a gateway drug because it's illegal. I firmly believe that the primary reason that marijuana is a gateway drug is because the same guy who can get you pot can usually get you something harder. If he can't, chances are he knows someone who can.

If you could buy Marijuana or MDMA at Walmart, you probably wouldn't be able to find a meth dealer if you tried. It'd be no more a gateway drug than alcohol is.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I actually don't teach my children that it's unhealthful. I teach them that we're not supposed to drink it.

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The LDS pretty much teaches that they are to be avoided because they are unhealthful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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I also don't see signs of society encouraging base jumping, motorcycling or any of the other activities.

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Look at some Mountain Dew commercials.

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quote:

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However, why would you use ecstasy in the first place? Being willing to put anything in your body that will alter your mood in a noticeable way (besides prescribed medications for a medical need) is a psychological line you have to cross.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by King of Men:

quote:

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However, why would you use ecstasy in the first place? Being willing to put anything in your body that will alter your mood in a noticeable way (besides prescribed medications for a medical need) is a psychological line you have to cross.

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Like alcohol, for example?

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quote:

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No, more because they are addictive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:
No, more because they are addictive.

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quote:

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They aren't necessarily going to ruin your life. As a regular part of your lifestyle, however, they are deemed unhealthy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
No, he's saying Mountain Dew had an extensive ad campaign showing extreme sports as cool -- which is an example of society encouraging them.

How did you parse that post that made your conclusion the obvious one to jump to?

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quote:

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But this place is just contrary enough to start arguing that one glass of wine, for example, has been shown to have health benefits

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quote:

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Are you seriously comparing drug addiction to advertisement?

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quote:

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It seems a little out there to believe thrill seekers are fueled by their enslavement to mountain dew ads.

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Agreed. In fact, it's so out there, nobody said it except you.

quote:

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I certainly don't get the urge to be extreme when I see a mountain dew ad.

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quote:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:

quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I actually don't teach my children that it's unhealthful. I teach them that we're not supposed to drink it.

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The LDS pretty much teaches that they are to be avoided because they are unhealthful.

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No, more because they are addictive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:

quote:

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Originally posted by King of Men:

quote:

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However, why would you use ecstasy in the first place? Being willing to put anything in your body that will alter your mood in a noticeable way (besides prescribed medications for a medical need) is a psychological line you have to cross.

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Like alcohol, for example?

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Yes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I actually don't teach my children that it's unhealthful. I teach them that we're not supposed to drink it.

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The LDS pretty much teaches that they are to be avoided because they are unhealthful.

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No, more because they are addictive.

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No, more because God said not to. Oh, and by the way, some of those things are addictive and/or unhealthful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by King of Men:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:

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Originally posted by King of Men:

quote:

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However, why would you use ecstasy in the first place? Being willing to put anything in your body that will alter your mood in a noticeable way (besides prescribed medications for a medical need) is a psychological line you have to cross.

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Like alcohol, for example?

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Yes.

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So are you seriously claiming that alcohol is a gateway drug?

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quote:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:
I'm fine with that explanation. Like I said, that was just a casual Google search to answer KOM's question. I think your willingness to get drunk for the first time might flip that switch in your mind that makes it easier to make such decisions again. Or there might be very little inhibition to such action based on the causes CT is talking about, in which case alcohol might just be the first stop on the road.

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The fact that it deals with teenagers also makes it fairly useless at supporting your point. Because alcohol is illegal, as are cigarettes and drugs. So there's no easy way for them to get to them. It's been pretty well demonstrated that middle schoolers and high schoolers have easier access to weed than to cigarettes.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Which point of mine is now useless?

I've lost track of what we're arguing about.

Because alcohol is illegal for teenagers, it can't be a gateway drug?
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
That because alcohol is illegal for teenagers (in addition to the other problems CT mentioned), that study does precious little to support your point.

You may still be able to prove it (I doubt it, but I'm still willing to consider some new evidence), but it reads like wishful thinking at this point.
 

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Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
 
My sense is that the notion of 'gateway drug' is a rationalization for why, say, marijuana should be illegal while comparably unhealthy substances/activities are not.

Anyway, can anyone provide a definition for what it actually means to be a gateway drug?

[EDIT] i.e. there is clearly no necessary connection between using pot and then using a more serious drug. So what sort of correlation should be required before something can be regarded as a gateway drug? As has been mentioned earlier, there is also the issue of decoupling from other factors.

[ February 18, 2009, 04:27 PM: Message edited by: natural_mystic ]
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Whoa. I'm not married to that study by any means. I'm not hanging my hat on it. I'm not going to defend it. It was referenced several times in the first 20 results of my Google search. Mentioning it in my response to KOM is my only connection to it. If there are new studies disproving its conclusions, I'd be interested in hearing about them. If not...well, heck, they did study 30,000 households and gather a buttload of data on which to base their conclusions.

*shrug*

Enough teenagers apparently do get ahold of alcohol to make me think it's not all that hard to get ahold of, despite being illegal at that age. It's bound to have some influence in future decisions on what to take into the body, at least for some people. It's bound to be a factor or at least present when at least some decisions are made to try other drugs.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
In case it was unclear, advice for robots -- no, no didin't mean to put you on the spot! I was honestly interested, as studying effective screening tools for adolescent substance abuse was my bread-n-butter for two years. What's happened in the few years since then hasn't been on my radar, but the mention of it perks up my ears with interest.

I think it's a study worth knowing about, regardless of the conclusions, and I'll go dig around for it.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Well, in that case....

Here's a link to something at columbia.edu talking about the study:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_iss10/record2010.24.html

It is fairly old--performed in 1993.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
Tea is my gateway drug.
It makes me <Hiro show="Heroes"> badass </Hiro>.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by advice for robots:
Well, in that case....

Here's a link to something at columbia.edu talking about the study:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_iss10/record2010.24.html

It is fairly old--performed in 1993.

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Ah, yeah, I think I do know this one. It may be readily bandied about on the 'net, but there was a line of discussion in the literature questioning the method and confounders. It looks like the Columbia link is to their archived report back from when the study was first published, so it doesn't take into account the discussions since.

Thanks! I'm delighted for the chance to pour back over things and get some rusty gears working.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
So what's the current consensus then...that there is in fact no such thing as a gateway drug? That alcohol is not one of them?
 

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Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
I think both alcohol and marijuana have been discredited as gateway drugs. That doesn't leave much else.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
How come? Now I'm curious.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I could certainly say that there is no consensus in the evidence-based medical world that the concept of "gateway drug" is particularly useful, or that alcohol is such a thing. Of course there will always be someone saying any given thing, but it is more the substance (or lack thereof) behind what is said that is most compelling. And there doesn't seem to be an evidence-based argument definitively supporting the idea of a "gateway drug."

It may or may not have been totally ruled out -- I don't know. It certainly hasn't been ruled in, as far as I can tell.

On the other hand, there is pretty clear consensus on the risk factors listed above.

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Edited to add: In a lit search, I see some people are still using the term, although it is very much decreased from the 90s usage of it. I know the continued use of it is both controversial and still decreasing.

[ February 18, 2009, 06:10 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 

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Originally posted by advice for robots:
How come? Now I'm curious.

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See above. Briefly, history of alcohol use in and of itself -- once you control for the other established risk factors -- doesn't make someone more likely to try other drugs. That is, there isn't support for it as a factor on its own.

In contrast, poor parental supervision does seem to be an independent risk factor, for example. But in kids who are otherwise similar with respect to such risk factors, alcohol doesn't seem to be a predisposing factor to other substance abuse. If it were a "gateway drug," then it would have to be something such that the use of it (even with all other things being held equal) would make other substance use more likely -- i.e., drinking or not drinking should therefore make a difference in the other rates. It doesn't.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
So it's neither on nor off the wagon.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 

 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
This might be helpful, or at least interesting history:

In the 80s and early 90s, there was a lot of interest in taking very large national survey databases (10s of thousands of participants: National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), etc.)) and sifting through the data to see what you can find. The study afr linked is one of these.

There were limitations to these studies. Some of the data was "dirty" (i.e., multiple missing answers in the coding, internally inconsistent answer sets), the questions may have been poorly designed (and when you are mining a database, you can't ask the question you really directly want to answer -- you just have to pick out the questions closest to it that someone else had already asked, and that may be misleading), most of them were purely cross-sectional (only a snapshot glimpse at one moment in time), some were telephone interviews (which comes with its own set of problems), and so on. However, they are great for generating hypotheses.

The "gateway drug" concept was one of these hypotheses. However, "gateway" is a concept that only makes sense in a trajectory of time, which a cross-sectional study doesn't show. All a cross-sectional study can show is correlation.

So there was some interesting stuff that came out of the analyses of these databases, and people settled down to look more closely at causation. That means smaller studies but much more powerful and specific ones, ones that were directed toward specific questions and "trajectories of use," or the different common pathways of drug use over time. This concept of "trajectories of use" is the most currently used evidence-based approach in the literature. If you want to browse through current top research, that is a search term that may be helpful.

Different trajectories of use have been identified, particularly early-use, midrange-onset, and late-onset use (or words to that effect). There are somewhat overlapping but still different sets of risk factors and prognoses for these groups, both the trajectories for marijuana use and for alcohol use (the most commonly studied drugs, along with nicotine). There is also overlap between those groups (marijuana v. alcohol), but in some areas, marijuana use is increasing while alcohol use is decreasing. And there are other complicated patterns emerging.

All of this is being driven by the question, "what will change the outcomes?" Often in screening questionnaires -- such as used in an ER as part of the questions asked after a motor vehicle crash -- the number of questions is pretty limited. There isn't time or manpower to ask a lot of questions, so the most effective tools rely on the most useful questions to ask, usually 4-8 or so: questions that are more likely to minimize false positives and false negatives.

There followed a lot of research on which questions to ask that would help predict whether a given adolescent in front of you was more or less likely to have future problems with substance use, in order to make whatever interventions were available to help avoid that. Asking about alcohol use separately from other drug use just wasn't helpful in discriminating between those who would go on to have substance abuse problems and those who would not.

The CRAFFT (link is to pdf) is one of the screens that tests most accurately for adolescents. It is a set of six questions about drug use (alcohol or other) that seems to be a good predictor of future outcomes. But there isn't support in the research for separating out alcohol from other drugs, as it isn't predictive on its own. There isn't any usefulness in pulling out one as characteristically different than the others.

So research on trajectories of use is ongoing, and it is there where (when I last checked) people were studying what questions were best predictive for people in various trajectories. That is, they were looking at whether given factors (like alcohol use in particular, apart from overall drug use) was predictive [for certain subgroups of adolescents]. I honestly don't know where that went. But I do know that the evidence-based screening tools for adolescents in general do not find that to be a helpful distinction, and the term "gateway drug" has fallen out of favor as a useful concept.
 

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