Encyclopedia > Talk:Drug
Talk:Drug
All painkillers are used as recreational drugs. And yes, Acetaminophen is also abused in drug-mixes.
I'm moving the War on Drugs section here because it lacks a neutral tone and has bad spelling and questionable grammar. I have replaced it with one of my own bias, which I hope is more neutral. I'm admittedly pretty avidly anti-drug so please feel free to correct the article where needed. -- BryceHarrington
War on Drugs
Unfortunately regulating efforts changed into war against drug-users in many countries since 1960s-1980s. Effects of War os Drugs are many bilions dollars wasted many every year, milions of innocent people
put into prisons, spreading of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, rise of criminal organizations in many countries and reduction of civil liberties. And War on Drugs had very little effect on drug usage, accessibility or prices.
It is widely believed that, as War on Drugs failed to reduce drugs usage, safer and less adictive drugs (like Marijuana and Methadon[?]) should be legalized for adults. Legalization of Marijuana in Netherlands proved legalization doesn't cause any social problems. Therefore many European countries partially legalized private Marijuana usage.
Probably the most tragic effect of War on Drugs is that patients hving glaucoma and sclerosis are being denied Marijuana that could help them.
At the very least we should call drug prohibition 'drug prohibition' rather than 'war on drugs'. It is not the business of an encyclopedia to endorse propaganda terms.
'War on drugs' is much more popular term than 'drug prohibition[?]'.
(Only in the USA, and occasionally in other countries when having a laugh at the USA, notwithstanding similar stupidity elsewhere. 'drug prohibition' would be the normal term in several English speaking countries.)
- (I've heard the Australian media use the term completely seriously -- Simon J Kissane).
And some aspects of it, like ban on medical marijuana usage, have nothing to do with 'drug prohibition'.
If marijuana is a drug, and it is prohibited, then that is drug prohibition. 'Drug prohibition' is the descriptive term for what is being discussed - the prohibition of drugs. Calling the prohibition of drugs something else is misleading, especially if the term that is used is a politically-loaded catchphrase. The term 'drug war' was adopted because it served the interests of prohibitionists; it's strange that opponents of prohibition would accede in its use. - Tim
So let it be `Drug Prohibitiuon (also known as `War on Drugs')'. While both prohibitionists and opponents use the same term, prohibitionists think about `war against drugs' and opponents about `war against drug users'. --Taw
Well, I can't see any bias in my version. It contains only facts. Your version contains many false claims and you removed important things like Medical Marijuana usage.
As much as I am a dedicated libertarian, and believe strongly that the war on drugs is a national disgrace, abject failure, and morally reprehensible, I have to agree that the next is biased and doesn't belong here as is. I may agree with every word of it--and it may even be strictly factual--but even facts can be presented in a clearly biased way, and this text is a good example of that. We probably should have an article that examines drug laws by country, and the likely effects thereof, but this isn't it. --LDC
- Societies have long sought to control the use of drugs within their culture.
Yeah, since 19 century.
- Such substances and the behaviors of their users can run counter to principles and behaviors that the society wishes to promote for itself. For example, it is accepted that use of alcohol while driving a vehicle can lead to death of innocent individuals; addiction to alcohol can make the individual unable to support himself financially and thus become a burden on society.
- Within the last century, as a wide variety of socially unacceptable drugs have become increasingly more and more easily available, national governments have become heavily involved in enforcing controls on them.
The only drug-related principle that society is against is fun. The only reason why US government banned drugs was WASP racism and later lobying by medical corporations which sell legal psychoactive substances.
- But unlike alcohol, which had a history of socially accepted use prior to Prohibition, there is a question whether our society could ever wish to allow uncontrolled use of any of these substances.
Marijuana, mushrooms, optiates, amphetamine and cocaine were socially acceptable before War on Drugs. Oh ? You mean society == White Anglo-Saxons Puritans ? Then maybe not ... --Taw
Societies have long sought to control the use of drugs within their culture. Such substances and the behaviors of their users can run counter to principles and behaviors that the society wishes to promote for itself. For example, it is accepted that use of alcohol while driving a vehicle can lead to death of innocent individuals; addiction to alcohol can make the individual unable to support himself financially and thus become a burden on society. Within the last century, as a wide variety of socially unacceptable drugs have become increasingly more and more easily available, national governments have become heavily involved in enforcing controls on them. Unfortunately, as is not atypical with reliance on government intervention in social affairs, there have been a variety of consequences; an oft cited example is the 1920s Prohibition Act, that illegalized alcohol and thereby inadvertantly spawned an explosion in organized crime and did little to actually solve the problems as intended, and it was ultimately reversed. Since the 1960s, the U.S. and other governments have been pursuing a similar course of action against other controlled substances, with similar consequences in terms of increased violent crime and corruption, health issues, impingement of civil rights, and forth. Meanwhile, illegal drug use has not abated and shows little sign of doing so soon, which leads some to wonder if the War on Drugs, like Prohibition, is worth the consequences it has brought. But unlike alcohol, which had a history of socially accepted use prior to Prohibition, there is a question whether our society could ever wish to allow uncontrolled use of any of these substances.
Y'know, if youse would simply rechannel your debating energies to the article itself, drug would contain more than the five sentences (count 'em) it now contains. Yes, it's a fascinating topic, but is Wikipedia a talk forum or is it an encyclopedia? :-) --LMS
Some things in life are more important than others. The depravity of 2 million American citizens in jail, most of whom have harmed no one in any way, and the complacency of American politicians and public to the tragedy is a subject that demands attention. It is a topic that should be covered, and this forum has shown that it can cover controversial subjects and do a pretty good job coming up with factual, minimally biased reportage on them. That's a worthy goal. Along the way, I'm sure we'll throw in a few medical facts about the drugs themselves, but frankly, that information is already easily available to anyone. It should wind up here as well, but I don't for a moment apologize for spending my time and energy on something much more important, like reporting and helping to end the national disgrace that is drug prohibition. --LDC
You're missing my point, Lee. I don't see lots of reporting on the legalization camp's arguments to end drug prohibition. I see five sentences. :-) --LMS
Yes, because we haven't had enough discussion to find the basic points of contention and the appropriate advocates yet. I strongly suspect there will be several more pages of discussion before we get a few more good sentences. Look at Capitalism, for example; that took weeks, and large amounts of discussion, but it's a great article. That will happen here too, and encouraging off-line discussion, not denigrating it, will make it happen faster. --LDC
I think the arguments for legalization got moved: talk:Cannabis
Well, that's reasonable, Lee. I don't at all mean to discourage discussion that actually is aimed at creating encyclopedia articles, but the above doesn't look like that to me. It looks like discussion for its own sake. I have a similar objection to the talk:Abortion page proceedings. I could be totally wrong in my judgment, of course! Maybe we should encourage as much partisan bickering, or "discussion for its own sake," as possible, on the theory that it will actually result in better articles. Personally, I don't think so, but I could easily be convinced otherwise.
So there are two issues here: on the one hand, whether what looks like partisan wrangling is actually aimed at producing articles; on the other hand, whether partisan wrangling, regardless of its explicit aim, is desireable (because it helps produce better articles). --LMS
If not the first then certainly the second case. MHO. --Koyaanis Qatsi
OK, but why? --LMS
Well, simply because I think it does help produce better articles because I also think that it generally does cause people to rethink their positions. And yes, I've done some of this myself, though it's probably not obvious. :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi
Why somebody changed average world laws into US laws ? --Taw
There's no such thing as "average" laws. US law is typical of international law--some contries are better, some are worse. But now the laws in the article are actually verifiable facts, rather than just an overall impression. --LDC
Listing Marijuana as `prohibited even for medical use' is very US-centric. Laws of EU countries, US, Canada, and other 1st world countries should be considered. --Taw If it's too dificult to consider them all, European laws should be presented as US laws are much more radical than world average.
Why are painkillers listed separately from medicinal drugs? Also is there somewhere that anabolic steriods are merely regulated and not prohibited for non-medical use? -rmhermen
Because most painkillers are used as recreational drugs and are addictive. --Taw
Just because they are addictive or abused doesn't make them not primarily medicinal drugs. People use tranquilizers and other classes of drugs as recreation but they are still medicinal. I would imagine some drugs must be addictive although not painkillers. (can't think of any yet.) ---rmhermen
- Seriously? The most obvious is the most addictive drug in common use today: nicotine.
There is no difference between medical and non-medical drugs. Majority of abused drugs have significant medical use. All (at least, I don't know single exception yet) enhancing drugs have some medical use. Marijuana have significant medical use. Methadone, morphine and acetaminophen have significant medical use. Does it mean that only halucinogens, alcohol, nicotine and more obscure derivatives will be left on this page? Of course, you should write something about medical use if you feel it's neccessary. --Taw
Why did somebody moved most of article into a subpage ? And why does title of subpage has nothing to do with content (the only type of drugs that has something to do with narcosis, and guess what ? - those are left on main page).
"Narcotic" is mainly prohibitionist propaganda term, they use it to group many completely unrelated substances. I don't think we should use this term. --Taw
I just took marijauna out of "hallucinogenic" (and left it under general mood altering stuff). It is occasionally claimed to be hallucinogenic, but this is way too controversial to be stated as fact here in the encyclopedia. In fact, it is not hallucinogenic except perhaps in very rare cases, and most of those probably involve use with other drugs, or a pre-existing psycosis, or both. Basically, the "marijuana is hallicinogenic" is a piece of propoganda bullshit put out by lunatic fringe prohibitionists. Of cause, we can't say that in the encyclopedia either. But neither can we repeat their bullshit as fact.
This is certainly NOT true. Cannabis IS a hallucinogen, and that is accepted in the medical and scientific community. You can proove it yourself, just take enough of it. Alkohol, e.g., is clearly not hallucinogenic, because when you take too much, it'll cause a narcosis and perhaps, you'll die.
"no medical uses currently known" was clearly wrong: in Switzerland both drugs were used in the 90s in psychotherapy research with (once again) very promising results. The therapeutical use has been stopped again due to political reasons - not medical ones. AFAIK both drugs are used by psychotherapists these days also in the US, where as has been written before, the laws are very strict. These US therapists do not have a licence to do so, because they probably wouldn't get one, but they certainly know how to help their patients best. -- DA, MD.
Cannabis really should not be classified as a hallucinogen. In many systems, I see Cannabis and Hashish classified in their own category, appropriately named cannabis. I wanted to stick Kava Kava, St. John's Wort, and Valerian root on there, but I'm unsure of where exactly and "herbs" category would fit best. Your thoughts? PetRockStealer
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