BF2S Forums The Dead Pool

the whole argument has been that alcohol IS bad, which you have repeatedly denied by recycling convenient cherry-picked anecdotes ('my friend had a bad time on mushrooms' / 'well i like to drink, and i'm alright, jack').

on any chart of relative harm and dangers, alcohol comes near the very top. it's a bad chemical and you're harming yourself physically and potentially others by taking it. mushrooms aren't even in the same ballpark. nobody ends up in hospital hooked up to a dialysis machine because they had a preference for psilocybin binging.


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 … 92199/full

That question is the subject of a report published today by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent group of 26 former presidents and other bigwigs. They conclude that, as far as the scientific evidence is concerned, current drug laws have no rhyme or reason to them. The commission blames the UN’s drug classification system, which sorts some 300 psychoactive substances into “schedules” according to their harms and benefits. Some, such as morphine, have medical uses. Others, such as psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), are used mostly recreationally. Drugs without any apparent medical utility are automatically placed in the most dangerous category—and subjected to the strictest criminal penalties—regardless of the risk they pose.

the above highlight is EXACTLY what i have been saying for fucking YEARS, dipshit.

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-13 03:43:16)

I've never said alcohol is harmless, although in sensible moderate doses it is.

Cocaine seems pretty high though eh, and the score is non-zero for the rest.

uziq wrote:

alcohol metabolises into acetaldehyde pretty much as soon as it enters your body – ordinary saliva can do the trick for microbial amounts - which is an extremely toxic substance and carcinogen. hence why heavy drinkers suffer from mouth, throat/oesophageal, and other upper tract cancers.

e:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

As I understand it, a human liver can only metabolize so much before alcohol (e: per hour) before starts to accumulate (e: more) in your body.

I've mentioned before some of the stuff stating that even small amounts are/could be to varying degrees, on a case-by-case basis, harmful. I think it's safe to say that it isn't a very healthy substance.

let's just put the 'drugs are for morons' / 'but i like drinking alcohol, a totally safe non-drug' stuff to bed. the war on drugs is about as credible as the war on terror, and we have put ourselves back generations both financially and in terms of real human harm with this misguided thinking. to say nothing of the potential medical benefits of 'bad illegal drugs' which we have ignored by arbitrarily placing them beyond the bounds of research funding and inquiry.

drug addicts need help. alcoholics need help. these are social and societal ills with very complex etiologies.

demonising recreational drug users as if they're especially reckless and daft, whilst drinking alcohol, is the height of dunderheaded ignorance. when an actual report commissioned by 26 world leaders concludes that there's 'no rhyme or reason' to current drug laws, you've lost the argument.

Bored teenagers shouldn't be dipping into their parents' vodka either. The whole law argument is very tired and very countered at this point. Disregarding the stopping and asking if even necessary or if we're just wasting everyone's time with the war on drugs in its current form.

The US is going through this weird phase where mj varies from recreationally legal, to outright illegal, to legal for medical purposes. Someone in a state where it's illegal, "reckless by definition!" Neighboring state where it's legal, just partaking in the human pastime of using intoxicants. So inconsistent.

Dilbert_X wrote:

cocaine is dead level with alcohol

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

cocaine is dead level with alcohol

I'm sure the figures for alcohol are radically skewed by excessive users.
How is MJ so close to alcohol when its 'completely harmless' and 'there's no toxic dose dude'

Dilbert_X wrote:

Once again, 'medical benefits" of drugs in a clinical setting don't translate to it being a good idea for bored teenagers to take them at parties in uncontrolled doses.

People who choose to break the law are reckless pretty well by definition.

when the laws are ridiculous, it doesn't condemn the person to being a 'moron' or 'reckless'. duh. laws aren't inviolable. they weren't handed down to our society by a prophet on a mount. bad laws need revision.

if a woman breaks the abortion laws in ireland or texas, is she a reprehensible, criminal moron?

also LOL at you saying 'all the other drugs are non-zero for risk'. a chocolate bar is non-zero for risk and harm. you engage in about 13 activities per day that come with a risk of personal harm or a deleterious effect to your health. living in a modern, air-polluted city has a 'non-zero' impact to your health. use your fucking head for once in your salutary little life.

for bored teenagers to take them at parties in uncontrolled doses.

you mean like people do with alcohol, a toxic, carcinogenic, brain-harming, addictive and potentially lethal substance, every week, in every country in the western world?

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-13 17:54:09)

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Uzique, you haven't done hard drugs in years you said...what are you doing instead? What is your drug of choice when the alcohol gets into your system and your brain goes begging for a dopamine rush?

i didn't drink or consume anything from a few months prior to covid until i moved to korea. i went teetotal. i got my dopamine rushes from jogging and working out, reading, cooking and eating nice meals. normal things. it was senseless even to drink during lockdown with no social life to speak of. i've never really been interested in drinking by myself or outside of a social occasion.

korea is 100% alcohol. their relationship to it is problematic. this country probably does need an 'option B'. i think weed or even MDMA would change this society a lot for the better. but obviously it's not my place to say and they can run their affairs as they see fit; breaking the law in the UK, where drug laws are only implemented in a lax manner and most everyone gets away with a finger-wag and a warning, is a different business altogether to breaking the law in someone else's country. it's enough to 'protest' at the nonsensical laws in your own country, where you're a citizen with legal rights. when you're a visitor, you're needlessly risking your own freedom. even possession of a small amount of weed can get you serious jail time here. (i've never smoked anything in my life fyi and have zero interest, so the 'legalize it!' weed rhetoric is not particularly interesting to me.)

massive alcohol intake, abuse, people passed out in the streets 6 days of the week, etc, is the total norm here. it has been casualized to the point of being beneath comment. every single convenience store has an entire refrigerator full of these fancily marketed, herbal 'hangover cures'. dealing with the day-to-day battering of alcohol abuse is just part of the 'culture' here. to not drink in korea is like being a vegan: totally outré and not understood by the locals. it's actually a huge social faux pas to even decline an invite to after-works drinks. if you fail to turn up consistently, you'll soon be excluded from the office hierarchy and seen as a black sheep. alcohol really rules the social life here. i don't think koreans could even mix and mingle freely without it – too many social conventions.

i'm fine not having drugs. i'm also fine when drugs are on the table. in an ideal world, you'd be able to acquire and take a clean, standardized, reliable drug for each and every occasion. MDMA is manifestly 100x better for nightclubs and bar hopping than alcohol. if you want to dance for hours with your friends, appreciate music, blend in with a crowd in a club, etc, ecstasy is just so much better than alcohol. drinking 7 pints at a club over the course of a night makes you lairy, aggressive, quick to anger or turns of emotion, sloppy, sluggish, bloated, etc. it sucks. similarly, if you're spending a weekend by yourself in the countryside and want to relax or do some mental processing, a mushroom trip is a much better idea than a bottle of whiskey. on mushrooms you can have huge emotional breakthroughs and 'defrag' your mental hard-drive. drinking whiskey by yourself whilst mulling over your problems is a first-class ticket to depression and unhealthy thoughts.

most drugs have a time and a place, but they're not so integral to my social life that i can't go without them. it would just be much, much better if the law actually made sense. what you said above about the 'war on drugs' delegitimising the state is actually spot on. a lot of everyday, normal, middle-class professionals take drugs in flagrant breach of the law and probably think less of the state/police/law in toto because of it. the whole thing makes a mockery of the idea that the state has your best interests at heart. it affects the social contract. the notion that you can ruin your entire life and career because you prefer to have a few lines of cocaine at a dinner party, at home chatting with friends, rather than drinking the societally approved 3 bottles of poisonous alcohol over an evening, is not a little ridiculous.

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-13 19:11:42)

you seem very confused. abortion, like recreational drug use, is a personal choice. let people do what they want with their own bodies, so long as it doesn't impinge upon anyone else. that's liberalism, not 'one-eyed and unhinged'.

speeding laws, and drink-driving laws, are there because speeding kills innocent people. it's not 'let people do what they want with their own bodies'. it poses a huge and present risk to er, everyone else sharing the highways.

people taking MDMA at clubs or experimenting with hallucinogens CAN do so safely and in a way that doesn't harm anyone else. speeding a car whilst blitzed out of your mind, not so much.

There are a ton of political cartoons of people wringing their hands over the welfare of an unborn fetus in one frame, and then scoffing at a born infant in the next. "Oh great, another welfare baby." Strikes very true, empowering the point that it's less about the sanctity of life, and more about control over other people's lives.

Also not helping is conservative opposition to birth control.

Always appreciated his quirky humor. I always found his joke-telling very creative, and I liked the way he always seemed to subvert comedy structure. Truly a legend