Why are certain drugs illegal?

[stonecold]

I agree thats ad's and campains have the potential to bring significant change, but the current wave of government campaigns have failed miserably.

I also agree with Glock, the TAC has some very gruesome ads which work for a lot of people.  I think they could go even further.  I would have no problem with them showing arms/legs broken off to deter hoon driving.  Drug and alcohol ads need to put the same level of fear, if not even more, into viewers, if they are to have a chance at being effective.

[QuantumJG]

I think Alchohal is JUST as bad.

Yes drugs cause many bad things etc, but in OUR country Alcohol is the issue.
In AMERICA drugs is the issue.

When I say "issue" I mean the root of 90% of all crimes, does the CBD ring a bell?

It's embarssingly become Australian "culture" to have drinking games, to get "pissed" to jump on any girl you see when drunk. It's effing disgusting. Australia lacks so much culture because all we have to offer are meat pies and booze. FFS im angry atm from writing this.

We are a country with so much potential, in movies, music, aboriginal ART, biomedicine, nanotechnology, and all we have to show for it is alcoholics.

What makes it worse, you get immigrants come here, see that beer is "accepted as norm/cool" they get into it and racial gangs and groups form, and then we become racist. This is specifically an issue for African migrants as well. You cannot say "oh, they were into beer before" because COME ON, they lived in war torn countries and could not afford/would spend money on BETTER things then alcohol.

I know I am not being single minded on this issue, because the POLICE COMMISSIONER of Victoria said its going to take around 2 decades to remove alcohol FROM OUR CULTURE.

I know not EVERY Australian (this means me and you) is obsessed with booze, for example last Christmas I went to a great family who had grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins etc all around a feast  drinking LIGHT wine, and LGIHT alchohal, and remaining sane throughout the evening.

FFS, 13-16 year olds are drinking BEER, whereas in other developed nations it is drank around 17-20 onwards (generalisation, no evidence). It's become like "Australian" to do it.

I know I have sort of went off topic, but im trying to build a correlation b/w beer and drugs, both are as bad as each other, but in Australia beer is the root cause of all evil. And no I am not saying ban alcohol. Other countries haven't banned it, and they do not have bloody alcohol fuelled violence

- I find being in the CBD late at night really scary.

- I don't play drinking games (emetophobic) and I find it also disgusting with how guys treat girls when they are pissed, I thought we are fighting for equality? btw I hate beer and meat pies. But yes I agree it's the general concensus that this is the norm.

- I'm going to jump to the part where you discuss enjoying alcohol in smaller quantities. I believe this is great and you can just enjoy your family's company. At an facebook organized high school reunion (class of 08), the start of it was great to just chat to eachother, but then through the night people were literally guzzling alcohol (and mind you, this is pretty expensive) and looking at me as to why I was just enjoying 1 drink at a time. After a while I just got bored with being around drunks and left (I'm such a nerd).

Anyway courageous points you made.

[Greggler]

Ad are hardly effective. Well atleast amongst the people i know.
At parties whenever anyone gets drunk, people jokingly go around saying 'make sure you dont turn a night out into a nightmare'
I know a few people also who jump into cars whilst practically paraletic whilst others exclaim 'drink drive you bloody idiot' or something along the lines. Whilst they reply; ' well yeah, im not an idiot, only idiots crash their cars!'

Its the same for drink driving and everything else with related ads. In the heat of the moment, the types of people that are likely to do this stuff, are also the types of people who are not likely to stop and consider their actions and think about the latest TAC ad before they light up a bong/drink drive etc.

[QuantumJG]

 

But I must say, I am so glad I am able to vocie my opinions and not be attacked by members on this forum. I highly respect this, and appreciate it.

I once voiced an almost exact same opinion at school and was told "go back to your own country" and was called many other derogatory comments.

I think the intelligence of members here is very clear.

Thank you

This is what I love about these forums. If you voice an opinion, people don't attack your opinion. You may have people who disagree but they show logic as to why, but people never attack YOU. I have a lot of respect for you guys and it's allowed me to look at issues at a new angle and to have an open mind to others views.

As for what happened to you at school, that is totally not cool. One freedom that everyone should have is to be able to raise their own opinion without being bullied, that is oppression.

[/0]

I kinda of understand how human nature could make legalising drugs complicated...
But whatever the argument may be, I still can't help but find the legality of alcohol hypocritical.

[Collin Li]

That's because none of the ads have heeded the peer-pressure evidence/advice I talked of (re: poor ad campaigns). If the ad campaigns stopped suggesting that drinking was a widespread problem (without using statistics, because lying leads to backlash), and suggested that it was a very narrow problem, then more people would feel isolated from drinking. By creating the perception that only a small select number of people drink, then people will feel less compelled to drink.

In Texas, there was a clean-up program called "Don't Mess with Texas". One of the successes about it was that it heavily implied that your wrongdoing was messing it up for everyone else. It appealed to peer-pressure conformity, and exploited the fact people follow their perceptions, rather than their reality.

That said, these perceptions might be drawn from shows like Gossip Girl and the OC, so unless we want to move into the band of censorship to promote a culture we want, then this may be impractical.

Generation Y is as skeptical towards scare tactics as they are towards advertising (hence the hate towards Daniel Dobos, Mental Blank seminars -- lots of people hated the free seminar because he tried to sell something for 30 minutes!)

(N.B.: Not saying that this mentality is flawed - it's completely fine. Advertising (of products) is going to be toppled on its head in the next generation or so - read Seth Godin if you want to hear about this.)

[excal]

I find it interesting that, in that dependence/harm chart, that there are plenty of drugs (including cannibis) that rank lower than alcohol and tobacco yet are illegal.

...why?

[Glockmeister]

I find it interesting that, in that dependence/harm chart, that there are plenty of drugs (including cannibis) that rank lower than alcohol and tobacco yet are illegal.

...why?

Politics.

[Gloamglozer]

I find it interesting that, in that dependence/harm chart, that there are plenty of drugs (including cannibis) that rank lower than alcohol and tobacco yet are illegal.

...why?

Politics.

Yeah.  The tax that the government has on tobacco is pretty crazy.

[/0]

I thought this might be interesting:

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8308/deadliestdrugs.png

[dekoyl]

And somewhat relevant interesting read:

The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years
· Usage increased to 25 tablets a day at peak
· Memory problems and paranoia may be lasting
================================
Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills.

Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent.

The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden.

Hallucinations

His condition deteriorated and he began to experience recurrent tunnel vision and other problems including hallucinations, paranoia and muscle rigidity. "He came to us after deciding that he couldn't go on any more," said Dr Christos Kouimtsidis, the consultant psychiatrist at St George's Medical School in Tooting who treated him for five months. "He was having trouble functioning in everyday life."

The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test.

"This was an exceptional case. His long- term memory was fine but he could not remember day to day things - the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley," said Dr Kouimtsidis. "More worryingly, he did not seem aware himself that he had these memory problems."

With no mental illness in his family and no prior psychiatric history, the doctors concluded that his unique condition was direct result of his intense ecstasy use.

"This is obviously an extreme case so we should not blow any observations out of proportion," says Dr Kouimtsidis. "But if this is what is happening to very heavy users, it might be an indication that daily use of ecstasy over a long period of time can lead to irreversible memory problems and other cognitive deficits."

For 10 years, MDMA has been suspected of causing these kinds of effects in heavy users. It is thought to be due to its disruption of the regulation of serotonin, a brain chemical believed to play a role in mood and memory. It remains unclear whether these effects are the result of permanent neurotoxic damage or just temporary reversible alterations in the brain.

A special two-part MDMA study in recent issues of the Journal of Psychopharmacology (available online at sagepub), suggests long-term side-effects may be temporary. The researchers from the University Of Louisiana could find no significant relationship between depression and recreational ecstasy use.

In the case of Mr A, a structural MRI brain scan failed to show any obvious damage or atrophy in his brain. However, these results, says Dr Kouimtsidis, are difficult to interpret. "A scan of this type is not sensitive enough," he said.

Such limitations in brain scanning technology, along with ethical and legal barriers to giving MDMA to human test subjects, have limited direct observation of the drug's effects in humans.

Instead, scientists have had to use recreational drug users as subjects in their studies. Conclusions from this are often flawed because few, if any, drugs users use ecstasy in isolation.

Cannabis user

Mr A was also a heavy cannabis user, and when he was encouraged to decrease his use, his paranoia and hallucinations disappeared and his anxiety abated. But his memory and concentration problems remained, leading the doctors to suspect that these may be permanent disabilities.

When he was admitted to a specialist brain injury unit and put on anti-psychotic medication, he did start to show some improvement. "Unfortunately, he discharged himself before we were able to complete the assessment," says Dr Kouimtsidis. "We continued to support him. But he started to use cannabis again and he dropped out. We tried to re-engage him but we lost him about a year ago."