One of the reasons always given for keeping marijuana, heroin, etc. illegal is that "they're dangerous". But oddly enough, there is never any data given to support that assertion. Are they as dangerous as alcohol? Are they as dangerous as Valium? What about Oxycontin -- are they as dangerous as Oxycontin?
The answer, suprisingly, comes from that cesspool of Americana, the state of Florida, which now conducts drug screens on suspicious deaths to detect whether there was something in the bloodstream that could cause it. The answer, not surprisingly, is that nobody died from marijuana overdose (duh, you'd fall asleep before OD'ing). And even heroin, which has a bad rep for causing OD's, ended up killing far fewer people than you'd expect. The study found that the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies was 110 in 2008, while there were 1,253 deaths related to the opioid oxycodone. In other words, (legal) "hillbilly heroin" is literally ten times more dangerous than (illegal) "real" heroin.
Of course, none of this should really be suprising. The main reason why heroin was made illegal in the first place was because it competed with expensive proprietary drugs, not because of safety. America continues to be the most sedated nation on the planet, it's just with drugs that contribute to the profit margins of drug companies, not with drugs that grow in the ground. As for the notion of legalizing heroin and other currently-illegal drugs... what, you want to hurt the profits of the drug companies? COMMUNIST! If Big Government doesn't protect the profits of Big Pharma, the terriers win! Or somethin'.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Actually there are some problems with all drugs, and possible drug abuse, and the government wants to protect me. Although within five miles of my home I could find all the illegal drugs, and many of the prescription ones that would harm me - I guess that means I am not really important enough to protect - or that they think most people have better sense than to abuse drugs and intoxicating products. Duh, so what are the laws for? Stupid people of course - which has little to do with IQ, just with being stupid. I told you I didn't need the government for much about anything.
ReplyDeleteEarl, it would not be so bad if this were a democracy, where government was We The People. Unfortunately, we're not a democracy anymore. Only those who get vetted by our ruling elites are allowed to be elected in the United States of Enron. Otherwise we would be saying hello to President Kucinich or President Paul in the fall -- but they weren't vetted by our rulers, so of course they weren't allowed to move on to the next stage of the electoral process.
ReplyDeleteWe believe we are free here in the United States of America because we are allowed to make a number of choices for ourselves. But strangely enough, the choices we are allowed to make are only those which enrich our ruling elite. If you want to do something that doesn't enrich our ruling elite -- like, say, start your own small business growing crops not sanctioned by our ruling elite -- you find that you have difficulty distributing them, you find that all the laws and regulations are stacked against you, and it is virtually impossible to make a living long-term doing so. And if you do something that directly threatens our ruling elite -- such as, say, honor the picket line outside a company and refuse to deliver goods or otherwise deal with that company -- suddenly the full force of the law comes down upon you and you are jailed for an "illegal sympathetic strike". Apparently freedom of association only applies to our ruling elite, not to us working people.
All of this is deliberate. Our corporate masters do not want competition for their rule. That is why, for example, if you accept venture capital here in the United States you must accept a member of the ruling elite as your CEO, unless you are a very odd exception that manages to become so "hot" before accepting venture capital that they can't force their CEO upon you. I once worked for a startup that accepted venture capital and... uhm... well. Our new CEO had last worked for a GARBAGE company. And we were a COMPUTER company that threatened the profits of our ruling elite's computer companies. Funny, that didn't work out too well. Our company's original owners made a big mistake accepting that venture capital, but they made a lot of money out of it, so that shows another way how our ruling elite makes sure that they stay on top -- they bribe people with better ideas to go away and bury those ideas. Funny, huh?
Anyhow, the only problem with government today is that we need democracy in America. We have a choice in the fall between more of the same, and someone who is at least a little different from the same old, same old. I don't have any delusions that we're going to get democracy back in America -- our very Constitution is hostile to the notion (it was deliberately set up to ensure that the elite who rule us don't have to deal with that nasty "democracy" stuff) -- but we can, perhaps, move the pendulum a few micrometers back towards the democracy side of the scale. Maybe. It's worth a try, anyhow.
-- Badtux the "Free" Penguin
terriers always win!
ReplyDeleteMe, I trust Mother Nature. She gave us marijuana, and its many purposes are all good. The Man says that I can't smoke it. I don't trust The Man.
ReplyDeleteThere have been studies done about the positive effects of marijuana use for psychiatric patients. I personally have bipolar disorder and can tell you that pot is not nearly as sedating as some of the prescription tranqs out there. Ativan will knock me for a loop and make me sleep for 20 hours straight. I can't get anything done with that stuff.
Weed, on the other hand, quells the worst of my symptoms if I am having a bad day, with none of the residual effects. It also does help me sleep, but it is a natural and refreshing sleep, not the kind of Neely O'Hara thing I get with pills.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Amen to that, Tux! As a male nurse in hospital, I get assigned to care for a lot of the patients who are withdrawing from alcohol, because I'm not afraid of their physical violence the way the female nurses are. I've dealt with dozens who hallucinate, fight, rip their IVs out, just go berserk from delerium tremens. And I can't count the number I've seen dying of cirrhosis from years of heavy usage of this legal substance.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather work with a heroin junkie who's withdrawing than an alky who's DTing. The junkies just whine for sympathy and want lots of sugar in their coffee. Sugar packet after sugar packet after sugar packet!
Cokeheads and speed freaks, they're another story. Amphetamines make people naaaasty. On the bright side, they're so aggro that they wind up self-discharging as soon as they're well enough to walk out the door, unless it's a locked psych facility or a prison. (I've worked in both those settings.) We have sedatives to deal with it in the former and there were cracker-ass Florida "corrections officers" in the latter...
OTOH, I have not had the first psychotic reaction from a pothead. Never seen anyone diagnosed with a fatal case of marijuana lung, either.
(There was a 35-year-old bloke on the ward recently, covered with tattoos, who had a weird kind of necrotising pneumonia that was eating holes in his lungs. On his medical history, he was labeled as a "marijuana abuser," as is anyone who admits to smoking weed. Attitudes toward pot here are very 1950s. The Aussie and Filipino nurses were joking one day about "bong water -- he must have gotten bong water in his lungs! Tee hee hee!" I wanted to say "If that's the case, then why am I still breathing?" But that's not a good way to stay in employment...)
Anyway, you're correct about more people dying from legal stuff than illegal. I feel guilty about all the Rezulin and other pharmaceuticals that I've handed out to patients over the years with a cheery spiel about how "this is a new thing to treat your condition and it works like this." Then I'd learn years later that they had to be withdrawn because they were carking the patients.
Those are what the guv should be protecting us from. But there's no money for the corpos in that, eh?