Legal Highs

mloc

skelliser wrote: »

your missing, when abused alcohol...

Same with any other intoxicant. It intoxicates. Take too much and we call it abuse. How do we define the cut off point?

Nodin

Asmodean wrote: »

i don't understand why anyone would even want to consider shoving these things in their bodies.

I've always thought that about women and penisez (penii? - langers...)....... but sure who am I to argue at the same time.....

Pye

skelliser wrote: »

So you dont want to participate in society!

I'll let you post the rest of my responses shall I?

skelliser

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

So please help me see the difference between one mood altering substance and the other.

Well the only difference is one has been around for thousands of years and the others are new.
Still doesnt negate the responsibility you have as an adult or a member of society.

How about like donar cards, we introduce responsibiltity cards: those who wish to take bath salts etc carry around these cards and when there off there faces and are about to do some crazy **** leave them be?bas long as they dont interfere with others

mloc

skelliser wrote: »

Well the only difference is one has been around for thousands of years and the others are new.
Still doesnt negate the responsibility you have as an adult or a member of society.

How about like donar cards, we introduce responsibiltity cards: those who wish to take bath salts etc carry around these cards and when there off there faces and are about to do some crazy **** leave them be?bas long as they dont interfere with others

But why don't we have these cards also for people who are drunk? You'd be handing out an awful lot of cards.

skelliser

mloc wrote: »

But why don't we have these cards also for people who are drunk? You'd be handing out an awful lot of cards.

and heroin addicts, etc.

Until no one takes responsibility for anything. Yet will call on A&E to fix them.

ScumLord

skelliser wrote: »

and heroin addicts, etc.

Until no one takes responsibility for anything. Yet will call on A&E to fix them.

That's what A&E is there for.

skelliser

ScumLord wrote: »

That's what A&E is there for.

But with my responsibility cards you have obsolved yourself of responsibility to society and shouldnt be admitted.

ScumLord

skelliser wrote: »

But with my responsibility cards you have obsolved yourself of responsibility to society and shouldnt be admitted.

Keep your damn card and point me towards the anaesthetist.

mloc

skelliser wrote: »

But with my responsibility cards you have obsolved yourself of responsibility to society and shouldnt be admitted.

You still pay tax on the alcohol/drug and also a health insurance premium. The government benefit from the sale of the material, and are compensated by insurance for the health cost.

I see your point, it's not ideal that the A+E wards are clogged by intoxicated individuals. However, the point is, at the moment, they are clogged generally speaking by drunks; whether too much alcohol, accidents when drunk or violence caused while drunk.

Alcohol is the only truly damaging drug to the vast majority of our society. It transcends the social barriers of heroin, the price of cocaine and the rarity of any other drug to cause more damage, to more people, at a greater cost than any other intoxicant out there.

If we were taking a logical point of view (which is impossible due to the ignorance of the Irish public in relation to drug harm) we would ban alcohol and tobacco, legalise cannabis and MDMA. Not going to happen though.

skelliser

so what if people pay a personal tax rate in a scale in accordance with how dangerous certain drugs are. Alcohol since it causes the most damage to society in general being the benchmark.
How much tax on bath salts or other unknowns tho, the long term effects of alcohol are will documented, mhepadrone(sp) on the other hand having unknown long term effects.
therefore imo an unknown should have the highest tax rate.

skelliser

anyways i gotta go and tune into the cranks on joe duffy!

mloc

skelliser wrote: »

so what if people pay a personal tax rate in a scale in accordance with how dangerous certain drugs are. Alcohol since it causes the most damage being the benchmark.
How much tax on bath salts or other unknowns tho, the long term effects of alcohol are will documented, mhepadrone(sp) on the other hand having unknown long term effects.
imo an unknown should have the highest tax rate.

That could work, though it would likely feed a black market.

The facts of the matter are:

1) You can't get rid of all drugs; they will exist, legally or illegally
2) It follows that as such, safer drugs should be legalised (or at least decriminalised) to allow for less adulteration, greater monitoring and taxation
3) It must be done in a way that minimalises black marketeering and remains open and transparent
4) More dangerous drugs (heroin, cocaine) should be targetted in way that reduces social harm, not victimises users more than they already are

I agree about unknowns, don't get me wrong. All substances should be clearly labelled with their true ingredients, and mephadrone (as an example) certainly seems to be showing greater toxicity than similar, illegal drugs.

I also agree that we know a lot about alcohol's long term effects. As such, we know that it's the most damaging drug in our society.

DelBoycie

This banning could go on forever. Do they not realise that once mephedrone and the like are banned,the chemists will synthesize a new compound or tweak chemicals that are already there and thus,we'll have a new legal drug?

It will go on and on and on.

The government make so much f***ing money off money off alcohol and tobacco tax that it beggars belief. They hike the price of cigarettes up so people won't be able to afford them and will be forced to stop,when in reality,nothing changes and it just makes people more broke,all the while filling their fat pockets with our money. That's terrible you might say,and the worst thing is smoking actually kills thousands every year,would you believe? They are doing US the favour of charging us MORE for death sticks. They are great all the same.

One person dies after a cocktail of drugs who happened to have consumed mushrooms and the go and ban them asap.

News flash;mushrooms have been around for thousands of years. They are NOT TOXIC in recreational doses. You have to eat a few pounds of them in one sitting for them to do damage. They have been used in spiritual ceremonies for centuries and even longer.

Alcohol on the other hand is man made. It IS TOXIC. Kills thousands every year,directly through liver damage and kidney failure or indirectly through accidents and general violence induced by it.

I'm ranting and raving but it's such a shame,the situation of things.

It's all topsy turvy.

Prof.Badass

skelliser wrote: »

yes but as an adult you also have responsibility to your fellow man.

I don't see how harming your own body has anything to do with your fellow man.

You do have a responsibility to your fellow man to let him live his own life according to his priorities. To not be interfering and forcing your beliefs upon him.

skelliser wrote: »

hang on now, your putting words in my mouth, when alcohol is abused, like any drug, it is toxic to the human body, in small doses its fine.

You realise that a "small dose" is far below any decent recreational dose, right?

What is a lot more likely is that alcohol causes damage at virtually any dose, but detecting such damage is more difficult at lower doses. So they create a "binge-drinking" category for doses that have been proven to cause damage and claim those below the binge drinking threshold to be "safe". You hardly think your brain is completely fine at 5.9 units but then suddenly decides at 6, "hey, we're at 6 units now, time to get damaged".

On the other hand bath salts are an unknown entity.

I agree re: fags and a start is being made, Cigarrettes are banned in public places. Plus they make my look cool.

A start is not being made. Banning cigarettes/applying even greater sin taxes is not the way forward. Nicotine replacement products are. At the moment the near harmless nicotine replacement products are only available to people who wish to give up nicotine and you can only buy them in pharmacies, whereas cigarettes are available to everyone over 18 from their local shop. This makes no rational sense whatsoever.

If you allowed people to buy nicotine replacement products from cornershops at competitive prices you'd be doing a serious amount of good for public health. Granted not everyone would switch over straight away, but any smoker who's concerned about their health would. This would be the first step towards a rational drugs policy.

The only argrument you have made and the jest of the defense of head shops is "because the A&E'S are full of drunkards, who have abused alcohol, at the weekend i therefore should be allowed to snort bath salts and anything else i see fit and the rest of society be damned"
In other words "if others can do this i should be allowed do want i want"

Well government laws should be consistant. They should not discriminate against one group of people on an arbitrary basis.

skelliser wrote: »

Well the only difference is one has been around for thousands of years and the others are new.

And after those thousands of years we know a lot about it's incredible toxicity (as recreational drugs go), to both the body and the brain. Working memory and short-term memory are particularly badly affected.

If your argument against these research chemicals is one of safety, then surely you'd be all for the legalisation of a safer alternative to alcohol (of which there are many)?

You see, anti-prohibion campaigners don't throw around the word rationality for no reason, the war on drugs is based purely on moral panic, not on empirical evidence or even basic logic. If it was a) A safe GABA agonist would be on sale as a safer alternative to alcohol, and b) nicotine replacement products would be on sale as safer alternatives to tobacco.

The potential to improve public health from these measures (and others) would be enormous, but it would involve people casting aside the irrational moral-panic based beliefs they have about drugs (i.e All drugs are bad but alcohol, tobacco and caffeine don't count for various convenient reasons).

skelliser

vinylmesh wrote: »

I don't see how harming your own body has anything to do with your fellow man.

You do have a responsibility to your fellow man to let him live his own life according to his priorities. To not be interfering and forcing your beliefs upon him.

When harming yourself costs the rest of us time, money and emotional stress to friends and family, yes you are affecting your fellow man.
Still basing your argrument on what the affects of alcohol does to society and tax payers in general is not gonna win you hearts and minds.

Why not solicit some scientist to study and do trials on bath salts or whatever? or better yet get elected, organise and get a mandate for what you want

sbsquarepants

skelliser wrote: »

But this is the real world!

Now, bath salts on the other hand are not fit for human consumption, its clearly marked on the package ffs!

QUOTE]

I'm almost certain it says on the pack that bad things will happen if you smoke ciggarettes!

Very bad things i think:D

skelliser

yes we know the risks associated with ciggerettes. at least they are well documented and studied.

Bath salts and mhepadrone are unknowns

Pace2008

skelliser wrote: »

Why not solicit some scientist to study and do trials on bath salts or whatever? or better yet get elected, organise and get a mandate for what you want

For the sake of credibility would you please stop referring to designer drugs as 'bath salts?' It's been established several times in this thread that they're labelled as such to bypass food and drug regulations on items sold for human consumption.

It's also worth pointing out that concerning oneself with drug issues is political suicide, unless it involves bowing to populist tabloid agenda and campaigning for blanket bans on obscure psychoactives.

dasdog

Anyone taking mephedrone; if there are LSD/E like affects with it would you stop being selfish b*stards having fun clubbing and please try to write some good music for the rest of us while under the influence?

Re healthcare...can we also ban greasy food as approx 35% of the country are classified as obese causing great harm to their friends and family? Also can we stop cars doing more than 20kph to lower the 250 - 300 count of people killed yearly (at a cost of €1m per person I heard somewhere).

I can't believe the neck of RTE showing that documentary propogana last night.

Mike 1972

Asmodean wrote: »

Yeah it's fairly insulting to the country to be able to get away with selling this stuff by offering up an almost childlike excuse.

If they are selling these products legally why do they need to offer up an excuse at all ?

Pace2008 wrote: »

For the sake of credibility would you please stop referring to designer drugs as 'bath salts?' It's been established several times in this thread that they're labelled as such to bypass food and drug regulations on items sold for human consumption.

Has anyone here actually tried using them for the purpose for which they were labelled and if so did you find them any good

skelliser wrote: »

Why not solicit some scientist to study and do trials on bath salts or whatever? or better yet get elected, organise and get a mandate for what you want

Well at the moment the products are apperently legal and as it seems to be your good self who advocates changing the law in this regard perhaps the onus is on you to get elected, organise and get a mandate for what you want

g5fd6ow0hseima

There's two people outside Roscommon headshop with a camera at the moment. I really felt like acting upon it.... but its like a blackman challenging an Alabama lynch mob...

Mike 1972

Go into shop and suggest to proprieter pulling moonie at photographer (or offer to do so on their behalf)

Big Nasty

poppy33 wrote: »

how to you see answers

Go back where you came from poppy:rolleyes:

Sea Sharp

poppy33, are you currently tripping on snow or somthin??

Elevator

skelliser wrote: »

So you want to add to that bill by allowing people to snort bath salts?!

alcohol is for human consumption, yes it leads to injury, death treatment etc. when abused in high doses. And no, I dont think i should have to pay for people who cant handle there drink either. But this is the real world!

Now, bath salts on the other hand are not fit for human consumption, its clearly marked on the package ffs!

And that A&E Doctor feared for that one persons future mental health, how much will that cost to treat over the curse of that persons life?

the curse of that persons life hahaha, sorry but in fairness, if we were to ban things from one or two instances we would be where we are today ffs!!!!

Black Swan

Athletes in strenuous competitive sports sometimes have naturally occurring dopamine highs after extraordinary workouts or competitions without the use of recreational drugs. Dopamine release also is said to be naturally released after yet another fun sport, which we will call bedroom gymnastics .

jay93

ther going to try ban this :mad::mad: how about banning the fast food chains that cost more peoples lives oh yes food a ting that everyone think is grand and ok when it has the world fat 2day with serious health problems anyting said bout that no cos that government are a bunch of corrupt ***** :mad::mad::mad: i hope there happy sad sad people i must say

jay93

yes it does say it but in all fairness these were marked with this to bypass the USA food and drug admin i know what your saying how can the USA have any say in irish products !! well believe me they do have their nose in everyting in fact in places it shouldnt be ...alcohol well where do i start with it look what it does sends people loopy causes public fear damage to public property total waste of emergency services time car accidents family problems and its a poison and should be marked not for human consumption ffs wake up from the **** that the media has printed in your heads and start to tink please since not alot of people do these days

zimmii

Woops.. only rediscovered boards.ie so only getting back to this now! Sorry

ScumLord wrote: »

Why did you go to A&E? Unless your spurting blood and in immediate threat of dyeing their not going to be all that interested in you. A local GP would be much better able to help, they'd look into all possible causes and keep much better track of your health.

The fact you have continuing symptoms is worrying, there could be any number of different things causing that, other avenues that doctors in A&E wouldn't have the time or inclination to follow. It could be completely stress related so I'd always go to a GP first.

The days after it happened I completely lost my appetite and even attempting eating made me gag, and on top of that I just got stupidly weak. Woke up one morning and I seriously couldn't move, the room was spinning and constantly felt on the verge of fainting and like my entire body was 'struggling'.. I tried holding off for as long as possible but gave in a few hours later and went to A&E because I was genuinely absolutely terrified for my life... I blame being over-hypocontriatic :B Just a mix of paranoia and prefering to be safe rather than sorry. On top of this I have hypothyroidism so I just wanted to double-check that nothing bad actually happened.

DepecheHead101 wrote: »

Whatever about the persisting head rushes, possibly being stress related, I would imagine if you 'heard' blood squirting INSIDE your head it was probably all part of your head being in a world of it's own, and the thought sent your heart into a state of shock, which isn't rare, just your typical stoned panic attack.

Blood always squirts inside you. Everywhere. You don't usually 'hear' it.

I am aware of this thing we call circulation :P j/k. I thought it was stress-related too but nothing like that happened up until that night so I'm assuming it's because of the Pulse.
Your first paragraph does make sense though and I know a few other people that the exact same thing happened to. Will keep that in mind-- thanks!

genericguy

jay93 wrote: »

yes it does say it but in all fairness these were marked with this to bypass the USA food and drug admin i know what your saying how can the USA have any say in irish products !! well believe me they do have their nose in everyting in fact in places it shouldnt be ...alcohol well where do i start with it look what it does sends people loopy causes public fear damage to public property total waste of emergency services time car accidents family problems and its a poison and should be marked not for human consumption ffs wake up from the **** that the media has printed in your heads and start to tink please since not alot of people do these days

well, thanks for clearing that up for me, anyway.

Asmodean

ther going to try ban this how about banning the fast food chains that cost more peoples lives oh yes food a ting that everyone think is grand and ok when it has the world fat 2day with serious health problems anyting said bout that no cos that government are a bunch of corrupt ***** i hope there happy sad sad people i must say

I can see legal highs certainly aren't helping people in the old punctuation department anyway!

TheGod

Can anyone tell me how the government can blanket ban these things?


I mean they can just change the chemical structure and its a completely new drug. They can't just close the headshops either as they are selling legal products.

Also I don't think this will be as easy for the government as it was when they banned magic mushrooms as the Headshops are turning huge profits and setting up a lobby groups. I reckon if the government tried to do anything draconian they would be facing a seriously well financed legal team.

Theres so much money involved with headshops and so many of them now that I don't think they will take this lying down. I'd actually be very interested to see how much money the government is making from them through tax etc.
Also theres so many headshops these days that closing them would mean hundreds of jobs lost, that can't be good for our economy right now.


I don't think the Minister will take into account the jobs that will be lost or the taxes lost though, hes only interested in saving his own skin right now so he will most certainly move to close these shops.

Asmodean

Can anyone tell me how the government can blanket ban these things?

I doubt they actually can, that's why the headshops are pretty safe for the forseeable future as I see it. Make more sense to ban the actual shops than going after the substances.

Bonito

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Athletes in strenuous competitive sports sometimes have naturally occurring dopamine highs after extraordinary workouts or competitions without the use of recreational drugs. Dopamine release also is said to be naturally released after yet another fun sport, which we will call bedroom gymnastics .

Seriously??? Proof please Not that I doubt your credibility

sbsquarepants

TheGod wrote: »

I don't think the Minister will take into account the jobs that will be lost or the taxes lost though, hes only interested in saving his own skin right now so he will most certainly move to close these shops.

That's the problem with our knee jerk politicians, all they see is "here's a vote winner or here's a vote looser" They are only interested in saving their own asses and lining their own pockets. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story seems to be the motto of not just our useless government but also their so called opposition. Shower of wasters the lot of them

DelBoycie

Bonito wrote: »

Seriously??? Proof please Not that I doubt your credibility

Running and eating spicy foods are going to be banned soon.

Endorphins are endogenous opioid polypeptide compounds. They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during strenuous exercise,[1] excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food and orgasm,[2][3] and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being. Endorphins work as "natural pain relievers."

The term "endorphin" implies a pharmacological activity (analogous to the activity of the corticosteroid category of biochemicals) as opposed to a specific chemical formulation. It consists of two parts: endo- and -orphin; these are short forms of the words endogenous and morphine, intended to mean "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body."[4]
The term endorphin rush has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress,[1] supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins are released which prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow humans to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin

AKA pat sheen

Asmodean wrote: »

I doubt they actually can, that's why the headshops are pretty safe for the forseeable future as I see it. Make more sense to ban the actual shops than going after the substances.

No, they can't ban the shops. They will target the substances.

Another head shop owner in the north has been shot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8484502.stm

Solvo Slep

I think people should be banned, seeing as they're the ones taking drugs in the first place.

genericguy

AKA pat sheen wrote: »

No, they can't ban the shops. They will target the substances.

Another head shop owner in the north has been shot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8484502.stm

i'd just like to extend a big fcuk you to the members of the republican movement who think they are in any way shape or form relevant to or wanted in the country. i hope they and their families all die horrible, horrible deaths.

Cookie_Monster

Bonito wrote: »

Seriously??? Proof please Not that I doubt your credibility

have some sex, see how you feel

Asmodean

They will target the substances

Which will do sweet F all to be honest. These substances can be altered drastically by merely adding very simple chemical groups onto the main compounds. It's done all the time with regular pharmaceuticals.

TheGod

Asmodean wrote: »

Which will do sweet F all to be honest. These substances can be altered drastically by merely adding very simple chemical groups onto the main compounds. It's done all the time with regular pharmaceuticals.

Which begs the question,

If the government are genuinely concerned about the user's health then why not regulate what is already being sold rather than banning it and having the headshops produce a newer, even more untested, product evey few months?

AKA pat sheen

genericguy wrote: »

i'd just like to extend a big fcuk you to the members of the republican movement who think they are in any way shape or form relevant to or wanted in the country. i hope they and their families all die horrible, horrible deaths.

The general consensus is dissidents are more criminal organisations than anything else. They supply weaponry to drug gangs in exchange for both money and drugs and they extort money from drug dealers. They've also bought guns from drug gangs. It's claimed that dissidents have worked directly with drug gangs on operations and jailed drug gang members being co-opted into the republican wing in prisons.

Vertigo100

It won't be a blanket ban on the substances but I'd imagine they will do something like the analogue law in the states which covers all the derivates of the cathinones and such. The also have a law to bam anything that mimics the effects of an already illegal substance.

AKA pat sheen

Asmodean wrote: »

Which will do sweet F all to be honest. These substances can be altered drastically by merely adding very simple chemical groups onto the main compounds. It's done all the time with regular pharmaceuticals.

That's not entirely true, the wrong tweak can render it inactive for example. Apparently the UK experts who are looking at this are proposing broad catch-all clauses and fast track emergency scheduling to mop up anything that might escape the clauses as and when they are detected by forensic analysis. Just heard joe duffy on about this again. To quote his exact words "they think they're outwitting the law, though whether they are or not....." I wonder has he heard something?

AKA pat sheen

Vertigo100 wrote: »

It won't be a blanket ban on the substances but I'd imagine they will do something like the analogue law in the states which covers all the derivates of the cathinones and such. The also have a law to bam anything that mimics the effects of an already illegal substance.

I don't think so because US law is very specific, it's like a huge list of specific compounds and then the analogue act catches the variations of those. Irish law already uses classes of coumpounds based around a molecular skeleton and it would be very messy to combine those two.

TheGod

I believe Dr.Shulgin (the man who invented MDMA or more commonely known as ecstasy) created tens of thousands of drugs whose chemical structures will be released upon his death. I reckon when this happens the government is going to be in a bit of bother!

AKA pat sheen

TheGod wrote: »

I believe Dr.Shulgin (the man who invented MDMA or more commonely known as ecstasy) created tens of thousands of drugs whose chemical structures will be released upon his death. I reckon when this happens the government is going to be in a bit of bother!

Sasha is an industrious man but are you sure he has personally created tens of thousands of compounds? I think you mean "The Psychedelic Index" book which is a compilation of about 2000 interesting structures. Where did you hear that it would be published on his death?

mardybumbum

TheGod wrote: »

I believe Dr.Shulgin (the man who invented MDMA or more commonely known as ecstasy) created tens of thousands of drugs whose chemical structures will be released upon his death. I reckon when this happens the government is going to be in a bit of bother!

I may be wrong, but Im pretty sure shulgin didnt invent MDMA.