Major incident as concert-goers fall ill at Odyssey Arena in Belfast

Happyman42

dirtyden wrote: »

They wont go away now unfortunately if its legalised (illegal pills and gangs), they will just reduce their margins and sell probably dodgier products. .

But the critical thing is the choice is there. We all have differing stringencies in personal choice, you will never be able to legislate for that.

tomwaterford

catallus wrote: »

If you believe that you'll believe anything.

The black-market will be reduced if the market is legalised. That is a coherent and correct statement. But it doesn't make it right.

correct = right I taught????

Pwindedd

I'm quite close to an occasional user of recreational drugs, ecstasy or MDMA being the favourite tipple, who didn't get into them until their 30s. We are both from the age of just say no to drugs and had it drummed into us that all drugs would kill us like Zammo (was that his name?) from Grange Hill. Truth is drugs make you feel good and can heighten most pleasurable experiences to another level. There are some people who can have an amazing time sober/clean and all power to them. Lots of people like to take a little holiday from their inhibitions though. Regulation and legalisation would make these little trips a lot safer I believe. Pills would just have the good stuff in and none of the crap masquerading as the real thing. How is this not a good thing. People wanting to have a good time are not scum IMO. They just like what drugs can do for them and would be more than willing to pay more for safe, known and controllable substances. My dad has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, inevitably caused by his years of smoking tobacco, a legal substance. Yet it's not the nicotine (the drug) that's caused it but another ingredient of cigarettes. Don't know really what my actual point is except if people are gonna throw shiit into themselves, let's make it good shiit.

dirtyden

Happyman42 wrote: »

But the critical thing is the choice is there. We all have differing stringencies in personal choice, you will never be able to legislate for that.

Agreed you can get something of proven quality which cant be bad, but it wont take the dodgy criminal market away.

catallus

tomwaterford wrote: »

correct = right I taught????

The sentence makes rational sense.

If a black-market commodity is legalised then it is no longer black-market. It is legalised. Capiche?

Defiler Of The Coffin

catallus wrote: »

How exactly is it making "the risk of stuff being dodgy" any greater?

Gang crime and intimidation are facts of life in the laissez-faire system under which we live.

Counterfeit drugs will always be with us; even in the heavily regulated and legal drug sector fakes are rife. Fake alcohol is easily available at knockdown prices.

That's not a good argument for prohibition, most people are happy to pay more for a legitimate product. It's not like 'real' alcohol is very expensive anyway.

Drexel

catallus wrote: »

The sentence makes rational sense.

If a black-market commodity is legalised then it is no longer black-market. It is legalised. Capiche?

At least something is making sense

catallus

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

That's not a good argument for prohibition, most people are happy to pay more for a legitimate product. It's not like 'real' alcohol is very expensive anyway.

I'm not using it as an argument for prohibition; the reason drugs are illegal is that they mess up peoples lives. And alcohol is vastly over-priced in this country.

Lingua Franca

This idiot posted this on his wide open facebook page: http://imgur.com/V3KCvCq

It's down now and he's insisting that this was his own personal stash, but before he removed it there was a comment underneath saying "loads of people are going to die tonight" and he responded "loads of people are going to be flying tonight" or words to that effect.

Lingua Franca

Xxxx XxXxxx
00:08 (38 minutes ago)
Dno why yas are all sharing my pic because they are my own drugs which i was taking

Dno why peoples sharing my pic if theyre my drugs which i was taking not selling
00:13 (33 minutes ago)


Riiiiiight.

Happyman42

dirtyden wrote: »

Agreed you can get something of proven quality which cant be bad, but it wont take the dodgy criminal market away.

You can get properly regulated alcohol, cigs, heating oil, perfumes, etc etc, and you can get dodgy verisions of all the above.
It is accepted that people will use all the above, seems to me that we need to accept that people are always going to use drugs (particularly young people) What we should be doing is making that as safe as we possibly can by providing a choice. As a young fella and a broke student I never drank a drop of dodgy alcohol even though it was available. I did have to engage with dodgy people to buy drugs I had no idea what was in.

Femme_Fatale

catallus wrote: »

the reason drugs are illegal is that they mess up peoples lives.

If they (the drugs) are abused. Just as alcohol and prescription drugs mess up people's lives if those substances are abused.

catallus

So the prevailing argument in BoardsLegailiseAllDrugsNow thread no 1048 is that "I want a guaranteed high of pure drugs". Nice.

dundalkfc10

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

That's not a good argument for prohibition, most people are happy to pay more for a legitimate product. It's not like 'real' alcohol is very expensive anyway.

4 euro a pint is not dear?

dees99

There was a program on one of the English channels a couple of weeks ago on a drug centre for substance abuse in NI. On it they showed where a legal High called China White was being mixed with Tesco own brand diarahoea tablets and then sold on as a street drug. So who knows what they took!!

Pwindedd

catallus wrote: »

So the prevailing argument in BoardsLegailiseAllDrugsNow thread no 1048 is that "I want a guaranteed safe high of pure drugs". Nice.

And that is basically it with one small addendum. What's your point. What do you like to take ? Every ones got one.

Femme_Fatale

catallus wrote: »

So the prevailing argument in BoardsLegailiseAllDrugsNow thread no 1048 is that "I want a guaranteed high of pure drugs". Nice.

Stop making sh1t up and being deliberately provocative/disingenuous. There's a term for that. Poor attempt by you.

You know perfectly well people are looking at it from the safety angle, and it's silly of you to pretend everyone who feels decriminalisation/legalisation would be best is therefore also a big druggie.

WilyCoyote

Could we not have a breakdown Republicans:Unionists. After all, this is Belfast

nxbyveromdwjpg

catallus wrote: »

Fake alcohol is easily available at knockdown prices.

Huh? Where, explain

Happyman42

Interesting.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman-drug-laws

Philip Seymour Hoffman: 'The troubling
message behind his death, which we all feel without articulating, is that it was
unnecessary and we know something could be done.' Photograph: Jamie
Simonds/Bafta/Rex


Philip Seymour Hoffman's death was not on the bill.

If it'd been the sacrifice of Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber, that we are
invited to anticipate daily, we could delight in the Faustian justice of the
righteous dispatch of a fast-living, sequin-spattered denizen of eMpTyV.
We are tacitly instructed to await their demise with necrophilic sanctimony.
When the end comes, they screech on Fox and TMZ, it will be deserved. The Mail
provokes indignation, luridly baiting us with the sidebar that scrolls from the
headline down to hell.

But Philip Seymour Hoffman? A middle-aged man, a credible and decorated
actor, the industrious and unglamorous artisan of Broadway and serious cinema?
The disease of addiction recognises none of these distinctions. Whilst routinely
described as tragic, Hoffman's death is insufficiently sad to be left
un-supplemented in the mandatory posthumous scramble for salacious garnish; we
will now be subjected to mourn-ography posing as analysis. I can assure you that
there is no as yet undiscovered riddle in his domestic life or sex life, the man
was a drug addict and his death inevitable.

A troubling component of this sad loss is the complete absence of hedonism.
Like a lot of drug addicts, probably most, who "go over", Hoffman was alone when
he died. This is an inescapably bleak circumstance. When we reflect on Bieber's
Louis Vuitton embossed, Lamborghini cortege it is easy to equate addiction with
indulgence and immorality. The great actor dying alone denies us this required
narrative prang.

The reason I am so non-judgmental of Hoffman or Bieber and so condemnatory of
the pop cultural tinsel that adorns the reporting around them is that I am a
drug addict in recovery, so like any drug addict I know exactly how Hoffman felt
when he "went back out". In spite of his life seeming superficially great, in
spite of all the praise and accolades, in spite of all the loving friends and
family, there is a predominant voice in the mind of an addict that supersedes
all reason and that voice wants you dead. This voice is the unrelenting echo of
an unfulfillable void.

Addiction is a mental illness around which there is a great deal of
confusion, which is hugely exacerbated by the laws that criminalise drug
addicts.

If drugs are illegal people who use drugs are criminals. We have set our
moral compass on this erroneous premise, and we have strayed so far off course
that the landscape we now inhabit provides us with no solutions and greatly
increases the problem.

This is an important moment in history; we know that prohibition does not
work. We know that the people who devise drug laws are out of touch and have no
idea how to reach a solution. Do they even have the inclination? The fact is
their methods are so gallingly ineffective that it is difficult not to deduce
that they are deliberately creating the worst imaginable circumstances to
maximise the harm caused by substance misuse.

People are going to use drugs; no self-respecting drug addict is even
remotely deterred by prohibition. What prohibition achieves is an unregulated,
criminal-controlled, sprawling, global mob-economy, where drug users, their
families and society at large are all exposed to the worst conceivable version
of this regrettably unavoidable problem.

Countries like Portugal and Switzerland that have introduced progressive and
tolerant drug laws have seen crime plummet and drug-related deaths significantly
reduced. We know this. We know this system doesn't work – and yet we prop it up
with ignorance and indifference. Why? Wisdom is acting on knowledge. Now we are
aware that our drug laws aren't working and that alternatives are yielding
positive results, why are we not acting? Tradition? Prejudice? Extreme
stupidity? The answer is all three. Change is hard, apathy is easy, tradition is
the narcotic of our rulers. The people who are most severely affected by drug
prohibition are dispensable, politically irrelevant people. Poor people.
Addiction affects all of us but the poorest pay the biggest price.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's death is a reminder, though, that addiction is
indiscriminate. That it is sad, irrational and hard to understand. What it also
clearly demonstrates is that we are a culture that does not know how to treat
its addicts. Would Hoffman have died if this disease were not so enmeshed in
stigma? If we weren't invited to believe that people who suffer from addiction
deserve to suffer? Would he have OD'd if drugs were regulated, controlled and
professionally administered? Most importantly, if we insisted as a society that
what is required for people who suffer from this condition is an environment of
support, tolerance and understanding.

The troubling message behind Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, which we all
feel without articulating, is that it was unnecessary and we know that something
could be done. We also know what that something is and yet, for some
traditional, prejudicial, stupid reason we don't do it.

orangesoda

WilyCoyote wrote: »

Could we not have a breakdown Republicans:Unionists. After all, this is Belfast

Aparently alot of young people travelled up from the pale to it

catallus

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

If they (the drugs) are abused. Just as alcohol and prescription drugs mess up people's lives if those substances are abused.

One does not "use" mdma, cocaine, heroin; any doctor will tell you that these things are bad bad bad for your system and have no good effect on your body, notwithstanding what nihilistic daredevils tell you.

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Stop making sh1t up and being deliberately provocative/disingenuous. There's a term for that. Poor attempt by you.

You know perfectly well people are looking at it from the safety angle, and it's silly of you to pretend everyone who feels decriminalisation/legalisation would be best is therefore also a big druggie.

Safety angle my hole! The thread posts explicitly use the argument of having pure drugs legally available as being a valid option.

I didn't say those who desire legalisation to be druggies. I was criticising those who say they don't use the stuff wanting it legalised. They are vainglorious hypocrites at best, craven cowards who capitulate to the notoriety of the drug-dealing classes at worst.

The Diabolical Monocle

Rightly or wrongly, good or bad, taboo or acceptable, the product altering your mind is bought from some anonymous criminal.

Not worth the gamble.

maguic24

catallus wrote: »

Fake alcohol is easily available at knockdown prices.

G'way outta that Ted, this is Ireland. Also, what is 'fake' alcohol?

wazky

maguic24 wrote: »

G'way outta that Ted, this is Ireland. Also, what is 'fake' alcohol?

Cidona, tastes like Bulmers but without the whole alcohol thing.

maguic24

wazky wrote: »

Cidona, tastes like Bulmers but without the whole alcohol thing.

Lethal shtuff altogether.

wazky

maguic24 wrote: »

Lethal shtuff altogether.

Mix in a bit of sherbet powder and your buzzin', lad.

dxhound2005

maguic24 wrote: »

G'way outta that Ted, this is Ireland. Also, what is 'fake' alcohol?

Fake vodka in the UK. Also found in Ireland. Lethal stuff, Ted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25455992

Reiketsu

Lingua Franca wrote: »

This idiot posted this on his wide open facebook page: http://imgur.com/V3KCvCq

It's down now and he's insisting that this was his own personal stash, but before he removed it there was a comment underneath saying "loads of people are going to die tonight" and he responded "loads of people are going to be flying tonight" or words to that effect.

I saw the original post and he said in the comments that he was going to be buzzing tonight and other people will be buzzing too. Who the hell needs what I assume to be 5g of meph and about 20 pills for one person?

maguic24

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Fake vodka in the UK. Also found in Ireland. Lethal stuff, Ted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25455992

maguic24

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Fake vodka in the UK. Also found in Ireland. Lethal stuff, Ted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25455992

Why buy from dodgy corner shops when you can get cheap Tesco Value Vodka a.k.a paint stripper?

SamAK

This sort of crap really gets on my nerves - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-fall-ill.html

A rave!? A bleeding rave? These bloody journalists wouldn't know a real rave if it came up and slapped them in the face. Neither would these kiddies.

It p1sses me off, and like we saw with that shambles of a Swedish House Mafia gig in Dublin, the media jumps on dance and club music in general and has a right old rant at it.

These little sh1ts do not represent and do nothing for the reputation of the thriving worldwide club and underground music scene. This was a commercial dance-pop 'EDM' event and not representative of real club culture. So get off yer high horses, lazy journalists!

Corholio

cometogether wrote: »

Drugs like "that"? Ones that the state decides aren't allowed? If I make myself ill from alcohol am I not an idiot because its legal?

If you make yourself ill? Course you are, I am and anybody else when we do it. How would making yourself ill not be a bit idiotic? You outlined the difference though -They are illegal, whether you like it or not. Of course the people who sell them are scum, but the people who willingly take them cannot surely escape from being quite idiotic for doing so.

catallus

The BBC are taking the line that it was excess alcohol, (quoting police)

My name is URL

catallus wrote: »

The BBC are taking the line that it was excess alcohol, (quoting police)

If alcohol was legal this would never happen :P

nm

nm wrote: »

Huh? Where, explain

You've not been around the border lately then? :pac:

maguic24

catallus wrote: »

The BBC are taking the line that it was excess alcohol, (quoting police)

Irish Independent are saying 'drink and drug' effects, seems odd that 60 people would be hospitalised for drink related illnesses in one night, especially 60 people going to the same destination. :-/

maguic24

maguic24 wrote: »

Irish Independent are saying 'drink and drug' effects, seems odd that 60 people would be hospitalised for drink related illnesses in one night, especially 60 people going to the same destination. :-/

It was 7.

catallus

15 people taken to two separate hospitals apparently. Approximately 40 others treated by paramedics not requiring hospitalisation.

maguic24

Deleted User wrote: »

It was 7.

The fudge is the Irish Independent talking about then?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/major-incident-as-people-being-treated-for-drink-and-drug-effects-after-rave-29987204.html

catallus

catallus wrote: »

15 people taken to two separate hospitals apparently. Approximately 40 others treated by paramedics not requiring hospitalisation.

Odd one. Then again it doesn't take much to "require" medical attention, being passed out drunk can do that.

maguic24

maguic24 wrote: »

The fudge is the Irish Independent talking about then?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/major-incident-as-people-being-treated-for-drink-and-drug-effects-after-rave-29987204.html

60 people "needed treatment", if you go to the first aid tent at a big metal gig you'll see a lot more than that passing through. :P
Even in that link you posted it says 6 people have actually gone to hospital.
Later it quotes that 2 people "presented in an unconscious state but they were revised (sic) by paramedics".

So yeah, all up in the air really.

catallus

The main treatment for excess alcohol or pills, in an emergency, is a stomach pump; although I know of more than one case where such a procedure was used as a cover for late c&d.

My name is URL

maguic24 wrote: »

Irish Independent are saying 'drink and drug' effects, seems odd that 60 people would be hospitalised for drink related illnesses in one night, especially 60 people going to the same destination. :-/

60 were not hospitalised, 15 were. And that's out of a total of over 10,000 people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26077478

Not so odd when you consider that

maguic24

Ah that's it lads, time to make alcohol illegal. This legalising bullsh*t clearly isn't working. Time to call it a day.

catallus

catallus wrote: »

The main treatment for excess alcohol or pills, in an emergency, is a stomach pump; although I know of more than one case where such a procedure was used as a cover for late c&d.

C&D?

In my experience the main treatment for excess alcohol is letting them sleep it off, stomach pump often needless. If it's been a while since pills were consumed then a stomach pump isn't an awful lot of use, it's all in the bloodstream at that stage.

maguic24

Deleted User wrote: »

60 people "needed treatment", if you go to the first aid tent at a big metal gig you'll see a lot more than that passing through. :P
Even in that link you posted it says 6 people have actually gone to hospital.
Later it quotes that 2 people "presented in an unconscious state but they were revised (sic) by paramedics".

So yeah, all up in the air really.

I'd need a sh*t load of alcohol/drugs to be at a metal gig in the first place!:P

catallus

But a doctor would have to cover themselves I suppose if such a time hasn't elapsed?

My name is URL

My name is URL wrote: »

60 were not hospitalised, 15 were. And that's out of a total of over 10,000 people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26077478

Not so odd when you consider that

Still a bit odd, I've been at rough-as-**** gigs with more people than that (a lot more in some cases) without it making the news.
Was tonight some kind of holiday or something up North? Day off school tomorrow or something?

maguic24

maguic24 wrote: »

I'd need a sh*t load of alcohol/drugs to be at a metal gig in the first place!:P

Nah just some decent earplugs.

catallus wrote: »

But a doctor would have to cover themselves I suppose if such a time hasn't elapsed?

Depends, if they've been observed for a while then it's needless. I know one person who had their stomach pumped, few others who got sick several times before getting to hospital and were just left to sleep it off for a few hours.