When did coke become socially acceptable?

There seems to be some push back against how legalization went in California.

I’m sure if it were legal there would be regulations etc. that some people may find prohibitive and would prefer to stay outside the law, and definitely totally organic with nothing dodgy going on.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-22/california-legal-pot-measure-has-not-met-expectations

I wasn't really talking about weed when I said that as weed isn't really addictive and there is little to no stigma around its use anymore. The amount of it you'd smell around towns and cities these days, it's like it's de facto legal for personal use.

I was thinking more of your class A drugs. They're highly addictive and carry significant risks regarding overdose. They carry significant stigma around their use, and people may therefore wish to hide their habit or simply not be nagged about quitting. These things may not matter if the dispensaries were to hand out a good product at a competitive price with few questions asked, but that would probably never happen. The legality of such places would be a huge political football.

It never did. Cocaine is powdered arsehole and you always know when someone is on it. They usually turn into someone you don't want to be around.

I have a damaged septum caused by trauma 10 years ago and the first thing the ENT asked me was if I had ever used cocaine. I've never used drugs and found the question quite odd. It would be like automatically assuming someone with liver damage was an alcoholic.

When I have attended ENT appointments I often have seen the nurses gossiping when they read my notes as they must think I'm a cocaine user. I even heard one of the nurses asking the ENT "what causes that problem" and the doctor said "it can happen after surgery or drug use". I don't know why they felt it was suitable to be discussing my case in a public corridor. Yet people wonder why the NHS have such a bad reputation.

This is why I never tell anyone about my nose problems as they assume you are a cocaine user which is infuriating.

I was a victim of an unprovoked assault, occasion one of the perpetrators was on drugs.

they give people custodial sentences here for far more minor offences then possessing and using Class A substances.

if you went topping up your glass with a naggin in your inside pocket publicans would be proactive enough to prevent that. So I don’t really see an issue with being proactive when it comes to people consuming class A drugs on their premises and breaking the law.

not every person would be jailed… first offence and all. Actually probably take a few convictions… if you don’t learn initially, that’s on you.

Why couldn’t they have just used it as an ingredient in their current line up of meds?

Crazy alright. Gordan Ramsey did a documentary about cocaine years ago and it's an eye opener. Up in the jungle as the farmers make it. Bleach, lye, kerosene and cement to break down the coca leaf and that's only to make the paste. Then the cartels do god knows what to turn it into powder form. Then all the hands it will pass through cut up to feck with who knows, all before you snort it up your nose.

Not exactly the smartest thing. Here is clip of the doc for anyone who wants to watch it.

Got to love the title "Gordon Ramsey ON cocaine" - am sure he's sniffed quite a few lines himself given the nature of his job and celebrity status.

The latest info I can find is from 2017.

Keep in mind the include drugs as illegal and legal.

• 376 deaths that included drugs in 2017.
• More than half were for polydrugs, ie: multiple drugs, with the average being 4.
• Benzos the most common among the prescriptible.
• Alcohol was in 33% and the most common single drug cause.
• Alcohol is responsible for 16% of single drug deaths.
• Methadone is the most common single prescribed drug deaths with 25% involvement

They then change the stats to show the % change from the year before for specific drugs, which kinda distorts it so:

• Cocaine involvement in deaths went from 42 to 53 people in the year (includes polydrug deaths)
• MDMA went from 8 to 14 deaths
• Heroin from 74 to 77 deaths

410 non-poisoning deaths

• 28% hanging (of which 63% of them had mental health issues)
• 14% cardiac
• 76% male

I do recommend checking out the document and specifically page 5/table 5. Shows the main drugs and how many deaths they've involved in since 2008. Alcohol sitting proudly at the top every year. Followed by methadone, diazepam, heroin, alprazolam and then cocaine. MDMA even further down with a handful per year.

Most importantly though, it shows that the vast majority of deaths are polydrug or suicide. The only mention of cannabis is:

Cannabis followed by cocaine were the most common drugs used by those who died as a result of hanging.

Alcohol sitting proudly at the top every year.

Including alcohol in figures relating to illegal/legal substances causes a massive distortion of the figures themselves -

This bulletin presents figures from the National Drug‐ Related Deaths Index (NDRDI) on deaths due to poisoning (overdose) by alcohol and/or other drugs, and deaths among people who use drugs (non‐ poisoning), for the period 2008–2017.

It’s why while I don’t doubt the statistics they’re presenting are accurate, they’re just massively distorted, and the reason they don’t include tobacco products is because that would only further distort the figures. It comes up a lot in discussions as to whether or not to decriminalise cannabis-based products, comparing them on the basis that because alcohol is legal, so too should cannabis be regulated in a similar fashion. It ignores the reality that Government tries to reduce alcohol and tobacco consumption, so they’re not likely to make cannabis products available to the general public any time soon.

I just want it legalised so I can start growing my own, regulate myself, save lots and lots of money and contribute to the economy instead of a dealers pocket.

At least you’re straight up about it! 😁 Nah I like that because there’s nothing worse than someone you just know is being coy about it like a complete stoner arguing that they only want cannabis to be legal for medicinal purposes and that sort of thing. That’s when I’d be like “Sure Jan” 😒

Not opposed to the idea of regulation of cannabis myself tbh, but I don’t think revenue from it makes a great argument, not when the same argument applied to alcohol and tobacco means that you’d have to ignore the massive costs to the economy of their primary and secondary effects and the adverse social impact that makes a pittance of the annual revenue the Government gets from them.

In its broader social context, in Ireland especially for various reasons, socially responsible cannabis use is a bit of a pipe dream, we’re all aware how the head shops fiasco turned out, especially among young people, whatever about socially responsible adults who knew what they were doing. That’s really where the problems with any drug are - socially responsible adults are not the concern, it’s the irresponsible young people are the greater concern, and trying to discourage them from experimenting with drugs in the first place. Futile I know, but Government must be seen to make the attempt at least!

I'm living in some weird bubble where drug use is almost completely foreign to me, other than unwittingly accepting a drag on a splif when pissed drunk and waking up face down in the toilet bowl.

We’re on about the cost to the economy, not just the cost to the HSE; same point as you’re making came up in another thread recently, but then too it was the cost to the economy was the point -

I wasn’t referring to what was sold in the head shops, I was referring to their impact in Irish society, and decriminalising cannabis would have a similar impact - socially responsible adults who know what they’re doing aren’t the concern, the greater concern is irresponsible young people who it is futile to try and prevent them from experimenting with illicit substances. With greater access to those substances, similarly to the way in which alcohol and tobacco are already so easily accessible and available to the general public, we would see a similar effect among young people if cannabis were more widely available.

The only reason we don’t, and the reason why I pointed out that the inclusion of alcohol in the review that Potential-Monke posted earlier caused a massive distortion in the figures, is because alcohol is widely available, whereas the other drugs aren’t (benzos which are well-up on the list are available on prescription, popular with medical card holders of a certain socioeconomic status; there’s a link between benzo addiction and the suicide and self-harm rates among young people that isn’t explored by the review), and they didn’t even include tobacco products. The review was basically suggesting that alcohol should be even more restricted, not that cannabis should be made more widely available to the general public.

Thanks for this very evocative of a particular time