David Nutt tells it how it is and is sacked

[Jux]

So the Government don't like it when one of their advisors actually takes notice of real evidence which doesn't quite accord with their stated policies (even though they say they want debate) and so sack the guy who says "but hang on...."

UQD - My point is not re your unrealistic expectation to convince anyone on a subject you know little about. It is not even about your lack of experience. It is about your lack of information - ignorance, in other words.

You don't have to have taken ecstasy to know its most basic selling point - that it makes an amazing night and costs very little. Just how remote you need to be from any real information on the subject to think people take it because it's "cool and edgy", I honestly don't know.

And if saying so makes me part of a "posse" in that remote world of yours, so be it

daftpunk - re "problem with smoking cannabis is you need a drug dealer, and dealers will try and sell you harder drugs to make more money out of you"

That statement is indeed rubbish. It doesn't work that way, because:

(1) Dealers tend to be specialists. It's not like going into a supermarket and filling your caddy with different groceries.

(2) Harder drugs are not necessarily more expensive than cannabis, and are used much less frequently. Meaning, dealer would actually make less money out of you if you stopped smoking weed every night and switched to, say, LSD, which is dirt cheap and would be used maybe once a week because its effects last about 10 hours.

(3) Dealers don't "push" anything, also because they are in a business of confidence that runs by word of mouth. You are introduced by a friend who vouches for you (that you are not police) and who vouches for him (that he doesn't sell rubbish). Pushing of any sort would ruin his business.

People who talk about how "amazing" ecstasy is sound almost evangelically religious. It's no surprise that I tend to take a lot of what they say with a pinch of salt.

oh lordy - pmsl at "...it would suddenly stop being "edgy" and "cool" and they'd stop taking it." chocolate's not edgy or cool but shedloads of people partake of it. because it's good. UQD I will concede that some people might try e because (they think) it's edgy and cool but I can assure you they don't take it a second time for that reason. nothing could be further from their mind. they don't give a shit about being edgy and cool.

refusal to acknowledge that there are real, concrete "ups" (forgive the pun) - apart from edginess and looking cool - that make people want to take drugs is a sure foundation for being completely unable to understand drugs

Amazing how your prejudices make you unable to learn

Just look it up fgs. Learn about serotonin & how MDMA affects it. This is not just lowering of inhibitions (like alcohol) or scratching an itch (like cigarettes), but true happiness on a chemical level.

By the way, LOL at you calling me "religious". I don't believe in anything I can't prove, and not only re God - a practice you might like to emulate.

coteDAzur...if you went on mastermind...would drug dealing be your specialized subject..?

i bow to your drug knowledge, but you do not know every drug dealer in the world...

Do you, Daftpunk?

yes

Generally drug dealers give the client what they want and not try and sell them an alternative.In all my years of partying etc no one has ever tried to sell me crack when i was after a magic mushroom.The idea of teh 'evil pusher' is much exagerated imho.Although it is years since anything stronger than sleepytime tea has passed my lips!

It's good to know for certain when people are talking utter bollox DP

and daftpunks specialized subject is

talking utter bollox

(i blame the drugs..!...)

They don't give a shit about being edgy and cool? Allow me a big

And while I am at it, a massive

UQD is a crashing bore. I've never taken durgs but he's making me pant for a line of ecstacy.

swedes - you really haven't done drugs have you. ecstacy doesn't come in lines !

uqd - why so sceptical? have you been in a dance club (or in a disused hanger on Greenham Common) with thousands of people on e? have you tried e? if you had done either you would know they aren't there/doing e to be cool and edgy.

the idea that people would stop taking e if they thought it was safe and - therefore not edgy - is ridiculous. and based on an assumption that there's no real upside.

Of course there is a perceived "upside". But you're bound to feel there is when you're off your head... duh...

You're looking a bit stupid now UQD. So everyone is telling you that most people do ecstacy because they like the way it makes them feel and you're just rubbishing that because it doesn't fit with what you've decided is true.

Are you sure your reason for drinking isn't because all your mates do and you'd get the piss ripped out of you if you didn't?

I'm not saying people don't do it because they "like the way it makes them feel", but that can't be the full story.

Why not? What's so weird about that??

What exactly is 'off your head'?

I think that here UQD is confusing the reasons why teenagers try drugs, which are generally the same sorts of reasons why they try smoking, drinking or sex (peer pressure, experimentation etc, where image is indeed important) and the reasons why adults take (non addictive) recreational drugs (because they have tried them and found they enjoyed the effects).

The impact of illegality is irrelevant to a classification decided on whether the drug is harmful - after all all the drugs that the Committee assess are illegal. In order to remove the link to organised crime the only real solution is legalisation, as prohibition doesn't work so long as the demand is there, and there is no particular reason to believe that people will stop thinking it would be nice to smoke a little puff or drop an E when going dancing.

For myself I haven't indulged in anything illicit for a few years, and then only dope (I'm not much of a thrill seeker or raver), but in general like many, used it in a very similar way to a glass of wine in the evening, to become enjoyably relaxed.

tbh this thread - both from the yea and nay camps - has really highlighted the fact that we need faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more drug education.

people seem to know very little about the subject. there seems to be a great faith in the fact that mdma is not harmful - neatly sidestepping the issue that many tablets sold as ecstacy contain very low levels of mdma. this is the same for all street drugs. people are also talking about cannabis - not a lot of discussion on the fact that the variety of choice/availability for many youngsters is skunk which has much, much higher levels of thc than 'traditional' cannabis.

another issue that is not being discussed on this thread is that many people do not use one drug at a time - they may combine 2,3 or more, including combining drugs from different drug families e.g stimulant and hallucinogenic.

i am not particularly anti-drugs (although due to personal experiences it has taken me a very long time to get to a more neutral position). however i am very, very concerned about the lack of drug knowledge in adults who claim to regularly take/have taken drugs.

i have linked to a recent report from drugscope - about the purity/quality of street drugs and also poly drug use. there is also a current 'price list'.

if teenagers, or indeed anyyone, can buy ecstacy for £2 per tablet (much cheaper than booze) then i firmly believe they should know the facts about STREET mdma (not nice, clean lab mdma) before they decide to take it. then they are making an informed decision and will be aware of the real risks and the current harm minimisation information around their drug of choice.

www.drugscope.org.uk/ourwork/pressoffice/pressreleases/Street_drug_trends_2009.htm

ceres that report is very interesting and I agree with everything in your post. I suspect most of us are thinking back to our youth when things were very different than they are today.

I doubt you are ever going to be able to have those kinds of discussions on MN purely because the debates are always so polarised when talking about recreational drugs that you never get into the nuances.

ceres, I absolutely agree. I know adults who take a combination of drugs and who do so in what they call safe quantities and mixes. I fund that quite scary however safe they say they are being. Kids don't necessarily have the knowledge to do that.