Be Excellent To Each Other

Seems it's back in the news again. Obligatory BBC link. Really, how can you argue with experts who say things like '"If you have ever seen someone who has taken heavy cannabis and gone on a trip from which they have never really returned, and you have seen the collateral damage to them and their families, then you have to look at it from that point of view."?

All the evidence seems to suggest that heavy usage during adolescence can cause problems, so surely is would make sense to legalise it, thus taking it out of the hands of dealers and allowing its sale to be regulated?
Also; bloody psychotic teenagers spoiling our fun.

How does Zardoz feel about this?

"If you have ever seen someone who has regularly drunk far too much and gone on a bender from which they have never really returned, and you have seen the collateral damage to them and their families, then you have to look at it from that point of view."

But no, the fact that alcohol is FAR FAR WORSE YET COMPLETELY TOLERATED, IF NOT OUTRIGHT ENCOURAGED is obviously irrelevant to whether we should accept the minute risks attendant on legalising cannabis.

Bah.

I can't remember.

It'd certainly save a lot of money if you really could smoke it once and remain stoned forever.

That was a Motorhead song.



No wait, that was Stone Dead Forever, sorry.

Is this really classed as a Furore now? Again? Sigh.

Stone Deaf Forever. Damn memory loss eh?

pardon?

and damn f for being next to d on the keyboard.

I can't remember.

How they can keep arguing about classifying Cannabis as a B/C due to its "psychological effects" then Ketamine remains a class C makes no sense.

Nonsensical laws MR BASHING HEAD REPEATEDLY AGAINST A WALL FACE

And Salvia remains class Z or something.

There's barely any difference between classes B and C now anyway, isn't there?

What, Sage? I wasn't aware it had any drug like effects, other than tasting a bit weird.

Just underneath the radar enough so it doesn't get noticed by the government. huzzah!

I keep hearing interesting things about this "spice" herb that smoking shops are selling atm too.

They should get Gordon Brown to try everything and get him to rate them.

I laugh when I see this debate rear its head time after time, but everyone ignores that ecstasy is still a Class A when scientists have been saying for years that it's far less dangerous than alcohol.

THIS

Almost everything is, that's the joke.

Not to mention that legalisation would cut acquisitive crime by a mind-bogglingly large amount.

The problem with drugs is you don't always get 'exactly what it says on the tin' Evil Pushermen put all sorts of junk in their er, junk.

I'm just glad that real ale and curry have been legalised. For too long I was part of that seedy underground scene. Oh, the mess.

I don't know, I tried drinking a pill once and almost choked.
Salvia's an interesting one. I sort of turned into a tree and felt l was rooted to the settee when I did it. One for special occasions only though (weddings, christenings, that sort of thing), I would have thought though, you wouldn't want to smoke it every day.

Yep, the same way no one should really drink until they are in varying states of pissed everyday, but they give people enough credit to look after themselves on that one too.

I find it quite depressing that the head of a drugs charity doesn't appear to appreciate the difference between correlation and causation. I'm fairly confident in saying that there isn't actually any evidence that the link between cannabis and psychosis is a causal one, and the fact that research into the drug's effects is made especially difficult by its legality is just a farce. I can't help thinking that if I smoked cannabis all the symptoms of lethargy and the like I have would be ascribed to me being a "heavy stoner", with the only nagging detail being that I've never actually smoked any, ever. I smelled some hemp soap once and felt guilty for two weeks, but that's it.

Also, not legalising cannabis for medical use when fucking methadone and heroin are legalised is something I would be prepared to spend quite a lot of time campaigning against, because that is a farce.

I smoke a ridiculous amount of the stuff almost every week, and drink 1, perhaps 2 ciders a night. I fuckin' *wish* that I could manage to wrangle some 'heavy', trippy experiences out of it. Having some really good, quality skunk is something that you treat a bit special. At the least, you don't sell it off in tiny measures to kids, because they wouldn't appreciate it, and you're wasting something you'd want yourself.

This is why all this 'There is a superstrain of skunk subverting the nation's childrens!' talk, every few weeks, is so ridiculous. Even IF all the weed available in the UK were super-skunk, your average kid is unlikely to get their hands on much, if any. And even then, fuck, that's like saying 'If you neck a bottle of vodka then you'll feel light-headed and suffer less pain' - and many children today like this invulnerability to help them in their knife fights. Whilst we're making shit up, whilst we're exaggerating effects, and using 'the children' for own ends.

Incidentally, if anyone in the Wolves area wants to hook me up with a better dealer...

Is he willing to travel as far as London?

A friend was a massive cannabis smoker for about 5 years. It pretty well messed him up, but only for the period he was using it, and only in the sense that it abetted his own natural inclination to sit around in a council flat all day with no job and nothing to do.

He stopped smoking it, got a job, came off benefits, job done.

I'm crap with the stuff. It always made me feel faintly nauseous.

Same. The handful of times I tried it, I just felt motion sick. I probably got too stoned too quickly.

But! I know of people like that, except their addiction was to some game or other, or to internet chatrooms, or of simply not having to go to work. And of course, there are also alcoholics.

I think we can all agree that too much of anything, is bad. And when something is illegal, there's no regulation of it, except for how much you can afford to buy. That by itself is a good example of the retarded attitude the government has towards it. Don't educate and regulate, just scream NO! and throw people in jail if they try and find out for themselves.

I think Piers Anthony had it right in "Bio of a Space Tyrant"

I'll leave it up to you to go and find out what that was....

(a clue, it's not until the 4th book when the epnoymous hero is Dictator of America, I mean Jupiter, that we find out what I mean)

Malc

Alcohol was always worse for me, caused antisocial behaviour..where as weed/Hash just made me love people ands ee nice things or just chill out far too much for far too long.
Glad I stopped though really, does not do my head any good at all.

Hmm. Alcohol doesn't *cause* it though, just lets out what would already have happened. "in vino veritas" isn't a trite saying for nothing.

Perhaps you are right, but is, at the least, a catalyst. Never got that with weed.

I would argue that's a cause. You know, Petrol doesn't CAUSE fires, it just lets out a substance's inner rage.

I read the first one and a half of those books and before giving up in a state of abject boredom. Can't you just tell me?

Why don't they have a 'Talk to Frank' for alcohol? I hate a that stupid propoganda advert. The gist seems to be that if you 'spew' from just smoking it once then you're somehow brain damaged for the rest of your life.

Sounds like the exact same story that was being told in the 60's - Reefer madness. Still, it gives the police plenty of nice, slow moving easily arrestable targets rather than going after some real criminals.

I've always felt that one of the reasons why other substances aren't legalised is that it might cut into the profits of the breweries and the high amounts of tax that government takes from the sale of their products.

Also, these studies into new, menacing hardcore strains (Skunk has actually been around since the late 70's) apparently don't take into consideration the effect that other drugs have since the participants may use other substances or may simply be unbalanced anyway.

Obviously if you spend all day, everyday smoking obscene amounts, you might, i dunno, not want to go out so much and spend a lot of time inside playing computer games... I've known a lot of people who smoke it and have so for over a decade, and so far I don't know anyone who's had a hint of psychosis. but then they are mostly quite well rounded stable people with comfortable lives and who had a mostly pleasant upbringing, whether that makes a difference or not, i don't know. I can only assume from this limited dataset that it's infact no where near as dangerous as certain organisations make out.

Just legalise it, regulate it & tax it. Less money potentially going into the hands of criminals, more money for healthcare and less problems to begin with - for example no more weed 'cut' with ground glass or crappy morrocan Hash which is mostly made of engine oil, flux, coffee and old bits of polythene. I hate to think what all that does to someones brain, let alone their lungs.

Hello Steve T! I take it you're a drug dealer? That makes you very welcome around here.

Hello, Steve T. 1 Cannabis, please.

What - are they saying that if you throw up due to smoking cannabis, this is A Very Bad Thing? I don't watch TV, so thankfully I avoid Frank. Are they saying anything like that?


I stay a long, long way around from tar. The stuff's just crap anyway, and as you say, there can be any old crap in there. I've heard this used as an argument for why cannabis is bad. My reply was 'Tramps drink meths, but that doesn't stop the rich from buying vintage wines.', which threw them into a big spazzy 'You just don't get it!' fit.

Anti-drugs propoganda for the 21st century: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua08VauNavo

I wouldn't mind, but why isn't there a similar advert about the risks of alcohol... Ok there's that batman one where the guy falls off a building. But all thats really saying is that you'll be fine as long as you don't piss around freeclimbing several stories of scaffolding, which is good advice even if you're sober.



I haven't even seen any bar going around for years, in late 90's thats all you could really get but I certainly wouldn't buy any if offered it. I also like the drink analogy, its like with these 'stronger strains' its like comparing beer to whisky, you don't go out and drink 8 pints of whisky. If it's stronger you smoke less of it to reach whatever level of incompetance you're aiming for, therefore stronger strains are better for you because the ratio of canabinoids compared the useless tar and so on is better.

nynfortoo, you get ripped off a lot, right?;)

Well, I don't know where I stand on the whole legalize it or not debate.
There needs to be more real information for people about it rather than lies/fears/myths or half truths.
Yes, it is dangerous for some people and not others. Yes if used long term it will fuck your head up.
Some people get addicted while others will not. Same with everything really.. both alcohol and drugs are bad for you in the long run.

Some people can handle them fine, others cannot...what you gonna do. Legalizing it isn't going to change much..maybe more people will try it..more people will probably get hooked.
I guess I'm jsut spewing thoughts out actually...

No, toughen up alcohol laws and don't legalize drugs. But ffs make real info far more available. Meh.

Surely if cannabis was legalised, only the 'softer' stuff would be available legally? Surely only the Cannabis Lite strains would be buyable, not Thermonuclear Skunk tainted with sprinklings of Class A drugs. I dunno. Need to find out what 'works' in the Netherlands in terms of decriminalisation. (BTW, from what I gather, cannabis use is rather frowned upon over there, it's more stigmatised.

Anonymous X, you make a fine point. What do the Dutch do to keep down the numbers of violent sex crimes from young angry youths 'who had been smoking cannabis that evening', and how are they coping now that these terrifying foreign superskunk strains are cheap and plentiful? Are they having even more horrific murders, or are they just fudging the numbers?

Romanista, I'm asking you.

Don't ask him; He's chief number fudger.

Um. I've just discovered that I've had about a spliff's worth of skunk, stuck flat to the seat of my trousers all day. It's a fucking good thing that I sit on my arse all day long, and wear a long coat, eh?

God I'm so cool with my drugs talk.

I'm what is sometimes referred to as a 'drugs worker'. I am also what they sometimes refer to as a 'fucking cane-head'.

1: People can be sent schizoid by a couple of really, really strong joints. But I mean really, really strong super skunks, smoked the chav way, i.e. two kingskins, 90% skunk, 10% Benson & Hedges. A council blunt, if you will. But yes, for a tiny minority of people, that'll fuck you.

2: Though the chances are the joint is only setting in motion wheels which slowly began to turn after your last acid trip fuve years ago...

3: The biggest danger to young drug users is cannabis, because dodgy gangs spray industrial hemp or just bad crop with a fine-powdered glass/glue solution and pretend it is THC crystals. Looks good, will kill you through the lungs. Might as well make an asbestos bong.

4: If it was legalised, none of the above would matter.

5: Ket is too marginalised a substance to warrant upgrading

6: Shewolf: The only people who ever didn't try cannabis because it is illegal are the same ones who didn't try anal because GOD WAS WATCHING. 'Real info' as you called for (and so you should) won't be available until things are legalised. If there's a safe amount of units of alcohol to drink weekly, where on the 'Frank' website is the safe number of lines or joints one can have? Because a spliff a week forever won't kill anyone. You'll never get that written about a controlled substance, however.

Well, most people I know of, who don't try it, don't try it because it's a drug. Not exactly good for you.
I was a heavy user for about 3 years and then a moderate user for about 2 further years. Now I might have a joint at a festival, that's about it.
Aside from hating tobacco these days..as I quit smoking...I just don't like the grounded feeling I get.
On the plus side, I don't need illegal drugs now..my legal ones make me floaty light most nights...

The last time I was on legal drugs, I swallowed a fortnight's worth of amitriptyline in one go and (did other stuff besides). It didn't work, obv*. Excitingly, I might be back on to the legals again soon. Woo woo.

Goatboy: I grew up in one of the many resplendent proto-chav wildernesses of Thatcher's Britain. To this day, 90% skunk, 10% tobacco is what I've smoked, but as one-skins instead, chain-rolled. Amd it's never done me no hrm. Fortunately, I've rarely had the good stuff. No, wait...

* It's TMI CUS day at Beex!**
** BETEO is silly, BEEX is where it's at.

Eesh, I spent quite a while on amitriptyline..naff stuff lol

Naff?

Not that I'm doubting you, but that sounds exactly like one of those scare stories that you used to hear all the time in highschool.
Like, some acid has rat poison in it and this kid did 3 tabs once and then BLOOD came out of his eyes and he DIED. Or the E that immediately turns your brain into a sponge and suchlike.

It's not like you need Frank (or stern lectures from the local bobby, if you're old like me) - kids make this shit up themselves just for the hell of it.