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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
To paraphrase (this is from memory) "we should not be asking 'why the addiction' but 'why the pain?'"
* The idea that addictiveness is some sort of sliding scale like calories or centimeters is absurd and not really well supported. Though some drugs are more apt to cause addiction than others, the human taking it plays and even bigger role. But I won't go into my "myth of drug-induced addiction" rant here. The fact is, different things are addictive to different people.
If the guy were into cats, CAT, and trying to get the cat to cooperate here, the cat would have flicked its tail and been gone. Chasing the cat around the house with his dick in one hand and cat treats in the other, then you might have a problem.
After all, down there in the states you can currently go to your local 7-11 and buy alcohol-infused Full Throttle.
@2: I'll grant you different things are differently addictive to different people (listen to some smokers faced with those who can smoke one cig a month), but the way you find out is to experiment and discover which ones cause you to fuck up your and other people's lives because that's better than not having them. If you never experiment, sure, you don't find out if you would have been safe, but you never have to try to become a former meth addict, either. In terms of how much damage will you do to get it, I do think meth is off in a different category from, say, caffeine.
Oh for sure. Meth is worse than coffee. But so is alcohol. Frankly, if I were to eliminate one drug of abuse off the face of the planet (taking away the messy hypotheticals of other drugs filling that void), I would get rid of alcohol. The number of murders, suicides and rapes commmited under the influence of alcohol outstrip those commited under the influence of other drugs by miles and miles. Which isn't to say that meth is safer or less addictive than alcohol (I'm actually not sure what you'd find if there were an ethical way to study that because of all the boatloads of confounds, and I won't bore you with my theories) but just that alcohol effects (and hurts) MORE lives than meth.
But I digress.
Personally I've never (intentionally) done meth and think it's kind of a crappy buzz. The sex is good though.
After all, down there in the states you can currently go to your local 7-11 and buy alcohol-infused Full Throttle."
Um... no?
Are you a troll?
But FYI, the way capitalism CURRENTLY works is that billions of dollars are being poured into destroying the most diverse ecosystem in the world, billions (trillions?) of dollars are being poured into prosecuting people who have done nothing wrong (not to mention human rights violations and revictimizing the most traumatized people there are), and trillions of dollars are being poured into an illegal, murderous trade that is the bread and heroin-butter of terrorism.
But yeah, your threat of crack-sandwiches seems pretty credible.
P.P.S meth is "legal" in that it's a prescription drug. Better inspect your OJ real hard tomorrow morning.
I've never had an urge to experiment, as I hate the feeling of even a mild buzz or cold medicine. I can't imagine taking lots and lots of cold medicine for the thrill. But I warn my children, as they get older, that the only way to know if they inherited the genes for alcoholism that exist on both sides of their ancestry is to try seriously abusing alcohol, and that's not the greatest idea if they turn out to have lost that lottery. (Plus the current thinking, underscored anecdotally, that you're more likely to become addicted to something you started using under 25, brain still developing. I suspect that works in terms of neural pathways tied to the drug and tied to coping mechanisms.)
Because if he's some perv who wants to get it on with her cat, that's totes awesome!
Except, you know, *not really*. Cats (like other animals and children) can't give informed consent to sexual contact. If I'd stumbled upon that scene, I'd have demanded an explanation... and I still might have thrown him out on his ear.
Because if he's some perv who wants to get it on with her cat, that's totes awesome!
Except, you know, *not really*. Cats (like other animals and children) can't give informed consent to sexual contact. If I'd stumbled upon that scene, I'd have demanded an explanation... and I still might have thrown him out on his ear.
To answer your first question...
I believe that there are other drugs that could take the status of alcohol (sole legal way to get fucked up) and induce equally bad effects, or worse. But I also think there are other drugs that could take the status of alcohol and have way less of those effects (marijuana, for example, is used at fairly high rates too, in my country, for example and doesn't show the same social impact that alcohol does)
Alcohol is by nature a nasty drug, IMHO.
But I never liked it myself and when I used to try to indulge my 'alcoholic genes' kicked in. My worst 'adverse drug reactions' were with alcohol, not 'hard drugs'. So I'm a little biased.
Fun fact: the way cocaine is consumed traditionally is by chewing coca leaves. People still do this in the countries where it's grown. Apparently it's about on par with drinking a cup of coffee. The line between "hard drugs" and "harmless drugs" is not always as clear as we might like to think.
As far as alcoholism genes go... they haven't really found any yet, and even gung-ho genetics types still put gene influence at like, 50%. Depending on the 'type' of alcoholic they are predisposed to be, it might not matter what age they start at, either. Long story short: environmental factors are huge and you can influence those, so I wouldn't fixate too much on the possibility of genes?
You've obviously never had a really good Belgian ale.
Let's just agree that Meth=death eventually.
If she don't wanna know, forget her...
This is why I love Savage--I always learn something new.
Meth is some scarey shit. Anything that can be cooked in the trunk of a car out of things that no one in their right mind would consider ingesting separately is pretty fucked up, and can't really be compared to either pot or liquor. Just my opinion, but nothing anyone says is going to convince me that meth is harmless. And if I found any of my girls doing it, I'd kick her narrow ass.
I suggest you read a little about the Opium Wars, and all the problems that legalized opium caused in China. A short summary, by the 20th century 20% of the citizens were addicted, and not in any state to work, which naturally messed up the economy.
Another example is the popularity of absinthe in certain regions in France, that resulted in increased rates of still birth's and neurological disorders until it was banned in 1915.
All drugs were legal at some point, cocaine was promoted by the pope and fed to babies, and most got banned for a good reason.
Folks in western societies tend to abuse drugs, plants that indigenous people used for thousands of years in moderation were modified by westerns to mind blasting, fast acting chemicals that are mostly good for messing people up if not controlled.
Even the relatively harmless marijuana (and long term use can impair short term memory and cause respiratory problems) that had 0.4% of active principle forever and ever and suited people all over the world just fine, was modified, and today contains 14% of THC, which is why people get paranoid more often from it.
So while legalizing all drugs would work in a perfect world, in our society, as was proven by history, it would suck big time.
Unfortunately, because lack of education about the history and both good and bad sides of all those chemicals people either vilify or idolize them.
Oh please! Good luck getting a cat to do anything it doesn't want to do.
(And calling yourself an animals "mommy" is creepy.)
I hate it when I do that
You're assuming that I don't know the histories because I don't agree with you? Tsk tsk.
I suggest you look at the rate of HIV and drug use in Portugual now. I also suggest you look at marijuana use in the Netherlands now. Or you look at the influence of needle exchange programs and safe injection sites.
It's not about it "working" or it being a "perfect world", it's about harm reduction. It's about a lesser of two evils. Legalizing drugs will not solve the problem of drug addiction, but the war on drugs makes the problem worse while creating many new problems in the process.
If you want me to go further into explaining why, I can.
@16
I honestly hate all beer. Sometimes I miss mixed drinks but all alcohol is off limits for me!
@cat
Meth isn't harmless. No drug is. I'd agree with you it's particularly nasty, but it also depends a great deal on the person using it. My ex boyfriend had horrible horrible experiences with alcohol that made meth look harmless in comparison (in comparison!) and though he loved it, he never went all requiem for a dream.
Plus, although I will probably use the 'look at the chemicals they make it with!' scare tactic on my kids if I ever have any, I'll have to hope they don't have the knowledge background to understand that it's exceedingly misleading. All drugs are made with toxic chemicals. That's how synthesis is done (for real!). Anyone who's ever worked/studied in an organic chem lab knows that pretty much everything you use is poison. (Doesn't stop them from drinking the 90% ethanol, though)
@20
Ugh. Yes.
One time I was trying to give my man some nice spontaneous head on the living room floor and had to interrupt the moment and go upstairs when the cat and dog absolutely *insisted* on playing right next to where we were trying to get it on...
And just today had to push the cat out of my personal space while trying to wank. So yes, "erection maintenance" and multitasking are the most obvious options here.
tu es trop grand pour moi?
it's been a while
For AEP: since what the women are saying is the turn on, why not just ask your partner(s) to act like you're absolutely skewering them? I bet just hearing it will be good enough, since that's the part you like (rather than, saying, actually making them uncomfortable with a too-big dick).
It seriously kills the mood for me. If you can stay aroused and pet the cat at the same time, power to you.
Here's what Dan usually says but didn't this time: "So you have a small dick, how big's your forearm? And your forearm never goes limp."
Also, please take to heart Dan's gentle comment that "Stop" means STOP, unless the hugeness of your penetrative tool is part of the fun for her too and she has a safeword to stop you if she needs to.
Besides, cat fur feels nice. Enjoying the feeling of petting the cat doesn't mean he was getting off on the cat. It's just a nice sensation. He might just as easily have been rubbing his fingers over the velvet nap of the couch.
I suppose you could always have the cat killed, skinned, tanned, and converted into fur-lined cuffs. I'm sure that would make everything much more proper and acceptable.
I apologize if i repeated information well known to you, I assumed you don't know not because you disagree but because your post seemed based on emotions.
I don't get how your reply is related to anything I said. Last time I checked "all drugs" weren't legalized in Portugal, and in the Nederlands cannabis is legalized and even it is controlled pretty tightly, "hard drugs" are illegal there. I personally think marijuana should be legalized, considering alcohol is, but definitely not drugs like heroin or meth. My point is that there are dangerous drugs that should remain illegal, not that all laws currently focus on the right ones or that their enforcement is successful.
Though I am passionate about harm reduction, that passion is based on an understanding of the facts. Just because a person gets emotional talking about sweatshops that force children to work for pennies doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about.
Re: Portugal - Last time you checked must have been over a decade ago http://www.time.com/time/health/article/… (they are decriminalized, not legalized - is that what you meant?)
The idea behind making drugs illegal is that the laws are meant to make a reasonable dent in drug use. They do not. I'm not a historian on opium so I can't speak to China but I'd take a bet that there were other social factors at play besides opium that caused the problems you're talking about. As for the absinthe comment, I find it hardly noteworthy? Babies are born with FAS and low birth weight due to smoking all the time. Both legal drugs. They're also born addicted to heroin or cocaine (despite drug laws, if you can believe it). If I had the time I'd dig up the book I did read that touched on historical drug use, maybe later?
http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/po…
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/03…
You really haven't heard about Portugal?
Also, the idea that decriminalization/legalization of drugs (even 'hard drugs!') is the way to go is held by most addiction experts, doctors (especially those who work with drug addicts) and any cop who's been working long enough. :p
Sorry everyone, too much soapbox for one night.
I agree with LEAP. All drugs should be legal, taxable, regulated as to safety of content, (uncut with deadly adulterants), and available OTC, without a prescription, to all adults. The bloodbath in our streets and in other countries would be instantly eliminated because there would be no profits for vicious street gangs and cartels. Desperately needed manufacturing jobs, using quality control and producing more relatively cheap generic drugs, would be created.
The enormous propaganda machine fueled by the DEA, which did not even exist prior to 1971, the pharmaceutical industry that reaps its greatests profits from drugs still under patent, the addictionologists and all other doctors, who have an enormous, vested financial interest in retaining the "right to write", religious groups that object on puritanical moral grounds, the 12 steppers whose heirarchy makes big $$$$ and whose beliefs are derived from an evangelical Lutheran nutbag minister, and politicians who use fear mongering to get elected will, of course, never permit this to happen in the U.S.
The most reliable scientific evidence shows that only approx. 3%-5% of people exposed to any drug become addicted. It also shows that the overwhelming majority of those quit on their own, without meetings, rehab or intervention.
But hey, just keep listening to Drew Dipshit and Nancy Grace. They must be right. They're on television. You could go to Youtube and watch something called "The Chilling Effect," but that would cut into valuable time that could be better spent analyzing furries.
So the opposite of "crazy", "holes in skin", and "junkie" is "straight-A student", "female", "wealthy," "suburban" and "family-oriented".
That's just a little bit smug and elitist of you.
Demographics are no protection against disaster - and it's kind of offensive to people less fortunate than yourself, don't you think, to imagine that scholastic high-performers who live on Ferris Bueller's street are somehow immune from the reality that all those lesser souls have to put up with?
Surprisingly, growing up shielded from most of the genuinely tough parts of life is no guarantee of resilience - it just means you've not yet been seriously tested (although it looks like you're determined to do that with your little crystal friends there). With relatively undeveloped tough-shit-handling skills, however, you're arguably more likely to fail, not less likely.
Reality doesn't give a flying fuck about your academic transcript, princess. You have no force field; you are nothing special.
That slide into the junkie life does happen to people like you, you'd better believe it. Open your eyes, get a little humility, and grow up. You may find this useful for other good things in life, once you've succeeded in avoiding addiction, alienation from all you love, and a pathetic early death.
But hey, your call. You seem to know best.
i do believe omu may just be a recreational user and never become addicted, but the risk in accidentally taking something that may be lethal because it's cut with poison is too great.
and yes, there is no comparison between pot and meth. pot is naturally grown and meth is synthetic. if you need to stay awake for exams omu, i would suggest brewing a strong pot of coffee.
I've written before that some people are "wired" to be susceptible to addiction. OMU should be thankful that she may not be, but being intelligent and arrogant is no barrier to falling into the same trap as everyone else. It wasn't for me anyway. OMU: quit while you're ahead.
Peace.
PS: Jon Stewart interviewed an MD that came up with the most amazing observation; street drugs are safer than prescription drugs. Look at celebrities that OD, and most do it from prescribed drugs or in combination with them.
Regardless, anyone knows that if a cat jumps up on you wanting petted and doesn't get petted, you're likely to wind up with holes in you.
@3-- If he was simply a 'closet furry,' he wouldn't have any interest in the cat. Educate yourself.
of course ANY drug can be used casually, if that's your deliberate intention. meth, heroin, cocaine. alcohol. even caffeine. if you hear yourself thinking, "oh i'm coming down, i need more right now", that's when you need to hear yourself and put on the brakes.
Penis size is all relative to the girl you're with. If your relationship is open/monogamish you might want to seek out a girl who finds your dick 'too much' and see about that?
Also, #4's image of CAT's boyfriend chasing the cat around with cat treats and his dick in his hand is hilarious. :)
Are you assuming I'm male?
I called her a twat because she's implying that because she's rich and suburban she's 'different' than other drug addicts. She also appears to think that will shock him and shake up his delusions about drug use when anyone who's spent any time around drug culture knows her type. It's ignorant. Finally, I agree with the idea that some people can use 'hard drugs' casually, I wouldn't call occasional use of any drug harmless. You have a bad experience on nearly any drug and end up dead.
"of course ANY drug can be used casually, if that's your deliberate intention."
False.
Some drugs can be used casually by some. Some people may be able to use all drugs casually. But there are also people who intend to use a drug casually and end up using it way more.
You clearly have no concept of how addiction works. The neurobiology just straight up doesn't agree with you.
1) Sugar. We demonized Fat - particularly animal Fat - in the 60s, and the food industry played along - substituting sugar (HCFS - that's Fructose folks, just like in fruit) in all it's forms (flour, pasta, "complex" carbs, root vegetables) in order to sell us more product - taking advantage of tickling an evolutionary addiction response (strong reward preference for) and we now have an obesity epidemic - we really have the metabolic trifecta: diabetes, coronary artery disease (and they are now recognizing the sugar in the blood may be the actual cause of plaque, not bacon fat) and hypertension. And it's not just the 15% incapable at the bottom of the IQ/education scale this affects.
2) The "I/O Option-ARM" - aka super-risky mortgage. No, it's not really "addictive" in the usual sense of being an ingested substance, but the need for a constant repeat and the abuse to mask bad finances is now quite obvious. These higher-profit products were aggressively marketed to those least able to understand them, in a quasi-predatory fashion. The entire fight with Wall St. and the Dems has been centered on preserving the ability to prey and feed upon the unsuspecting with some really terrible financial products - products that really do not benefit our larger society, but do disproportionately benefit the sociopaths.
Somehow the process of being "fed upon" by the sociopaths is supposed to teach the naive, uneducated and slow in the 'school of hard knocks' to be wise, clever and quick, but you know, if you're dead (meth) or permanently damaged (debt for life, bankrupted), there's kind of no do-over to get it right, even if you did actually figure it out.
So yes, the government needs to regulate this shit to protect us from the predators in our society who will rapaciously devour the vulnerable among us, wherever they find them. And the problem with the Social-Darwinist, Anarcho-Capitalist model is that we are not Jeffersonian Democrats, each a self-sufficient farmer island, so the costs to the victims affect us all. So um, yeah, while I find the reasoning of Fat Tony Scalia's 'superior intellect' to be...selective (results oriented) at best...and I fully endorse the legalization of cannabis, I do have to agree with the support for the Control Act.
Whew...ok, /rant.
ps - this girl is a moron, and Dan nailed it.
There is no question that a lot of hard drugs - the opiates in particular - are not fatal nor even necessarily result in dysfunction for long-term addicts - if they are regulated for purity and accessibility. Still, they have to be regulated. De-crim and De-reg are not the same thing.
Because that isn't going to work. I can avoid nicotine casually and easily; a diet that includes absolutely zero sugar or carbs (meat and leafy greens?) is not one most people want to follow, and certainly not be forced to follow for our own good. Including lots of very healthy people, e.g. lean triathletes who do not want someone standing at the cash register pronouncing "Ravioli, out. Also no chocolate bar. And no beets."
People are hard-wired to like the taste of sugar because it's in breast milk. Anyone who didn't like it died in infancy.
We completely agree.
I am not for de-reg.
To me legalizing implies regulations (make the drug trade a legit business subject to scrutiny), decriminalizing implies a more hands-off approach which doesn't "deregulate" but rather leaves a completely unregulated market the way it is.
For that reason I'm more in favour of legalization, but decriminalization would be a huge step in the right direction.
as for omu...I'm sober and do a monthly meeting in the psych ward of the county jail...the guys most out of their mind (and in need of serious mental health treatment) are the meth addicts, not knowing all of the sciencey stuff, what I see is that meth scrambles brains and what I hear is that "I started out using occassionally" and then that individual ends up in lock-down on a mental health ward with a fried brain. I'm in no position to judge anyone, but I do wish that anyone thinking that occassional meth use is "okay" could see the end results where addiction to meth leads.
If this isn't the explanation for CAT's husband, maybe he likes the sensation of fur, and CAT can indulge him with furry lingerie. That's a far cry from wanting to actually fuck an animal--which, if it were happening in CAT's house, I think she'd have noticed by now from the state of her cat's health.
This was something I used maybe twice a year for a couple of years, and then got in with bad companions and started hitting up once or twice a week or so. Didn't take more than about a month of that to think "This is not a good idea" and moved to the other side of town. Wasn't addicted at that point, but got a definite feeling that it wouldn't take much longer.
Now years later don't do any drugs at all, can barely drink a cup of coffee. I've always assumed that the meth I hear people talking about is the same or a similar drug - is it?
As for meth itself, that covers a broad range of formulations, from a relatively safe and studied, prescription version produced in clean labs, to the increasingly cluttered array of dangerous concoctions, formulated from increasingly perverse products to hide its dirty manufacture, including the attendant harmful containments and production by-products that prohibition has created.
In short, most meth is like bathtub gin; hardly a fair reflection on the actual drug.
@42 Yes. That is an incredible assertion. Drawing a conclusion about overall product safety based on a few publicized deaths is ridiculous on its face.
@62 - yes, we do completely agree, especially about the nuance between decrim and legalization - I want a legit, public market, kind of like another addiction: gambling in Vegas.
@58 - no, of course I don't want sugar itself regulated (though I support better labeling), precisely because you can't stop something like that where we are hardwired and it's in all of our food (even leafy green vegetables, just in very low amounts). Unlike psychotropics which have no nutritional value, it's a dual-purpose good.
I'm simply using it to illustrate what you get when you let capitalism get ahold of a substance of abuse - something we are hardwired to want. Modern economics and capitalism are about marketing: manufacturing demand, and the gold ring for that is latching onto a reward system hardwired in our brains. Nicotine, gambling, opiates, cannabinoids and sugar all do that.
I also want to punch this girl in the face for thinking that getting good grades and living in the suburbs makes her a better person. Is meth somehow more dangerous for C students from detroit? You're just another teenage human with a stupid habit, it makes no difference what kind of grades you get.
Another cat guardian here. I have three. I also have a husband. The cats want to be involved in all kinds of activities that are cat-unfriendly. Sometimes you can distract them with something else or scare them away by shaking the squirt bottle (I rarely actually have to squirt any water on them, but I have a few bottles around the house), and sometimes you can't. It's the nature of cats. Some with wander away and find something else to do if you lock them out during sexy times, and some will holler, wail, throw things, scratch at or bang on the door, etc., etc.
Cats can be very intuitive, sensitive, comforting creatures. (Mine might have saved my life when I was depressed.) They can be good company. They can, to some extent, be trained. But mostly they train their people to give them what they want just when they want it. And sometimes, living with a cat means learning to work around the cat's wants.
I don't think that cat is a perv, though, nor do I think that we were pervs to force it outside. We were not in the mood of keeping on hearing it scatching at the door. Cats are curious and they tend to not care about whether you'd like privacy or not.
And cats hate to feel used : forcing a cat to do anything it is not up to, will lead one to pain pretty fast. I don't think using a cat as a sexual object can be done. So in short : Dan is right.
What worries me about this college student is that she "uses" meth to help her for college finals. It's like a tool for her and it makes her life easier sometimes. With alcohol, or pot, or even something highly addictive like cocaine, I think it tends to be less addictive and less dangerous when it's used for entertainment, as in: Hey! I wanna have a good time and experience this particular type of buzz/high. I think that is less likely to turn into a slippery slope of addiction (though still very possible!).
But when it becomes, I need this drug because it helps me do my finals better/ because it makes me into a more agreeable person/ in order to function in some way on a regular basis, that is what typically leads to addiction. If meth helps her out on finals so much, what happens when her normal course load gets too much and she needs more time then? Meth helps her have more time for things during finals, why not in the tough spots in her normal schedule? Usage increases. More rationalizing. Etc. Addiction is defined by dependency, and I think this girl is already showing some signs of that.
I can't say that many people have the strength to not get derailed by it, but for those who can, very occasional use is not a tragedy. Many people come out of the situation without losing their minds, their jobs, their self-esteem or their social lives. Most don't, but it's not impossible to try meth a few times and live to tell the tale.
This is not drug use promotion. It's clarifying drug war propaganda. Yes, methamphetamine is the least safe form of amphetamine we've created so far, and the strongest that I'm aware of. But it's still just a drug.
AEP, cock sheaths. I'm sure Dan's link carries them, so does Mr. S in San Francisco. Bonus, they double as a condom.
As for CAT, I'm a woman and I do that sometimes. I seriously doubt he got the cat to sit on his chest on purpose, cats do whatever they feel like doing. The cat is just a soft warm thing that is INSISTS on being petted so why not? I'd only be concerned if he was fingering the cats behind or something.
Excellent point.
@72
Hold on,
Do you actually believe people will put drugs into other products if they become legal/decrim? If that were true they would be doing it with nicotine right now. Most addictive chemical known to man, and it's legal!
@71
Right on the money. Thank you.
@70
Most drugs are white crystalline powders in pure form so that doesn't really help. Likely it was methamphetamine or amphetamine. Not a huge difference between the two (except duration/intensity, I believe?)
In short? I reckon you did some meth.
@68
Um, no. It's the fact that she's used it a max of 20 times (assuming she's a full time student) based on her statement. The holes are from picking, that's not going to happen with every-few-months use. She could (theoretically) use meth at the same rate for the rest of her life and never have any of the symptoms you're talking about.
@67
Haha! Fail.
@65
"Am I judging the users of meth? Yeah, sorry, but I also judge pedophiles and do not feel remorse over that either."
Wow. That's super ignorant. Lord help us if you ever have a job where that kind of opinion holds any sway.
Then I stopped two years, then started again when I had a late working job... first once in a while, then every weekend, then twice a weekend, then everyday, then several times a day. Yes. Hook, line and sinker.... I quit the job, stopped taking it (which was hard) and went another two years without using.
Then at a party I was offered a line, and the process started again, first once in a while, then more and more, until I was totally hooked again. I couldn´t sleep, I got massive bruises, I was skinny as a rail, I was having skin and teeth problems, and was losing many friends that were getting fed up with my abuse of the drug. Also, I was broke, as my main concern was buying the drug, not paying my bills.
Then I made a drastic move to someplace new, and since in my new residence I had no contacts (and still no money) I was able to kick the drug again, but it took me half a year to get back to normal again. Kicking the habit is no joke, I had nightmares, mad cravings, my legs and back would be paralyzed at night.
Now almost 10 years have past since I last took meth, but I have no doubt that even one line would be enough to start the whole process again.
I can NEVER do it again, and I realize that. As much as once in a while I would snort a line and clean and organize my whole workshop in one night, as much as I'd like to easily lose weight... there is NO way I can safely do meth again.
I also thought I could control the drug. In the end it controlled me. As it may to OMU, one day.
I tried to write something short about OMU's post but I just ended up devil's advocate-ing back and forth. A lot of my odder feelings about the topic come from being defensive about how I was recently prescribed d-amphetamine (not methamphetamine...is that really still prescribed?) from my preachier friends who were making, I thought, unfairly direct comparisons between the two. Upper class people get prescribed it and it's covered by healthcare, unfortunate meth addicts are blamed for their addiction and are looked down upon. I guess upon closer inspection, there's not really a line between proper use and abuse...just a spectrum with clear right and wrong portions and a fuzzy middle.
That aside, cats can be pervy and intrusive. I can't actually think of a time when my cat has NOT inserted herself into the scene as I'm with a lover, even somebody I only just met who the cat doesn't know. Kitty doesn't like being on the bed (or wherever) when actual sex is happening - too much moving around, too much noise - but if there's so much as a two-minute quiet spot, she's right there. The issue here isn't your boyfriend's behaviour: it's the cat, and his (her?) behaviour is purrrfectly normal.
Yeah, I know. I had to.
I'm assuming you were prescribed dexamphetamine for ADHD?
They shouldn't be judging you as it's a legtimate medication but they are correct in comparing the two. Chemically the only difference is a carbon atom and three hydrogren atoms (that's a methyl group).
ADHD is exceedingly common among drug addicts, especially those who abuse stimulants (cocaine is similar in structure to ritalin) and many believe they are self medicating. It's a reasonable theory.
The dose make the poison. It also makes the drug. A therapeutic dose of codeine is not the same as a fun dose of heroin, same goes for all medical uses of drugs that bear resemblances to street drugs.
Finally, I believe last I heard meth was still listed and I believe it's still given to certain military people as well. I think it's used for similar cases as amphetamine where something stronger is needed. The trade name is 'desoxyn'. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugS…
Anyway, sorry your friends are being such dicks when they should be supportive. If you like I can hook you up with some reading material you can politely direct them to.
That's me.
My husband had much the same background, though he continued to smoke pot, and do a little this and that, now and then, as we got older and settled down. In his late forties he started doing quite a bit of coke, smoking crack. I started to get a little worried, talked to him about it, and he said "I've been doing drugs all my life, I know what I'm doing, don't worry" which seemed reasonable to me, so I backed off. Until we all had to admit that he was a hooked through the bag and back crack addict.
So that's him. Recreational user for thirty years, then addict.
My advice to my own kids, and to any other young person - you might be that rare soul who can, within limits, take it or leave it. Much more likely that you are not. Why play with that tiger? Drink a little beer, smoke a little pot, and stay away from the edge of the cliff.
I'm saying that there is an incentive on the part of sellers of anything they sell to sell as much as possible in as unrestricted a manner as possible to anyone and everyone.
ISTR hearing that alcoholics account for a huge chunk of alcohol sales. One hears similar things from the gambling addiction folks. I can't find numbers to cite this minute which I don't consider suspect (prohibitionist propaganda). Does this mean that most users are abusers even that most of the use is due to abuse? No. Of course lots of people use recreational drugs safely and responsibly - this isn't really about those people.
I don't advocate prohibition - I think prohibition causes far more harm than the drugs themselves inflict on users. I am suggesting that we need a regulated market, and really that the money we spend on prohibition could be spent elsewhere on treatment for those who do have problems. But, these are still - even if most of the danger is from the 'bathtub gin' nature of the illegal market - dangerous drugs. The dangers of alcohol abuse did not disappear when we eliminated (mostly) bathtub gin.
And yes, in fact, cigarette makers DO artificially adjust the levels of nicotine in cigarettes just as processed food makers adjust the levels of sugar in foods - there is no natural potato in the world with the sugar content of a McD's french-fry (or any other for that matter). This is a legal product, insufficiently regulated. It would be hard to put nicotine into a food product without doing bad things to the taste, and in this day and age (post surgeon general's report) without incurring the wrath of the public (or slipping it past them when they developed a 3 snake cake an hour 'habit').
If completely decriminalized and deregulated, it's very very easy to imagine trace amounts of amphetamines making their way into energy drinks. For exactly the kind of use OMU cites. Amphetamines were definitely marketed extensively as diet pills for years.
After a lifetime of arguing that the WoD is a cynical war on our own civilian population and as a pro-legalization arguer, I can't believe I'm arguing against it.
Oh, yeah nothing you're saying is untrue (although if they decided to ban the absurdly caloric food I love, I'd pitch a fit, so I'm not sure exactly what you're proposing in terms of 'regulation' but I'm sure it's fine)
Would people be inclined to put meth in energy drinks if they could get away with it? Absolutely! I have no doubt. That's why capitalism is so god-awful. But a LOT of things would have to change (besides legalization) for that to be possible. Otherwise we would see nicotine in energy drinks now. Or meth, for that matter (see my post at 96). Both of them are legal - just controlled.
Frankly, I think bringing back "original" coca cola would be rad as fuck. Age-limit that stuff though.
P.S. I never, at any point, suggested deregulation, the only reason it came up in the first place is because @5 suggested that legalizing drugs means "only a matter of time" before hard drugs are put in everything. I think we both know that isn't true. Even in the absurdly deregulated American market, we don't see that to be true with legal drugs.