“You shouldn’t be allowed to sign yourself out of rehab,” the girl is saying, fair hair flying, finger pointing. “People just f*ck off when it gets too hard. You’ll never kick it that way.”
It’s Friday morning, time for “Moot” in a very unusual Queensland school. “Moot” - redolent of the genteel mock court cases engaged in by law students aiming for the bar - is here transformed into a sort of debating free for all.
An older woman - a mother visiting the school - agrees.
“I was an addict. And when I say addict, I mean addict. I had a thousand dollar a day heroin habit. My kids saw me boofing up. Kids shouldn’t see stuff like that.”
The girl is engaged now, listening, her eyebrows drawn together.
“How did you kick it?”
“I had to go to gaol.”
The debate skirls around the government’s “Tough on Drugs” campaign. Other students say their piece. Teaching staff and visiting mother maintain active but low key control.
On the advertisements: “Too weak. Not harsh enough. Should show someone convulsing with a needle hanging out their arm.”
“A 27.5 million dollar attempt to stop people talking about the GST.”
On the booklet lobbed into the nation’s mailboxes: “Doesn’t tell why junkies love it so much.”
“You need to see Traffic for that.”
“It’s not just kids. Parents are junkies too.”
The school - which for legal reasons I can’t name - takes secondary age girls from what are euphemistically called “troubled backgrounds.” Many of the girls are in Care and Protection, under the auspices of the unloved Department of Family Services. Some - both “in care” and out - are refusers, kids who’ve avoided attending school for months, sometimes years. A large minority are indigenous. Others, like the daughter of the clean drug addict quoted above, are in situations that have “turned the corner”, where things are starting to come good.
I spent a term teaching in this school in 2001, before walking way from teaching and joining the ranks of the suits.
I thought - having taught Kosovar refugees for a year in one of London’s worst schools - that I’d seen the limits of human misery, at least as it’s defined in the First World.
“Sorry Miss. Can’t come in school today.”
“Why’s that?”
“Brother shot in Kosova yesterday. Sorry Miss.”
“I’m hungry today, Miss.”
“Did you have any breakfast?”
“No, vouchers got half-inched. No food in flat, Miss.”
In England, applicants for refugee status are expected to survive on vouchers they must redeem at a certain supermarket chain. This chain became notorious when I was living in the UK for failing to give out change when the asylum seeker hadn’t spent the amount indicated on the voucher. Milton Friedman is probably rotating briskly in his grave right now.
In England, the state system has been inefficiently ‘privatised’. Refugees are unable to choose a school; instead, they are allocated to schools by government diktat: the worst schools. Desperately underfunded. Crime ridden. Riven by gang warfare. Buried in the middle of the worst council estates. And there are people who think Australia’s mandatory detention regime is somehow less humane. Even at its worst, the Queensland school I taught at offers hope to its students. There are signs that some - in that cloying phrase - will “turn out well.”
Some of the girls are articulate and intelligent. A few will progress to university. Others will find a place at TAFE, or gain apprenticeships.
Student assessments of current issues at the weekly Moot meetings impressed me. I’ve quoted some of their comments on drugs because it’s relevent to drug law reform debates both here and elsewhere.
In part, Howard’s reliance on families for his “Tough on Drugs” campaign (remember that?) assumes that all families are alike: stable, loving and mostly harmonious. I suspect Howard believes, in his heart of hearts, that we’ll all magically return to a 1950s domestic utopia. Two parent families with dad at work and mum waiting for the kids to come home from school, orange juice and biscuits on hand.
It is this tragic assumption that means that his anti-drug crusade is almost certain to fail. I’ve seen families where the parents are so dysfunctional that they damage even the most sensible children. The normal, healthy child whose punishment for minor infractions was to apologise or risk being beaten senseless; the child sexually abused by her father with the mother’s knowing complicity; there are many others.
Can’t we solve problems rather than wasting so much taxpayers’ money on rhetoric? Years ago, Milton Friedman pointed out that making drugs illegal handed carte blanche to organised crime. I don’t think anything’s changed since then.
One student pointed out that this much money (all 27.5 million), devoted to drug rehabilitation, would fund 14,000 extra detox places nationwide.
Might not win an election. May save lives.
72 Comments
I remember moots from that old movie paperchase starring the late great John Houseman and Timothy Bottoms.
I saw a tough on drugs outside the Smith St. Safeways yesterday. But that’s probably moot.
Sorry.
Yair, I kinda figured the punnsters would get going on that. Any substantive contributions to make, fellas?
Drug laws are one of the many things that unite libertarians and social democrats like me (I know this is probably like a red rag to some bulls in this china shop, but what the hey).
I’ve known kids who really WERE from loving, caring families and got fucked up on drugs. That’s why the negative-only message on drugs is so dumb - people try them anyway because they KNOW there must be something fun in it. They keep using because there IS something fun in it. Then they get addicted and it’s not fun any more. This will keep happening no matter what. The only question is how do we deal with it? How do we make people aware that they can come back from it, that they haven’t written themselves out of society’s script?
Oh, I know, by putting them in jail! Great idea!
Not all social democrats, unfortunately. I’ve been surprised at how many I’ve met who are in favour of pretty punitive drug legislation. I think you’ll find that it’s left-libertarians like the HEMP crowd who line up most closely with us on this.
I’ve given up bothering to -ism or -arian myself too precisely, for that very reason. People who call themselves this or that (which sounds good on paper) turn out to hold this or that repugnant or ridiculous belief or policy. Hence the “social democrats like me” didn’t mean “people who, like me, identify as social democrats” but rather “people who identify as social democrats and, like me, aren’t stupid about drug policy”.
I am happy to legalise drugs that aren’t terribly addictive, although may have negative side effects eg Pot and various party drugs, I’m less certain that it would be a good thing for an across the board legalisation.
So, as in most things I would advocate a gradulist approach to legalisation, measuring the effect of each step rather than leaping in the deep end. I can still see that at least in some hypothetical cases it could be better to ban certain drugs than legalise them.
Legalisation is not entirely related to how we treat those addicted. While I wouldn’t advocate an immediate legalisation of heroin I do think we should be treating addicts differently.
One of the interesting consequences of criminalising marijuana is the hydro phenomena. Because of surveillance, marijuana’s now grown indoors with super-fertilizers. The growers are not accountable in the ways legitimate businesses are. The information that a consumer can expect on products in a supermarket is absent. Growers are not obliged to wash the fertilizers out either. The result is that many people smoking hydro are affecting their brains with a lot more than THC.
THC has in the past been found to be innocuous. But this has changed in recent years. It’s somewhat reminscent of the wood alcohol scourges during the prohibition era.
I reckon part of the problem is that information is divided down the middle. Pop culture says it’s all way cool, no problems, have a blast. Result: kids end up spending every week-end at clubs with ten tabs in their bloodstream. From the other side all you get is: drugs are bad, they’ll mess you up; which is possible but not inevitable. And adolescents are all really over being told what to do so what choices will they make?
People need experienced information free of moral judgements. If my nephew was to ask me about grass I’d say: it’s a great way to relax but don’t do it every day if you want to do something with your life besides X-Box.
As for people who take drugs cause life is a nightmare. I really don’t know what you do about that. There are ten year olds in this country who can’t use a toilet or use cutlery!! I met a sixteen year old girl a few years ago whose parents sold her for sex to her own uncle in exchange for smack money!!! What do you do?!
Returning to the 50s is not an option. Besides the same stuff went on back then as now. It’s just then it all took place behind closed doors and shut mouths.
The middle ground is of course legalisation for personal use (note: NOT decriminalisation, which with weed in SA apparently resulted in MORE criminal records due to the combination of more charges laid - where previously a blind eye might be turned by a cop with a sense of proportion - and defaults on fines).
But legalisation spells trouble for some ideologies: if you’re allowed to do it, why can’t people make money out of folks doing it? And there will always be small-time dealers who are really doing nothing more than organising a few friends’ funds for a bulk purchase (maybe with a little skimming). They are to be seen and treated differently to someone who knowingly supplies hopeless addicts for profit. It’s a difficult area, but it should be plain to see that the current approach needs a lot of work.
This is spot on, and to be fair a distinction is made when it comes to imposing sentence. Even so, the resources prohibition sucks up are ridiculous. Give Milt’s article (linked in my post) a read - he lays it on the line pretty effectively.
skepticlawyer
I have been around the “recreational drug” block more than once, and I am now quite conservative (though not punitive) on how illicit drugs should be treated. I totally reject the libertarian line.
My own straw-poll of people who agressively favour a laissez faire approach is that they are overwhelmingly people who are not attracted to drugs and thus do not really understand what they are about.
Well, I’m quite happy to admit I’ve been around that block, too, John. Even had drug dealers in the family. And Milt is spot on when he says:
“My own straw-poll of people who agressively favour a laissez faire approach is that they are overwhelmingly people who are not attracted to drugs and thus do not really understand what they are about.”
Really?
How many active recreational users or current addicts were in your straw-poll?
And what do you mean by “quite conservative (though not punitive)”?
FDB
“And what do you mean by “quite conservative (though not punitive)â€?”
To be truthful I don’t know what I really mean. I suppose my attitude is more visceral than rational. I have seen far too much pain and damage to feel comfortable with laissez faire attitudes. Yes, I understand upside down and back to front the arguments about the impossibility of distribution interruption, the innate allure of drugs because they are bloody wicked fun, and so on.
I think that total laissez faire (i.e. legal supply and all) would mean more addicts, but less flow-on effects for the rest of society. This might be a net improvement, provided we have excellent services to help those who fuck up.
Legalising just possession for personal use would IMO not affect demand much, because prices would remain high. The only benefits would be to recreational non-addict users, who could have a bit of fun without risking their record, and addicts, who *might* feel less like pariahs and more likely to seek help.
The CATO Institute estimates in the US, the costs of the war on drugs are 16 times of what the benefits are.
There’s a need for “excellent services”, they already exist, through medical care and counselling.
You are right that demand wouldn’t change much, because demand is driven by preferences and demand is inelastic. Prices will fall as supply isn’t controlled by violent cartelisation.
http://www.cato.org/current/drug-war/index.html
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa121es.html
John G
How do you stop hard users from using hard drugs? And while you’re there, please explain to me how Zoloft or Prozac is vastly diiferent other than it’s offered by prescription and much cheaper on the whole than illicit drugs?
Something like one in 15 Ozzies are on some form of anti-depressant. How can we in all conscience jail people who use illicit drugs with those sorts of numbers? It’s absurd.
Something like 2,000,000 Americans are in jail on drug related charges. It’s a shocking indictment on the place for doing this.
One student pointed out that this much money (all 27.5 million), devoted to drug rehabilitation, would fund 14,000 extra detox places nationwide
I’d rather the $27.5 million of taxpayer money go back to taxpayers, who can donate it to temperance charities, drug rehab charities whom ever they like. You can’t blame students for thinking that misspent government money would be better off (mis?)spent on something they value, the debate is too often framed in what the government can do to help the situation.
There are many people for whom casual drug use does not affect their ability to function as upright citizens, yet we criminalize their recreation activities anyway. The issue of 15 year olds seliing their bodies for drugs, and babies born addicted to heroin, are pretty emotive. But what are the numbers? How many hopelessly addicted compared to users who have their habit under control? How does criminalizing stockbrokers use of of cocaine prevent crack babies getting born?
The other issue - which Milton flags - is the impurities in many drugs purely due to their illegality. I wonder how many people have finished up with fried brains thanks to that?
Another unnoticed benefit of legalisation (discovered in a comparison of the British & Netherlands experience) is that there seems to be less progression from the so-called ‘gateway’ drugs onto harder drugs in a legal system. This is thought to be due to dealers having less incentive to ‘value add’ by encouraging clients onto harder and more addictive drugs to secure their income stream.
One student pointed out that this much money (all 27.5 million), devoted to drug rehabilitation, would fund 14,000 extra detox places nationwide
The problem here is that while treating the addiction side of the equation is probably as important as regulating the drugs chosen, is it Libertarian (or even good Government) to interfere with those who made the free choice to take drugs in the first place? “Self inflicted” damage such as drug addiction, smoking and even obesity is getting far less sympathy in the rationed socialised medicine system that is Britain’s NHS.
The choice of drug may even be incidental to the problem of addiction. At the end of last year Russia experienced what was possibly the largest mass poisoning in history. Unable to even afford vodka, alcoholics in the former USSR turned to fake vodka made with household alcohol which has resulted in irreversible liver damage. Over a thousand of the “yellow people” now face a very slow and nasty death.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6099906.stm
A natural limit in the availability of the drug of choice (vodka) didn’t effect the problem of addiction - with nasty results.
I should have made that clearer - as DEX and Brendan point out - that I don’t think funding a quillion detox places is the answer. I included the statistic because it shows two things:
1. Governments love showing off their moral worth, regardless of how stupid (and costly) such campaigns may be.
2. Sheesh, isn’t advertising expensive! Some ad agency got on the government tit there and did very nicely thankyou very much.
Just read your link. Looks like modern Russians aren’t as slick when it comes to distilling bimber as their ancesters were.
They need to get the Polish recipe.
I thought I posted this link for you Yesterday, CL. Maybe I put it in on the wrong thread. Anyway, Theodore Dalrymple, a doctor whose treated many drug abusers over the years, has presented a very cogent argument against legalising hard drugs:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a1.html
I always think it odd that libertarians are keen on the legalisation of drugs. If such legalisation takes place, you can be certain that the production, distribution and use of the drugs will be heavily regulated. In fact, the amount of government interference in the market after legalisation would far outweigh the regulation that exists now to enforce the ban.
As to that old canard about the law being morally neutral, no-one of any sense truly believes it. Lefties, horrified at the idea of the State using the law to impose any kind of sexual morality, are keen to impose their own morality upon us all through the enactment of thought crimes legislation meant to stop “discrimination.” Libertarians are a lot better, but they refuse to acknowledge that most of the criminal law (which they do not seem to want to be repealed) is based upon Judeo-Christian morality.
So, the real question is not whether the law should enforce morality, but which morality it should enforce.
Humbug, RL.
You can dress your social conservatism up however you like, but you’ll fool nobody.
Unless of course you think that free markets are MORE important that individual freedom, this is a stupid statement:
“In fact, the amount of government interference in the market after legalisation would far outweigh the regulation that exists now to enforce the ban.”
Regulation of what? I won’t face getting a criminal record for taking an E at a music festival, or smoking a joint at a mate’s barbie, while some farmers/processors/retailers have to put up with a little govt oversight - that’s the situation. I know what sounds more libertarian to me.
After your irrelevant excursion into lefty-bashing, we get back to this:
“So, the real question is not whether the law should enforce morality, but which morality it should enforce.”
Yes, the morality of letting businesses profit from drugs with some taxation and regulation, or letting violent thugs continue to control trade. The morality of letting people make their own choices about what to put in their bodies, or making criminals of them.
FDB
With the greatest respect, you are talking a lot of superficial bollocks!
No, the moral choice is one between taking drugs and NOT taking them.
Did you read the Dalrymple article I posted? As Amsterdam has shown, criminality has not been reduced by freely available drugs.
I also suggest that you go and have a look at Hogarth’s brilliant picture “Gin Lane.” As it demonstrates, the problem is that no individual’s actions apply only to him. Do you want your surgeon operating under the influence of cocaine or ice? Or the person who drives your bus to be a scag freak? Of course not. But if you legalise hard drugs there will far more chance of such things occurring, as will the family breakdowns, the child neglect and all the other lovely things that drug taking causes.
I see you know nothing about how government works. There would not just be a few regulations about growing the stuff. There would regulations about the age of the buyer, the advertising, the retail distributioon and the taxation of it. There would also have to be rules about driving or oerating machinery under the influence of drugs.
I am not a liberatian because I think liberatrians are ignorant of the inbuilt pathologies of the proletariat that are relaesed by the flight from respectibility. Recent history has shown that much of the old working class in most Western contries has been tansformed into a horrible, feckless underclass. And this transformation wasn’t wrought by material poverty, sexism, racism or homophobia, but by a nasty cocktail of welfarism and libertinism. These people lives have been ruined, because no-one will condemn them for making bad choices in relation to things like drug abuse. It isn’t the criminality involved in taking the drugs, it is the drugs themselves that are the problem here.
Like I said, read Dalrymple. He knows of what he speaks. He was a prison doctor and a psychiatrist in an NHS hospital in one of the roughest areas of Birgmingham. And his main point is that it the absolute horror of the life of the underclass was caused by the ideas of the left. In the case of drugs, the libertarians seem hell bent on joining thte left in encouraging the destruction of the underclass.
I’ve got no fear of people using drugs on the job, as they are liable for civil and criminal liability and to lose their job, regardless of the legality of what they use. How many process (abbitoir, etc) workers drink? How many turn up pissed?
“I am not a liberatian because I think liberatrians are ignorant of the inbuilt pathologies of the proletariat that are relaesed by the flight from respectibility.”
Maybe they should have the dignity of finding out what you know, on their own. Or maybe you’re just wrong?
`RL
With due respect, you don’t give the “underclass” the respect it deserves.
Sending a drug addict to jail for taking drugs is not the answer either. As i said there are about 2 million inmates in american jails.on drug realted charges. A great slab of crime in America and here devolves from drug related offenses.
How in all honesty can you disguish between an illicit drug user and the 1 in 15 Ozzies who are on anti-depressants. let’s not even talk about drinking.
In any event drug use is not just confined to the underclass. It wasn’t too long ago when cocaine was the middle class drug of choice. You could walk into a trading room on Wall street and lose count of the number of glazed eyeballs staring at a screen.
Yes cocaine used to be legal in your beloved Victorian England, RL. What more orderly society than that?
Sherlock Holmes was a regular cocaine user (fictional character I know but the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made his hero a cocaine user and thought nothing of it speaks volumes).
By the way, RL. I love your choice in reading. City Journal is terrific. It ranks there with the best. What are you doing peeping into an essentially libertarian magazine away?
I would die an unhappy death if that mag ever folded.
About a year ago it published possibly the best piece I have ever read on why the NY transit authority was a mess.
1. In any event, let’s not kid ourselves, there is parallel legalization andway. A hard drug user can declare themself to the authorities and obtain hard drug substitues. What’s the big difference other than it is controlled.
2. I’ve never tried hard drugs, but my guess is that heroine and the like essentially have similar pleasure traits etc. as do anti-depressants. Except that anti-depressants are longer lasting from what i understand.
3. kids are overprescribed these days a deivative of LSD whose name escapes me for the moment.
4. When drinking laws were liberalized I don’t think we witnessed any hard evidence of bus drivers etc. going for it during working hours.
5. 30 underworld figures have been killed in melbourne as a result of the drug trade over the past 7 years.
Okay, RL, I read Dalrymple’s polemic. I already have three excellent colanders, thanks very much.
The closest he comes to a serious objection is that we should exercise “a certain modesty in the face of an inherently unknowable future”.
Good Lord, I really don’t know where to start pointing out the cherry-picking, baseless assertions and non-sequiturs. The stench of burning strawmen, tumbling down slippery slopes. Heady stuff, to be sure. If that article worked for you, it can only be because you were convinced already.
“Amsterdam, where access to drugs is relatively unproblematic, is among the most violent and squalid cities in Europe.”
Really? Well-travelled, are we? Try looking a little closer to home, Dally-boy. Sans blinkers. Say, I dunno, Birmingham?
And from you:
“These people lives have been ruined, because no-one will condemn them for making bad choices in relation to things like drug abuse.”
Ah, so the role of society is to condemn people for making bad choices, eh? Well, thank God you’re standing against the tide of leftist (?)permissiveness. Oh wait, and so’s the law. And most of the rest of society.
“the inbuilt pathologies of the proletariat that are relaesed by the flight from respectibility”
I’ll just let that one speak for itself.
FDB
RL, quoted Dalrymple’s piece because it is an intelligently written article on why drugs shouldn’t be legalized. Both offer a decent opinion.
However like prohibition didn’t work, this updated version of prohibtion doesn’t either.
But I wouldn’t be poking fun of this point of view like you do. Your comment was pathetic to be honest.
Making suggetions about taxing hard drugs is about as pointless a form of legalization as you could get. So please, don’t give us the lefty version of legalization as it falls on deaf ears.
Whoa, JC.
1) Methodone for smack is like Foster’s Light Ice for single malt. People who go on the program do it because they want to straighten out. It’s nowhere near as much fun - certainly not enough to put up with the ignominy of sitting in a chemist every day waiting for your syrup while the ordinary folks look at you like you’re going to pimp their kids - it just reduces the pain of withdrawal so you can gradually wean yourself.
2) Heroin is nothing like an anti-depressant
3) Kids are certainly not prescribed hallucinogens (you’re thinking of ADHD meds, perhaps? - that’s an amphetamine. Dexamphetamine or Ritalin, depending on where you are, but much of a muchness).
4) Good point
5) Dunno what you mean. That’s a good thing from one angle, I suppose, but really it just opens the way for bloodier turf wars or bigger cartels.
“making suggetions about taxing hard drugs is about as pointless a form of legalization as you could get. So please, don’t give us the lefty version of legalization as it falls on deaf ears.”
I don’t like the idea of full legalisation much. But of course it would need at least GST, and a fair bit of regulation.
I’m a small steps man. Legalise personal use, so I’m not a criminal (or fined) for the odd toke on a joint, and so the condemnation RL loves and misses so much is reduced for people who takes the wrong drugs to excess.
“I don’t like the idea of full legalisation much. But of course it would need at least GST, and a fair bit of regulation.”
But why?
1) Methodone for smack is like Foster’s Light Ice for single malt.
Maybe, but the point is still valid.
2) Heroin is nothing like an anti-depressant
Maybe so, but they’re still happy pills and I am sure a shrink would be able to concoct a lookalike cocktail that is fully legal.
3) I was thinking of ritalin… a LSD derivative. 1/2 the kids in my kid’s grade seemed to on that stuff when we lived in the US. Shocking!
5) There is a lot of violence connected to illicit drug supply.
Underworld wars are just a form of dispute resolution/contract enforcement when one does not have access to the courts.
If soft drinks were banned, you’d see Coke and Pepsi shooting it out on the streets.
Abl says:
“I don’t like the idea of full legalisation much. But of course it would need at least GST, and a fair bit of regulation.â€
But why?
Yes, that’s the point I was trying to convey. The left’s idea of legalization is the tax and regulate it which is really moving down the ladder only a few notches from the ultimate form of regulation- illegality. Which is why the left has no answer for it either. In fact it could make the prcoess even worse.
We try the left’s method but tax and regulation would kill the idea with the ultimate effect of turning public opinion away from legalization again. Never let the left try their hand at most forms of deregulation as they don’t understand the concept of demand/supply/price mechanism. They would just fuck things up again.
The poeple that need to be convinced is the conservative right because some do have a handle on those things.
I know RL would.
Look at FDB. Without even blushing his first instinct was to regulate and tax it.
Legalization by the left would make things worse, not better.
“1) Methodone for smack is like Foster’s Light Ice for single malt.
Maybe, but the point is still valid.”
As is mine. Why put up with the stigma of applying for help from the authorities and being looked at like a freak when you can get cheap better smack on the corner. Because you’re trying to get clean, that’s why.
2) Heroin is nothing like an anti-depressant
Maybe so, but they’re still happy pills and I am sure a shrink would be able to concoct a lookalike cocktail that is fully legal.
Morphine? Anyhoo, anti-depressants are targetted at specific neurotransmitters or act as uptake inhibitors so you make the most of your natural production of ‘pleasure chemicals’ - nothing like the totally fucking mindblowing effect of a shot of smack stimulating so many endorphins you forget how to make them without it.
3) I was thinking of ritalin… a LSD derivative. 1/2 the kids in my kid’s grade seemed to on that stuff when we lived in the US. Shocking!
Agreed. Although Dexies (WA version) are a fun and safe recreational dose of amphetamine for adults if you take 4 or 5, and help you concentrate with little noticeable other effect if you take 1 or 2. A lot like a dose of cold & flu meds, without the stomach cramps. I also think they’d improve ANY kid’s concentration and grades, hence the overprescription. They work, regardless of whether you’ve got a syndrome. Problematic, no?
However, ritalin is, like dexamphetamine, in no way related to LSD or any other hallucinogen.
5) There is a lot of violence connected to illicit drug supply.
Word.
Let’s get this straight. I don’t support full legalisation. If however it happened (and all other arrangements remained much the same) I think it should be taxed. Like cigarettes and alcohol, this would help fund the rehab for fuckups, which currently comes out of the pockets of people in no way complicit in the drug trade. That’s the set of assumptions we currently operate with by and large.
If all your wet dreams came true, and taxation were abolished, then of course wealthy people would pay for this out of the goodness of their hearts. Or, like RL, would condemn them like the embodiments of unfettered proletarian urges that they are.
JC, It is erroneous to categorise anti-depressants as ‘happy pills’. The new generation of anti-depressants (Prozac, Zoloft etc.) which have had a lot of publicity in the last 15 years or so are selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors . They aim at redressing a low level of seratonin, which is associated with many mood disorders. Common SSRI side-effects include sexual dysfunction. ‘Pleasure trait’, you reckon? People do not take anti-depressants to experience pleasure. Of course these drugs are arguably over-subscribed, but that is a completely different isue to whether or how to control (ab)use of a drug like heroin
Oh, and before I go JC, if you want a drug that’s (distantly) related to LSD, buy some seasickness patches. Slap a few too many on and whooo-pappy!
-Do not do this, it’s not fun at all. A chick at my high school was very prone to sea-quease and thought “more is better, right?”. Wrong. Girl overboard (in the Swan river, fortunately) and babbling nuts for hours.
Yes, AML. Serotonin, not endorphins. My bad.
AML
They’re happy pills. They’re mood changing.
If a depressed person takes these pills it is supposed to alter their mood to get them into balance.
May be they aren’t identical to (the effect) of illicit drugs but they’re not that far either.
I would guess that if a normal person took a prozac they would have a mind altering experience in some way.
In any event the overscription indicates to me that the future is one that will see increasing use of mind altering drugs of some sort and used for various purposes. I actually don’t see anything wrong with that.
Guys getting pleasure from stiffening up the old fella is pretty close but not identical to a person having a snort to get into the mood of things when going to a party. One’s legal the other isn’t. Bad joke in my book.
As I said the future will be full of mind altering drugs and it will be a good thing.
They may even have a drug for normal people like me when confronted by lefties and their stupid ideas. Imagine that, actually being able to tolerate leftist swill for a few hours. Now that would be a drug with lots of demand I would say.
FDB says:
“However, ritalin is, like dexamphetamine, in no way related to LSD or any other hallucinogen.”
Maybe, not sure, but there were lots of ritalin heads around in the 60s. Apparantly you could always tell a ritalin head by the fact that he/she would get enormous pleasure staring at a manhole cover for hours.
Jason Soon says:
“If soft drinks were banned, you’d see Coke and Pepsi shooting it out on the streets.”
Well here we have a fine example of drug pushers. They lace their colas with caffeine and dishonestly claim it enhances the flavour, when it reality it is all about getting the kiddies hooked.
What a fine example of corporate sleaze. And another example of why we need more regulation in many areas rather than less.
Huh? since when was it news that Coke has caffeine? It used to have actual coca too. Coke drinkers demand it. It’s part of the product, and arguably the only actual ingredient of value.
Jason, I’m referring to this:
“Soft drink companies say caffeine adds flavour to cola, but a scientific taste test conducted by Deakin University found consumers could not tell the difference between caffeine-free Coke and a version with caffeine.” http://www.theage.com.au/news/diet/coke-in-firing-line/2007/01/10/1168105032677.html
So the soft drink companies have been caught out telling porkies.
It would be easy enough for soft drink companies to make caffeine-free cola for the under 18s– but they don’t want to because it would harm the bottom line.
Mel
Coke tried to change the recipe for classic coke and almost lost the business. the change was almot insigficant to most taste buds, yet they had to revert back. This happened in the 80’s.
So, you’re actually trying to peddle a story that a 3rd rate ozzie uni would be able to tell the taste of coke better than consumers.
Fm, there’s one born every mioniute isn’t there.
Don’t like coke because it’s a big bad coporation, don’t friggen drink, mel. But don’t peddle dishonesty passed on by a third rate institution that would barely know what a can of coke looks like.
“It would be easy enough for soft drink companies to make caffeine-free cola for the under 18s– but they don’t want to because it would harm the bottom line.”
is this the swill that gets discussed at the green cult collective?
Ok fact’s please. Explain exactly how it would be “easy enough”. numbers and business plan along with the promise that it wouldn’t change the taste.
jeesh you must lead a mithless life, numbnut. Except for the booze.
I also noticed you headed west recently… on a big bad plane no less. recall that you gave me a hard time because I caught planes. i damn well hope you bought back the carbon , mel.
“They lace their colas with caffeine and dishonestly claim it enhances the flavour, when it reality it is all about getting the kiddies hooked.”
Does it ever end with these luddite Theodore Kaczynskis? They want to rip every pleasure out of life. There is nothing better than an iced up coke with fish&chips or a pizza. it’s possibly the best taste combination the world has the offer and these green zealots want to curtail it.
Coke by way has the most complex taste of any drink or food known the man. It hits every single taste bud. it also is supposed to be a taste combination that you never remember and the experience is almost like new each time you have a can.
Mmmmmm I’m just gettin one out of the fridge and having it in mel’s honor;
The problem with that story is that while you can’t taste caffiene, that doesn’t mean that it has no value in the drink. When I buy coke I buy it for the lift the sugar and caffiene gives you. I’m sure the kids do to.
Food standards Australia says at the level found in soft drinks there shouldn’t be a problem with children consuming it and no good evidence for long term health effects. So I’m not sure why we are worried about them drinking it. Personally I’d be more concerned about the kids drinking the amount of sugar they put in it.
Caffeine is good for you.
I agree, it’s the sugar that’s the problem but that’s just a matter of brushing your teeth regularly. I don’t see the big deal.
Well brushing and doing exercise.
It has an effect that consumers like so they add it. If it was in some way toxic at the levels kids are consuming then their might be a reason for concern but there isn’t any evidence that there is. As the report said
If they take the sugar out of it like they did in the 80’s when they went with a sweetner…….
there was the closest thing to an open consumer revolt we have ever seen in the world. Coke drinkers went nuts over the change. Serisously, there were a mountian of death threats and hoarding going on. it’s actually a classic case study in business school on how NOT to go about making changes to a great product and expecting your buyers to accept it. The big bad corporation… Coke, would have gone to the wall if they had not reverted back. So much for large corps having all the power.
In any event, Coke’s great. It’s possibly the best consumer invention ever known.
And who disapproves of it. Why it’s the number one rated university in the world. Deakin.
Heard of it! Neither have I.
You haven’t heard of Deakin, JC? How could you not? It’s where James McConvill got his degree
caffeine consumption is excellent in waking you up in the morning. Combine that with a mid to small sized cuban cigar and you get a great lift ready for the day.
I wouldn’t suggest cigars for kids, but adults ought to try that combine. Forget throat cancer as one cigar a day ain’t going to do shit.
Mel, before you abuse me about the cigar let me remind you that it comes from the earthly paradise of socialism that you and the rest of the collective love so much because it has a free medical clinic for every 3 people. So i am doing my bit to help your side .
This combo is not advised if the spouse hates the smell of cigars. Smoke it outside.
just dramatic license there Jase. Yea i heard of it. It’s supposed to be some rat nest of lefty group think from what I hear.
cuban cigars should ONLY be smoked on a full stomach preferrably after dinner with Cognac
Not a bad combo, homer. I would add a nice piece of chocolate to that combo.
good grief
I love the black death - Coke is an integral part of many - if not most - of my lunches in any given week. Love that ice-cold, bubbly goodness. It’s the world’s top pop.
You are missing the point here guys. I love caffeine myself. I drink at least six cups of tea each day plus the odd block of chocolate and iced coffee.
My points are:
# the ethics of giving kiddies an addictive substance irrespective of its health consequences, and
# the dishonesty on the part of the cola companies in saying that caffeine is a flavour enhancer in cola when it isn’t.
JC, as per usual you make no sense. I’ve never commented on your plane travel. And I think the more cigars you smoke the better, for obvious reasons.
And you haven’t heard of Deakin and you live in Melbourne?! You really are dumber than a hamster.
Ted Kaczynski (aka mel, aka Stevie Wonder)
Ted, no one is missing the point.
I explained why you are a luddite. i also explained that changing ingredients is not as easy as you think despite reliance on a third rate education sewer to suggest that taste won’t change.
Steve Edney explained to you that a more qulaified centre has said that kids aren’t affected.
You on the other hand offer no evidence that kids are adversely affected by the caffeine. As usual the only thing you go by is suspect studies that conform you prejudices.
No one is missing any point, Ted. Your argument has been demolished before your very eyes yet you can’t even see it.
Stay away from the things that make you happy in life, ted , otherwise the Green cult is going to get angry.
By the way if the cult head tells you there’s a spaceship waiitng if you take a pill and go to sleep i strongly suggest you take it as you don’t want to keep the others waiting.
I don’t believe that the caffiene addiction is so hard to kick that its a problem., and I really don’t believe the kids are worse addicted to it than they are to sugar.
As for being deceptive perhaps they are or pehaps they believe it. Unless I think its dangerous I’m not sure I care.
Steve,
According to John Hopkins caffeine withdrawal symptoms include:
“# Headache – (often described as being gradual in development and diffuse, and sometimes throbbing and severe)
# Fatigue — (e.g., fatigue, tiredness, lethargy, sluggishness)
# Sleepiness/drowsiness — (e.g., sleepy, drowsy, yawning)
# Difficulty concentrating — (e.g., muzzy)
# Work difficulty — (e.g., decreased motivation for tasks/work)
# Irritability — (e.g., irritable, cross, miserable, decreased well-being/contentedness)
# Depression — (e.g., depressed mood)
# Anxiety — (e.g., anxious, nervous)
# Flu-like symptoms — (e.g., nausea/vomiting, muscle aches/stiffness, hot and cold spells, heavy feelings in arms or legs)
# Impairment in psychomotor, vigilance and cognitive performances” http://www.caffeinedependence.org/
Caffeine intoxication also gets a DSM-IV listing.
Obviously the companies know what their products tatste like sans caffeine otherwise they wouldn’t be making claims about its taste. Either that or they are lying about this too.
Sure, it isn’t the biggest issue in the world but still it is an example of corporate sleaze.
I only mentioned ‘cos Jason mentioned coke and pepsi.
Ted
What’s sleazier, the cola companies wanting to prevent interference with their product after what happened in the 80’s Coke debacle or the sleazy lying the Australian green party throws around about GM food and nuke energy?
To your credit I have seen you dispair over the gm issue and the anti-science view your cult displays although I don’t know your view on nuke power as yet.
But how can you live with yourself adoring that sleazy bob brown while he lies about something as environmentally important as GM food that would actually reduce acreage use etc and help with increasing wilderness areas?
As to the other issues about the effects of caffeine. We need to know the degree of harm and the quantity of caffiene consumed needed to induce all those effects. Of course side effects are an issue for almost all types of food, drink and medicine. So giving this litany of side effect complaints is meaningless.
It’s no good , ted, telling us all the side effects unless we have the facts. How much cola does a trial group have to drink before some of those side effects enter the picture.
Obviously when it comes to your consumption I would lay off the six cups as its having an abovious effect on you.
Coke used to sell Caffeine Free, Sugar Free Coke. It was called “Caffeine-Free Diet Coke”
They sold about 3 cans in 5 years and took it off the market.
You can already buy sugar-free versions of most popular soft-drinks. (Pepsi Max, Coke Zero, etc).
The same luddites got stuck into Coke for “Coke Zero” because they marketed it virally. Tools.