DRUGS!

Have never taken any drug recreationally except for alcohol.I have never had a blackout, never thrown up, never had anything remotely close to a "bad" hangover. I have certainly been intoxicated but my body does an interesting thing; after drinking a few, especially if I have them fairly close together, it just doesn't taste good to me anymore, so I stop.I don't consider myself to have a propensity to addiction at all. I frankly looked down on the druggie burnouts and rich alcoholic kids in my high school as lame and pathetic. We would lose at least a couple of kids a year to DWI accidents every year. I did not have the typical invincible teenager attitude of "It's not going to happen to me". I always thought, "Why wouldn't it happen to me?" Rational and averse to magical thinking even then, I guess.As a college freshman, I decided to get drunk for the first time, in my dorm room, with a couple of friends. Two wine coolers had me literally bouncing off the walls, and I remain a relative lightweight to this day. After that experience, I rarely bothered with booze except on rare occasions when we went out. I considered it a huge waste of money since I was always saving for horse show entry fees. I was also taking a lot of early morning riding lessons and had volleyball practice in the mornings, too, so it just wasn't something that fit into my life.In my early twenties, and being inexperienced with alcohol, I once drove a short distance on the highway after having a couple of glasses of wine. I could tell that my reaction time was adversely affected and it was extremely scary becasue I knew that there was nothing I could do to improve my performance. I have never done that since.I now sometimes enjoy wine with a special dinner a couple of times a month, or rarely a glass in the evening just because it tastes good. There is also the very occasional margarita, martini, or screwdriver-type cocktail. Again, always as part of an event or celebration. It wouldn't occur to me to just "have a cocktail" at the end of the day.I have never craved alcohol or used it to "relax". I drink it first for the flavor and how it enhances my culinary experience of a meal, and second, and far less importantly, for the drug. In fact, if wine didn't have alcohol in it at all, I wouldn't miss it.Oh, right, I just turned 39 this spring.I also think it is interesting that nobody has brought up the highly addictive drug nicotine yet.

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Ms. Whyt had informed me that Crazy Jen had been in a bad car crash and I assumed that the Morphine was prescribed to her and that everything was on the up and up.

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Of course, even if she had been prescribed the morphine, it doesn't mean that it was OK for YOU (or anybody else) to take it.

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My attitude about my drug use in life? No regrets. Life is what it is.

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Are you sure you don't regret "blowing" 40K? I know I would.Unless we are completely irresponsible and shortsighted, we make many choices based upon how we think it will affect ourselves and others in the future.Life is full of choices, and without making judgements based upon anticipating possible outcomes that may cause one to regret or rejoice, there's no reason to make any particular choice.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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I used to love quaaludes. You never see those anymore.

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My father was a pharmacist and our family owned and operated a small drug store in a neighboring small town.One night, my father, mother, older brother, older sister, and two employees were robbed at gunpoint.One of the men followed my father around the back of the store with a gun pointed at him while the other one pointed a gun at everyone else who had been ordered to lie face down on the floor.They wanted percodan, percoset, and quaaludes (your mention of them made me recall this event).I hope all of you who have purchased illicit perscription drugs realize that some of them could have been stolen at gunpoint like they were from my family.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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I know that. Your criticism could just as well be made against anyone who drank during the 1920s. Or anyone who gambled in Las Vegas before the 1980s.

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Except that Percodan, Percoset and Quaaludes do have legitimate medical applications and they are perfectly legal to use under a doctor's supervision.Unlike in the 1920's, producing the drugs and selling the drugs are legal but regulated.

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Your point is taken, and I'm sorry about what happened to your family. But such incidents aren't entirely the fault of drug users.

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Not entirely, no. But when you were a kid and buying and enjoying all of those illicit prescription drugs, did you ever once question how the seller obtained them?Our family pharmacy had cinder blocks thrown through the windows three times in 15 years, and it was robbed during business hours twice. And this was in a sleepy little rural Western PA town with no grocery store and one traffic light.

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This country's insane war on drugs is every bit as much too blame, if not more.

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Really? I kind of think that recreational prescription drugs are a luxury item that nobody actually needs and that letting people buy or simply give away whatever they want is a recipe to transform short-sighted, self-centered adolescent risk-takers with more money than sense into unproductive-at-best and criminal-at-worst people that the rest of us pay for, one way or the other.Mind you, I also think the "War on Drugs" is stupid for many reasons. I would rather drug abusers go to comprehensive, long-term rehab than to prison.However, the American public is not, in general, well-educated and is, in general, prone to magical thinking. Letting people like that have all the drugs they want just seems idiotic to me.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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If I can take an aspirin for a headache, or even Celexa for depression*, why can't I take medication for boredom? Or for "not-pleasure"?

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Because "boredom" is not a medical condition.

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Why is "wanting to get high" any less of a legitimate medical disorder than, say, "social anxiety" or "restless leg syndrome"?

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"Wanting to get high" isn't a disorder at all. "Wanting to bodily harm someone when they really piss you off" isn't a disorder either.Anxiety and restless leg syndrome, however, can interfere with all aspects of a person's life and can even shorten one's life.No one has ever literally been bored to death.

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Or pain? (Actually pain is a really hard condition to get doctors to medicate, as it turns out.)

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Pain should be more agressively treated, I agree.

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*keep in mind that, while it's understood that actual clinical depression is a physiological condition, there's absolutely no definitive diagnosis of depression. I was prescribed, and took, Celexa for months, based on the fact that I had a few of the symptoms of depression - but I wasn't physiologically depressed, I just hated my classes. When I dropped out the "symptoms" disappeared.

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Then you were probably hastily misdiagnosed and prescribed a medication that you didn't need. That is a symptom of our cattle-barn style healthcare system and I don't think is related to the subject at hand.

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They hand out drugs like candy for "feeling blue", or for "feeling anxious", or for "feeling ants crawling inside my legs." I don't understand why you think it's inherently illegitimate to medicate feelings of boredom or "not-yet-high-enough."

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I don't think they should hand out drugs like candy for emotional problems. I think medication should be a last resort or a very short term leg-up. I think they are used as a cheap quick fix that the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies encourage.

I'd just like to say for the record that I do not agree with MOO's characterization of how drug use affects the human body/psyche.

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Quit trolling.

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ROTFLMAO!!!Thanks, that made my day.

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One can never recognize all of anyone's needs, even one's own.

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Yes one can if one is at the pinnacle of human reasoning.

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Really!Can someone who is "at the pinncacle of human reasoning" tell if their friend has a slight selenium deficiency?

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Neither is depression. Depression is a psychological condition, which is why psychiatrists are the ones who prescribe for it.

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Excuse me, but that's wrong. Clinical Psychiatrists are, in fact, medical doctors. Psychiatry is a medical specialty just like Oncology or Dermatology.That's why, in fact, they are allowed to write prescriptions for medications.

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Says you. If it's an undesired state interfering with normal functioning - you know, like hunger can be: "OMG I'm so hungry I can't even think!" - then clearly it's a condition that reasonable adults should have the option to have "treated." Especially when we're talking about drugs that are completely natural and non-toxic, like cannabis.

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"Natural" is irrelevant, and I would never consider the inhalation of burning leaves of any kind into one's lungs as "non-toxic".THC is a drug that is effective for pain and nausea in cancer patients and I am all for legalizing.I'm sorry, crash, but trying to sell boredome as some kind of medical condition is just silly. It doesn't pass the straight-face test.

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I'm sure your husband can tell you what thoughts of aggression, violence, and rage constitute.

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Actually, I can tell you what they constitute better than he can.I was the one who grew up in an abusive home, not him.

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It's enough of a disorder that when a person has those feelings a lot, we mandate treatment for them.

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Everyone has those feelings sometimes crash, both rage and boredom. They are normal. They only become disorders when they start becoming overwhelming or obsessive. Someone who is bored for an afternoon doesn't have a disorder.

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C'mon. "Restless leg syndrome" shortens people's lives?

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Yes. If you can't get much, if any, restful sleep for years or decades, your overall health suffers and resistance to pathogens and disease is reduced. Chronic lack of sleep is also associated with a highter incidence of motor vehicle accidents, Type 2 diabetes, depression, hypertension, and a bunch of other problems and conditions.

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Nobody's literally ever been anxious to death, either.

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So what? Being bored doesn't interfere with everyday life the way that anxiety does. Remember, we aren't talking about little bouts of butterflies before a job interview or feeling shy around new people at first. We are talking about anxiety that is debilitating.People really choose to be bored, after all. What is boredome other than being too lazy to entertain oneself and so pampered that you don't have any work to do?

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And the vast majority of people with depression don't kill themselves; clearly you're very accepting of medications to treat a number of quasi-conditions - yet, you're dubious of the idea of taking drugs for pleasure, unless it's a certain narrow list of "ok" drugs, like caffeine and alcohol - both of which are thousands of times more dangerous and deadly than, say, marijuana - upon which it is impossible to overdose.

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Thousands of times? I'll alow that hyperbole becasue I don't really care what the real numbers are.And I'm not sure where you've gotten the idea that I'm against the legalization of pot. I put it in the same class as alcohol.

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Why? Because you have a moral objection to pharmacology?

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No, and I already told you why:

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If a remedy is cheap, effective, and has limited side effects, from what basis would you deny someone "the easy way" to treat an undesirable condition?

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The notion that drugs are a "quick and easy" fix for most emotional problems is a myth. Drugs are only part of the solution, and it is well-understood that they are more effective when combined with therapy and lifestyle changes.The bottom line is there is no quick fix to be found in a bottle of pills for most emotional problems.

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Your own moral belief that suffering makes us better people? Makes our lives meaningful?

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Hardly. I'm just basing my arguments on facts.

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Why do you let people medicate themselves with caffeine? Surely being tired from not getting enough sleep isn't a "disorder", either? But you don't have a problem with that use of psychoactive drugs, do you

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No.Caffeine is very mild in effect and doesn't result in impairment or intoxication.

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...WHEN IN FACT THERE ARE FAR CHEAPER, MORE EFFECTIVE AND SAFER ALTERNATIVES VIA THE WHOLISTIC NATUROPATH DRUGLESS REMEDIES.

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Buz, you never addressed several facts and arguments in our discussion of the safety and efficacy of herbal drugs, specifically comfrey and it's association with hepatic veno-occlusive disease (liver failure) due to the plant's high levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, a known liver toxin. This post from that thread referenced a number of case studies of people killed or maimed by ingesting comfrey.What, did you think I would just forget that we ever had that conversation?

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In America the odds are that their friend, no matter who they are will likely have at minimum, a slight deficiency, yes.

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The only way to tell is to get a blood test, but we all know that evil conventional medicine will fraudulently doctor the results of the test just to make sure that no deficiency shows up, therby keeping people from taking much-needed vitamin supplements.It's all part of the evil multibillion dollar supplement industry's plan to keep us all popping those pills.Oops, did I say "multibillion dollar supplement industry"??I meant to say "multibillion dollar parmeceutical industry!!Hahaha, it is so hard to tell the difference between them anymore.

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Nator, I have a sizeable comfrey patch in one of my three gardens and drink the tea regularly with nothing but good effects. The tests the FDA used were via highly concentrated extracts of the root. The leaf tea has nothing but good effects.

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I am not talking about "FDA tests", buz.As you can view in the link to that old thread I provided, I am talking about people who were prescribed comfrey by naturopaths or who ingested comfrey leaves in the belief that they were theraputic who subsequently suffered liver failure due to the known liver toxins present in comfrey.People died, Buz. They died from ingesting comfrey which lead to liver failure.Do you accept the factual basis of each of the following statements?A yes or no answer will suffice:1) Comfrey contains high levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids2) Ingesting sufficient ammounts of pyrrolizidine alkaloids has been documented to contribute to hepatic veno-occlusive disease (liver failure)3) There are cases of people who have ingested comfrey in sufficient quantities which has lead to them developing hepatic veno-occlusive disease (liver failure), and even death.

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The FDA and the powerful pharmaceutical conglomerates are in bed together for the $$$, for power/control and for undermining the real remedies for disease. Unless they can patent a remedy there's no $$ in it and they can't patent comphrey. It's as simple as that.

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Buzsaw, what is the annual earnings of the "herbal supplement" industry?

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Yes you should not take root product internally in high concentrates.

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None of the case studies I cited involved the ingestion of comfrey root.All of the cases of liver failure occurred after people drank comfrey tea, ingested whiole comfrey leaves, or took comfrey leaves in pill form.

Do you accept the factual basis of each of the following statements?A yes or no answer will suffice:1) Comfrey contains high levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids2) Ingesting sufficient ammounts of pyrrolizidine alkaloids has been documented to contribute to hepatic veno-occlusive disease (liver failure)Also, what is the annual earnings figure for the nutritional supplement industry?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

One issue I have with Buz is that he irrationally views the pharmeceutical/conventional medicine industry as money-loving, entirely self-serving and evil but considers the highly profitable nutritional supplement industry as operating only through the goodness of their hearts.I very much agree with his and your position that the drug manufacurers have far too much influence and that our healthcare system has encouraged people to try to find health in a pill instead of making much more difficult but also more effective and cheaper lifestyle changes.In general, I think profit motive is a terrible way to drive healthcare considerations.But anyway, I keep asking Buz to tell me the annual earnings figure for the nutritional supplement/herbal drug industry because it is just as profit-driven and self-serving as the conventional drug companies. This is why they fight so hard against any law that would require them to demonstrate that their products are safe and effective. It would cut into their profits.Buz is living in fantasy land if he thinks that the nutritional supplement industry cares a whit about his or anybody else's health. They care about money, just like any other big corporate industry.Since we all know that Buz will never look up the information, I did:The estimated 2006 earnings of the nutritional supplement/herbal drug industry was just under 6 billion dollars.Yes, Buz, that's billion, with a "b".