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If alcohol had always been illegal, would it be classified as a "hard drug?"

LucidSDreamr

LucidSDreamr

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If alcohol had always been illegal, would it be classified as a "hard drug?"
 
Alcohol has messed me up more than opiates, stimulants, pyschadelics, weed, or benzos ever could.

It's one of the hardest out there. I've intentionally stopped drinking for almost a year now besides an occasional beer or so with friends. Just not for me.
 
Alcohol is the only drug that I've ever had a serious problem with. Meth? Nah, that was a walk in the park compared to ethanol. I've been able to quit smoking cold turkey, but booze? Not really. Though I do sometimes take 1-3 month breaks, I always come back to the devil water.

Only drug I ever almost had a seizure from (or did? it was a fucked up withdrawal)...in Cuba no less (some holiday hahaha)

Shit should have health warnings on the label like cigs have. Never mind the withdrawal, how toxic are its metabolites? This is nowhere near the common knowledge that "smoking tobacco kills" is.
Every label should have something about the withdrawal potential and acetaldehyde at minimum.

But shrooms are "poison" apparently. :rolleyes:
 
SunriseChampion said:
Alcohol is the only drug that I've ever had a serious problem with. Meth? Nah, that was a walk in the park compared to ethanol. I've been able to quit smoking cold turkey, but booze? Not really. Though I do sometimes take 1-3 month breaks, I always come back to the devil water.

Only drug I ever almost had a seizure from (or did? it was a fucked up withdrawal)...in Cuba no less (some holiday hahaha)

Shit should have health warnings on the label like cigs have. Never mind the withdrawal, how toxic are its metabolites? This is nowhere near the common knowledge that "smoking tobacco kills" is.
Every label should have something about the withdrawal potential and acetaldehyde at minimum.

But shrooms are "poison" apparently. :rolleyes:
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Kinda being nosey but can I just ask--as an alcoholic what does the substance do for you? I've always despised it but I can sort of see it's appeal. Personally I struggle with euphoric things

Is it the numbing effects or the lowered inhibitions that you enjoy? Or is it a stimulant for you
 
As an alcoholic alcohol is definitely not my first choice for drugs. That would be cannabis. But I get massively massively addicted to alcohol really quickly. It's kind of weird when you think about it. I can understand how people drink themselves to death. Alcohol does a lot of damage to your body but your not completely aware how bad it is when your non-stop drinking. And that's just the physical part of it, the trust issues with your family are pretty shitty too if your a bender drinker.

Anyway, I don't have answers about what the big attraction to alcohol is, in sufficient quantities, stoned drunk is a pretty neat buzz. I don't recommend it though.
 
Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the world.

Two studies, one conducted in the UK in 2010, and another conducted across the whole of Europe in 2015, both came to the exact same conclusion.

Alcohol is more dangerous than every illegal drug. Even heroin, crack, and meth.

Additionally it was found that psychedelic and empathogen drugs such as LSD, mushrooms, and MDMA were among the least harmful of all. Professor David Nutt famously got fired from his government advisory position for writing a paper demonstrating why MDMA is even safer than horse riding... even though he provided data showing it's true. He made this comparison to demonstrate that society allows many risky behaviours such as horse riding, motorcycling, base jumping, mountain climbing, bungee jumping, etc but yet does not show the same attitude towards drug use. This demonstrates that drug laws are based on a moral crusade rather than safety. Which the government didn't like.

The one and only reason alcohol is legal is because it has a cultural history of use within Western cultures. It has nothing to do with its safety profile. If drug laws were not arbitrary and were instead based on the harm posed by each substance, booze would absolutely be a Class A drug. And psychedelics would be legal. But the reason alcohol is legal and cannabis is not, in most of the Western world, is because cannabis is historically associated with foreigners and alcohol is not - Reefer Madness anyone? And the US gov popularised the name "marijuana" because it sounds foreign. Same story with opium. While opiates are obviously more dangerous than cannabis, they were not made illegal for this reason. Opium was criminalised in the US for example because Chinese immigrants used it and America didn't want white people to do the same.

So yeah a lot of drug law comes out of historical racism. Alcohol escaped this because it has a cultural history of being "the disgusting European poison" to use the description Nietzsche applied to it.

Some sources for further reading.

News articles:

www.bbc.com

Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt

Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack based on the overall dangers to the individual and society as a whole, according to a report co-authored by the UK's former chief drugs adviser Professor David Nutt.
www.bbc.com

www.telegraph.co.uk

Ecstasy 'no more dangerous than horse riding'

Taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse, according to the head of the Government's drug advisory body.
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

www.iflscience.com

What's The Most Dangerous Drug In The World?

What's The Most Dangerous Drug In The World?
www.iflscience.com www.iflscience.com

Direct links to the two studies:


www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

European rating of drug harms - PubMed

The outcome of this study shows that the previous national rankings based on the relative harms of different drugs are endorsed throughout the EU. The results indicates that EU and national drug policy measures should focus on drugs with the highest overall harm, including alcohol and tobacco...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Wiki article on the history of opium, this is the bit about prohibition outside China, in the West:

en.wikipedia.org

Opium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

A particularly interesting quote:

There were no legal restrictions on the importation or use of opium in the United States until the San Francisco Opium Den Ordinance, which banned dens for public smoking of opium in 1875, a measure fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment and the perception that whites were starting to frequent the dens.

...

Abuse of opium in the United States began in the late 19th century and was largely associated with Chinese immigrants. During this time the use of opium had little stigma; the drug was used freely until 1882 when a law was passed to confine opium smoking to specific dens. Until the full ban on opium-based products came into effect just after the beginning of the twentieth century, physicians in the US considered opium a miracle drug that could help with many ailments. Therefore, the ban on said products was more a result of negative connotations towards its use and distribution by Chinese immigrants who were heavily persecuted during this particular period in history.
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GetMeOutOfThisCRAP said:
Kinda being nosey but can I just ask--as an alcoholic what does the substance do for you?

Is it the numbing effects or the lowered inhibitions that you enjoy? Or is it a stimulant for you
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I am not an alcoholic. I am a binge drinker, at times.

As for what it does for me....that's a good question. Not much, to be honest. I mostly drink because everyone around me does. The lowered inhibitions can be fun after about ten pints....I just turn into a brutally honest joker. All fun and games.
It does act as a stimulant for me though, I'd say. One pint makes me relaxed. Two pints make me sleepy. Three pints make me.....oh, it's sunrise again!
I think this is why I (and my degen friends <3) can keep drinking for days, sometimes for like 20 hours, no sleep....it's stupid. It's just like a hit of meth....oh, here we go again!

Bing drinking is a real problem around here, I reckon.

There was a stupid meme once. It had three lines, each composed of three (or was it two?) squares with a picture. The top line was labelled Drinking in the USA or something like that. Showed a picture of pint glasses coming together and then a picture of fisticuffs and then one from a courtroom.
Second line was about the UK. Showed the same pint glasses and then a pic of fisticuffs and then another of the pint glasses.
Third line was about Canada and all three pics were the pint glasses. Yeah, that's how it is where I'm from...fucking brutal.

I'm slowly getting rid of it almost completely. I think I'll always love a touch of wine with dinner here and there but I've been slowly replacing it with sipping on mushroom tea and am still trying to get this mushroom kombucha thing going. I'm also going to try to start making mushroom mocktails.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about match days because having a pint at the stadium and then going to the pub afterwards is just a part of football for me.
Strangely though, my hangovers are like a walk in the park again ever since I quit smoking darts a couple of months ago.
 
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One of the hardest. The rates of people who try heroin vs who become addicted to heroin are surprisingly small. The number of problem drinkers and alcoholics is surprisingly large, especially given that not that as many people as you think (<50%) drink meaningfully in the US. So that's out of the way. Now, you have a problem. What do you get? Disinhibition and bad behavior, huge physiological damage, takes a toll on your looks, seizures, shakes, quitting can even cause hallucinations and shit. I went thru all this and dope too. Alcohol is just as hard. The social settings around it make it easier to not get strung out on alcohol versus the social settings of heroin so in that respect it's still a "softer" drug as fewer people wind up fucked up with it but those numbers are not what people think and once you get strung out on alcohol it's really bad. Far worse than heroin in fact. Add the wider social consequences- DWIs, violence, work productivity, job loss, relationship issues, lots more.
 
Well I used to think that was bullshit when I was younger, "typical things drug addicts and junkies say to justify their habits" but some years later, now that I have tried almost all recreational substances on the planet, yes, alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there, if you think about how "hard" a drug is due to the effects it induces, to be honest marihuana would be at the lowest of the list, a very mellow and natural high, that wouldnt incite you to violence, and that doesnt take you out of reality... Opiates? Pfff... such a natural feeling, and one that induces peacefulness and happiness, definetly not something that would make you agressive, or that would make you drive impaired and kill a family.

Health issues caused by the substance? Alcohol is definetly one of the most toxic substances to the body there is overall, if not the most.

Adictiveness? Alcohol is one of the most adictive substances, and one of the few that can kill you during withdrawal, making it even more addictive.

If alcohol was illegal, it would be the scary drug nobody "decent" ever thinks of trying, just like heroin or meth, the one your grandma warns you about, opiates and weed would be considered the inoffensive shit, whichever way you look at it, alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there, the only think that makes it seem safe and mundane is that its legal.
 
Of course!!! I broke up with my family totally up like a few times. It was not bearable.

JJ
 
Jaredborgetti said:
Well I used to think that was bullshit when I was younger, "typical things drug addicts and junkies say to justify their habits" but some years later, now that I have tried almost all recreational substances on the planet, yes, alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there, if you think about how "hard" a drug is due to the effects it induces, to be honest marihuana would be at the lowest of the list, a very mellow and natural high, that wouldnt incite you to violence, and that doesnt take you out of reality... Opiates? Pfff... such a natural feeling, and one that induces peacefulness and happiness, definetly not something that would make you agressive, or that would make you drive impaired and kill a family.

Health issues caused by the substance? Alcohol is definetly one of the most toxic substances to the body there is overall, if not the most.

Adictiveness? Alcohol is one of the most adictive substances, and one of the few that can kill you during withdrawal, making it even more addictive.

If alcohol was illegal, it would be the scary drug nobody "decent" ever thinks of trying, just like heroin or meth, the one your grandma warns you about, opiates and weed would be considered the inoffensive shit, whichever way you look at it, alcohol is one of the hardest drugs out there, the only think that makes it seem safe and mundane is that its legal.
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I agree what all of this except you are downplaying the "hardness" of opiates. They don't make one act crazy (unless they are going into WD of course). But i think they make up for their mild effects with how psychologically and physically addicting they are. Easiest drug of all to become dependent on and lots of motivation for this drug class to graduate to needle use. Throw in the ease with which you can overdose on opiates and die, they are definitely one of the hardest drugs, albiet for different reasons than alcohol.
 
In society alcohol and nicotine are more like food types and not substances.
 
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