///-Drug Risk-Assessment Table-\\\

Hey all. don't know if u ever came accross this table b4, but i found it while browsing through the dancesafe info. it's very interesting as it tells u the dangers of dying of drugs compared to other things. Alcohol for example is listed as more dangerous than E.
According to the table you have as much chance of dying from a contaception pill as you have dying of an E (1/100,000). It also lists other drugs and everyday activities fot the sake of comparison.
What do you all think about this? Sounds good? Certainly a good reliable source promoting the safety of E and other drugs.
princehamlet
oops...almost forgott to post the link...hahaha:
http://www.dancesafe.org/riskbenefit.html
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"oh dude i'm sooo wrecked"
"yeah me too. maybe a little too wrecked"
"is there such a thing?"

Not only does it say you have the same chance of dying from a contraception pill, but the same chance of dying from choking!
It's a really interesting table, some of those stats are amazing (there was a 1 in 10000 chance of dying from general anesthetic?)
I'm definately gonna save this page and pass the link around
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Common Sense isn't all that common

I think this is all about probability distributions, and frequency of occurrence. This kind of data can easily be misconstrued. For example, there are far more people smoking tobacco and drinking than there are people who use ecstacy, therefore there is much more data from which conclusions can be drawn.
If I was to say to you that in 1963, a person was attacked in Sydney Harbour by a bull shark, and died, and since then there have been 5 non-fatal attacks of people involved in various water sports by sharks. That roughly equates to a lower chance of being eaten by a shark than of being struck by lightning. However I will just about guarantee that if you go and actively seek out a hungry bull shark and stick your thumb up its butthole, then that mutha fucka is going to get really pissed off, and then it's chow down time. Between 1979 and 1998 there were 52 incidences of snakebite poisoning which resulted in death... pretty low probability of dying there given the length of time and the number of people - but how many snakes have you seen today? The risk of heart attack is rising, but a physician wrote in the Australian Doctor about a heart-attack patient who after treatment got into the hospital bed, only to be bitten by a tiger snake that was sleeping there first! How much chance do you reckon there was of that happening? (Plus the patient survived both the heart attack and the snake bite).
It is a fact that campaigning against drink driving has resulted in "involvement of alcohol in fatal crashes being reduced from from nearly 50 per cent in the late 1970s to 23 per cent in 1995". That being said, if 23% of fatal accidents involve alcohol, then conversely 77% of fatal accidents do not. Is it therefore safer to drive drunk, as 3 times more fatalities occur when no alcohol is involved? NO - this would be an incorrect conclusion to draw. (NB: The article this came from is quite interesting, though long and weighty read being a parliamentary inquiry - see ref 2).
I don't want to say that the information on the DanceSafe site is erroneous, but rather point out that care must be taken when conclusions are drawn from this kind of summary. Identifying risks associated with activities you do is important, and minimising the risks and the resulting harm is paramount to gaining the most benefit with the least drawbacks from your drugs. Be safe, know as much as you can, and take care of yourself.
BigTrancer
Sources: 1. NEWS-900.HTM - Page One Feature, 24 Jan 2000, "Threat of the Bull Shark is Slim, but it makes people nervous". by S. Karene Witcher, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.
2. Inquiry into the Effects of Drugs (Other than Alcohol) on Road Safety in Victoria.

I was just wondering if that bumhole analogy there with the shark has any direct relationship with shoving pills up your erm....

woah...bigT...where is all this coming from man??? sheesh...i just saw some good info and thought i'd share it with u all. i didn't say it was 100% correct it simply gives us an INDICATION of how likely u r to die from an E as opposed to other things.
naturally these people can't take into account every single piece of info and they do acknowledge this at the end of their page. if u go there again read the stuff written in small blue letters at the bottom.
what u r saying (about plugging the sharks ) is ridiculous and totally irrelevant. it's one thing to go out there and purposefully cause trouble or put your own life in danger and another thing to simply fnd yourself in a possibly deadly situation due to no DIRECT fault of your own and quiet innocently.
as i said it is a good INDICATION of risk/benefit ratios (as they put it) for drug users. i mean if u r being stupid or r simply unlucky u might OD from pills this weekend, the next and the one after (simply cos ur dealer said "take this awsome pills" and they were shit) while someome else might buy unstamped pills from someone they don't know at a rave and get an awsome pill (and do that week after week). the table only provides theoretical ratios not practical ones. i thought people here would like to see it.
hamlet

I think what BigT meant by using the shark pluggin' thing was that the majority of the population do not take ecstasy each weekend/fortnight or whatever just like the majority of people dont go round looking to plug sharks. However us as ravers *do* take ecstasy every weekend and have a greater chance than dying from it than someone who cant possibly die from it because they dont even take it? If they included the poeple who dont even take ecstasy in with those who do then this could easily shift the results. Phew. If that makes any sense

ahhhh Hamlet I loved your post

Well thats all well and good...chances are we wont die from E.
But thats not to say there are'nt other posible associated health dangers that result from E for example memory loss, hair loss, skin drying out, depression, muscle atrophy etc
The important thing is to know what the risks are and to be comfortable with it if/when it happens.
Just a thought

Dear Hamlet:
I loved your post, and I think the table is great, it's a good comparison of general likelihoods of possibly damaging occurrences. I'm just advocating care in interpreting the information. My post started out as being kind of humorous, but as I went on I realised that this kind of information can be taken the wrong way, so at some point there I started being serious too.
Ever see the Crocodile Hunter on TV? He likes to try and find the most dangerous critters in Australia, and then just pick em right up and play with them, and he gets bitten/stung or has close calls all the time - sounds like a high risk activity to me... they did a spoof on him on SouthPark, in which a guy with a thickly put on Ozzie accent ran after big dangerous creatures and tried to "stick my thumb up it's butthole, that oughtta really piss 'im orf". That bit was a joke, just to say that you can approach a risky activity with care, or headfirst.
So yeah perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I do think that if someone was curious about the risks involved with taking drugs, and saw that table either on its own, or out of context then they might feel encouraged that these chemicals are "safe" and that caution can be thrown to the wind because there is "as much chance of dying from a contaception pill as you have dying of an E (1/100,000)".
On one hand, I would LOVE everyone to be educated about all the issues related to drugs so that people can make informed choices about the risks involved. On the other hand, it may not be such a bad idea for people to remain just a little skeptical, so that they treat drugs with respect. I would HATE to see someone think to themselves "oh fine, I can take E every day because it's safer than alcohol" if you know what I mean.
Perhaps I should have put more smilies in my post or something to indicate that there were certain "tongue in cheek" parts to the post. But, I of course make no excuses for the general message which I know we all advocate - "just say know".
I'm sorry if I sounded patronising or aggressive in my post, but being a scientist, I am faced with numbers and stats all the time, and I know how easy it is to manipulate data. People often say that the progression of decreasing truth goes - "Lies, damned lies and statistics", so I take most things with a grain of salt. However, many people that I know immediately assume that once you quote a percentage or statistic then it comes from a reliable source, and hold it as gospel. That's why I said take care.
Ugh. Maybe I should have just stayed out of it. Do you still love me?
BigTrancer

It would be interesting to see some figures, even if they were only approximations, of the number of people who die from given drugs as a ratio of the number of people who use it, or have used it. I imagine then that u'd probably see a more realistic picture of the risk of fatality from using a certain drug. I'd still reckon e would be one of the lowest risk.

hey i never stopped luving u bigT. i was in a shitty mood when i read/replyed to ur post. i can see what u mean tho. it also made me clarify my original post (in my second reply) a little.
u r absolutely right when u say that this info should not be taken for granted and as 100% accurate. sorry dude for going off. i couldn't help it....
to all the rest. awwww...i luv all of u guys...look at the table, but carefully weigh out the info in it.
princehamlet
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"oh dude i'm sooo wrecked"
"yeah me too. maybe a little too wrecked"
"is there such a thing?"

BigTrancer for Moderator???????????
A reference section.
Thought before posting.
Accepts criticism.
Yay