We're not likely going to be splitting up the forums, because like I already said:
-poly drug abuse is so prevalent and yes things could be more organized, but do you have any suggestions for how you might go about doing so, provided splitting OD into subforums is not an option due to the high rates of poly drug abuse and the clutter that is known to cause any forum to have people posting in multiple sections making it more difficult for staff to do their job.
-moderators don't grow on trees
although they may grow them re: medicinal cannabis and if you have any idea of the redundancy and the % of threads created that have already been covered at least one maybe even a hundred or a few hundred times already over the course of OD's maturation into the non-glorifying or condoning drug abuse,
-yet, still providing the HR haven it is meant to be today to help lower the risks of casualties of drug abuse that we can't (and no one can) control besides the person in question, and we aren't medical professionals despite many of us having experience(s) with Overdosing on any drug and the perils of addiction and the wake/aftermath left behind, be it in the form of short, medium, and/or long term damage either through physical, emotional, & psychological needs..... dissociated, isolated,, borderline, depression, risk of overdose, risk of endangering others while operating heavy machinery too carelessly or endangering society at large by driving intoxicated, injuring others or endangering children, suicide, accidental or intentional overdose and the effect that this has on the families, friends, the people who have to live with such a monumental loss of light in their lives...
It's really hard to put into words the agony of getting a phone call saying your close friend was just found dead in his apartment, amongst many needles, or foil and straw in hands, and just, we gotta remember that the focus here is not teaching people how to get high, we can't control that they will go get high via what they believe is the best way to do so anyways so that brings us back to the harm reduction concept....
I just really feel strongly that dividing up OD would pose a threat to the poly drug using community, which is probably the majority of readers here, I don't know, we haven't run any recent surveys to see what substances members are reporting using over say, 30 days, but I bet if we did, the number of people who were only doing one drug and that their thread doesn't require the discussion of other drug classes and the severity of interactions and combinations and dosages calculated/estimated specifically for the person in question based on the information they've provided.
The number of people who would write back saying they only abuse one medication
I really think that based on the trends of most threads, poly drug abuse is a heavily prevalent and lethal practice even when one is being careful you just never know, and often when benzdiazepines or other sedatives are involved, there is a lot of inhibition/common-sense loss & complete failure to accurately regulate dosage intake, which is why so many people black out after taking unknown amounts of any given sedative;
alprazolam, triazolam, diazepam, flunitrazepam, midazolam, temazepam, etc.
Hardcore antipsychotics are also pretty damned strong sedatives and should be used with caution when someone's abusing opioids concurrently, or wants to drink some ethanol to
potentiate, or rather, stacking CNS depressants in ways that lead to possibly life-changing or fatalities via respiratory depression, organ failure, aspiration of vomit or fluids present after a seizure, allergic reaction to a bulking agent.... it's just something that I don't think can be handled more efficiently if we had OD branched off.
Like picturing, (FOR EXAMPLE) something like, Opioids....Do we split street dope, be it tar heroin AND powder/#4 / International varieties of opium/heroin extracts, are these all lumped together despite each type being prevalent to specific area/areas since there would be differences? I think not, We have various threads warning people about heroin, including the sticky, and the guides that our staff have put together over the years, do we just, have duplicates of these threads in the SW-USA region? OD is a HR focus forum, so I don't see dividing things up regionally would do any good.
And would we be covering pharmaceutical grade opioids as well? in the same place as we discuss clandestinely produced & distributed heroin?
Meth/Amphetamines? Shake and Bake vs P2P cooks vs. RP/I reduct etc, Is this where pharmaceutical amphetamines/methampheatmines go despite the wild differences in the drug based on the form it's currently in and how chemically it got to that point, how stable, how pure each method is and each chef's level of experience is different so they often behave like different drugs altogether based on the purity.
Do we split Benzodiazepines/Barbiturates, Ethanol/Alcohol abuse, amongst any others with affinity for GABAergics via GHB/GBL, or whatever, do we organize via the receptor targeted? What if the likely situation includes various receptors/subreceptors specifically being targetted like when mixing opioids and benzodiazepines.
Other than cocaine and the various dissociatives, PCP, analogues, ketamine, methoxetamine, "Research/Unknown Chemicals", I just am not seeing any advantage to splitting up the forums. If a large percentage of the posters here favor one particular class of drugs, so be it, the fact is that education about drug interactions, dosing and tolerance levels, routes of administration, sterile prep processes and proper use of a 0.2um micron filter...all of that stuff that people allegedging they only use one drug, would still need to know about and having information about it in a centralized forum as it is now.
The search engine would easily search through all of OD and the archives, and poly drug abusers won't get lost in a forum dedicated to what they perceive as their drug of choice, however if their use is accompanied by another chemical, and there are things they should know before continuing their lifestyle without making an educated decision first, I just don't see
any advantage to dividing up OD. Some drugs fit or contradict use across drug classes, like potentially lethal interactions between anti-depressants and potent stimulants, or say something like Tramadol, which is notorious for it's seizure threshold reductions at low and unpredictable doses, is a synthetic opioid yet also an SNRI antidepressant.
Anyways, the following post piqued my interest:
Neuroenhancer mega-thread?
Elaborate?
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
I articulated my arguments when I first got here and even then (3 yrs ago) the answer was "we'll think about it" so I'm not expecting much. I know you don't want subforums for every type of drug, so how about this? Analyze OD and see if opiates make up at least 40-50% of posts - then I think they'd be discussed enough that they should be in their own area. If they're really just 25% or less of OD threads then that's different.