Aus - It's the drugs, not booze, fuelling violence

How much is a Key of speed? I dont think I have ever heard that term used in Oz before.
Like others have posted before, personally, if I am on any amphetamine the urge to drink is tempered to the degree of keeping my throat lubricated, to not stand out in the crowd, and have something for my spare hand to do...
whereas without gear, I will happily drink a until I make stupid posts on social media that I don't recall till the next day.
 
neversickanymore said:
>Alcohol, Violence, and Aggression< from (3)Roizen, J. Epidemiological issues in alcohol-related violence. In: Galanter, M., ed. Recent Developments in Alcoholism. Vol. 13. New York: Plenum Press, 1997. pp. 7-40

studies on alcohol and violence

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Sorry i can't quote. But when I read this:


"For example, research using real and mock alcoholic beverages shows that people who believe they have consumed alcohol begin to act more aggressively, regardless of which beverage they actually consumed (10). "


For me that seals it. It doesn't make you violent. It makes you think it is okay to be violent. If alcohol free beer causes the same amount of agression as real beer there is no way you can blame booze. Getting drunk and getting in a fight is a cultural thing too, other places in the world do not equate drunk with rowdy and they don't have these problems.
If you got violent on booze, don't blame the substance, blame yourself.
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my3rdeye said:
neversickanymore said:
>Alcohol, Violence, and Aggression< from (3)Roizen, J. Epidemiological issues in alcohol-related violence. In: Galanter, M., ed. Recent Developments in Alcoholism. Vol. 13. New York: Plenum Press, 1997. pp. 7-40

studies on alcohol and violence

-----------
Sorry i can't quote. But when I read this:


"For example, research using real and mock alcoholic beverages shows that people who believe they have consumed alcohol begin to act more aggressively, regardless of which beverage they actually consumed (10). "


For me that seals it. It doesn't make you violent. It makes you think it is okay to be violent. If alcohol free beer causes the same amount of agression as real beer there is no way you can blame booze. Getting drunk and getting in a fight is a cultural thing too, other places in the world do not equate drunk with rowdy and they don't have these problems.
If you got violent on booze, don't blame the substance, blame yourself.
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That's crazy.
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I wiill edit this later for spelling and such..

The brain is an amazing thing and so is the placebo effect please take the time to listen to this and see if it has any bearing on the people thinking they were drinking but werent.

You may be right the alcohol may not make us violent but it certainly will make us less able to or unable to control any emotions that are either repressed or naturally present in our brains. emotion is created by unconscious brain or the limbic system.. this is kept in check by the conscious brain or a section of the brain that we experience in conscious thought and will power which is located in the prefrontal cortex.. alcohol severely inhibits the powers of the prefrontal cortex as the amount taken is increased. the prefrontal cortex is responsible of rational descion making, problem solving, judgment, and emotional regulation (not emotional creation as this is the limbic specif the hypothalamus) among other things .. so as a person drinks more and more alcohol it limits the power of the PFC and thus decreases the judgment, self control, will power, problem solving ability, and finally emotional response. anger is an emotion so if some one is drinking alcohol and they have anger issues normally or are angered while they are under the influence of alcohol they will have not be able to or have as much control over their anger.

The way it actually creates anger is two fold.. first is weakens the control over emotions including anger but it also prevent the psychological problem solving which allow emotions and the problem that needed to be addressed from being solved some how.. if you have ever had a friend who every time they got drunk would do the same thing.. talk about the person they never got over.. every damn time it was the same thing they would cry and get all upset because they had been internalizing this powerful negative emotion in an attempt to not ever have to deal with it.. but then the cortex is weekend so much buy the alcohol that it can no longer contain the emotion and it comes flooding out in all those drunken tears.. the problem is the exact same portion of the brain that was supposed to keep that all internalized is so wasted it not only was unable to suppress it any longer but it is also completely useless in solving the problem.. so we have this person go on and on how the person did this and that.. but because of the booze not much progress is made on the emotional problem and if any is it is not stored.. so the person then passes out and when the wake the cortex is back functioning and the problem is suppressed again unsolved till they get drunk again when the same thing will repeat. It kind alike living the same hell over and over until they somehow find away to dig out and aress the issue. when i worked at the bar ai would see regulars live the same hellish night over and over and would here the same story over and over.. but since they only ever let this out after they were blasted they never ever were able to clear it out.. so it was like groundhogs day for these people..

This still doesn't explain how it ends up creating anger.. it really doesnt again create the anger or other emotions it just prevents the system from being cleared.. so they never get rid of any of these problems associated with anger and then they start to stack up all the anger that comes from the new days in the groundhog day.. so it just builds up and up. but they keep drinking cause all these unsolved problems as that are building up in their unosciose will cause them all sorts of uncomfort.. combine this with the fact that they are drinking still and you have a steadily increasing anger pile which causes them so much uncomfort that they drink heavy amounts which although they make them fela better they inhibit their ability to control and suppress the tha anger. if the anger builds up enough then it will become to great for them to suppress and it will rear it ugly head in full force. at this point the other functions of the cerebral cortex are fucked as well like judgement, will power, etc so you basically have a out of control, very angry person, with no judgment set loose.. and this is perfect for violence... so IMO the booze taken in this fashion creates violence.

also since alcohol impairs judgment and lowers emotional control then this is clearly we see more violence from stupid little accidents like some one spilling a drink on someone.. the person who gets the drink spilled on first most likely wouldnt have been spilled on if the was no drinking going on as it most likely because of the loss of motor skills.. then they get mad and have much less control or way to deal with the anger and it overflows.. and finally they have less judgment and impulse control so violence breaks out.

finally alcohol also increases the sex drive, decreases judgment, decreases inhibition and fea, and will power and self control.. so the likely hood that an improper sexual gesture, move, grope, rape,
is greatly increased.. ad to this all these controls are also diminished in others and you then have anther great place for violence to start.


here is the audio on the phenomenon of placebo and how strong it is..

from 13 Things That Don't Make Sense
buy Michael Brooks who "Brooks holds a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Sussex."

"Chapter 12[edit]
The Placebo Effect. This is a discussion of the role of the placebo in modern medicine, including examples such as Diazepam, which, Brooks claims, in some situations appears to work only if the patient knows they are taking it. Brooks describes research into prescription behaviour which appears to show that use of placebos is commonplace. He describes the paper by Asbjørn Hrobjartsson and Peter C. Gøtzsche in the New England Journal of Medicine that challenges use of placebos entirely, and the work of others towards an understanding of the mechanism of the effect."

this book has many really interesting thing besides this so chack it out if you like this sorta thing.

neversickanymore said:
Take a listen to the audio reading from 13 Things That Don't Make Sense.. on placebo effect.. pretty interesting stuff.. starts at 25 min and 20 sec...

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How is it different to most drugs out there? MDMA, weed, meth, heroin all have effects on our emotions. Some people just don't have an off button when they high or drunk.

If alcohol was an effective violence instigator they would dose up soldiers and send then into battle. Historically it has been amphetamines and cocaine that fuel soldiers.
 
I dont think that most of them effect the frontal cortex with such a degree that the alcohol does and this is the off switch. There is more to it than that as I feel on other drugs we are able to work through problems and have the resolutions still stick.. some even seem to promote this like the ecstasy. I have no idea but thanks for something interesting to think about OTW.

but the ides i threw out above are a good reason why the treatment for drug addition needs to be way more specified to the individual drug.. cause so many of the twelve steps will do great amounts of benefit to herion addicts and alcoholics but privide about the same amount of help to a coke head as a strste person would get from some of the steps.
 
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Neversickanymore - I never said alcohol was good for you or denied it altered brain chemistry or can cause lots of problems, physically and mentally, in later life. I'm arguing there is no direct causality between alcohol and violence, only that it lowers inhibitions and SOME people use this as an excuse for their moronic and/or violent behaviour. Cultural factors apply. How on earth do all those europeans drink at lunchtime and not end up in fights?

I'm not an apologist for alcohol. I hardly drink and I hate the injustice of alcohol being legal whereas our drugs aren't. I just think the 'alcohol makes you violent' argument is far too simplistic. Like I don't believe LSD makes you jump off tall buildings.
 
TheRapperGoneBad said:
Getting drunk and fighting is a cultural thing too...
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That's crazy.
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Not really. I just read this on another article, excusing violence because of alcohol.
thujone said:
where does it say that? all i see is an assault charge and he was carrying a knife, which is really not an uncommon thing for a drug dealer. for all we know he could have picked up the assault charge in a bar fight
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alcohol makes some people violent and some people can easily drink for 10 hours and keep going.

blaming it on meth is missing the point. vastly more people are drinking than taking speed.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
I'm not an apologist for alcohol. I hardly drink and I hate the injustice of alcohol being legal whereas our drugs aren't. I just think the 'alcohol makes you violent' argument is far too simplistic. Like I don't believe LSD makes you jump off tall buildings.
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Saw this the other day, though admittedly it's written by a culture-warrior from our local right-wing think tank and with an agenda against "nanny-statism" it does refer to some interesting literature on this topic

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-21/berg-neo-prohibition/5210782

Correlation, as we all know, is not causation.

The most common theory is that alcohol lowers inhibitions. It directly anesthetises the parts of the brain that we use to regulate our everyday behaviour. Alcohol changes us physically, and in a way that makes some people more aggressive.

From experiments in laboratory settings we know that people who consume alcohol exhibit more aggressive behaviour.

But the inhibition theory is not the only theory which could explain this.

Some experiments have shown that people tend to get more aggressive even when given a placebo. That is, when they are told they are going to have an alcoholic drink, but are secretly given a non-alcoholic tonic, they get aggressive anyway. Thus the 'expectations' theory suggests people get more aggressive when intoxicated simply because they expect to get more aggressive when intoxicated. They think aggression is more socially acceptable in a drunk.

There are other theories. The connection between alcohol and violence could be indirect. Intoxication reduces intellectual function, causing us to exaggerate provocation and to needlessly provoke others.

But these theories only take us so far. It's one thing to show in a lab that people who believe they are intoxicated people are marginally more aggressive than those who are sober. It's quite another to draw policy conclusions from that finding.

The overwhelming majority of people drink without getting violent. (Some people just get more helpful.) In the real world, humans are able to regulate their behaviour even while intoxicated. Even if alcohol 'causes' violence, it only causes it rarely, and in a tiny fraction of people.

Even drunk people make choices. Even drunk people can be moral. We are not machines. Public policy ought not to treat us like machines.

The more policy-focused researchers try to side-step this issue with macro-level studies that look at correlations between alcohol consumption in an area and incidents of violence.

That's where we get the claims that bottleshop density facilitates violence, for instance.

But these studies often struggle to distinguish between other factors. The essential feature of bars and pubs and nightclubs and bottleshops isn't that they sell alcohol. It's that they bring large groups of young men together in close proximity.

Ultimately, the neurological, psychological, and sociological evidence about the relationship between alcohol and violence isn't strong enough to get us away from a simple intuition: violent acts are caused by violent people, regardless of their level of intoxication.

As one paper from 2008 concludes, "alcohol may facilitate violent behavior among those who are already inclined to behave that way. It is also possible that violent adolescents sometimes use alcohol as an excuse for their behavior."
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I assume the reference to a key of speed is referring to taking a small key bump.

This article is really a load of shit, this dude has a clear vested interest in blaming drugs over alcohol and no actual evidence this is the case.

The authors argument basically boils down to the idea that people are too impaired to do much damage after drinking to excess, that is so far off the mark it is ridiculous. Plenty of people can go on a lengthy drinking session and still do a hell of a lot of damage to another human being if they so desire. Drugs certainly play some role in these assaults, but alcohols role is a lot more difficult to overstate. The truth is though, the real problem is not drugs or alcohol but the attitude held by many young males.

What I would like to know is why it is OK for us and society to have an "occasional semi-binge" on alcohol but not OK for people to indulge in amphetamines or other party drugs on occasion, seems hypocritical and pretty damn convenient for those who profit from the sale of alcohol, like the author of this piece of trash.
 
Because "you can't compare illegal drugs with legal drugs". Wow. Such profound.
 
To be clear, I don't think that alcohol "causes" violence any more than drugs "cause" addiction, but I do think it is among the drugs that is most likely to encourage violence in those predisposed to it.
 
my3rdeye said:
"For example, research using real and mock alcoholic beverages shows that people who believe they have consumed alcohol begin to act more aggressively, regardless of which beverage they actually consumed (10). "
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IN THE WINTER OF 1944, the USS Pope, a 1,200-ton destroyer escort, was about 1,000 miles from the coast of England. It had recently finished a running battle with German U-boats off the Azores, one of the critical naval conflicts of the Second World War. On board, a young U.S. marine named Alexander Shulgin tried to relax by playing poker, but as he shuffled the cards, his left thumb ached intensely. It was badly infected and needed surgery, but there was no way to operate while at sea.

Shulgin’s ship docked at Liverpool, and he was transferred to a nearby army hospital for the operation. There, a nurse handed him a glass of orange juice, and as he drank he noticed a few undissolved grains of powder at the bottom of the glass. He assumed they were the remains of a sedative, and despite his best efforts to stay awake, he fell deeply unconscious.

When he awoke, Shulgin discovered he was wrong: the glass had contained only juice and sugar, and his collapse was caused entirely by the placebo effect. It was only after he’d already passed out that the doctors had administered an anesthetic and conducted the operation. The idea that his brain had fooled him was a revelation to the young marine: if a placebo could have such a dramatic effect, the possibilities for active drugs seemed boundless.
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just something interesting from another article that has been posted for us.. https://medium.com/matter/19f753fb15e0
 
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