Opinions Needed - Splitting Opiate Discussion Off From OD Into A New Forum

[omg.anonymous]

I would look at opiophile.org, they have a Awesome set up with their forums.

Agreed. Definitely

 

[TheAzo]

Add an opiate discussion forum? We already have one, OD, Opiate Discussion. We need a forum for other drugs...

But seriously, please, I strongly support making a new forum for opiates. It seems really crazy that one of the most common classes of recreational drug, and the class for which harm reduction is most important (due to the prevalence of IV use, and the lengths to which cravings drive users), doesn't have it's own forum. There's certainly enough opiate discussion to fill it's own forum.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Add an opiate discussion forum? We already have one, OD, Opiate Discussion. We need a forum for other drugs...

But seriously, please, I strongly support making a new forum for opiates. It seems really crazy that one of the most common classes of recreational drug, and the class for which harm reduction is most important (due to the prevalence of IV use, and the lengths to which cravings drive users), doesn't have it's own forum. There's certainly enough opiate discussion to fill it's own forum.

Yeah, but having a sub-forum, just for opiates, would be a very bad idea. Why?

You'll have very basic posts like "can I snort this sub", "how many vicodins can I eat at once?", "What is this pill?" , "when can I take sub without going into precipitated WDs?" and many more self-serving questions coupled with other topics for opiate discussion.

It won't be uniform, nor will it be easy to search through. It would be like taking any opiate based topic from BDD, OD, ADD, DC, and TDS, an merging it into its own sub-forum. How much sense would that make?

You would have people who come into this "opiate sub-forum" only to discuss using/abusing drugs, without any empathy for people who are going to post a TDS-like thread in this "opiate sub-forum". You will have basic, intermediate, and advanced topics intertwined with each other.

I would look at opiophile.org, they have a Awesome set up with their forums.

If that's how you feel, go sign up for an account.

 

[muvolution]

took me a minute to figure out BL also.
It isn't classed by drug type, but mostly by spiritual/ mental state. ie. for opiate users you can post in OD for harm reduction, TDS for support/ bad experiences, and a social or regional thread to stay up on what is happening around you.

I think it works well, and if all threads got the correct prefixes (amps, stims, rc's, opiates, benzos, etc...) it would be even EASIER to navigate, but that is the people who start the threads problem - although maybe moderators would be able to add on these prefixes when the users don't.

 

[abracadabra girl]

Yeah, but having a sub-forum, just for opiates, would be a very bad idea. Why?

You'll have very basic posts like "can I snort this sub", "how many vicodins can I eat at once?", "What is this pill?" , "when can I take sub without going into precipitated WDs?" and many more self-serving questions coupled with other topics for opiate discussion.

It won't be uniform, nor will it be easy to search through. It would be like taking any opiate based topic from BDD, OD, ADD, DC, and TDS, an merging it into its own sub-forum. How much sense would that make?

You would have people who come into this "opiate sub-forum" only to discuss using/abusing drugs, without any empathy for people who are going to post a TDS-like thread in this "opiate sub-forum". You will have basic, intermediate, and advanced topics intertwined with each other.

Why do you think an opiate forum would would have more problems than the cannabis forum, ecstasy forum, etc.?

 

[abracadabra girl]

Yeah, but having a sub-forum, just for opiates, would be a very bad idea. Why?

You'll have very basic posts like "can I snort this sub", "how many vicodins can I eat at once?", "What is this pill?" , "when can I take sub without going into precipitated WDs?" and many more self-serving questions coupled with other topics for opiate discussion.

It won't be uniform, nor will it be easy to search through. It would be like taking any opiate based topic from BDD, OD, ADD, DC, and TDS, an merging it into its own sub-forum. How much sense would that make?

You would have people who come into this "opiate sub-forum" only to discuss using/abusing drugs, without any empathy for people who are going to post a TDS-like thread in this "opiate sub-forum". You will have basic, intermediate, and advanced topics intertwined with each other.

Why do you think an opiate forum would would have more problems than the cannabis forum, ecstasy forum, etc.?

 

[abracadabra girl]

took me a minute to figure out BL also.
It isn't classed by drug type, but mostly by spiritual/ mental state. ie. for opiate users you can post in OD for harm reduction, TDS for support/ bad experiences, and a social or regional thread to stay up on what is happening around you.

This is an interesting way to look at it, and it might work just fine if the forum structure on the main page made it clear for new users that this is how it worked. But seeing "cannabis, ecstasy, steroids, psychedelics, other drugs" sure makes it seem like all other drug questions go in OD.

 

[tathra]

go to the bottom of the OD forum to the "prefixes" pulldown tab and select "opiates" or "heroin," and there you go, OD reduced to nothing but opiate threads!

problem solved.

read through this thread to find all the reasoning behind this decision.

 

[abracadabra girl]

^ Except what I want is to see all threads *except* opiates.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Why do you think an opiate forum would would have more problems than the cannabis forum, ecstasy forum, etc.?

Because there are many drugs that may act on opiate receptors, but they wouldn't be classified as a drug to be discussed in Other Drugs.

What about Salvia? Most people would say "it trips you out, put it in Psychedelic Drugs". But it acts as a kappa opioid antagonist; wouldn't you discuss it in this theoretical "Opiate Discussion"?

Ketamine also binds to mu opioid agonist receptors, although at high, fully anesthetic dosages.

I think it would be infeasible to create an "Opiate Discussion" based upon what activates the opioid receptors in the brain.

If you are to then say "OK, well, why not create one based on subjective effects?" - well then what's the point of an "Opiate Discussion" forum? To house a special discussion forum for anything that feels like an opiate? That could be everything, to some people, and very few things to others.

How about for what reduces pain? That is also too many drugs; there are many substances which reduce pain, and what will reduce pain will vary amongst individuals (in Other Drugs there is a thread about the idea that amphetamine is a pain reliever for someone who created the thread).

So as to avoid creating a forum which is too broad in nature, what would you do? Would you limit "Opiate Discussion" to the opium alkaloids (codeine, morphine, thebaine, oripavine)? Would you also include the semisynthetic derivatives (heroin, DHC, hydrocodone, oxycodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, nicomorphine)?

Let's imagine that you were to say "Yes, that's all the opiates I've ever used, do that!" - well, where would that leave the fully synthetic opioids (fentanyl, meperidine, methadone)? Where would that leave buprenorphine? Where would that leave tramadol, or tapentadol? Where would that leave freaks of nature such as lefetamine (that sounds like a lot of fun doesn't it)?

This is only one issue with creating such a sub-forum. There are a lot more what-if's that I could think up of, I just don't have time to type anymore right now.

 

[abracadabra girl]

Because there are many drugs that may act on opiate receptors, but they wouldn't be classified as a drug to be discussed in Other Drugs.

...

So as to avoid creating a forum which is too broad in nature, what would you do?

Well, what I'd do is create forums for identifiable classes of drugs such as psychedelics, amphetamines, dissociatives, (and, I thought, opiates, but maybe I'm wrong) and then leave "other drugs" for the unclassifiable ones.

72% of voters agree on splitting but management obviously isn't going to do it, so I don't really see the point in making up all these bullshit reasons. Just close the thread already.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^whoa, ease up, the thread is here for a reason. this is a perpetual discussion so it acts as one of the reference points when the issue is raised.

you haven't exactly brought up any compelling reasons as to why it should be split either. and you're right that it ultimately comes down to us running OD whether we want to split it or not. just because our bullshit "reasons" don't line up with your idealistic views on how the thread should be run is no reason to dismiss everything we're saying. there are compelling reasons on either side of the fence and the mods running the forum don't want to split the forum at this point in time.

go to the bottom of the OD forum to the "prefixes" pulldown tab and select "opiates" or "heroin," and there you go, OD reduced to nothing but opiate threads!

problem solved

read through this thread to find all the reasoning behind this decision.

ding ding ding! i think this is even mentioned somewhere throughout this discussion. we should probably mention this in the thread that explains the Prefixes (not that anyone bothers to read them) because i have a feeling we didn't mention it in there.

^ Except what I want is to see all threads *except* opiates.

concentrate on readings threads of one class at a time.

But seeing "cannabis, ecstasy, steroids, psychedelics, other drugs" sure makes it seem like all other drug questions go in OD.

it may appear that way but had you bothered to read any forum descriptions you'll find it's quite different. each forum is distinguished from another in the best conclusive way we've produced to date. staff have been trying to resolve the issues brought up about distinguishing the differences in forums for those new to the board, we're not oblivious to it.

Intermediate level, harm reduction focused discussion (including pharmacology, dependence issues, avoiding side effects, etc.) about drugs that aren't covered in other forums. Please use ADD or BDD for more advanced or basic topics.

 

[abracadabra girl]

just because our bullshit "reasons" don't line up with your idealistic views on how the thread should be run is no reason to dismiss everything we're saying.

Do you really agree, as Capt Heroin just said, that salvia and ketamine users might consider those drugs opiates and post questions about them in an opiate forum? That sounds so ridiculous to me that it makes me feel insulted, as though I'm being bullshitted, and I give up on ever having a meeting of the minds. And if I'm wrong and users of those drugs actually do consider them opiates, then obviously I'm far enough out of the loop that I have no business discussing the subject either. So I bow out.

there are compelling reasons on either side of the fence and the mods running the forum don't want to split the forum at this point in time.

Then why bother having a poll? The votes were apparently overwhelmingly positive.

it may appear that way but had you bothered to read any forum descriptions you'll find it's quite different. each forum is distinguished from another in the best conclusive way we've produced to date. staff have been trying to resolve the issues brought up about distinguishing the differences in forums for those new to the board, we're not oblivious to it.

I've read the forum descriptions. To repeat my previous suggestion, you can't have an arrangement which leads to an obvious conclusion and then put in the fine print that it really works completely differently. If the forums were arranged in a logical manner then the forum descriptions would be almost redundant, not a necessity to understanding how things work.

 

[Jabberwocky]

no i don't agree with that bit that captain suggested. i think captain should put down the bong

the poll was added to give a quick to view visual representation of peoples thoughts.

i think creating all those individual forums will only split up discussion and a limited exposure to topics as has been stated and restated. which raises where do all the drug combination threads go? in their own forum? or the dominant drugs' forum? <== rhetorical but if you've got suggestions then i'm all ears.

 

[abracadabra girl]

no i don't agree with that bit that captain suggested. i think captain should put down the bong

the poll was added to give a quick to view visual representation of peoples thoughts.

i think creating all those individual forums will only split up discussion and a limited exposure to topics as has been stated and restated. which raises where do all the drug combination threads go? in their own forum? or the dominant drugs' forum? <== rhetorical but if you've got suggestions then i'm all ears.

Thank you, I truly do appreciate reasoned discussion.

Before I go spouting off my own opinions, can you explain to me why it's deemed beneficial for a hypothetical amphetamine user to be exposed to topics such as opiates and benzos, but it's okay for a cannabis, ecstasy, steroid, or psychedelic drug user not to have to be exposed to a variety of other unrelated drug topics whilst discussing their own DOC?

Personally I consider a limited exposure (or, I'd call it, focussed discussion) to be a good thing when researching or discussing a focussed subject.

Drug combinations probably belong in BDD? Just a quick guess. Honestly they can go in whatever forum you like as long as the organizational structure makes it easy for users to tell where they go. Otherwise you've got a mess.

Related question, where should I put a thread about combining LSD and oxy right now? Psychedelics or OD? Or BDD?

Long story short, I don't understand why cannabis, ecstasy, steroids, and psychedelics as a class merit a separate (but equal?) forum while other classes don't. That reasoning would be helpful to know.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Ecstasy Discussion is the cornerstone forum of bluelight hence it's own forum. see here for a little info on the origins of bluelight

i'm not aware of how each of the forums were decided and added on along the way, there's likely a myriad of reasons behind each forum and their development. a long standing admin or someone with a better knowledge on that subject should be able to help fill in the pieces. though a rough thought on my behalf would be because each of those classes of drugs involve many different substrates, opening up a wide(r) arena for discussion than for something like amphetamines.

re : your question on the LSD and oxy combo it depends on the context.
eg; if you were tripping and wanted to take the oxy during your trip or on the comedown then LSD is the dominant drug and would be suitable to PD.
if you were asking the effects combined it could go in either PD or BDD.
you're high on oxy all day and want to trip at night? PD.
etc

it will also come down to the discretion of the individual moderate. there's also homeless threads forum if you're still unsure

 

[Jabberwocky]

As leftwing pointed, out a lot of the way Bluelight is set up has to do with its history of starting out with a primary focus on ecstasy and having added other content as needs arised.

Before I go spouting off my own opinions, can you explain to me why it's deemed beneficial for a hypothetical amphetamine user to be exposed to topics such as opiates and benzos, but it's okay for a cannabis, ecstasy, steroid, or psychedelic drug user not to have to be exposed to a variety of other unrelated drug topics whilst discussing their own DOC?

Personally I consider a limited exposure (or, I'd call it, focussed discussion) to be a good thing when researching or discussing a focussed subject.

Drug combinations probably belong in BDD? Just a quick guess. Honestly they can go in whatever forum you like as long as the organizational structure makes it easy for users to tell where they go. Otherwise you've got a mess.

Related question, where should I put a thread about combining LSD and oxy right now? Psychedelics or OD? Or BDD?

Long story short, I don't understand why cannabis, ecstasy, steroids, and psychedelics as a class merit a separate (but equal?) forum while other classes don't. That reasoning would be helpful to know.

A historical argument for keeping OD intact has been that OD members are primarily poly drug users. Even if that turns out to not be true I don't think OD participants are naive to drugs other than their DOC or that seeking to maintain a unawareness of drugs beyond one's DOC would be a good HR strategy.

A call for an uncluttered area for specific drugs is understandable but at some point a left over miscellany group will still be left. Distinct forums for stimulants, opiates, etc may happen some day. Its just not something that is felt to be imperative/desirable at this time by the Focus Forum staff. It is not a closed issue for all time. Categories on Bluelight are often about keeping things in manageable chunks. It isn't really about the relative importance of different categories.

Thanks for explaining your opinions and frustrations about all this abracadabra girl.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Why Other Drugs is best left as is...

Here is a private message I sent a user when they asked me the following, I replied with what's below the quote box.

I just wanted to ask this question out of curiosity. And wondering why we had to use the "Other Drugs" forum. "Other drugs" sounds like a duster/paint/nitrous/inhalant abusing thread.

lol

Actually Other Drugs has a huge spectrum. There is also a reason why we specifically have only separated out MDA/MDMA in the ED forum, cannabis and cannabinoids (synthetic or natural) in the CD forum, steroids, hormones, and bodybuilding supplements and other related stuff in the SD forum, and the psychedelic drugs for PD. There are users of many different kinds of drugs. However, for whatever reason have you, ignoring the legal toxins tobacco and ethanol (hands down the worst drugs ever), there are people who will tend to only want to use one drug.

They tend to be pot heads who look down on anything that isn't weed because it COULD kill someone, or there will be people who are only interested in ecstasy or rolling because of the rave/clubbing scene, as well as there being strictly body builders who only use steroids or hormones/etc, and lastly those who only use psychedelics like acid/mushrooms, or someone who only uses any type of a psychedelic but is only interested in tripping.

Yeah, there are people who only take opiates, but they are more than likely going to be more open minded about using other drugs such as benzos, barbs, muscle relaxers, antihistamines, or even stimulants, etc.

Because we can assume that there only tends to be these four groups who for whatever reasons, should be segregated away from other drugs because some stoners would otherwise be constantly posting anti-"hard drug" crap, or steroid users would make fun of the people who IV and have a hard time IVing, because they don't have the huge veins that goes along with certain steroid use (if you have seen pics of body builders - some of them have huge, garden hose sized veins, only a few steroids will produce this not all of them, so to them not working out which working out alone would increase vein size, is like weakness so they would be egging on the opiate users) then you have the psychedelic users who are going to look down on everybody else because they aren't getting "spiritual gains" from the other substances, and lastly you would have the less-intelligent strictly E-heads who would say things like "acid ____________ " (fill in any horrible thing which LSD-25 in itself has been accused of doing or whatever, but in reality is just a lie told to kids in DARE) and then you would have the psych heads and E heads going at each other (which is why even though MDMA/MDA have somewhat psychedelic properties to it, we still made a separate place for the discussion for them).

As you can see, all the discussion in Other Drugs tends to be a lot smoother, as a lot of the people who take one of whatever drug that is typically posted about in Other Drugs, typically has tried at least one or two others. I know for myself, I take stimulants, and downers, I like both but have for the better part taken more downers than stimulants overall. I know someone else on this board who is mostly into methamphetamine but also has been physically dependent on benzos, but wasn't a huge user of heroin or opiates. Yet other people are ONLY into benzos/barbs/opiates, and that's "their thing".

So this is why Other Drugs has been shaped the way it has. We would just have one massive forum with discussion for all drugs on a certain individual level (which is why we still also have Basic Drug Discussion and Advanced Drug Discussion) but there would be a lot of people flaming and trolling the hell out of each other.

Therefore, we really did have to separate out MDMA/MDA, Cannabis/cannabinoids, steroids, and psychedelics.

There is a lot of discussion in threads that you can find by using the search engine which have gone over the heavy list of cons versus the light list of pros that an "opiate discussion" forum would have with it, if we were to separate "it" from OD as it stands today.

However, the cons outweigh the pros, and Bluelight as a whole would suffer quality wise.

Read up on the discussion, there still might be a thread where you can share your 2 cents, but this isn't something even worth thinking about again. I'll post this reply in that thread so that it's here for everyone to read it.

Knowledge is the key to working past the lies the government has created about all different types of drugs, but without a way for Bluelight to have mandatory education for Greenlighters before they reach Bluelighter status, we are still going to have to work around current societal views on drugs which sadly are ignorant and ever-present.

CH

 

[Captain.Heroin]

a separate post for replies to people's posts

72% of voters agree on splitting but management obviously isn't going to do it, so I don't really see the point in making up all these bullshit reasons. Just close the thread already.

Talking about it as a possibility helps remind us why we are not doing it. If we were to forget for long enough, we would be like "Great idea!", do it, and then it would turn out to be a fiasco and then we'd revert back to the old way of doing things.

Also, X% of voters just represents who voted during this poll, while it was running. If current members didn't vote in it, it doesn't accurately represent how the people of Bluelight today feel about it.

Our member base is one that is constantly changing. People grow up, they get married, get kids, get jobs, they "settle down", they quit their old drug habits (which is a great thing, at least it is harm reduction wise), etc. - this tends to send users in and out of different forums of Bluelight, and their frequency may go up or below, even to zero.

There are other members who have sadly passed away, and new members are obviously replacing them. More people will pass away, regrettably so, and then as more years pass on, more members join.

So as you can see, this is just one way of analyzing what people think about this particular issue.



=======

My last point; here you choose dissociative drugs, amphetamines, psychedelics, and opiates.

Ignoring opiates.... let's say we have a drug that is a psychedelic like MDMA. Oh wait, but MDMA is also an amphetamine (you can clearly see the methamphetamine structure in MDMA if you analyze both 2D molecules).

How about other stimulant-psychedelics that are related to amphetamine, other than MDMA? Ganesha is a good example.

Then again there are drugs which can be dissociative, as well as psychedelic, such as PCP or its analogues.

Just these topics, opiates aside, would create a lot of cross posting and confusion. I myself found MDA to be extremely psychedelic and have written extensively about my first experience with it, even though by Bluelight standards I would talk about it in Ecstasy Discussion, even though I could also bring it up in Psychedelic Drugs, it would be inappropriate to start a topic about it in PD.

Do you really agree, as Capt Heroin just said, that salvia and ketamine users might consider those drugs opiates and post questions about them in an opiate forum? That sounds so ridiculous to me that it makes me feel insulted, as though I'm being bullshitted, and I give up on ever having a meeting of the minds. And if I'm wrong and users of those drugs actually do consider them opiates, then obviously I'm far enough out of the loop that I have no business discussing the subject either. So I bow out.

People wouldn't speak of saliva as an opiate, but an kappa opioid receptor antagonist. This is what renders its psychedelic properties, antagonizing the kappa opioid receptor.

My point was, would you break it down on what people traditionally think of when they use opiates, or, would you break it down by "what touches these groups of receptors"?

No one is trying to bullshit you. There are plenty more examples I can bring up that are unique exceptions to general rules that people get used to.

I've read the forum descriptions. To repeat my previous suggestion, you can't have an arrangement which leads to an obvious conclusion and then put in the fine print that it really works completely differently. If the forums were arranged in a logical manner then the forum descriptions would be almost redundant, not a necessity to understanding how things work.

How else would you group the sub-forums then? I would tend to think they are organized well.

no i don't agree with that bit that captain suggested. i think captain should put down the bong

I wish I still had my bong, the police took mine quite some time ago.

Contact me for donations to help me buy a new bong. :D

Before I go spouting off my own opinions, can you explain to me why it's deemed beneficial for a hypothetical amphetamine user to be exposed to topics such as opiates and benzos, but it's okay for a cannabis, ecstasy, steroid, or psychedelic drug user not to have to be exposed to a variety of other unrelated drug topics whilst discussing their own DOC?

A vast majority of amphetamine users are also accustomed to at least having tried stuff like benzodiazepines or opiates for the "crash". Not all of them of course, but a great deal.

Additionally, when you do an advanced search in Other Drugs, you can select the threads with the prefix you select, so you aren't "exposed" to the other threads.

Related question, where should I put a thread about combining LSD and oxy right now? Psychedelics or OD? Or BDD?

Long story short, I don't understand why cannabis, ecstasy, steroids, and psychedelics as a class merit a separate (but equal?) forum while other classes don't. That reasoning would be helpful to know.

I kind of typed that out in the largest post I have written above. I hope you can somewhat understand my reasoning.

As for where a thread about combining oxycodone and LSD would belong in, you could post that in BDD, or PD, or if you wanted to post about the trip experience itself you could post in TR. You could also use the search engine and do an advanced search to see if other users have already started talking about this. Then, if you do find a thread that is about LSD + oxy, then you could write your own thoughts in response to other people's, and continue the ongoing discussion. %)

A historical argument for keeping OD intact has been that OD members are primarily poly drug users. Even if that turns out to not be true I don't think OD participants are naive to drugs other than their DOC or that seeking to maintain a unawareness of drugs beyond one's DOC would be a good HR strategy.

Great point that I've been beat to. Thank you for articulating this well Enki.

 

[tathra]

Then why bother having a poll? The votes were apparently overwhelmingly positive.

i'm not sure if cpt.h touched on this (i woke up too drunk to read his really long-ass posts) but a good number of the people who voted against splitting were not just former staff members, but also previous OD mods, and while your first thought might be that its just because we're stuck in our ways and dont want to see our baby split due to some kind of misguided attachment, what it really boils down to having experience running the forum and running a significant chunk of bluelight (basically everything NOT related to mdma, which used to be the primary focus of bluelight) itself for a large amount of time, and from that experience, having a good idea of whats best for the board and its users overall, even if it doesnt really make sense to the regular user.

bluelight has, over the years, gone from an mdma-focused board to generalized harm reduction, so it could be that in the future, Other Drugs will be split from "Other Drugs" into several other forums, but as of this very moment, thats not really in the works.

threads like this are good though, because it does show that the community has evolved a lot over the years, and definitely helps reinvigorate discussions/thoughts about if we're doing enough for harm reduction in general, if we need to broaden the scope, etcetc.