I am not sure if it was a cheap shot to question your mood, and it was not intended as a personal attack.
I honestly wondered if your multiple half-smiling faces, as well as the attitude of your comments as I perceived it, revealed something about your inner mood more than anything else.
I am sorry if you felt that it was an attack, and if I misjudged.
However, I would like to address some of your final comments above.
First, I am not trying to pass off my conclusions as "authoritative".
I feel that they are the best conclusions we can come to, based on the scientific method, and given the available data.
But I did not mean to imply that any "authority" anywhere sanctioned or approved of what I concluded.
What I concluded is not merely "speculation", as you referred to it, but a combination of logic and common sense, making sense of the data, which I see as different.
Second, is speculation, as you define it, really counter to what bluelight is all about?
Using logic, common sense, and the available evidence to come up with a story that motivates or explains the data is a necessary and important step in the scientific method.
If a dozen people who shot up heroin with the same needle all died, but there were no other reports of people taking the same heroin getting sick, would you refuse to "speculate" that the needle was contaminated, or that the heroin itself was not to blame, on bluelight? Would you complain that such speculation was not based on facts, or science?
"You have no idea what contaminants might have been in that syringe, if any at all.
"
If so, I am clearly missing some vital information about harm reduction and the purpose of bluelight, and I would be interested in learning more.
If not, I don't see how you can refute the logic I employed here.
Finally, I would claim that scientific professionals would surely agree with me.
For example,
Dr. J. Douglas Bricker, dean of Duquesne University's Mylan School of Pharmacy, said that although he doesn't underestimate the danger of the ingredients in the man-made designer drug, smoking synthetic marijuana in a plastic PEZ dispenser would have been a "significant factor" in Brandon's death.
"It's (the drug) fairly potent, but nothing in the literature has been shown to cause any lung toxicity," he said. But Bricker said plastic -- such as that found in the candy dispenser -- heated at high temperatures will release highly toxic cyanide gas and carbon monoxide.
from
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_764280.html#ixzz1cayI5a94
Note that the doctor is not saying anything new, that I didn't say (or imply), but I bet that you see his statement as much more "authoritative" and less "speculative" than you found mine.
Note also that some could refer to his statement as "mere speculation", if they wanted to. But to do so would really not be in the interest of harm reduction, as I see it.
In any case, I believe that we are both here for the same purposes, so I would prefer to avoid future conflicts.
Please feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss this further, but I would like to go on from here as comrades in the fight for freedom of consciousness.
Peace.
Victor
)
