As 'lil angel has indicated, you seem to have left out my response to the dosenation thread, deconstructionist, which was quite clearly under the original piece.
To start with an answer to your final question Scotto, You do seem a little fixated...
The article was written based around a lecture I gave in Adelaide last week about what I thought the future of drugs might hold. I was speculating on the trends we anticipate, in the next quarter of a century, as reflected by drug-related presentations to Emergency departments around Australia, trends in Europe over the last 3 years, and interviews over the last 5 years (twice annually) with drug consumers at Australia's second largest rave.
I think it is naive to assume that if a Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper doesn't provide data on a drugs story that it is somehow the fault of the researcher and their research group. If you were to conduct some research of your own, you could always get in touch with our research group and ask for data. And sorry Scottie- Datura has been used in India for Shamanistic purposes for thousands of years. The fact that you don't know that, or that it's not safe doesn't make it less true.
"Frequently biological" refers to not being synthetic- tough one. I am painfully aware of how law enforcement deals with drug use. I am a ER doctor, and see daily how the brilliant (oh and did I mention, American?) "war on drugs" affects young people. Of course people still like ecstasy...Does the emergence or suggestion of a new trend suggest the immediate cessation of a predecessor? C'mon, mate- do you you actually know much about this stuff, or you another one of these armchair amateurs...?
My gentle advice is to make sure you are in possession of all of the facts regarding media articles before you start dissing grown up research and researchers. It's all to easy to take a pot-shot online- unfortunately, if you want to take on the researchers, you'll need to take the time to read some articles. Contact me at the RAH if you're interested in learning a little bit more than you think you know...
Sincerely
DrPlatypus (aka Dr David Caldicott)
As a consequence, the author of the blog has apologised for the assumptions made, and has invited me to contribute to his blog. I think if we're digging up internet chit chat, we need to ensure both sides of the story are represented, don't you, deconstructionist? Otherwise one runs the risk of appearing to have an agenda- wouldn't you agree?
