antheads said:
There's nothing like people grabbing hold of labels and telling you what they mean as well as using emotional manipulation to make their point. I actually agree that products should be labeled correctly but disagree with you that labeling is the essential component of HR, esp with research chemicals where the information is next to useless and the fact that anything that is an alternative to illicits is illegal in australia.
I'm struggling to see how labeling research chemicals with the proper ingredients is "useless". While a full write up on dosing and dangers would be the most ideal, having the chemical name displayed is one of, if not the most essential aspects of the label. While the name itself might not mean much to a lot of people, anyone who wishes to know more the substance can, with a simple google search. Granted, not every RC will have information available about it, but many do. If there is no chemical name given, then regardless of whether you want to know more, no one will be able to research anything about its effects, dosage, the dangers etc (apart from testing on themselves, which is hardly a safe thing). Surely you can see that this is far worse than simply naming the active ingredients in the first place.
Your point is that if a product is not labeled, then who knows whats in it and people could die. My point is the suppliers of 'legals' unlike criminals know that a product must be as safe as possiple for people to send that western union money order again! People in hospital aren't a good profit market so therefore thats a from of harm reduction right there!
You place far too much faith in "legal" drugs. And by "legal" drugs I'm pretty sure what you really mean is "illegal drugs cunningly disguised as legal" - since that's the only reason why the real chemical names would be excluded from the label. There's only one thing the producers care about - money.If a drug was *so* bad that people were dropping left, right and center, then its pretty likely a distributor would stop selling it ... but do you honestly think they care if say, your liver fails in 10 years from their untested products?
The HR aspects of the ndoves was that they they provided a predicatable experience, you knew what you were getting every time, as opposed to street pills, the police could not/would not charge you for them as they didin't come up on their drug test, you did not have to engage with the criminal underworld to get the products
Predictable? Are we talking about the same neodoves here that had the formula changed at least 3 times ? I'd hardly call that predictable. I'd also hardly call finding ways to get high and not be detected by drug tests "part of harm minimization".
Tell me since you guys identified the neodves has the overdoses or adverse reactions decreased ? No!
How do you know, do you have access to data from hospital admissions? Since doctors now know what substance they contain, if someone did present with overdose symptoms, I assume they would have a better idea of how to treat them. While not a great deal is known about many of the substances in the **organics range, in a general sense one could probably still draw conclusions of how to deal with an overdose based on the fact they are related to cathinone. Similarly, certain medications or treatments might be unsuitable to mix with anything related to cathinone, so doctors could also be weary of this when treating overdoses. I'm sure there's still alot more to know about the substances from a medical perspective, but knowing anything about the substance is better than knowing nothing, and the only way for doctors to learn more about the **organics range is by knowing exactly what chemicals they are.
If someone came into the hospital suffering an od of ndoves (never happened as far as i know) Or an allergic reaction (has happened a couple of times) would it make much difference if the patient said i took a capsule with khat extract or i took a capsule with ethcathinone? it dosn't seem likely.
It would make a slight difference since "khat extract" implies that the substance is extracted from khat, and the only active substances in khat are cathine and cathinone. Methcathinone is a synthetic product.
You seem to ignroe the fact that if they were labeled there is no way that these products could have been sold, providing an alternative to street drugs. Perhaps thats what you would prefer. By continually justifying Harm Reduction by over emphasizing the 'harm' done by empathogens and ignoring the harm done by prohibiton you are justifying the goverments line that say mdma is 'harmfull' and should be illegal as opposed to something a lot more harmfull like effexor which is 'legal' and does no harm.
You ignore the fact that, if the product can't be sold with the correct label then it is not a legal alternative to begin with - its just a discrete way for a blackmarket drug dealer to shift his product. The only real difference is the fact that they are potentially more dangerous than mainstream drugs since so little is known about them and their long term side effects.
To my knowledge, harm minimization groups are primarily about reducing the immediate physical damage done to ones body through drug use. While many HR groups do have strong political beliefs against prohibition, it is also important for a HR group to not appear as though they are condoning drug use. At this stage in time unfortunately I don't think many non-drug users would agree with the "legalize everything" argument. Smaller political steps need to be made first. The needle exchange and methadone program are good examples. Eventually this could pave the way for say, prescription heroin for addicts like in the Netherlands.
Well buddy, i've worked in the front line of getting people off addictive drugs as well as seeing the damage done to peoples lives by going to jail for self medicating ,so from my perspective giving the user access to information about effects, usage, addiction pontential is a lot more important than labelling the ingredients, especially by doing that LE is given a free present. Ngnics should have provided this information, which to the discredit they didin't
While I agree that having information about effects, usage and addiction would also be very handy, I still firmly believe having the chemical name itself is vital. Take for instance this example - Products A,B,C and D all contain the same active substance in varying ratios. However, the active substance is not revealed on the label. Someone tries product A, and has a bad allergic reaction. Since they don't know what was in the product, all they can ascertain is that product A makes them ill. This person may go on to try products B,C and D ... and have more allergic reactions. Conversely, If the chemical name had been displayed clearly on the label, then after the single bad experience on product A, this person could have then avoided the rest of the products.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
