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Comment by dkersten | Hacker News Reader

We've made the safest drugs illegal

This is the problem.. They've also made alcohol, which is supposedly more dangerous than, for example, cannabis or MDMA, legal. Nicotine is also dangerous and legal.

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Sugary water will catch wild yeasts from the air and spontaneously ferment into alcohol [1]. It's incredibly difficult to prevent its production. AFAIK, 5-MeO-DMT or "Meow Meow" don't magically appear just because you forgot to put a jug of apple cider in the fridge.

[1]: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Tej

Also, alcohol generally isn't that dangerous, unless people are driving and/or concentrating it via distillation.

Regarding the relative danger of alcohol, David Nutt has just published a new study in The Lancet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-h...

"The maximum possible harm score was 100 and the minimum zero. Overall, alcohol scored 72 – against 55 for heroin and 54 for crack. The most dangerous drugs to their individual users were ranked as heroin, crack and then crystal meth. The most harmful to others were alcohol, heroin and crack in that order."

Although, I feel these scores are somewhat dependent on the relative prevalences of these substances. If we had as many meth addicts as alcoholics in the UK the picture could be somewhat different. Yet there's no denying that alcohol is a relatively evil drug.

Regarding Alcohol:

"When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin."

Alcohol isn't dangerous? Compared to what? I'm a pretty conservative individual, and I've come close to dying at least three times in my life before I realized how lethal alcohol was. Luckily I had friends around me at the time - but I could easily have either overdosed or died choking on my own vomit. Many, Many others haven't been so lucky.

And, have you seen what a lifetime abuser of alcohol looks like around 50 (if they, or their liver, survive that long).

Seriously - anyone who argues for legalization of alcohol because it's "safer" than something like marijuana doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

The last sentence there originally said 'until', rather than 'unless'. I meant that distilling alcohol (i.e., liquor) makes it quite a bit more dangerous, that's all.

FYI, your link is dead. Here's another source that ought to be stable: http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/tej.html

Generally, the safety of a given substance can be determined through its therapeutic index. The therapeutic index for a substance is calculated by taking the amount of the substance that will induce toxicity in 50% of a population divided the dose that will induce the effect of the drug in 50% of the population. In short, the ratio of how much will be (acutely) toxic to how much will make you high.

Here are some therapeutic indexes for common drugs [0]:

Heroin - 6

Alcohol - 10

Cocaine - 15

MDMA - 16

LSD - ~1000

THC - > 1000

Alcohol has very dangerous acute effects and it's very possible to overdose on alcohol. Compare to THC where a toxic dose is on the level of 15g. Assuming that THC is approximately 5% of the content of the cannabis [1] this would mean smoking 300 grams of cannabis (with 100% absorption by the body). That would make for ~600 joints (with a joint having about half a gram of cannabis) to get to a level of toxicity.

So relatively speaking, Alcohol (at least in the short term) is quite dangerous.

[0] PDF - http://web.cgu.edu/faculty/gabler/toxicity%20Addiction%20off...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_%28drug%29#Potency

Those are great statistics for judging the likelihood of overdosing (although, I'm not sure it's the only factor to consider - the physically small amount of cocaine needed to OD probably mitigates its higher therapeutic index).

If you want to evaluate danger there are other factors that need to be considered -- i.e. people "safely" high on MDMA may dehydrate, and people "safely" high on LSD may jump off of a bridge.

people "safely" high on LSD may jump off of a bridge.

Sober people may jump off a bridge too. Should we outlaw sobriety? The "man on LSD thinks he can fly and jumps out of window" myth is largely that: a myth. If I recall, it was inspired by a real story of LSD experimentation on some kind of federal agent, who was given a good dose of LSD without his knowledge, thought he was going mad, and threw himself out of a window to make it end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson

I came here to post this and found a new possible source for the "jumping off the bridge" meme.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/24/b...

Long story short, a student took LSD on a class trip, which involved a visit to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The student didn't jump off the bridge, but climbed a railing on an observation deck and fell.

I am completely against prohibition of any drug, however, I can speak from experience that LSD can genuinely drive you temporarily insane, even at relatively small doses.

More than once I have been convinced (even though I knew I had put a little piece of paper on my tongue) that what was happening to me was outside of the context of 'tripping.'

One time I would have committed suicide had I been convinced that it would have worked. I was completely under the impression that it would only be painful and not really do anything but sort of hit a 'reset' button into what was at the time essentially hell.

Outlaw bridges.

I'm categorizing distilled alcohol (i.e., liquor) differently than beer and wine, as I think the former is significantly more dangerous. I could be wrong, though - I wonder where it would end up on that scale if the different forms were rated distinctly.

Also, alcohol generally isn't that dangerous, unless people are driving and/or concentrating it via distillation.

In the case of alcohol, besides what others have said, it also causes (IMHO) much more severe social problems than cannabis and mdma do: a lot of people die from alcohol related causes every year (accidents, overdose, etc), a lot of people are injured every year because of alcohol (street fights, domestic violence, accidents, etc), a lot of property damage is caused by drunk people.. Alcohol is, in my opinion, much more damaging than at least cannabis and E.

I personally know one person who died because of long-term alcohol abuse. A friend of my brothers died of alcohol poisoning not that long ago. An old school friend almost died of pneumonia a few years ago because he passed out on the street after drinking. Countless people I or my family knew have died in alcohol-related car accidents over the years. I've seen more than a handful of peoples family or work lives be destroyed because of alcohol. I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that alcohol generally isn't that dangerous. For the record, I also know or have known people who regularly abuse or did abuse both cannabis and mdma and not one of them or their families have suffered any lasting negative effects due to it. In my opinion (and I won't hold it against you if you disagree, but theres no way I'll change my mind), alcohol is much worse than thc and mdma. (I don't mean to say that they're not bad, just that alcohol, which is legal, is much worse).

I phrased that poorly. The 'unless' in the last sentence was originally 'until'; I meant that distilling alcohol (liquor) makes it significantly more dangerous than non-distilled (beer, wine, etc.).

I encountered a lot of drunk street people while working at a public library for several years, including a guy who had to have his stomach pumped because he (initially, discreetly) drank way too much vodka on a bench outside. I know that hard liquor can be very destructive, both in the short and long term.

(My main point was how difficult it is to control alcohol production, that was just an aside.)

Fair enough. I'd argue that they're doing a pretty bad job controlling production of illegal drugs too, though. Hell, some illegal drugs (ie mushrooms) can be found walking around the countryside (if you know what you're looking for, at least).

5 methoxy dimethyl triptamine IS NOT "Meow" (Mephedrone!) They are not anything like each other in effects or chemistry. Please check your facts, childrens lives are at stake here.

I know they're different, but I can see that being ambiguous since I didn't use three nouns and a serial comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Ambiguity). I meant that to read like, "AFAIK, X, Y, and Z don't magically appear...".

That's what I get for posting just before bed, I guess - too much ambiguous phrasing.

Too late for the edit window: I phrased the last sentence poorly, I meant to say, "Also, alcohol is probably made quite a bit more dangerous when concentrated via distillation (into hard liquor), or when people are driving."

The distillation is also where organized crime comes in, whether it's the mob or moonshiners and rum-runners. Making hard cider is easy, but running a still and distribution ring is probably beyond most people, and cider, beer, and wine aren't concentrated enough for smuggling.

Is Nicotine itself actually dangerous or is it the predominant vector that is dangerous?

Smoke doesn't cause heart disease.

From memory, I believe one line of thinking is that vasoconstrictors (of which nicotine is one), in the course of chronic exposure / activity, promote rigidity aka hardening of blood vessels.

I said smoke not smoking. I think you misunderstood.

I see now what you mean, although I think the brevity and nature of the comment made it easier to do so. Upvoting your comment (I did not downvote it, before).

Nicotine and the increased cholinergic activity it causes have been shown to impede apoptosis, which is one of the methods by which the body destroys unwanted cells (programmed cell death). Since apoptosis helps to remove mutated or damaged cells that may eventually become cancerous, the inhibitory actions of nicotine may create a more favourable environment for cancer to develop, though this remains to be proven.

Also women who use nicotine gum and patches during the early stages of pregnancy face an increased risk of having babies with birth defects, according to a study of around 77,000 pregnant women in Denmark. The study found that women who use nicotine-replacement therapy in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy have a 60 percent greater risk of having babies with birth defects, compared to women who are non-smokers.

Nicotine is a very powerful constrictor and decreases the flow of blood to the periphery of the body. It has been measured and found that there is a 29 percent blood-flow decrease to the thumb after smoking two cigarettes.

Cigarette smoke has a number of carcinogens in it. While nicotine itself is not known to be a carcinogen [0] it does inhibit programmed cell death [1]. Thus, nicotine promotes carcinogenic activity in the lungs and in other bodily tissues.

Interestingly, THC seems to have the exact opposite effect promoting programmed cell death rather than inhibiting it [2]. This may lead to a low risk of lung cancer when smoking marijuana as compared to a high risk of lung cancer when smoking cigarettes [3].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Toxicology

[1] http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/79/1/1.full

[2] http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37948#ABS

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05...

"This may lead to a low risk of lung cancer when smoking marijuana as compared to a high risk of lung cancer when smoking cigarettes"

Many people roll tobacco and marijuana into joints. So this probably isn't true in many cases. It would be true if marijuana were to be smoked on it's own in a joint.

Additionally, people tend to hold the marijuana smoke in a lot longer than they do tobacco, so (while I don't have any evidence), I imagine that also makes it more dangerous.

Potheads warning about the dangers of tobacco smoking always struck me as a bit disingenuous. At least tobacco doesn't turn you into asocial slug.

(also, pot burning still produces tar)

Nicotine demethylates when heated into nornicotine. This reacts with saliva to form the carcinogenic N-nitrosonornicotine -- which is also found in any variety of cured tobacco.

While not itself carcinogenic, it is incredibly hard to separate nicotine from cancer, unfortunately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Janda#Nornicotine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Nitrosonornicotine

Also, alcohol is both dangerous and good for you, depending on how you use it. A recent study showed that moderate drinkers outlive heavy drinkers, but heavy drinkers outlive non-drinkers. As with all drugs, the key is dosage control, cost versus benefit, and personal responsibility.

But that's not good enough for some people. They want to incarcerate those who produce or use anything that might be harmful when used irresponsibly. Either that or they want a piece of the action.

It's quite possible to use ordinary food and vitamins irresponsibly, with great physical and psychological harm. So naturally some people want to play the "give me a cut or go to jail" game with those substances as well.

It seems that these people won't be happy until every human activity is either prohibited or mandatory. Freedom is not an option with them.

So now you have the insane situation of bureaucrats racing to ban new things, and "meta-chemists" racing to devise new things that haven't been banned yet. What a waste.

MDMA is not safe for long-term use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Chronic_use

(I'm not saying it is safe, but...) It's worth noting that all studies on the long-term effects of illegal drugs have to be done (by necessity) on people who generally, due to their lifestyle, are exposed to a myriad of products that are (potentially) harmful to their bodies, and for hardcore users, have other aspects of their lifestyle that expose them to risks (plainly put, drug users often use different kinds, drink, party and smoke a lot, and addicts are prone to being homeless and/or in prostitution, exposing them to various medical dangers). So it's very hard to isolate what effects are to be ascribed to the MDMA (or variants) and what to other factors.

I know that article is talking specifically about MDMA, but I think the dangers of ecstasy are more due to the fact that in recent years it doesn't actually contain much MDMA and instead uses much less understood chemicals, which are probably more dangerous than MDMA would be.

You're mistaken. The metabolites of seratonin, in excess, are neurotoxic. MDMA works a vesicular releaser, flooding the space between cells with the neurotransmitters that make you feel good. As the brain metabolizes the recently released flood, waste is produced. The brain can healthfully handle a certain level of waste, but beyond a certain level and you risk cellular death. However, this suggests that low doses of MDMA may not pose a significant risk.

This is how it was explained to me during my "Drugs and Human Behavior" class 5 years ago at Drexel.

Oh ok, thats interesting. Thanks for clarifying.

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