Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

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The funny thing is, I'm not sure it would be that different.

I'm being tongue-in-cheek. That is, the effectiveness of the medicines would be very different, but the actual substances available in some way would barely be different.

With the exception of marijuana, almost every drug with medicinal use is either available medically in some form or unavailable, but with very related 'cousins' readily available.

Marijuana is available as Marinol - it just doesn't work, because it's synthesized without the full set of ~70 cannabinoids. MDMA isn't available (outside of very restricted research), but it's closely related to methamphetamine, which is available with a prescription. (People are often surprised to hear that one). GHB is available with a prescription. Heroin is really just a synthesized and concentrated form of morphine (available with prescription), and peyote is available for some religious ceremonies. [Psilocybin is not, but oddly enough, I believe mushroom spores are legal, even though the mushrooms are not (because the spores don't contain any psylocybin - I believe this may depend on your jurisdiction, though, and as always, IANAL.).]

So what's the end result? We've criminalized drugs not based on their underlying chemistry - there is almost no Schedule I drug that doesn't have a closely related (and oftentimes identical!) counterpart in Schedules II-IV or not scheduled at all.

If I were the conspiracy-theory type, I'd say that this is a way of saying that drugs can only be useful if a pharmaceutical company is profiting off of it. Though I'm inclined to side with Hanlon's razor on this one - that's not really how it came about historically, even if 'Big Pharma' does benefit off of it now. I don't really care - I just wish we'd start drafting laws based on science, not fear.

>Heroin is really just a synthesized and concentrated form of morphine

The pharmacology nerd inside me is reeling. Heroin is a semi-synthetic, since it's derived from the naturally occuring opiate Morphine. Concentrated is the wrong word - vodka is more concentrated than beer because it contains more ethanol per ml. Heroin has a (slightly) different chemical structure to Morphine, though it is more potent by weight. You can't say that it's more concentrated without changing the meaning of the word.

>I just wish we'd start drafting laws based on science, not fear.

Completely agree and to add to that, I wish we'd start drafting laws which protect people instead of harming them.

"Heroin has a (slightly) different chemical structure to Morphine, though it is more potent by weight."

If I remember correctly it crosses the blood brain barrier faster, but once it's in the brain it acts exactly the same as morphine. I've heard it's actually less potent than morphine gram for gram if you eat it, but I'm not sure.

Morphine becomes heroin (diacetylmorphine) upon replacing the naturally-occurring hydroxyl groups (-OH) with acetyl groups (-OCOCH3). This increases fat solubility, which allows it to cross the blood-brain barrier much more quickly than morphine.

The acetyl groups get removed in the brain, and the resulting morphine has the traditional effects. Since heroin includes the extra weight of acetyl groups, it's implied that heroin is less strong per gram than morphine, but is easier to deliver.

In terms of analgesic potential anyway - http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/136/1/43

Orally, Heroin has a bioavailability of between ~25% and ~65%, depending on dose and tolerance, whereas Morphine has a bioavailability of 20-40%, making Heroin the more efficient of the pair.

> The pharmacology nerd inside me is reeling.

Yes, I guess potent would have been a better word choice, but you get the idea. I was trying to explain it without using terms like bioavailability and analgesic potential... I assume that anybody who understands those words doesn't need me to point out my main point, which was simply that it's hard to make a argument based on biochemistry and pharmacokinetics alone for the current drug schedules!

The skeptic within would tend to agree with the conspiracy-type within you.

It would seem that the simplest solution be to step back and change legislation on various chemicals/compounds to be in accordance with scientific findings/changes in cultural perception. The logical question is then, what exists to prevent this? I think a careful shave with Occam's razor uncovers the possibility/probability of corporate interests being too high to ignore, rendering Hanlon's razor a little too blunt.

I think that though this is indeed one aspect of it, there's also the law of inertia (also known as habit/tradition/dogma). Most people are not mindful enough to adapt to their environment readily and end up lagging behind the reality they are faced with. Just look at the music and movie industries - they're not evil, just too stupid to adapt.

So it is with society and the bigger picture of economics and survival. We have all this crazy technology to automate everything from growing crops to wiping your ass yet we still work the same hours. We know that cooperation is superior to competition when it comes to survival yet we still run an outdated economic model. We know that keeping things like medical knowledge open and accessible benefits everyone yet we still grant corporations monopolies on it.

It's like Tupac said, this isn't idealistic, it's just real.

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