Drug experimentation and dependence

[Julia]

i see you mentioned methadone doing more harm than good in your opinion,

what has been your experience?do you know anybody on methadone?

why would it have done more harm?

I'd also be interested in the background to this assertion.
Certainly putting people on methadone is just swapping one addiction for another but addicts on appropriately adjusted methadone are usually able to lead a fairly 'normal' life, have a job, maintain family relationships etc., which they can't when absorbed in criminal activity necessary to access heroin.

As long as the daily dose of methadone is taken in the pharmacy to avoid any likelihood of stockpiling and subsequent injecting, it's a fairly manageable way of coping with an addiction. I know several addicts who have managed to gradually reduce their dose and eventually come off all narcotics.

 

[2020hindsight]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/11/2214875.htm?section=justin

Kava takes off in US
By Pacific correspondent Campbell Cooney

Posted 2 hours 39 minutes ago

United States consumers are embracing the effect, if not the taste, of kava.

Kava grows naturally in many Pacific nations and its roots, when crushed and mixed with liquid, produce a foul-tasting but calming narcotic.

On many Pacific Island Nations, kava's narcotic affect has meant it is often the precursor to discussion and negotiations in villages and Parliaments.

Now, Pacific kava has becoming the drink of choice for many US consumers looking for something that is new and different.

The owner of the Nakava Bar in southern Florida, Jeff Bowman, says it has become the perfect accompaniment to a night out listening to a jazz band.

"The later it gets, the less noise there is. People just become very relaxed," he said.

Mr Bowman says while his patrons have embraced Kava's numbing affect, its foul taste - often compared to muddy, overused dish washing water - meant many took a lot of convincing to give it a go.

as they say
one cup numbs your lips
the second numbs your tongue
the third numbs your brain

 

[2020hindsight]

Don;t experiment with over-indulgence with the bottle kids, you might end up looking like this ...

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924Bisbort.html

Dry Drunk
Is Bush making a cry for help?
by Alan Bisbort

Sept. 24, 2002 -- HARTFORD (APJP) -- Alcoholics Anonymous has a name for someone who is a drunk in every way except for the actual imbibing of spirits. They call that person a "dry drunk." This is not a judgmental term, nor should this be a judgmental topic in America, where there are, by even the most conservative estimates, 10 million adult alcoholics, and very few families that have not been touched, in one way or another, by this national scourge. This same scourge has, by his own admission, also touched the life of our Commander in Chief.

Whether George W. Bush is or was an alcoholic is not the point here. I am taking him at his word that he stopped what he termed "heavy drinking" in 1986, at age 40. The point here is that, based on Bush's recent behavior, he could very well be a "dry drunk." Of course, he may just be an immature bully who will gladly sacrifice thousands of lives to get his way even against the advice of the most respected and mature members of his own party.

......
Bush said he was a "heavy drinker." But let's not be coy here. Anyone who has ever imbibed heavily over a long period of time knows that "heavy drinker" is the rich man's (or the politician's) code for alcoholic.

For the record, Bush claims to have stopped drinking for reasons that change each time he's asked about his substance-abusing past (which isn't often, thanks to a cowed press). Let's say he started experimenting with alcohol, as per the national norm, at 16 at prep school, and he began getting regularly wasted at Yale at 18. This would mean that Bush drank steadily "heavily" for at least 22 years. We are, then, asked to believe that he went cold turkey after more than two decades of heavy drinking, a nearly impossible feat even for someone, as he claims, who was rescued by God. etc

 

[Sean K]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/11/2214875.htm?section=justin

as they say
one cup numbs your lips
the second numbs your tongue
the third numbs your brain

Yep, Kava does that. But beyond the third, it doesn't make you get agressive and want to hit things, or cry.

I think it's amazing that Kava is a banned drug in Australia. (I think)

Interesting that the Fijians are allowed to take Kava on overseas military operations, becuase of it's cultural significance.

I had a nice Christmas and New Years with a bunch of Fijians in East Timor in 2003.

Very mellow and social.

Didn't cry, or make any undeliverable crazy pledges to myslelf, didn't want to hit anything, and woke up sparkly.

 

[2020hindsight]

Yep, Kava does that. But beyond the third, it doesn't make you get agressive and want to hit things, or cry.

I think it's amazing that Kava is a banned drug in Australia. (I think)

Interesting that the Fijians are allowed to take Kava on overseas military operations, becuase of it's cultural significance.

I had a nice Christmas and New Years with a bunch of Fijians in East Timor in 2003.

Very mellow and social.

Didn't cry, or make any undeliverable crazy pledges to myslelf, didn't want to hit anything, and woke up sparkly.

Apparently in the old days, the root was prepared by chewing by young girls and the juice was spat into the communal bowl. - Then everyone hopped into the spittoon with gusto (sorry - in fact it is and was a very cultured ritual - love those kava ceremonies :bowdown: )

I really like the stuff as well.
I believe you can buy it in Sydney :2 twocents
Max allowance of 2kg per passenger for (Melanesians and) Polynesians arriving in Aus (according to this website)

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...ders-warnabbott/2007/10/01/1191091029986.html

Even its aficionados admit it tastes vile and looks like muddy water.

But to an estimated 100,000 Pacific Islanders living in Australia it's the water of life, the social lubricant that keeps their culture alive and their young people out of trouble.

They will plead with Mr Abbott to relax Canberra's strict limits on the importation of kava, imposed in June to stop the flow to remote Aboriginal communities where it has been blamed for exacerbating health problems.

Heck, the only reason they don't let the Abs use it in any quantity - as a substitute for white man's fire-water - is that there would be massive objections from those with vested interests , (the publicans and the taxman). But it would immediately make a massive reduction in domestic violence and abuse etc.

Now there is only an allowance of two kilograms of powdered kava in accompanied baggage for arriving passengers - not nearly enough for the dozens of "kava clubs" around Sydney that draw Tongan, Fijian, ni-Vanuatu and Samoan residents every night.

"If we don't have kava there's no point coming here," said the Reverend Sione Pinomi, at a kava club this week at the Fanongolelei ("Surely Heard") Hall in Glendenning, a light industrial zone near Mt.Druitt. "We will just yak-yak, then go home.''

"What really worries me a lot is the youth, and some of the people including the lay preachers,'' he added. "I am very scared they might go back to alcohol."

 

[Julia]

There was a piece in today's "Courier Mail" about inadequate police numbers.
Brisbanites will be familiar with "The Valley" where apparently a good bit of drug use happens. The police commented that thank God so many people there were using ecstasy rather than alcohol as these people were a great deal easier to deal with than drunks.

Hospitals echoed the comment on the basis of injuries incurred amongst drunken brawls, falls/accidents.

Suspect they feel less kindly towards users of ice, however.

 

[2020hindsight]

spot on Julia

Then of ourse they mix em up - and add alcohol as well - and end up like Sarah May Ward (currently waiting in jail for murder trial) ....

One of my boys was drinking with Eli Westlake earlier that evening of his death Ward has been charged with his murder, plus drink-driving - together with a cocktail of drugs - including ecstacy from memory - gotta feeling they are calling it "meth like rage" rather than accusing her of using meth as such.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23832174-5006009,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,23827862-1242,00.html

 

[gav]

Yep, Kava does that. But beyond the third, it doesn't make you get agressive and want to hit things, or cry.

I think it's amazing that Kava is a banned drug in Australia. (I think)

Interesting that the Fijians are allowed to take Kava on overseas military operations, becuase of it's cultural significance.

I had a nice Christmas and New Years with a bunch of Fijians in East Timor in 2003.

Very mellow and social.

Didn't cry, or make any undeliverable crazy pledges to myslelf, didn't want to hit anything, and woke up sparkly.

True. When I served in the Solomon Islands, the Fijian Police drank kava every night. On one of my nights off I had some with them. It did nothing except make me more relaxed, and I had a great night sleep. Its still sold in health food stores here in tablet form, but the doses are extremely tiny.

 

[nick2fish]

When the lawmakers of the land put Ecstasy and Ice in the same basket you will always have a drug problem.
Ecstasy is a non addictive drug and Ice is probably the most addictive drug known to mankind.
Ignorance to this fact will lead to lives ruined and lost.
Kids have to thumb through their Dads Zoo or picture mags to get the true facts on all drugs.
Draconian lawmakers just shuffle papers and put their heads in the sand while their failed understanding leads to MDNA being almost impossible to source in its pure (and less harmful) form and ICE freely available as it is cheap.

There is nothing wrong finding an occasional escape from the turmoil we call life.

Purity and Moderation be the key and stay the hell away from the additive's

 

[2020hindsight]

Purity and Moderation be the key and stay the hell away from the additives

nick, sounds like you're making the Oscar Wilds argument ...
"moderation in all things - especially moderation"

PS personally, if I did it all again, I'd be staying well away from anything other than a moderate amount of alcohol. - and by moderate, I mean probably about half the alcohol I have actually consumed

PS on the wagon tonight though, city2surf in the morrow

running /adrenalin is a drug y' know

especially if you keep singing something like this in your head..

The Seekers - When The Stars Begin To Fall

good tune to run to : 2twocents

PS gee I get pissed off when 90 year olds pass me on heartbreak hill though lol.

or this one.. (for the downhill bits )

mexico les humphreys singers

 

[Wysiwyg]

PS gee I get pissed off when 90 year olds pass me on heartbreak hill though lol.

2020, on the hill climbs i lean forward so the next step has to come or fall over.You haven`t got computer belly have you??

 

[2020hindsight]

2020, on the hill climbs i lean forward so the next step has to come or fall over.You haven`t got computer belly have you??

- wys - you asking me have a got a laptop m8, lol - nope

or like some of the runners - more Chins than a HK phonebook - In my league, noone cares how well you run , it's just the mood that is seriously addictive (speaking of drugs, lol). - I'm sure you'll agree.

PS the dog has had a bad leg for a few months, - plenty of walks, but my running preparation has been almost non-existent.

 

[2020hindsight]

Addictiveness of nicotine vs heroin, cocaine, alcohol etc has been discussed on another thread (Schappelle's Innocence). Probably more sense here. "Dependence" sequence (worst to least dependence) :-
Nicotine, Heroin, Cocaine, Alcohol, Caffeine, Marijuana.

http://www.tfy.drugsense.org/tfy/addictvn.htm

But researchers now know, says Dr. Jack Henningfield, chief of clinical pharmacology at the Addiction Research Center of the Government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, that many qualities are related to a drug's addictiveness, and the level of intoxication it produces may be one of the least important.

If one merely asks how much pleasure the drugs produce, as researchers used to do and tobacco companies still do, then heroin or cocaine and nicotine do not seem to be in the same category. Dr. Kozlowki said, "It's not that cigarettes are without pleasure, but the pleasure is not in the same ball park with heroin."

But now, he said, there are more questions to ask. "If the question is How hard is it to stop? then nicotine [is] a very impressive drug," he said. "Its urges are very similar to heroin."

Among the properties of a psychoactive drug - how much craving it can cause, how severe is the withdrawal, how intense a high it brings - each addicting drug has its own profile.

Heroin has a painful. powerful withdrawal, as does alcohol. But cocaine has little or no withdrawal. On the other hand, cocaine is more habit-forming in some respects, it is more reinforcing in the scientific terminology, meaning that animals and humans will seek to use it frequently in short periods of time, even over food and water.

Drugs rank differently on the scale of how difficult they are to quit as well, with nicotine rated by most experts as the most difficult to quit.

Moreover, it is not merely the drug that determines addiction, says Dr. john R. Hughes, an addiction expert at the University of Vermont. It is also the person, and the circumstances in the person's life. A user may be able to resist dependence at one time and not at another.

A central property of addiction is the user's control over the substance. With all drugs. including heroin, many are occasional users. The addictive property of the substance can be measured by how many users maintain a casual habit and how many are persistent, regular users.

According to large Government surveys of alcohol users, only about 15 percent are regular. dependent drinkers. Among cocaine users, about 8 percent become dependent. For cigarettes, the percentage is reversed. About 90 percent of smokers are persistent daily users, and 55 percent become dependent by official American Psychiatric Association criteria, according to a study by Dr. Naomi Breslau of the Henry Ford Health Sciences Center in Detroit. Only 10 percent are occasional users.

Surveys also indicate that two-thirds to four-fifths of smokers want to quit but cannot, even after a number of attempts

Experts Rate Problem Substances
Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz of the University of California at San Francisco ranked six substances based on five problem areas.

Withdrawal: Presence and severity of characteristic withdrawal symptoms.

Reinforcement: A measure of the substance's ability, in human and animal tests, to get users to take it again and again, and in preference to other substances.

Tolerance: How much of the substance is needed to satisfy increasing cravings for it, and the level of stable need that is eventually reached.

Dependence: How difficult it is for the user to quit, the relapse rate, the percentage of people who eventually become dependent, the rating users give their own need for the substance and the degree to which the substance will be used in the face of evidence that it causes harm.

Intoxication: Though not usually counted as a measure of addiction in itself, the level of intoxication is associated with addiction and increases the personal and socIal damage a substance may do.

 

[2020hindsight]

That article from 1994 - and ecstasy and meth / ice not mentioned

When the lawmakers of the land put Ecstasy and Ice in the same basket you will always have a drug problem.
Ecstasy is a non addictive drug and Ice is probably the most addictive drug known to mankind

I'm sure you're right nick

God you'd be mad to try meth !

PS And the terrorists' finances would dry up (to some extent) you'd think, if all drugs of the likes of heroin were stopped. Pipe dream obviously.