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Drug League Table
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
The government is to be urged to consider a controversial plan to reclassify drugs according to the harm they do.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2026246,00.html
Have a look at the top 20 list, 1 being the worst and so on. Cannabis is at 11 and Ecstasy is at number 18, surly this should be the other way around? What do you think of this "drug league table"?
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I don't tend to like these drug league tables because there's too many variables and it all depends on the individual.
Regarding the ecstacy, I'm not surprised. It's a relatively safe drug, which doesn't have much potential for addiction. Cannabis is psychologically addictive. These tables are all constructed on the basis of how much it can be a detriment to your life. Habitual cannabis smoking is much more detrimental to someone's life than taking ecstacy from time to time IMO.
Ecstacy is relatively safe, though it does carry physical and mental harm to a user who takes it too much.
Despite the fact that smoking damages your lungs, you also have to look at things like paranoia and the possibility of developing mental disorders if you're susseptible to them.
Definately more damaging than Ket I woudl say.
I think Solvents are pretty horrific though.
They said if the Law had a blank piece of paper now and had to rule up the classification system from scratch they would have to put alcohol and tobacco in the top 6. They also agree the UK will never be free of drugs and so they should support drug users instead of penalising them.
It was good to see the government dismissing yet another report into the failure of the drug laws as they stand. The laws are working, apparently - how and where they didnt mention, but they are working.
And the classification of mushrooms as a Class A drug was purely scientifically based and wasnt a moral panic at all.
It pisses me off when mates of mine who don't take drugs have a go at me and call me stupid for taking E when they go out and get paraletic on Vodka every friday night. Fucking twats. lol
Also what are barbiturates?
That's probably why they put Cocaine so high up the table, because of Crack. Although yeah I agree they should be separated...coke should still be high up though, alot of users do under-estimate it.
TheSite - Barbituates
i find the idea of a drugs league table (like hierachical classification) completely stupid.
There are at least two highly complex systems involved in drug use, ie: YOU and the particular substance you are introducing to it.
Hierachical classification just encourages people NOT to understand the complex and delicate mechanisms at work, and just means that they'll work it out on how dangerous it is relative to the 'ultra bad drugs'.
If you want to understand what is happening to you, and correspondingly if govt is truely worried about the health of users then they would take this approach.
But unfortunately the politcal climate of the UK, as well as some international obligations precipitated by the 'War on Drugs' mean that we aren't able to affect change, because its not politically viable for an elected government to do so.
Such is the inertia of democracy i am afraid
Yeah I would agree people under estimate it, i have before certainly .... but definetely a different ball game to crack.
Partly that, and partly that the british public are just thick and believe what they read in the Sun and the Mail.
No, I deserve a much better democracy, its just the plebs who mess it up.
:yes:
good question LJ, wonder if we could get hold of the brief for the research team that did this...
It's the same drug pretty much. Crack is just a purer smokable form of cocaine.
Yes, but there are many cocaine addicts who lead a day to day life with a coke habit, whilst more (not all) crack addicts are unable to do so.
I don't have any stats to refer to, but IMO more crime and anti-social activity (whatever that is classed as) is caused by crack users more than coke users.
It is the ability of crack to get to the brain a lot faster which is the key, the faster the spike in the brain level the more addictive a drug seems to be. Which is why of course chewing coca leaves is the least addictive form of all.
I would imagine it would be on the RSA website I linked to above. I guess I asked because I was trying to get people to think about the classification in context, otherwise the league table is pretty much meaningless.
I think cocaine is far more damaging to society, simply for the fact so many more people take it, many of which are quite ignorant of the damage it does.