Media Dustup Pits Bloggers and Wired Against NYTimes

destinyland writes "Wired magazine ran a table listing the scientific effects of prescription drugs (and one illegal drug) — leading to an accusation from the NYTimes that they were 'promoting' drug use. But this routine controversy led to a fierce pushback online from bloggers and from Wired's reporter, who discussed his past drug use on his own blog and called for an honest discussion of scientific evidence and straight talk about medical effects."

Comments

Methamphetamine is NOT illegal!

[Ellis D. Tripp]

It is listed in DEA schedule II. Truly illegal drugs (like heroin and pot)are Schedule I.

Methamphetamine is available on prescription under the brand name Desoxyn:

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

Re:Methamphetamine is NOT illegal!

[tshetter]

All DEA Scheduled drugs are legal given proper permits.

Schedule 2-5 usually only require a prescription from a doctor with proper DEA licensing.

Schedule 1+ can also be had, but with more restrictive DEA licensing.


Alexander Shulgin may be the best known for his DEA Schedule 1 license and his ensuing discovery of numerous psychoactive substances.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[morgan_greywolf]

Then I could write a story that says "MULTIVITAMINS WILL KILL YOU!!!!" You could write a story right now. This study shows that, among other things, black pepper will kill you:

Black pepper has the scientific name Piper nigrum, which refers to black and white peppers. Individuals self-medicate (orally) with pepper to treat gastric, bronchial, and cancer conditions (Leung & Foster, 1996). Early evidence indicates that black pepper may protect against colon cancer (Nalini, Sabitha, Viswanathan, & Menon, 1998). Conversely, Singh and Rao (1993) found that black pepper induces the enzymes that cause liver tumors (el-Mofty, Khudoley, & Shwaireb, 1991). Aspiration of large amounts of black pepper has caused deaths (Cohle et al., 1988; Sheahan, Page, Kemper, & Suarez, 1988). Typical doses range from 300-600 mg or as much as 1.5 g per day (Gruenwald et al., 1998); 0.25 tsp is equivalent to 1.25 g dry weight. Treat this herb with caution.

Re:LOLOUTRAGE!!1!11!

[Bullet-Dodger]

Wired is wrong to promote drug use, especially stuff like meth. I work with recovering addicts and believe me, some gullible young kids ARE swayed by this sort of stupid publicity by those self-appointed arbiters of coolness. Yes, wired promoted using meth by saying it causes "Parkinson's-like symptoms, addiction, stroke, psychosis, prison, death" and "Prolonged use can also make you stupid and crazy.".

How dare they make it look so cool and sexy!

Re:"like heroin and pot"

[notdotcom.com]

Nicotine is not a harmful drug???

Since when? Not only was Nicotine used widely as a pestacide (because of its toxicity), but it's one of the most dangerous drugs that the public are exposed to. 40 1/1000th of a gram is considered potentially deadly to a human. (40mg)

The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.[11] [12] This designates nicotine an extremely deadly poison. It is more toxic than many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg when administered to mice. Spilling liquid nicotine on human skin could result in death.[13] [Wikipedia.org]

Sure, yeah, um, "not a harmful drug" in what sense?

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Ellis D. Tripp]

They also invented and trademarked another well-known drug. It is technically known as diacetylmorphine, but you probably know it better under Bayer's tradename--HEROIN.