Not a horrible idea, but 6 years isn't really a lot of time. If anything, I'd say we look at Mexico and give them 2 six-year terms. Why would it be good for the country to have a guy come in and spend a year reversing everything from the previous administration, in a cycle that repeats itself every time the party holding the office changes?
We need long-term solutions to a lot of problems, and that would be helped along by a President with a long-term view.
Look at Virginia, for example. They have a 1-term limit (4 years, of course) and how does that help their state? They lose a good governor like Mark Warner for no reason.
In my opinion it's up to the people. If you have a great administrator who enjoys and excels at the challenges of his job, why shouldn't the people be able to elect him? It's just dumb, if you ask me. It protects weaker politicians that don't deserve protection.
Besides, even if a President never has to run for another office in his life, politics will still very-much matter to him. You're delusional if you think it won't. He'd be campaigning for his successor, campaigning for down-ticket races, etc.
Besides, why would it be better if, say, Bill C and Al G decided to alternate their runs for office? Why would that be better for the country?
I agree that the problem needs to be solved, but this is not the way...
I'm not sure what alpha male you've been spying on in the changing room, but even with my limited knowledge of other men's packages, I can safely say that there's only supposed to be ONE "wrinkled brown sack." If yours come individually wrapped you should consider yourself a frea...unique snowflake.
Actually, do some googling before you make dumb assumptions.
Every horse race between Bill Clinton and some other national candidate, always shows Bill winning.
Bill Vs. George W, bill wins Bill Vs. McCain, bill Wins Just recently I saw a SurveyUSA, Bill v. Hillary.... Bill wins.
And since you offered unsolicited advice, I'll do the same: Maybe you should spend less time trolling and more time actually thinking for yourself, and you might actually make a good point every now and then.
Then I graduated college, got a real job, and now I spend $50 a month at the iTunes store.
I have had no change of heart. You morons overprice music so much that as a student I couldn't even BEGIN to pay for it.
Now, however, thanks to a pricing model FORCED ON YOU by Apple, I have replaced at least 1/5 of the music I downloaded illegally with the higher quality more convenient iTunes version.
And FWIW, I now purchase music that I probably would never have even heard of if it wasn't for my illegal downloading.
I appreciate the comedy of the dumb-ass high school kid trying to "scrap" with the respected attorney in an anonymous online forum.
My only question: Did you create an account just so you could make yourself look like an idiot, or did you already have it set-up like a hot-spare available at a moments notice if you ever need to prove your stupidity against a stopwatch?
It's because in "real life" objects have intrinsic value. If I buy clothing for hundreds of dollars, even if it only cost $1 to make (which is a hyperbole, but i'll let it go), I can still wear it even if I can't sell it. The same thing goes for just about anything that's considered "real property." Of course, stocks, bonds, currency, etc, lack any intrinsic value. This is much closer to what you're getting in these online games. The only difference is confidence. I can be reasonably confident that these holdings will still have value (even if it's less than I paid for it), and that a liquid exchange market will exist into the indefinite future.
Maybe I'm just being a Luddite, but I don't feel NEARLY as confident about the staying power of some Flavor of the Week online game with a corporate history going way, way back 3 years ago (or whatever).
Let's pass a Constitutional Amendment that repeals term limits (the 22nd Amendment) as well as removing the "Natural Born Citizen" rule.
Which would let Bill Clinton run against Ahnold. And from basically every opinion poll I've seen since 1998, Bill Clinton would be the President until he dies, or his penis falls off, which I suppose is redundant.
In all seriousness, though, I think both of those things SHOULD be repealed.
The 22nd Amendment was only passed because Democrats and Republicans were pissed off at FDR for running for a fourth term when he knew his health was so poor. Even JFK supported it at the time. Looking back, though, it's a bad idea. While I do like the fact that W can't be elected again, if the rule wasn't in place, he'd never have been elected to begin with.
Besides, we have a word for term limits. It's spelled E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N-S.
And as for the Natural Born Citizen thing, well, that should go too. As long as it's replaced with a "Must be a US Citizen, residing in US territory, for at least 15 years" or something like that. We're a country of immigrants, and a lot of them have a lot to offer. Look at Jennifer Granholm in Michigan, Madeline Albright, and, yes, The Ahnold.
Go put down the pop-culture and go spend some time at mens shelters, methadone clinics, narc anon meetings, and doing ER-counseling.
I have. I *really* doubt that you have. I've been counseling and helping addicts for nearly a decade. There are only two kinds of heroin users. Those that are addicts, and those that will become addicts. That's it. It's a *MYTH* that there are people going out and doing heroin on the weekends. That's how it starts, and they maybe do that for a short while, then it spreads.
You know absolutely nothing about this drug if you think there's a PERSON ALIVE that can contain it. That person doesn't exist. Nearly *EVERY USER I'VE MET* thought they could. This is reinforced by the fact that it's NOT a casual drug. If you or I, with no opiate tolerance, did a line of heroin, we would spend the afternoon vomiting our breakfast.
You're perpetuating a MYTH. And the fact that you've said NOTHING about your credentials or experience with this MENACE, speaks loud and clear about what you know and what you just THINK you know. For chrissake, if you're afraid to actually WORK WITH USERS to help them, just go read and post at ALT.DRUGS.HARD. Go find a single person that's close to heroin (either a user, someone who knows users, a dealer, or a former user) and ask them about your "chipper" theory. They'll tell you what I did: It starts out that way. Everyones a "chipper" for a few weeks.
And the whole "Addictive personality" thing is also a myth. The only people w/o an "addictive personality" are the ones that don't try the drug, or that do it only one single time. I've met a lot of people that did it once and never again. I've never met a single person that did it twice and never again. If you do it twice, it's got you. It's got your mind. And within a few doses, it's got your body, too.
Consider the fact that your uneducated opinion might actually encourage someone to use this drug. Consider how irresponsible that is. The least you could do is put a disclaimer beneath your post that says "I am not professionally trained in the subject I'm talking about. My opinion is qualified only by my own... opinion. Anyone that listens to a word I say is doing so at their own risk because I don't actually know what I'm talking about. I incorporate words and concepts from pop-culture to make it SEEM like I know what I'm talking about, but anyone that ACTUALLY KNOWS sees me for what I am: One of the uneducated masses thats part of the drug problem in america, not the drug solution"
You put that at the bottom of your posts, and at least I'd respect you.
"Which is it? There's a difference between staving off withdrawl, and enjoying a rush."
These two are not mutually exclusive. Think, then write. You should've been able to figure that out.
"How many people do you know who are just waiting for heroin to be legalized so they can go crazy?"
This is where you don't get it. How many people do you think tried heroin so they would get addicted? Nobody PLANS addiction. It doesn't happen on purpose. It's people who think they can control the drug that become addicted. They do it on weekends. Then they do it on a couple weekdays. Then they do it every day one week "because they WANT to." Then, the next thing they know, they wake up and realize that they can't function without the drug.
Does that sound outrageous? It is. But it's true.
"People who are interested in heroin will do it anyway."
This is not true. If you want an excellent case study for this, look at CR-OxyCodone. Millions of brand new addicts all around the country. About 1/3 the people in our suboxone trial were there because of "OxyContin." These are housewives, honor students, you name it. The truth that CR-OxyCodone shows you is that there's a whole class of people that would never cook-up a bag full of powder that they purchased on the street, but when it's a government-sanctioned product, it's something altogether different. It gets a little stamp of approval from the FDA and people think that it's safe. That it's not as bad as the illegal drugs. This is so far from the truth that it's hyperbole.
Addiction is a lot more complicated than just drug + brain = addict. Even with something as addictive as heroin, most users just stay users."
Wow, you're wrong. There is no such thing as someone who uses heroin casually. It doesn't exist. You seem to think that addiction is some choice. It's not a choice. It's quicksand. There are basically four classes of people when it comes to this subject:
1. Those that never will try the drug 2. Those that tried it ONCE and didn't like it and won't try it 3. Those that tried it and liked it. In other words, Future Addicts 4. Those that are addicted.
I encourage you to do some reading about the prescription painkiller epidemic that's currently ravishing our country. If you think that it's just in the margins, you're wrong. All clinical trials are usually confidential, and ours was as well. And these are people from every possible walk of life. I had a pilot, an officer in the Marines, two police men, etc. And, all in all, the trials only involved about 1000 people.
There is a serious danger to legalizing hard drugs. And I think the very best, most qualified person to answer this question is an addict himself.
The suboxone trial is long over so I can't ask this question directly, but many of these addicts have said to me that they wish it was never invented. Heroin, Prescription Painkillers, any of them. They would chose not to make them legal, but to wipe them from existence.
Go see the face of addiction. Talk to these people. If you want to know about the war in iraq, go talk to some native Iraqi's. If you want to know about the war on drugs, go talk to some drug addicts.
To reach toxic levels of caffeine, you'd have to drink more coffee than is humanly possible.
I have no emotion tied to Heroin, I have emotion tied to the quality of the American system for drug approval. It has the best record in the world. Drugs are made legal and illegal in many countries based only on the fact that of their status in the US.
You seem to think that every substance is made equal, and that there should be some consistency, which is not true. You're over simplifying things. And honestly, you're out of your depth.
The fact that you compare the toxicity of caffeine, dirt, alcohol, marijuana and enzyte to the toxicity of Heroin (or Cocaine, or Amphetamines, Steroids, etc) is indicative of your knowledge of the subject. Which, let me spell out, is painfully little.
And your arguments aren't even well thought out. I point that out, and you throw back other aguments that, again, aren't well thought out.
Like, for example, it didn't take a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. The lawmakers at the time just made the choice to use that method. They could've easily made it a federal law. And they could easily propose a constitutional amendment banning Marijuana.
You show very little knowlegde of the law, history, or the merits of the chemicals you throw around.
You use my sentence about the mandate of the FDA, then bring up Enzyte, to which your only complaint is that it doesn't do what is advertised. What does that have to do with safety?
And saying heroin "can be lethal" is like saying cyanide "can be lethal." You're right, as long as it's in a jar on a shelf, it's not lethal. You can give a pot of coffee, a handful of Enzyte pills, and a shovel full of Dirt to an average person on the street and tell them to consume it. They won't die. You give the average person on the street a single syringe of heroin--ESPECIALLY phrama grade heroin--and you will have committed murder. Just ask the woman to shot-up John Belushi.
I'm done with you know. You've made it past reality into a sea of hypotheses and conjecture. You're not interested in facts, common sense, or, apparently, common welfare.
I have a powerful feeling that there's a bridge somewhere that's missing it's troll.
The proof is in the... uh... "pudding"
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Internet Only 1% Porn
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Ok, bad phonetic pun, sue me.
I do agree with you to an extent. Even if many households get broadband for a NUMBER of reasons, my guess is that if we had stats on the first website loaded after the Cable installer leaves, we'd have a fair cross-section of the fetish-porn industry.
I didn't read the 'Hopkins link but I'm familier with the territory. And heroin addicts on heroin maintence in counrties like the UK and the Netherlands do perform well. In fact, they're less likely to divert from their treatment than the heroin addicts treated with Methadone.
And the reason is that heroin addicts crave the 'rush.'
Let's talk frankly about heroin addiction. I've met HUNDREDS of heroin addicts during the suboxone trial my company was involved in.
1. Heroin addicts only take heroin so they can avoid puking their guts out and being sick in a way that the average person has never experienced.
2. Even if heroin were legal, if someone didn't have the money for it, they would steal and rob to get their drug. Yes, it would be cheaper, but observations have been made that as street prices go down, heroin addicts just use more heroin. There's no reason to believe this would stop if you could walk into 7-11 and walk out with 30MG for $10.
3. If you worked with a heroin addict, you couldn't have a 4 hour meeting or a 4 hour car-trip without letting them inject more of their drug. At the most, 6 hours.
4. If someone had $100 a week for heroin and food, they would eventually be spending $90 on heroin and $10 on food. Even if it were legal.
5. Once someone uses opiates for extended periods, their brain chemistry changes. Their brain stops producing its own dopamine since you're supplying it artificially. There have been no controlled studies of "what happens to these people after 20, 30, plus years"
6. Heroin Maintenence therapy allows addicts to function excellent, COMPARED TO HOW THEY FUNCTIONED AS ADDICTS. The real comparison is "how do they function compared to a non-addict." It wouldn't be very pretty.
7. This would ruin peoples lives. Period. Look at the social problems of people with vices that are currently legal. Think gambling and alcohol. It would ruin scores of families. A guy that decides that since he can get a syringe of heroin along with a pack of cigarettes, well, he might-as-well try it. And within a few months, he's charged up the families credit cards, and is emotionally detached from everything. Because the only thing that brings them joy is their next dose.
This is not a life. And THANK GOD that our politicians understand what a lot of slashdotters don't seem to.
I'm sorry, but I can't help but think that you're all of 19 and that you've never really met any number of addicts.
Without a doubt if a pharma company decided to market heroin, they wouldn't just throw diamorphine into a pill with fillers and call it a day.
To even have a CHANCE that it would pass FDA approval, it would have to be a combo agonist/antagonist and it would probably also include, in pill form, a CR mechanism.
Therefore, they would be able to patent their drug in the same was as they could if they "invented" a brand new opiate.
The only valid point in your entire post is that some people have reactions to certain opioids. Considering that all of them have a very similar chemical composition, it's rare, but it's true. However, in my experience, of all the people that have a reaction, at least 50% of the time that reaction is just nauesea. In fact, Morphine is one of the worst offenders. Codeine also.
Past that, all opioids are the same. If someone has a tolerance to, say, dilaudid, they also have a tolerance to fentanyl, and to [insert opiate here].
You have to understand how opiates work. There is an enzyme in your liver, CPY2D6, that metabolizes EVERY OPIATE into morphine. This is why a heroin addict, when he doesn't have heroin, could take a few CR-OxyCodone tablets ("OxyContin") or even a handful of Hydrocodone or codeine tablets to ease the withdrawl symptoms.
Infact, the only question of potency is "How efficiently does the liver metabolize this opiate." Short-acting opiates like I listed before (dilaudid, fentanyl, demerol, OxyCodone, Hydrocodne) have subtle differences in their pharmacology. So, for example, 1mg of Fentanyl is metabolized by-and-large into 100MG of morphine in the liver. You'd need 1000MG of Codeine for the same analgesic effects.
In summary, please don't offer misinformation. There is nothing true in your post other than the fact that certain formulations cause adverse reaction in a very small percentage of the population. And there are about 15 different opiates currently in a doctors arsenal. The addition of one more wouldn't change anything.
You either have reading comprehension issues or you're so intent on seeing what you WANT to see that you miss what's actually being said.
And I really think that at this point, you're just another slashdot troll.
You're being moronic about this. Go ask anyone in the pharma field (which is my particular background) or in healthcare. There is a *reason* that you won't find a single MD in the USA that thinks that heroin should be prescribed clinically. Do you think that they just want to keep you from a vaild medical treatment? Of course not.
The FDA looks objectively at carefully controlled studies done by independent groups and pharmaceutical companies. If a pharma company came out with a formulary that combined Heroin with an antagonist, as well as a micro-controlled CR system as opposed to a macro-controlled system like is abused so frequently with CR-OxyCodone, the FDA would look at it OBJECTIVELY.
You don't seem to understand that the FDA is an INDEPENDENT federal organization. The executive branch cannot even CALL THE FDA and SUGGEST anything. Doing that is against the law.
The FDA does not care about law enforcement. Or prohibition. Or anything else that you attribute to it. It has one objective and one objective only: Ensuring the safety of our food and our drugs.
If you think this has ANYTHING to do with Marijuana, you're COMPLETELY wrong.
And your dirt analogy was a joke. Go eat 2 ounces of dirt. You'll be fine. Dirt is not toxic. It's not tasty, and you'd probably be extremely constipated, but it's not toxic.
Now, go eat 2 ounces of heroin and walk around the block. Three right-turns and you'll be dead. You'll get hot and sweaty, disoriented, and adrenaline will shoot thru your body. Then you'll fall to the ground and probably slip into septic shock. You won't notice, though, because your CNS will be so far suppressed that you will no longer be conscience. Your breathing and heart rate will slow. You'll have a few minutes where an IV dose of Nalexone would bring you back to life, but after that, kiss your ass good-bye.
"the FDA shouldn't be banning any substances" Are you serious? Then why do they even exist? The FDA has a *remarkable* record in consumer safety. Every American is *lucky* to have such a great watchdog.
And let me reiterate: There is *zero* medical need for prescription heroin. None. If there were, doctors would be for it. Once doctors are for it, a pharma company would work on a fomulary that met my above criteria. Once that happens, it would probably pass the FDA. There are a lot of illegal drugs (or variations thereof) that are legally prescribed. This has nothing to do with the war on drugs.
If you think it does, you're just a tinfoil-hatter and you're not exactly connected with reality.
Street heroin *is* cheaper than pharma heroin because street heroin is "cut" or diluted. That's why Pharma heroin would be like white gold on the street. It would be pure. The big unknown in street heroin is "how good is it." Is it 20% pure? 50%? more?
Pharma heroin would be a known quantity. In my opinion, it would be the most diverted prescription opiate. Bar none.
I want to say one more thing about this. There are an estimated 3 million Americans addicted to prescription pain killers. So there's a good chance that at least a couple people reading this can relate.
I've never met an addict during clinical trials that wouldn't give anything to go back to the beginning and prevent the whole debacle from ever happening. It seems there's a "honeymoon period" while people still have a life, but a persons quality of life dimishes quickly when they're inflicted with the disease of addiction.
The biggest problem with the "war on drugs" is that it makes people think of addicts as the "enemy" instead of what they are, which is people suffering from a chronic disease.
I've worked on a Bupenorphine trial and let me tell you: The change in the subjects was remarkable. They came in for 8 hours of tests, evaluations, etc, once a week for six months. One told me "I look at this is trading one day a week in exchange for the other six."
There have been opiate addicts for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. This is the first time that a real, sensible treatment option is available.
If you've never tried treatment, if you're afriad of the stigma of comming forward, if you're repulsed by the idea of a "detox facility," if you're turned-off by the methadone clinic, please, search on the SAMHSA website and find a doctor in your area that is certified to prescribe Suboxone. It doesn't always work, and it doesn't work if you don't want it to, but if you're ready to crawl out of this nightmare that the average addict lives in, this is a very good first step.
The pharmacology is simple. It mixes a synthetic opiate agonist with an antagonist. The agonist has a very long half-life, which most addicts understand to mean one thing: Stability. Instead of the BAC doing roller-coasters, the amount of drug in your system stays constant. Moreover, the antagonist means that you cannot inject the drug w/o going into immediate withdrawal. Anyone familiar with Methadone will find this familiar.
The major difference is that instead of going to a methadone clinic every day, you get to go to a normal doctors office once a month.
I've met a lot of addicts. The best I can describe it, is they're normal people that have this enormous amount of scar tissue covering them up. You know that somewhere, underneath, they're a scared, desperate, depressed, lonely person. But society doesn't see that. Society sees the SIDE EFFECTS of their disease, which often is crime.
Suboxone, along with this epidemic of painkiller abuse, is doing a lot to make the average person realize that addicts are not the guy sleeping by the dumpster, or hanging out in some dark alley way.
In fact, I personally garauntee that every person reading this knows at least one person addicted to opiates. It could be your teacher, your teller, your butcher, your lawyer, your doctor, your friend, your mother, your brother, even your clergyman. Prescription painkillers have brought addiction from the shadows into the suburbs. This is tragic, but it's got a silver lining. Maybe now we can, as a country, move past stereotypes and into real treatment.
There was a time when we didn't understand mental illness. So we locked people up that suffered from those ailments. And there was a time when we did the same for homosexuality. Now, we lock up drug addicts. Eventually, that will change, too.
Good Luck. Believe me, there are people out there who want to help.
The diversion of prescription pain killers is not so much a matter of how much that painkiller is prescribed, but the demand from the "street" for the drug. So even if doctors take the utmost care in prescribing heroin, it will be leaked into the black market. Picture a 20-something kid telling his aunt that she can make $1000 a month by parting with 1/4 of her pain meds. That basic scenario happens DAILY in the US, primarily for CR-OxyCodone.
And the demand for pharmaceutical-grade heroin would be ENORMOUSLY high.
On top of the "willing diversion," I'm convinced you'd have a lot more theft and robbery if people were walking out of pharmacies with a months dose of pure heroin. In some areas of the country hardest hit by the CR-OxyCodone epidemic, like Kentucky, pharmacy hold-ups are more and more common. And, comparitavely, heroin is many orders of magnitude more potent than OxyCodone.
It's not as simple as "Let's do it, there's no down side." There *is* a downside. Little Jimmy tells his friends that his grandma is getting prescribed heroin and next thing you know, the woman is held-up at gun point for it.
There are a million heroin addicts in the US. These are people with a horrible, horrible disease. Nobody wants to be a heroin addict, but it's a fact of life for these people. And I have no issues with saying that every single one of those addicts would rob and steal to get their drug. A great many would have no issue with violence or even murder.
You have to understand the brain of a heroin addict going thru withdrawal. Imagine if you felt that you had no food, and that you had no way to get food. No welfare, no soup kitchen, no family and friends to help you. It's an issue of survival in the most basic animal form. The addict brain is convinced that it needs heroin for its survival. And it'll get very primal if it needs to. Putting these drugs into pharmacies and homes is dangerous.
All that being said, OxyCodone is nearly as dangerous. It can be boiled down and injected just the same. But CR-Oxycodone serves the demand for severe/long-term pain relief. So there is no clinical need for medicinal heroin. Therefore, there is no reason to endure the side-effects that I listed.
I'm curious what your motivation is? Is it just that you believe in maximizing your liberties? Personally, I think that marijuana should be decriminalized. But saying that Heroin and Marijuana are similar is sort-of like saying that an M-16 should be sold like we sell bird-shot. An M-16 isn't necessarily dangerous if handled properly, but the population at large has no idea what "proper handling" is.
Is that what you took from what I wrote? Because, as I read it, thats not what I see.
More accurately, the FDA sees no clinical need for medicinal heroin. There is nothing that heroin provides that other existing painkillers do not. It's not dissimilar to cocaine. Does cocaine have some valid medicinal uses? Yes. Are there other drugs that serve the same market? Yes. Opiate Analgesics are not like antibiotics. There is an advantage to having a number of similar antibiotics to prevent a bacterium from growing resistant to a single one.
When it comes down to it, there is no difference between ANY opiates. All of them, from codiene to heroin are metabolized by the human liver into morphine. It's not like pain grows resistant to one opiate and not another.
So barring no need for medicinal heroin, why use it?
Suboxone is really a remarkable drug. Unfortunately, due to stigma of other opiates--like, ironically, CR OxyCodone (brand name OxyContin)--the Congress has really crippled the prescription of Suboxone. IIRC, doctors have to have special training to prescribe it and they can only carry a limited number of patients at a given time. A very small number. Something like 30 or so. So it's very limiting, and doctors often have roles of addicts waiting for treatment. Which is tragic if you ask me. People want help but can't get it.
If you have any opiate dependency issues, I highly recommend looking into Suboxone. It's been described as a "wonder drug." One day you're an addict, doing whatever you can to scrape by, the very next day you're in recovery. No withdrawal. No pain. No suffering.
Every report I've seen is that it's recidivism rate is much lower than methadone maintenance.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a horrible idea, but 6 years isn't really a lot of time. If anything, I'd say we look at Mexico and give them 2 six-year terms. Why would it be good for the country to have a guy come in and spend a year reversing everything from the previous administration, in a cycle that repeats itself every time the party holding the office changes?
We need long-term solutions to a lot of problems, and that would be helped along by a President with a long-term view.
Look at Virginia, for example. They have a 1-term limit (4 years, of course) and how does that help their state? They lose a good governor like Mark Warner for no reason.
In my opinion it's up to the people. If you have a great administrator who enjoys and excels at the challenges of his job, why shouldn't the people be able to elect him? It's just dumb, if you ask me. It protects weaker politicians that don't deserve protection.
Besides, even if a President never has to run for another office in his life, politics will still very-much matter to him. You're delusional if you think it won't. He'd be campaigning for his successor, campaigning for down-ticket races, etc.
Besides, why would it be better if, say, Bill C and Al G decided to alternate their runs for office? Why would that be better for the country?
I agree that the problem needs to be solved, but this is not the way...
I'm not sure what alpha male you've been spying on in the changing room, but even with my limited knowledge of other men's packages, I can safely say that there's only supposed to be ONE "wrinkled brown sack." If yours come individually wrapped you should consider yourself a frea...unique snowflake.
Actually, do some googling before you make dumb assumptions.
Every horse race between Bill Clinton and some other national candidate, always shows Bill winning.
Bill Vs. George W, bill wins
Bill Vs. McCain, bill Wins
Just recently I saw a SurveyUSA, Bill v. Hillary.... Bill wins.
And since you offered unsolicited advice, I'll do the same:
Maybe you should spend less time trolling and more time actually thinking for yourself, and you might actually make a good point every now and then.
Shoplifting isn't a tort. It's a criminal act. A common--but not mandatory--punishment for this criminal act is restitution to the victim.
It seems like most of the confusion in this thread is about the diff between civil & criminal cases.
Me too.
Then I graduated college, got a real job, and now I spend $50 a month at the iTunes store.
I have had no change of heart. You morons overprice music so much that as a student I couldn't even BEGIN to pay for it.
Now, however, thanks to a pricing model FORCED ON YOU by Apple, I have replaced at least 1/5 of the music I downloaded illegally with the higher quality more convenient iTunes version.
And FWIW, I now purchase music that I probably would never have even heard of if it wasn't for my illegal downloading.
Getcha head outta ya ass.
There are 10 kinds of jokes in the world.
Those that are completely stale and played out, and those that aren't.
This is either genius comedy, or pure unbridled stupidity.
You were trolling, and he called you a troll. Where is the attack in that?
Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure about one thing: The best defense against libel is the truth.
Maybe there's a lawyer here that could confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that you don't have a case.
Now go crawl back under your rock, please.
I appreciate the comedy of the dumb-ass high school kid trying to "scrap" with the respected attorney in an anonymous online forum.
My only question: Did you create an account just so you could make yourself look like an idiot, or did you already have it set-up like a hot-spare available at a moments notice if you ever need to prove your stupidity against a stopwatch?
It's because in "real life" objects have intrinsic value. If I buy clothing for hundreds of dollars, even if it only cost $1 to make (which is a hyperbole, but i'll let it go), I can still wear it even if I can't sell it. The same thing goes for just about anything that's considered "real property." Of course, stocks, bonds, currency, etc, lack any intrinsic value. This is much closer to what you're getting in these online games. The only difference is confidence. I can be reasonably confident that these holdings will still have value (even if it's less than I paid for it), and that a liquid exchange market will exist into the indefinite future.
Maybe I'm just being a Luddite, but I don't feel NEARLY as confident about the staying power of some Flavor of the Week online game with a corporate history going way, way back 3 years ago (or whatever).
Let's pass a Constitutional Amendment that repeals term limits (the 22nd Amendment) as well as removing the "Natural Born Citizen" rule.
Which would let Bill Clinton run against Ahnold. And from basically every opinion poll I've seen since 1998, Bill Clinton would be the President until he dies, or his penis falls off, which I suppose is redundant.
In all seriousness, though, I think both of those things SHOULD be repealed.
The 22nd Amendment was only passed because Democrats and Republicans were pissed off at FDR for running for a fourth term when he knew his health was so poor. Even JFK supported it at the time. Looking back, though, it's a bad idea. While I do like the fact that W can't be elected again, if the rule wasn't in place, he'd never have been elected to begin with.
Besides, we have a word for term limits. It's spelled E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N-S.
And as for the Natural Born Citizen thing, well, that should go too. As long as it's replaced with a "Must be a US Citizen, residing in US territory, for at least 15 years" or something like that. We're a country of immigrants, and a lot of them have a lot to offer. Look at Jennifer Granholm in Michigan, Madeline Albright, and, yes, The Ahnold.
Go put down the pop-culture and go spend some time at mens shelters, methadone clinics, narc anon meetings, and doing ER-counseling.
I have. I *really* doubt that you have. I've been counseling and helping addicts for nearly a decade. There are only two kinds of heroin users. Those that are addicts, and those that will become addicts. That's it. It's a *MYTH* that there are people going out and doing heroin on the weekends. That's how it starts, and they maybe do that for a short while, then it spreads.
You know absolutely nothing about this drug if you think there's a PERSON ALIVE that can contain it. That person doesn't exist. Nearly *EVERY USER I'VE MET* thought they could. This is reinforced by the fact that it's NOT a casual drug. If you or I, with no opiate tolerance, did a line of heroin, we would spend the afternoon vomiting our breakfast.
You're perpetuating a MYTH. And the fact that you've said NOTHING about your credentials or experience with this MENACE, speaks loud and clear about what you know and what you just THINK you know. For chrissake, if you're afraid to actually WORK WITH USERS to help them, just go read and post at ALT.DRUGS.HARD. Go find a single person that's close to heroin (either a user, someone who knows users, a dealer, or a former user) and ask them about your "chipper" theory. They'll tell you what I did: It starts out that way. Everyones a "chipper" for a few weeks.
And the whole "Addictive personality" thing is also a myth. The only people w/o an "addictive personality" are the ones that don't try the drug, or that do it only one single time. I've met a lot of people that did it once and never again. I've never met a single person that did it twice and never again. If you do it twice, it's got you. It's got your mind. And within a few doses, it's got your body, too.
Consider the fact that your uneducated opinion might actually encourage someone to use this drug. Consider how irresponsible that is. The least you could do is put a disclaimer beneath your post that says "I am not professionally trained in the subject I'm talking about. My opinion is qualified only by my own... opinion. Anyone that listens to a word I say is doing so at their own risk because I don't actually know what I'm talking about. I incorporate words and concepts from pop-culture to make it SEEM like I know what I'm talking about, but anyone that ACTUALLY KNOWS sees me for what I am: One of the uneducated masses thats part of the drug problem in america, not the drug solution"
You put that at the bottom of your posts, and at least I'd respect you.
"Which is it? There's a difference between staving off withdrawl, and enjoying a rush."
These two are not mutually exclusive. Think, then write. You should've been able to figure that out.
"How many people do you know who are just waiting for heroin to be legalized so they can go crazy?"
This is where you don't get it. How many people do you think tried heroin so they would get addicted? Nobody PLANS addiction. It doesn't happen on purpose. It's people who think they can control the drug that become addicted. They do it on weekends. Then they do it on a couple weekdays. Then they do it every day one week "because they WANT to." Then, the next thing they know, they wake up and realize that they can't function without the drug.
Does that sound outrageous? It is. But it's true.
"People who are interested in heroin will do it anyway."
This is not true. If you want an excellent case study for this, look at CR-OxyCodone. Millions of brand new addicts all around the country. About 1/3 the people in our suboxone trial were there because of "OxyContin." These are housewives, honor students, you name it. The truth that CR-OxyCodone shows you is that there's a whole class of people that would never cook-up a bag full of powder that they purchased on the street, but when it's a government-sanctioned product, it's something altogether different. It gets a little stamp of approval from the FDA and people think that it's safe. That it's not as bad as the illegal drugs. This is so far from the truth that it's hyperbole.
Addiction is a lot more complicated than just drug + brain = addict. Even with something as addictive as heroin, most users just stay users."
Wow, you're wrong. There is no such thing as someone who uses heroin casually. It doesn't exist. You seem to think that addiction is some choice. It's not a choice. It's quicksand.
There are basically four classes of people when it comes to this subject:
1. Those that never will try the drug
2. Those that tried it ONCE and didn't like it and won't try it
3. Those that tried it and liked it. In other words, Future Addicts
4. Those that are addicted.
I encourage you to do some reading about the prescription painkiller epidemic that's currently ravishing our country. If you think that it's just in the margins, you're wrong. All clinical trials are usually confidential, and ours was as well. And these are people from every possible walk of life. I had a pilot, an officer in the Marines, two police men, etc. And, all in all, the trials only involved about 1000 people.
There is a serious danger to legalizing hard drugs. And I think the very best, most qualified person to answer this question is an addict himself.
The suboxone trial is long over so I can't ask this question directly, but many of these addicts have said to me that they wish it was never invented. Heroin, Prescription Painkillers, any of them. They would chose not to make them legal, but to wipe them from existence.
Go see the face of addiction. Talk to these people. If you want to know about the war in iraq, go talk to some native Iraqi's. If you want to know about the war on drugs, go talk to some drug addicts.
Then you'll see where I come from.
Oh well. That's what happens when I run out of patience. I don't suffer fools very well. That, I suppose, is obvious now.
Sorry, it's true.
To reach toxic levels of caffeine, you'd have to drink more coffee than is humanly possible.
I have no emotion tied to Heroin, I have emotion tied to the quality of the American system for drug approval. It has the best record in the world. Drugs are made legal and illegal in many countries based only on the fact that of their status in the US.
You seem to think that every substance is made equal, and that there should be some consistency, which is not true. You're over simplifying things. And honestly, you're out of your depth.
The fact that you compare the toxicity of caffeine, dirt, alcohol, marijuana and enzyte to the toxicity of Heroin (or Cocaine, or Amphetamines, Steroids, etc) is indicative of your knowledge of the subject. Which, let me spell out, is painfully little.
And your arguments aren't even well thought out. I point that out, and you throw back other aguments that, again, aren't well thought out.
Like, for example, it didn't take a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. The lawmakers at the time just made the choice to use that method. They could've easily made it a federal law. And they could easily propose a constitutional amendment banning Marijuana.
You show very little knowlegde of the law, history, or the merits of the chemicals you throw around.
You use my sentence about the mandate of the FDA, then bring up Enzyte, to which your only complaint is that it doesn't do what is advertised. What does that have to do with safety?
And saying heroin "can be lethal" is like saying cyanide "can be lethal." You're right, as long as it's in a jar on a shelf, it's not lethal. You can give a pot of coffee, a handful of Enzyte pills, and a shovel full of Dirt to an average person on the street and tell them to consume it. They won't die. You give the average person on the street a single syringe of heroin--ESPECIALLY phrama grade heroin--and you will have committed murder. Just ask the woman to shot-up John Belushi.
I'm done with you know. You've made it past reality into a sea of hypotheses and conjecture. You're not interested in facts, common sense, or, apparently, common welfare.
I have a powerful feeling that there's a bridge somewhere that's missing it's troll.
Ok, bad phonetic pun, sue me.
I do agree with you to an extent. Even if many households get broadband for a NUMBER of reasons, my guess is that if we had stats on the first website loaded after the Cable installer leaves, we'd have a fair cross-section of the fetish-porn industry.
Sorry... it's "CYP2D6" n/t
I didn't read the 'Hopkins link but I'm familier with the territory. And heroin addicts on heroin maintence in counrties like the UK and the Netherlands do perform well. In fact, they're less likely to divert from their treatment than the heroin addicts treated with Methadone.
And the reason is that heroin addicts crave the 'rush.'
Let's talk frankly about heroin addiction. I've met HUNDREDS of heroin addicts during the suboxone trial my company was involved in.
1. Heroin addicts only take heroin so they can avoid puking their guts out and being sick in a way that the average person has never experienced.
2. Even if heroin were legal, if someone didn't have the money for it, they would steal and rob to get their drug. Yes, it would be cheaper, but observations have been made that as street prices go down, heroin addicts just use more heroin. There's no reason to believe this would stop if you could walk into 7-11 and walk out with 30MG for $10.
3. If you worked with a heroin addict, you couldn't have a 4 hour meeting or a 4 hour car-trip without letting them inject more of their drug. At the most, 6 hours.
4. If someone had $100 a week for heroin and food, they would eventually be spending $90 on heroin and $10 on food. Even if it were legal.
5. Once someone uses opiates for extended periods, their brain chemistry changes. Their brain stops producing its own dopamine since you're supplying it artificially. There have been no controlled studies of "what happens to these people after 20, 30, plus years"
6. Heroin Maintenence therapy allows addicts to function excellent, COMPARED TO HOW THEY FUNCTIONED AS ADDICTS. The real comparison is "how do they function compared to a non-addict." It wouldn't be very pretty.
7. This would ruin peoples lives. Period. Look at the social problems of people with vices that are currently legal. Think gambling and alcohol. It would ruin scores of families. A guy that decides that since he can get a syringe of heroin along with a pack of cigarettes, well, he might-as-well try it. And within a few months, he's charged up the families credit cards, and is emotionally detached from everything. Because the only thing that brings them joy is their next dose.
This is not a life. And THANK GOD that our politicians understand what a lot of slashdotters don't seem to.
I'm sorry, but I can't help but think that you're all of 19 and that you've never really met any number of addicts.
Without a doubt if a pharma company decided to market heroin, they wouldn't just throw diamorphine into a pill with fillers and call it a day.
To even have a CHANCE that it would pass FDA approval, it would have to be a combo agonist/antagonist and it would probably also include, in pill form, a CR mechanism.
Therefore, they would be able to patent their drug in the same was as they could if they "invented" a brand new opiate.
The only valid point in your entire post is that some people have reactions to certain opioids. Considering that all of them have a very similar chemical composition, it's rare, but it's true. However, in my experience, of all the people that have a reaction, at least 50% of the time that reaction is just nauesea. In fact, Morphine is one of the worst offenders. Codeine also.
Past that, all opioids are the same. If someone has a tolerance to, say, dilaudid, they also have a tolerance to fentanyl, and to [insert opiate here].
You have to understand how opiates work. There is an enzyme in your liver, CPY2D6, that metabolizes EVERY OPIATE into morphine. This is why a heroin addict, when he doesn't have heroin, could take a few CR-OxyCodone tablets ("OxyContin") or even a handful of Hydrocodone or codeine tablets to ease the withdrawl symptoms.
Infact, the only question of potency is "How efficiently does the liver metabolize this opiate." Short-acting opiates like I listed before (dilaudid, fentanyl, demerol, OxyCodone, Hydrocodne) have subtle differences in their pharmacology. So, for example, 1mg of Fentanyl is metabolized by-and-large into 100MG of morphine in the liver. You'd need 1000MG of Codeine for the same analgesic effects.
In summary, please don't offer misinformation. There is nothing true in your post other than the fact that certain formulations cause adverse reaction in a very small percentage of the population. And there are about 15 different opiates currently in a doctors arsenal. The addition of one more wouldn't change anything.
You either have reading comprehension issues or you're so intent on seeing what you WANT to see that you miss what's actually being said.
And I really think that at this point, you're just another slashdot troll.
You're being moronic about this. Go ask anyone in the pharma field (which is my particular background) or in healthcare. There is a *reason* that you won't find a single MD in the USA that thinks that heroin should be prescribed clinically. Do you think that they just want to keep you from a vaild medical treatment? Of course not.
The FDA looks objectively at carefully controlled studies done by independent groups and pharmaceutical companies. If a pharma company came out with a formulary that combined Heroin with an antagonist, as well as a micro-controlled CR system as opposed to a macro-controlled system like is abused so frequently with CR-OxyCodone, the FDA would look at it OBJECTIVELY.
You don't seem to understand that the FDA is an INDEPENDENT federal organization. The executive branch cannot even CALL THE FDA and SUGGEST anything. Doing that is against the law.
The FDA does not care about law enforcement. Or prohibition. Or anything else that you attribute to it. It has one objective and one objective only: Ensuring the safety of our food and our drugs.
If you think this has ANYTHING to do with Marijuana, you're COMPLETELY wrong.
And your dirt analogy was a joke. Go eat 2 ounces of dirt. You'll be fine. Dirt is not toxic. It's not tasty, and you'd probably be extremely constipated, but it's not toxic.
Now, go eat 2 ounces of heroin and walk around the block. Three right-turns and you'll be dead. You'll get hot and sweaty, disoriented, and adrenaline will shoot thru your body. Then you'll fall to the ground and probably slip into septic shock. You won't notice, though, because your CNS will be so far suppressed that you will no longer be conscience. Your breathing and heart rate will slow. You'll have a few minutes where an IV dose of Nalexone would bring you back to life, but after that, kiss your ass good-bye.
"the FDA shouldn't be banning any substances"
Are you serious? Then why do they even exist? The FDA has a *remarkable* record in consumer safety. Every American is *lucky* to have such a great watchdog.
And let me reiterate: There is *zero* medical need for prescription heroin. None. If there were, doctors would be for it. Once doctors are for it, a pharma company would work on a fomulary that met my above criteria. Once that happens, it would probably pass the FDA. There are a lot of illegal drugs (or variations thereof) that are legally prescribed. This has nothing to do with the war on drugs.
If you think it does, you're just a tinfoil-hatter and you're not exactly connected with reality.
Sorry man, but it's the truth.
Street heroin *is* cheaper than pharma heroin because street heroin is "cut" or diluted. That's why Pharma heroin would be like white gold on the street. It would be pure. The big unknown in street heroin is "how good is it." Is it 20% pure? 50%? more?
Pharma heroin would be a known quantity. In my opinion, it would be the most diverted prescription opiate. Bar none.
I want to say one more thing about this. There are an estimated 3 million Americans addicted to prescription pain killers. So there's a good chance that at least a couple people reading this can relate.
I've never met an addict during clinical trials that wouldn't give anything to go back to the beginning and prevent the whole debacle from ever happening. It seems there's a "honeymoon period" while people still have a life, but a persons quality of life dimishes quickly when they're inflicted with the disease of addiction.
The biggest problem with the "war on drugs" is that it makes people think of addicts as the "enemy" instead of what they are, which is people suffering from a chronic disease.
I've worked on a Bupenorphine trial and let me tell you: The change in the subjects was remarkable. They came in for 8 hours of tests, evaluations, etc, once a week for six months. One told me "I look at this is trading one day a week in exchange for the other six."
There have been opiate addicts for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. This is the first time that a real, sensible treatment option is available.
If you've never tried treatment, if you're afriad of the stigma of comming forward, if you're repulsed by the idea of a "detox facility," if you're turned-off by the methadone clinic, please, search on the SAMHSA website and find a doctor in your area that is certified to prescribe Suboxone. It doesn't always work, and it doesn't work if you don't want it to, but if you're ready to crawl out of this nightmare that the average addict lives in, this is a very good first step.
The pharmacology is simple. It mixes a synthetic opiate agonist with an antagonist. The agonist has a very long half-life, which most addicts understand to mean one thing: Stability. Instead of the BAC doing roller-coasters, the amount of drug in your system stays constant. Moreover, the antagonist means that you cannot inject the drug w/o going into immediate withdrawal. Anyone familiar with Methadone will find this familiar.
The major difference is that instead of going to a methadone clinic every day, you get to go to a normal doctors office once a month.
I've met a lot of addicts. The best I can describe it, is they're normal people that have this enormous amount of scar tissue covering them up. You know that somewhere, underneath, they're a scared, desperate, depressed, lonely person. But society doesn't see that. Society sees the SIDE EFFECTS of their disease, which often is crime.
Suboxone, along with this epidemic of painkiller abuse, is doing a lot to make the average person realize that addicts are not the guy sleeping by the dumpster, or hanging out in some dark alley way.
In fact, I personally garauntee that every person reading this knows at least one person addicted to opiates. It could be your teacher, your teller, your butcher, your lawyer, your doctor, your friend, your mother, your brother, even your clergyman. Prescription painkillers have brought addiction from the shadows into the suburbs. This is tragic, but it's got a silver lining. Maybe now we can, as a country, move past stereotypes and into real treatment.
There was a time when we didn't understand mental illness. So we locked people up that suffered from those ailments.
And there was a time when we did the same for homosexuality.
Now, we lock up drug addicts. Eventually, that will change, too.
Good Luck. Believe me, there are people out there who want to help.
No, I answered your question in my OP.
It's all about diversion.
The diversion of prescription pain killers is not so much a matter of how much that painkiller is prescribed, but the demand from the "street" for the drug. So even if doctors take the utmost care in prescribing heroin, it will be leaked into the black market. Picture a 20-something kid telling his aunt that she can make $1000 a month by parting with 1/4 of her pain meds. That basic scenario happens DAILY in the US, primarily for CR-OxyCodone.
And the demand for pharmaceutical-grade heroin would be ENORMOUSLY high.
On top of the "willing diversion," I'm convinced you'd have a lot more theft and robbery if people were walking out of pharmacies with a months dose of pure heroin. In some areas of the country hardest hit by the CR-OxyCodone epidemic, like Kentucky, pharmacy hold-ups are more and more common. And, comparitavely, heroin is many orders of magnitude more potent than OxyCodone.
It's not as simple as "Let's do it, there's no down side." There *is* a downside. Little Jimmy tells his friends that his grandma is getting prescribed heroin and next thing you know, the woman is held-up at gun point for it.
There are a million heroin addicts in the US. These are people with a horrible, horrible disease. Nobody wants to be a heroin addict, but it's a fact of life for these people. And I have no issues with saying that every single one of those addicts would rob and steal to get their drug. A great many would have no issue with violence or even murder.
You have to understand the brain of a heroin addict going thru withdrawal. Imagine if you felt that you had no food, and that you had no way to get food. No welfare, no soup kitchen, no family and friends to help you. It's an issue of survival in the most basic animal form. The addict brain is convinced that it needs heroin for its survival. And it'll get very primal if it needs to. Putting these drugs into pharmacies and homes is dangerous.
All that being said, OxyCodone is nearly as dangerous. It can be boiled down and injected just the same. But CR-Oxycodone serves the demand for severe/long-term pain relief. So there is no clinical need for medicinal heroin. Therefore, there is no reason to endure the side-effects that I listed.
I'm curious what your motivation is? Is it just that you believe in maximizing your liberties? Personally, I think that marijuana should be decriminalized. But saying that Heroin and Marijuana are similar is sort-of like saying that an M-16 should be sold like we sell bird-shot. An M-16 isn't necessarily dangerous if handled properly, but the population at large has no idea what "proper handling" is.
Is that what you took from what I wrote? Because, as I read it, thats not what I see.
More accurately, the FDA sees no clinical need for medicinal heroin. There is nothing that heroin provides that other existing painkillers do not. It's not dissimilar to cocaine. Does cocaine have some valid medicinal uses? Yes. Are there other drugs that serve the same market? Yes. Opiate Analgesics are not like antibiotics. There is an advantage to having a number of similar antibiotics to prevent a bacterium from growing resistant to a single one.
When it comes down to it, there is no difference between ANY opiates. All of them, from codiene to heroin are metabolized by the human liver into morphine. It's not like pain grows resistant to one opiate and not another.
So barring no need for medicinal heroin, why use it?
Suboxone is really a remarkable drug. Unfortunately, due to stigma of other opiates--like, ironically, CR OxyCodone (brand name OxyContin)--the Congress has really crippled the prescription of Suboxone. IIRC, doctors have to have special training to prescribe it and they can only carry a limited number of patients at a given time. A very small number. Something like 30 or so. So it's very limiting, and doctors often have roles of addicts waiting for treatment. Which is tragic if you ask me. People want help but can't get it.
If you have any opiate dependency issues, I highly recommend looking into Suboxone. It's been described as a "wonder drug." One day you're an addict, doing whatever you can to scrape by, the very next day you're in recovery. No withdrawal. No pain. No suffering.
Every report I've seen is that it's recidivism rate is much lower than methadone maintenance.