01-20-2011, 11:56 PM | #101 |
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Re: Drugs
I have a few rebuttal studies but I don't have the time or energy to explain them and I would prefer to not just post the link. Maybe tomorrow. Also I don't appreciate such a condescending tone from an administrator, especially because he seems to take a subject so personally. I am not here to explain to a bunch of 15 year old's what a standard deviation is which is why it is easier to post things that everyone can understand. I'll put forth more effort in the future to avoid being spoken to like an idiot.
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01-21-2011, 12:00 AM | #102 | |
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Re: Drugs
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Also, it's hard not to be slightly condescending when most posters who have argued contrary to us have been not only "condescending" themselves but in some cases actually judgmental and abrasive. |
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01-21-2011, 12:00 AM | #103 |
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Re: Drugs
If you are making causal claims in a Critical Thinking thread you should be posting studies to back up your claims. This has nothing to do with "explain[ing] to a bunch of 15 year old's what a standard deviation is" and everything to do with "standard discourse for rigorous discussion."
Edit: Please post the links. I'm completely willing to read over them myself.
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01-21-2011, 12:17 AM | #104 |
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Re: Drugs
Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than Weed. Why are we arguing over the dangers? I think alcohol is only legal because of how it's ingrained into our culture, as well as many others. Question: When was weed introduced?
EDIT: http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/ is this considered a legit source? Last edited by ~kitty~; 01-21-2011 at 12:21 AM.. |
01-21-2011, 12:24 AM | #105 | |
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Re: Drugs
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Also I agree, it's ridiculous how much more dangerous alcohol is than weed.
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01-21-2011, 12:28 AM | #106 | |
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Re: Drugs
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01-21-2011, 01:08 AM | #107 | |
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Re: Drugs
Gosh, my opinion on this topic has changed a lot in the past few years after studying neuroscience.
Personally - it usually comes down to the user. Most drugs can be used for a number of reasons. Not all of them are have negative effects. Quote:
I was reading through the site you linked to. There are some other articles by the department of transportation, as well as a meta analysis (http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...ving/s16p2.htm) Everything I read seems to support essentially this: Marijuana smoking impairs fundamental road tracking ability with the degree of impairment increasing as a function of the consumed THC dose. This is rather reasonable, especially on theoretical grounds. You would expect some impairment based on what we know about the effects of THC. However, 1. Low doses don't have much of an effect 2. The impairment is minimal, significantly less than alcohol and not significantly more than many commonly taken medicinal drugs, and 3. There is no way to predict impairment based on THC levels in the blood based on a single sample. #3 is particularly important I would think. Even as it would be inadvisable to drive while high based on the data, it seems like it would be difficult to enforce legally, since you could never charge someone for it without sound grounds for establishing a legal limit.
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01-21-2011, 08:14 AM | #108 | |
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Re: Drugs
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The only thing I was saying I'd like to -not- see is explicit statements from posters that they, themselves, use drugs which are illegal. If we were having a discussion about theft, and the moral consequences of breaking and entering, we can talk about all aspects of the crime, refer to specific cases of legal record, be as specific as we want, but as soon as someone says "So I broke into someone's home and stole their things" we're just put in a slightly awkward position legally. That's all I mean. |
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01-21-2011, 08:20 AM | #109 |
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Re: Drugs
I don't understand how people can argue whether they think being gay is right or wrong without providing any empirical evidence but as soon as someone disagrees with the use of drugs or the use of drugs when behind the wheel I need to bring out the big guns? I think people are being selective on this website over what can just be a person's opinion. People are discouraged from driving when they are angry, when they are tired, when they are in pain, when they are on the phone, etc. Any altered state that may cause the least bit distraction can be a danger on the road. If you have altered your state of mind with a drug, then why can anyone think it is acceptable to get behind a wheel?
Also, I'm not sure if this will work for anyone else, but here is a study that shows some mixed results. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfvi...onmgr104&vid=3 Some of the problems the study points out about drug consumption and driving is that police cannot really detect accurately if someone is under the influence of marijuana. If a person has had minimal amounts of alcohol and minimal amounts of marijuana, they can be severely impaired. However, since their BAC is below the limit they go undetected and are a severe hazard on the road. I'm trying to find the study that I read last night that showed that impairment was effected by the manner of consumption and the tolerance and sex of the person consuming the drug. Found it: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfvi...onmgr104&vid=5 This is all in the abstract: "Cannabis and alcohol acutely impair several driving-related skills in a dose-related fashion, but the effects of cannabis vary more between individuals than they do with alcohol because of tolerance, differences in smoking technique, and different absorptions of 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana." However, in agreement to what many of you have said, "an increased awareness that they are impaired, marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies." Key words: impaired, compensate Based on the fact that a person has to overcompensate because they are under the influence of a substance is telling me, at least, that their impairment is affecting them. Is that not enough to not drive? I'm sure a lot of people that are driving while tipsy are overcompensating when driving and may even drive a little better. Does that make it right? No. Please let me know if other people can see these articles as I have a username/password that allows me to view them automatically on my computer.
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01-21-2011, 08:34 AM | #110 | |
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Re: Drugs
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However, I agree with the fact that someone shouldn't be driving under any mind-altering drugs, or in any altered state from normal. It's potentially dangerous, but I personally do not know the sources to say how can someone measure and tell if someones under the influence of some of these drugs. How will someone properly be punished by the law? I don't know, I probably need to look this stuff up if I want to debate about it. |
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01-21-2011, 08:42 AM | #111 |
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Re: Drugs
I find drugs a moral issue based on my own experiences and the fact that I think it is irresponsible and selfish to get behind the wheel while impaired. I find it unfair that I have to provide empirical evidence to prove why I think it's wrong. I came into this thread to provide my opinion and my personal experiences which is what the OP asked for initially. It's not that I did not have the resources to prove my case, I merely have a strong moral dilemma when it comes to drug use and THAT is what I wanted to discuss.
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01-21-2011, 09:13 AM | #112 |
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Re: Drugs
The problem with your "moral dilemma" is that it's unfairly selective. You're going to see far more accidents that result from alcohol usage, lack of sleep/focus, altered states of mind based on health/food/other prescription drugs, etc -- and yet you want to single out something like marijuana. Laws generally render things legal/illegal based on societal optima. It's legal to drive while on prescription drugs because those drugs are meant to help you (and banning such things may be life-threatening) even though such drugs may impair your driving abilities, so it's a tradeoff we have to live with. It's not legal to drive drunk/stoned/etc because of the possibility of danger (especially in the case of alcohol) for the upside of personal utility, which is a different sort of scenario and is deemed largely irresponsible. But that doesn't mean we should automatically ban such substances outside of the domain where the dangers crop up.
This is why it's always a problem when people refer to "their opinions" and get pissed off when others disagree. It's the same sort of BS logic that was invoked in that spanking thread by so many people who didn't understand basic psychology (punishment vs. reinforcement). Your "opinion" can still be way off-base if it's either uninformed, unfairly skewed/selective, or flat-out wrong. If you want to address the issue, you ultimately have to address the evidence and go from there. Last edited by Reincarnate; 01-21-2011 at 09:23 AM.. |
01-21-2011, 09:42 AM | #113 | |
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Re: Drugs
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Whenever an argument can be dealt with using empirical evidence, you should use it. Opinions are meaningless on issues where you have facts. The bottom line based on a meta analysis of dozens of studies is that you're essentially right; driving is impaired while on high doses of THC, which would make driving inadvisable. I would simply argue that the impairment is of minimal threat when compared to other drugs or even cellphone use, many of which are frequently used while driving. Also, what you've mentioned later in your post; you can't accurately gauge THC impairment based on blood level samples, which means it's going to be damn hard to charge people for driving while impaired. For the record I don't take any recreational drugs, alcohol included, so this really isn't a personal issue for me, though it is an interesting one. I'm simply interested in discerning the truth here.
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01-21-2011, 11:29 AM | #114 |
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Re: Drugs
Reach: What is your opinion on the legality/illegality of harder drugs? On alcohol?
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01-21-2011, 11:47 AM | #115 | |||
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Re: Drugs
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So let me get this straight, you're questioning the validity of Rubin's studies when the study you posted was performed on a total of less than 100 subjects? Flip a coin 100 times and you can get heads 75 times (I think you especially would know that ) Who's to say the next 24 and groups of 16 won't react completely opposite to this particular group? This study just isn't nearly large scale enough for me. Second, this has turned into a discussion about marijuana. May I remind everyone that driving drugged isn't confined to marijuana, but other drugs as well. While marijuana might not be so dangerous, it's not my main concern. It's actually the bottom line.
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01-21-2011, 12:25 PM | #116 |
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Re: Drugs
BTW the probability of getting at least 75 head flips is 1-(cumulative binomial distribution with 74 successes and P=.5, N=100) = 2.8*10^-7. In other words, about .00000028 or .000028% so you may want to use a better example. Yeah, you *can* get 75 heads, but it sure as hell isn't likely. Similarly, you *can* probably find a case where someone has a really bad reaction to THC and has severe impairment, but it may not be too likely.
You can still gather quite a bit of data from relatively small sample sizes -- you can still take into account statistical significance based on what kind of distribution you are comparing to. Regardless, there are so many studies out there (which leverage completely different sets of test subjects) and the results are (more or less) comparable. There are palpable effects, and especially at higher dosages, but the same can be said for a variety of other things. Last edited by Reincarnate; 01-21-2011 at 12:32 PM.. |
01-21-2011, 02:53 PM | #117 |
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Re: Drugs
Unfortunately, Rubin's links weren't studies, they were just articles or blog posts citing studies or reports. And the second link wasn't even that, it was just some dude spouting off opinions. Uninformed opinions, at that.
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01-21-2011, 03:12 PM | #118 | |
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Re: Drugs
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01-21-2011, 03:28 PM | #119 |
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Re: Drugs
oh word yeah I missed those, I talking about the ones rushy linked.
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01-22-2011, 02:36 PM | #120 |
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Re: Drugs
If you want to get more information on drugs so you do not have to draw blanks and go bananas over citations and also to support your whatchucallthem opinions.
www.erowid.org http://taimapedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page To clarify. Lots of hard drugs are used by big pharma companies (amphetamines, methamphetamine, opiates, sedatives). These are both used medically and to a greater extent, especially amphetamine and methamphetamine are both given to many people (States especially) for so called ADHD and as a result the abuse of said drugs goes up exponentially especially since many people are misdiagnosed and end up with stimulants. The end result is obviously not the customers health as the first priority but the money which are given to the doctors who give scripts, as well as the companies (duh). Opiates however are seldom given by pharmas except under circumstances making it harder to possess brand names like oxycontin and hydrocodone. The main difference between pharmas and street is that pharmas usually sell 99% pure substance while in the street it can vary from as little as 20-99%. End result is for cash. Cannabis can cause impaired driving/use of machinery depending on how much was ingested since at higher doses there is a greater disassociation to reality, feeling more detached and you are unable to concentrate. At low doses typically resulting in a buzz, you may find you can drive better due to pupil dilation and sometimes a sudden awareness you may not have noticed before. Cannabis does not kill brain cells, however if you smoke cannabis, the butane from the lighter is inhaled at very light doses, which MAY (unconfirmed) result in some brain cell death. For alcohol, consult ethanol and its effects on the body, I am too lazy to look it up |
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