From: vek@allegra.att.com (Van Kelly)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: ECSTACY followup
Date: 20 Nov 92 05:45:47 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Dear D J X:

You wrote,

>  And, believe me, the mafia does NOT deal with something as miniscule
>  as pot.  That's like saying drug lords deal Brach's candy.

I can believe that in NC there's enough home-grown weed to squeeze out
the big boys, but that's sure not true in northern cities.  Don't be
naive!  Wherever there's enough demand for scarce contraband, one of
the majors will have his hand in getting it.  It's simple economics,
and any glance at the NYC police blotters will confirm this.  It may
not be the La Cosa Nostra doing it, but it's still *organized crime*.

>  It's not even as bad as pot!  Psychiatrists used it to treat
>  depressive patients.

Dangerous is not the same as bad.  Prozac is a really "good" drug,
even safer than ecstacy, but if somebody at some club offered it to
me, I wouldn't take it.  If my doctor said he thought I needed it, I
probably would take it.  There's a huge difference between a
therapeutic protocol and uncontrolled experimentation.  It's
like the difference between riding a bike with or without a helmet.

>  People don't KILL each other for pot, LSD, ecstacy, or any other
>  'hippie' drug.  That premise is absolutely ridiculous.  The funny
>  thing is, it's a well-known fact that these drugs are safer than
>  alcohol, yet alcohol is legal.  We live in a hypocritical society.
>  People are dropping like flies as a result of alcohol, and families
>  are being ruined.

I think you're being more than a little imprecise in the way you
assess risk.  I'd agree that these drugs do less total *damage* to
society than alcohol, simply because their use is not as widespread.
But that's just not how the FDA measures drug safety.  What about
predictability?  For instance, when LSD was briefly a popular drug of
choice back in the 1960's, the incidence of transient psychotic breaks
("bad trips") was several percent *per dose*, not cumulative over a
lifetime.  That's not typical of alcohol.  There is variation in
response to alcohol (e.g., allergy), but not nearly as diverse.

If it's a well-known fact that "hippie" drugs are relatively "safe",
then I guess you travel in medically ignorant circles.  I'm not
blaming you and your friends necessarily, since it's not simple to
ferret out all the relevant studies in the medical journals, and articles
in the popular press range from merely out-of-date to outright
partisan lies.  But you *don't* know nearly as much as you apparently
*think* you know.  To parody Sen. Bentzen: "you're no psychiatrist."
There's a reason for all those courses in psycho-pharmacology.

>  My best friend, who had a hideous childhood and for a long time didn't
>  care about living, tried ecstacy this past summer.  The change in his
>  attitude toward the world is phenomenal.  Before he was full of hatred
>  and depression.  Now, when my friends meet him, they think he's one of
>  the most hyper, happy people they've ever met.  And no, he doesn't
>  need it all the time to stay that way.

A drug that can have that profound and irreversible an effect is by
definition potent enough to be dangerous!  It doesn't matter that the
effect was good in his particular case, or even in 99% of all cases!
A drug that can permanently alter a personality in a single dose
demands strict regulation.  I'm not arguing that *any* drug, even a
troublemaker like heroin, should be kept unavailable for medical
purposes, just that it needs strictly enforced therapy protocols to
mitigate and contain its downside risks.  I would strongly urge your
best friend to discuss his situation, both past and present, with
a savvy shrink if he hasn't done so already. 

>  You see, there are SO MANY misconceptions about drugs.  In school they
>  teach you that if you smoke pot, you'll go crazy and run out into the
>  streets naked.  It's no surprise that when people do try it, they lose
>  all trust in authority.  If people were more open and honest about it, 
>  drug education might actually be more effective.

Well said!  But my guess is that your drug education was much worse
than most, if they actually taught you that about pot.  Sounds more
like the 1930's than the 1990's. I am completely against ignorance or
willful misinformation regarding drugs.  Likewise, I am against
watered-down or absent sex education programs.  Both are unproductive
in the long run, even if they seem to scare a few kids away from risky
behaviors in the short run.  But the only reliable place I know to
find out the unbiased truth is in scientific journals, and that
requires work.

Van Kelly
vek@allegra.att.com