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I hate this obsessive puritanical attempt to control what we do with our bodies to the point that there’s an entire rent-seeking middleman prescription racket. If it didn’t already exist, it would be comical. But anything to extract wealth from the masses, right? “War on drugs” proponents are the worst among us.
EDIT: ketamine is used to treat PTSD. Yes, you can overdose. But if you think you’re entitled to prevent someone from ingesting medicine until they beg a corporate bureaucrat for permission, then your ethical compass is so fucked you’re probably the sort of person who would have supported slavery a few hundred years ago.
Ketamine is commonly used as a date rape drug. I really don't think it's a 'war on drugs' issue in this particular case.
http://www.peru.edu/titleix/drugs.html
Also, prescription medication predates the drug war by a very long time. If nothing else, it helps mitigate parents doing things to their kids that could kill them when the parent is trying to cure them.
You know what's the most common daterape drug?
Alcohol.
You know how many stabbings there are every year? And everyone is still allowed kitchen knives.
Ketamine is no different. Most recreational users are responsible. You just don't see or hear from them, because of the social implications of admitting to using illegal drugs.
The reason Perry died is that he did a strong dissociative, while immersed in water. He must've been drunk as a skunk, because any experiences drug user (which I'm sure he was**) should know not to shoot up in a tub of any sort.
A lethal dose of ketamine would be roughly 25-times what a normal recreational dose is, so its doubtful he actually died from the ketamine.
Which leads me back to my point that he was drunk and did something slightly stupid with horrendous consequence.
When people die in housefires after they've passed out on their bed with a lit ciggie, you don't blame the kiosk that sold them the pack of smokes, do you?
Regulation is good. We should have much more of it. Unfortunately, the only way to have that regulation is to admit that people can and do use these substances recreationally. Alcohol is a every dangerously substance, but banning it lead to an absolute clusterfuck and because people will keep drinking, it's better to have legal markets and legal use so it can be controlled to at least some extent, curtailing the worst abuse and encouraging moderate use.
Like during the prohibition of alcohol, it would've been way more likely you literally drink yourself to death. Either because you get methanol or some other adulterant, or because you get every strong ethanol (booze) without knowing how strong it is, and because there's little to no social control because abusers are just as criminal as the moderate users so moderate users can't "tell" on abusers.
Even if alcohol doesn't need a prescription, it's still regulated; you have to be an adult and you can't be too drunk to buy it. And all products you can buy from stores are labeled with the strength they are, and there are actually mild option, like beer.
You know how the temperance movement has the word "temperance" in it? It's because it was supposed to be about tempering the abuse to moderation. But then they starred advocating for full prohibition.
It is a war on drugs issue in this death. Very much so.
If prohibition had worked, I would be all for it. Unfortunately, it did not. However, in general, drug prescription does a lot to mitigate things like, as I have already mentioned, children dying from being treated with drugs they shouldn't be treated with, antibiotic resistance, date rape, etc.
Your argument against any prescription drugs appears to be 'people do ketamine recreationally.' Cool. How about chemotherapy drugs? Okay to obtain over-the-counter and give them to your kid if you decide they have cancer?
Exactly. So youre definitely against the prohibition of drugs, aka the drug war?
I have never argued against prescription drugs.
I've pointed out this case is about recreational use. To improve the safety of medicine, we should separate medical and recreational use, which means we need to reform drug laws, because now recreational use is abusing the prescription drug system, thus undermining it's actual purpose; safe medication.
I don't know of anyone who would in any way connect chemotherapy and recreation. Well, I tell a lie. I do know of one person having done that.
So any substance that has the potential to be used recreationally no matter what other effects or risks it might have should be OTC? Or is this literally just ketamine we're talking about here?
"Over the counters" is still a concept within the current medical system.
I'm talking about reforming drug laws pretty substantially.
The way I imagine it, it would be made available from specialised stores to people who have a licence for it. Much like a drivers licence. Essentially the Bratt system, but for drugs.
So... available by a prescription except the pharmacist prescribes instead of the doctor?
Well not exactly.
With a prescription system, the default is that you don't have a prescription, and get one if there's a reason.
With this system, the default is (people of age and other possible requirements) have a licence, and it gets taken a way if there's a reason.
Like the difference between OR and XOR. Similar, yes, but still different and for different purposes.
The more apt analogy would be OR vs NOR.
Ketamine is commonly used to treat PTSD. But sure, since some people will use it for criminal purposes we all get fucked, right?
How does making it available by prescription mean that it can't be used to treat PTSD?
Putting up a rent-seeking middleman between a person and a drug makes the drug harder to obtain. It’s also insulting. The idea that someone else, some officious busybody, gets to dictate what you do with your body has no basis in any coherent moral system ever concocted. You are entitled to regulate drugs, to demand that the label is “correct.” You are not entitled to stop anyone from ingesting them. That is a profound violation of human autonomy.
You call it insulting, I call it saving the lives of children and avoiding date rape. Seems like most people are on my side.
On top of that, the whole antibiotic resistance thing I mentioned elsewhere.
This makes no sense. I’m not allowed to ingest medicine because you intend to date rape people?
As for antibiotic resistance — sure! If there’s a medicine whose consumption on the individual level has some sort of effect on others, then you get to regulate it. My ingestion of anti-depressants has zero impact on anybody except me. Face it, a thousand years from now an enlightened humanity will look back on things like our bizarre corporate prescription system and think we were unethical baboons.
You are absolutely allowed- with a doctor's prescription.
And since most people agree with that stance, I guess you're surrounded by evil.
We had to wait for people like you to die out to end slavery and now we will wait again to end the corporate prescription racket.
What do you hope to achieve by comparing me to someone who advocates for slavery?
An accurate assessment of reality.
What do you want me to say to you? Yes, your moral compass is broken but thanks for making all our lives miserable by funding the drug cartels?
I don't want you to say anything to me.
Although I don't think the insults are productive.
And I don’t want corporate douchebags telling me what plants I’m allowed to eat.
Okay? I'm unemployed and I don't care what plants you eat.
And I'm still not sure what you're achieving by insulting me.
Your argument has been that you do care what plants I eat by virtue of your defense of our corporate prescription system, whose purpose is to put people who eat plants without permission in prison. Remember?
Uh... Are you under the impression that there's a ketamine plant?
Ketamine is not the only drug for which a prescription is required.
I am in favor of some things being available by prescription and some things being available over-the-counter, just as they are now. However, I would not have the same things be both.
Also, I'm not sure what plants are available by prescription. The only plants I can think of that people take recreationally that are federally scheduled are cannabis and psilocybin and they are not available by prescription, nor do I think they should be. I think they should be legal.
On the other hand, I would put cigarettes behind a prescription wall.
I keenly await your next insult.
Aspirin, morphine and chemotherapy: the essential medicines powered by plants
Putting cigarettes behind a prescription wall would create a drug cartel. This is where black markets come from. So let’s not do that.
No, I feel insulted by the fact that you called me evil and compared me to people who want slaves. Which, you know, are insults.
I have not insulted you a single time.
I lamented the fact that we have to wait for people who support corporate rent seeking to die out before we change that system, just like we did with slavers. Why is that insulting to you?
You literally called me evil. But you've edited that comment and are now pretending you didn't. Which is highly dishonest. I think this is the end of our conversation. In both threads.
I don’t remember directly calling you that. Either way, we probably agree more than we disagree. I just hate having to argue about this.
Ok. Fine, keep your controleds.
Could I just pass a test to get my own antibiotics, steroids, and asthma inhaler without paying a few hundred bucks to a gatekeeper each time I get a sinus infection?
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance
They are way overprescribed by doctors as it is.
Exactly. They aren't even decent gatekeepers. They just get paid and write a script, because they know if they don't, the next NP on the next app will.
I could just go out and buy antibiotics "for animals", too.
Same thing with heartgard. Why the fuck are the pre-portioned dog treats literally thousands of times more expensive, and gatekept by vets, than OTC horse paste?
ETA: a big part of the cause for antibiotic resistance is people not finishing a course of antibiotics...which is because they are saving them so they don't have to jump through hoops next time they get sick. The current solution is actively a part of the problem.
Poor gatekeepers is better than no gatekeepers.
But farmers can give massive doses to their herds as a prophylactic, and that's totally fine?
Did I say that was totally fine?
I don't even eat meat.
I definitely agree with you on basic preventative meds for pets. I think the only somewhat reasonable argument I've heard is that if a vet prescribes it, there's a very high chance it's the right dose for the animal's size, whereas pet owners are more likely to err. However, the doses are already marked for weight ranges; it'd be hard to get that wrong if you're not intentionally being obtuse.
The delicious irony being it is people with this mentality that the prescription system is most needed for.
Imagine a bureaucracy of dunces that gets to tell you what plants you’re allowed to ingest. We live in a clown world.
I genuinely couldn't agree more. Rare to see this.
And the insipid part is that they don't realise just how much its fucking cover society. Pretty much all organises crime is funded through drugs. Cartels just wouldn't have income without them. If there we're legal networks, everything would be safer and there would be a metric fuckton less crime. Just think of all the gang crime in the US. What is it based around? Drugs, ofc.
Not to even mention the benefits to society when it become socially acceptable to do serotonergic substances instead of drowning in solvents every weekend.
Yep. We have to wait for these boomer-brain uneducated morons to die out so we can make progress in society.
I once managed to talk over a guy who was like 70-something back then (and it was like 15 years ago). He repeated literally every bit of 60's propaganda. We drank a lot, talked a long time, but I did finally manage to get through to him.
But yeah, that was once.
Have to actively fight the propaganda and make them ashamed of supporting something they don't even know they are supporting and what it's doing to the world.