Several things determine the danger of a drug. One of the most important is the “distance” from pleasure to lethal dose. In that regard alcohol is way less dangerous than kokain.
Another risk is how easy you build dependency, and again you can easily enjoy a shared bottle of wine for dinner, or a beer during a break, and even get drunk in the weekend every weekend for years, all without building a dependency, you really have to abuse alcohol to become an alcoholic.
So objectively by the standard measures, kokain is way more dangerous than alcohol. Even without accounting for the extra dangers from kokain being illegal, like the addition of adulterants that are very dangerous.
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The guideline here is 3 standard drinks per day, more than that and you may be an alcoholic.
You can do the above within that limit.PS:
I think you have a problem with your shift key, you may want to consider buying a new keyboard. it looks pretty stupid with the jumbled writing.That defines the daily drinker, but a person who only indulges occasionally, but always gets hammered on those occasions, has a serious problem with alcohol as well. That’s a person who can’t control it, and lack of control is a problem.
Yes I agree, you can get drunk some times without being an alcoholic, but if you get hammered drunk so you don’t know what you’re doing, then you obviously have a problem.
I never understood why some people find it funny, when they get so drunk they can’t remember anything the day after???I work a lot of college events for my job, and recently had two girls in front of me, and one said to the other “Dude, I’m gonna get you so blackout drunk this weekend!”
I did a lot of drinking in college, too, but i never wanted to get blackout drunk, and I’m a guy. Who would take care of me, make sure i was safe? The others around me who are also drinking hard? It’s a thousand times more dangerous for a girl.
That’s… insane. If you’re drinking 3 alcoholic drinks per day you’re not considered an alcoholic?? That seems like an extremely warped view of alcohol vs every other drug.
Please note this is a maximum! And it’s STANDARD alcoholic drinks:
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/what-standard-drink
It’s not insane, it’s based on health impact, and probably the fact that 3 standard drinks don’t create dependency.
1 standard drink is broken down in the body in about 1 hour.This is according to Danish health authorities, 3 standard drinks for men and 2 for women per day on average is the max, it’s recommended to not exceed that. But even at maller levels, the principles I stated in my first post remain the same.
I have no strong opinion for/against legalizing cocaine, but your statements don’t seem to align with the literature I’ve read on the lethal dose of alcohol vs cocaine - which I’ve always seen list alcohol as worse.
For example the chart below which measures the dose required for an active dose vs a lethal dose as a ratio - alcohol is worse.
Source listed here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence.svg
The problem is, the chart’s too scientific / technical to properly convey real world data to common people for what we’re talking about; Not to mention look at the scale in that thing. About halfway through it goes from logarithmic back to non logarithmic.
What were realistically trying to gauge is based on common purchasable amounts, what’s the difference between pleasure and LD50.
You’re more likely to die from water toxicity than LD50 of beer.
You’re more likely to die from suffocation on your own vomit than alcohol poisoning from a large bottle of spirits.
A lot of places refuse to sell pure grain alcohol because it is dangerous.
The chart has nicotine way up there too but you can hardly get enough of that to cause any damage directly.
Cocaine’s safety is largely dependent upon delivery methods. Going up the nose is probably relatively safe in the short term.
Another problem with the safety behind cocaine is it getting cut with more dangerous drugs. Which arguably legalizing would help with.
I think the biggest problem is that alcohol is that it is such an effective depressant. People use it to cope instead of getting proper treatment, then go about their lives trying to operate heavy equipment and coexist with people that are functioning perfectly well.
I know one person that had a heart attack and burned out from coke, But I know lots of people that have died from alcohol and paired driving walking and even one guy that just fell off a couch smashed his head on a coffee table and died. Then again confirmation bias I know maybe a dozen people that do coke.
That chart is simply wrong:
https://www.libertyhouseclinic.co.uk/blog/substance-abuse/cocaine-or-alcohol-whats-worse/
Due to its intense and immediate effects on the brain’s reward system, cocaine comes with a very high risk of addiction.
This is a very well established fact in what research shows about dependency. There is absolutely NO WAY cocaine is only slightly higher than alcohol in dependency potential.
It’s also one of the things that make smoking such a strong dependency.Also both LSD and Psilocybin seem dead wrong from what I know. Both are advised to ONLY take when you are monitored by a sober person. And that’s not because of how “innocent” they are.
LSD and psilocybin are non-lethal and do not develop physical dependencies. Youd have to take and insane amount to die. You are advised to be watched if you are new to the drugs as they are HIGHLY mind altering. It’s not like alcohol or weed, your perception of things completely change. An experienced user is fine on a standard dose alone. But that’s not what LD-50 measures anyway, it deals with direct toxicity. Its not someone jumping through a window because they are tripping and now think they can fly.
OK but they are highly dangerous none the less. I know (2nd hand) of someone who became dependent using it only once!!
Despite warnings not to use it unmonitored, and only once per year.Its not someone jumping through a window because they are tripping and now think they can fly.
OK I get the point. 😋
I’m sorry, but there are magnitudes of difference between scientific studies and secondhand anecdotes. We should base public policy on only one of these (hint: it’s not the anecdotes)
True.
LSD is non-habit forming for three reasons. 1) you pretty much gain an immediate and temporary tolerance. 2) the trips are so intense, abusing it everyday probably hints to you having some mental disorder instead of some dependency. They can be exhausting. 3) it’s not physically addictive, your body will not form a dependency on it, in fact it’s processed out of the brain with minutes to hours of consumption even if its effects last for much longer.
Thanks, the more you know. 👍
I know (2nd hand) of someone who became dependent using it only once!!
???
You know someone who is addicted to shrooms/LSD?
I’ve only done shrooms, but it’s not really a thing where you can just “go on with your day.” I have done all of my trips solo as well - not something I would recommend to others, but it’s possible to prepare a safe environment with the kinds of things needed to distract from “bad trips.”
It’s very hard to imagine what being addicted to LSD/shrooms would look like - unless you’re microdosing, it’s a “trip” which takes a lot out of you. Iirc even medically the effects are lessened if you don’t wait long enough between doses. You don’t get euphoria, you get something a lot more complicated. It’s not really the kind of experience one gets “addicted” to in the same way - not chemically and I don’t think psychologically.
Everyone should check out Erowid and unlearn the DARE hysteria.
unlearn the DARE hysteria.
IDK what that is.
If you get drunk every weekend for years you are an alcoholic and you just don’t know it.
The % of alcohol drinkers who are problematic drinkers is extremely high (about 25% of alcohol drinkers in Canada to give an example), people just don’t understand what is problematic drinking. 10% of the US population over 12 y.o. has dealt with alcoholism in the last year.
It’s 15 drinks per week for men and 8 for women to be considered a heavy drinker. That’s 1 to 2 a day, or just all in the weekend. These are determined by the US CDC. Source
Here in The Netherlands the amount of glasses is higher to be considered a problematic drinker (21 for men and 14 for women) but it is recommended to drink less then 1 glass per day to avoid alcohol related diseases. Source
Because alcohol is so normalized people don’t see it as problematic as other substance abuse but if alcohol would have been invented recently it would have been listed as a class A drug. Alcohol is more toxic to the human body than cocain.
If you get drunk every weekend for years you are an alcoholic and you just don’t know it.
Some people get drunk once a week and don’t drink otherwise.
10% of the US population over 12 y.o. has dealt with alcoholism in the last year.
I never claimed alcohol is without problems. I expect by dealt with, it includes family and friends coworkers and such. That it isn’t personal alcoholism.
Nope, that’s personal alcoholism.
You can get drunk once a week and not drink otherwise, that’s still alcoholism, every time you drink you lose control of it.
You sound like someone who is defending their own bad habit and that doesn’t want to admit that it’s alcoholism.
Wow by this definition I’m pretty alcoholic because every time I drink, last time was 5 months ago, I got hella drunk.
I mean, it’s just about the buzz for me
If every time you drink you do it to the point of getting drunk then yeah, you’ve got a problem with alcohol… Even if it’s not frequent.
If you drive once every 6 months but when you do you go twice the speed limit because you just enjoy the thrill of speed then you’re a problematic driver.
Nope, that’s personal alcoholism.
I simply don’t believe that. But if they consider getting drunk once AUD, then that an absolutely useless piece of crap paper.
You sound like someone who is defending their own bad habit
That’s decidedly offensive, I drink on average the equivalent of 1 beer per day. I basically never get drunk, but it can happen, maybe a couple of times per year. I drink maybe 2 bottles of wine per month.
So there you go, but you sound like one who likes to make idiotic personal comments.Guess I’ll spoon feed you
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/understanding-alcohol-use-disorder
In the past year, have you:-Had times when you ended up drinking more, or longer, than you intended?
-More than once wanted to cut down or stop drinking, or tried to, but couldn’t?
-Spent a lot of time drinking, being sick from drinking, or getting over other aftereffects?
-Wanted a drink so badly you couldn’t think of anything else?
-Found that drinking—or being sick from drinking—often interfered with taking care of your home or family? Or caused job troubles? Or school problems?
-Continued to drink even though it was causing trouble with your family or friends?
-Given up or cut back on activities you found important, interesting, or pleasurable so you could drink?
-More than once gotten into situations while or after drinking that increased your chances of getting hurt (such as driving, swimming, using machinery, walking in a dangerous area, or unsafe sexual behavior)?
-Continued to drink even though it was making you feel depressed or anxious or adding to another health problem? Or after having had an alcohol-related memory blackout?
-Had to drink much more than you once did to get the effect you want? Or found that your usual number of drinks had much less effect than before?
-Found that when the effects of alcohol were wearing off, you had withdrawal symptoms, such as trouble sleeping, shakiness, restlessness, nausea, sweating, a racing heart, dysphoria (feeling uneasy or unhappy), malaise (general sense of being unwell), feeling low, or a seizure? Or sensed things that were not there?-Any of these symptoms may be cause for concern. The more symptoms, the more urgent the need for change.Thanks for the TLDR, I agree all of those are very bad, and strong indicators of alcoholism.
But I’m very surprised that as many as 10% 12+ year experience that within a year? (12% men 8% women)
But maybe that’s because I never had problems myself, when I was younger I hated if I could feel alcohol clouding my thoughts just the slightest. So I basically didn’t drink at all while in education. I probably still choose to be with people that don’t drink much, because I still absolutely prefer moderation.I know your numbers are American, but I think it’s probably about the same here. Again I’m honestly very surprised that so many people have such serious problems?
Cocaine isn’t particularly known for its great variety of tastes, so I doubt the “sold like wine” in that sense. 🙂
Terroir and plant varieties are not that relevant for the end product of isolated cocaine alkaloid, where a pure extracted chemical is the final goal. Wine however is specialised and cherished because of its impurities and complex profiles.
The quality levels can be quite different though. If legalized there would also be a market for organic fair trade cocaine and similar marketing techniques.
Or drinks and candy laced with cocaine, cocoa leaf tea, and so on.
I mean… it is waaaay better than whiskey. Which is why it’s worse than whiskey.
Well, usually those go nice hand in hand
You may think you love your wife and kids, but you don’t love them nearly as much as you’re going to love cocaine!
legalise it, tax it, take the money from gangsters, fund free healthcare
same with heroin, nicotine, alcohol, and everything else
I generally agree. Still, cocaine is super addictive and the risk of OD is pretty high
I like the whole fund free healthcare idea but realistically just about all the $ coming in from drug sales would go directly into Leon’s pocket or whoever tf
I hate defeatists like you and the impact you have on the world.
I wish you people would get off of your hands and do something instead of just telling other people to sit on theirs.
Blocked.
Funny thing is, i agree that free healthcare absolutely should be a right. I have voted and will continue to vote for any candidates that support it. I’m just disenfranchised at this point. I will continue to vote, but I’ve seen little/no good come of it.
i think that’s very easily legislated for
It’s not the legislation I’m worried about, it’s the enforcement 🫠
Way easier to die from cocaine…
“The lethal dose of cocaine is 82.5 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg).”
https://www.addictionresource.net/lethal-doses/cocaine/
“Blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) of 0.31% to 0.45% are considered life-threatening. The lethal dose of alcohol is about 5 to 8 grams per kilogram of body weight (g/kg).”
https://www.addictionresource.net/lethal-doses/alcohol/
Google tells me 1 shot of whiskey is about 14g of pure alcohol, so a fatal dose for someone weighing 81kg (180 pounds) would be 29 to 46 shots, or 43.5 to 69 ounces. (Nice!)
A standard 750ml liquor bottle is 25.3 ounces.
The point is how much you need to take for an active dose (eg getting drunk/high) and when you take this into account - it’s actually more likely you’ll kill yourself getting drunk than doing coke.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence.svg
Right but you don’t chug a pint of cocaine
Anymore
Nah, that’s what the gallon of liquid meth is for.
Definitely true! I hope nobody chugs a pint of pure alcohol either!
I mean, yes, but by the same token beer is far less lethal than whiskey. Our response to that is to sell beer in pints and whiskey in smaller glasses. Just wondering why such an approach would be impossible for drugs.
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For a 180 pound person, 81 kg, the fatal dose would be 82.5mg * 81 = 6,682.5mg / 1,000 = 6.7g of coke.
An 1/8th of an ounce of cocaine is 3.5g.
https://pacificsandsrecovery.com/what-is-an-eight-ball-of-coke/
It’s the Yanks tool again.
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Now how many average sized lines of cocaine is 82 milligrams?
I guess it depends on the line, but 1/8th of an ounce is 3.5g, 2 of those could be fatal for someone 180 pounds.
https://pacificsandsrecovery.com/what-is-an-eight-ball-of-coke/
That’s quite a large amount of coke though
And as the normal route is too snort it, I’m pretty sure you will have a hard time to get that much stuff inside you at once
I mean, yeah, but if you had it regulated to the point where people could dose accordingly, it would lower overdoses. Street stuff, you could get a batch 5x more potent than the last and take the same amount and die. I’ve always been a legalize and tax all drugs person. People are going to do it regardless, and making it illegal creates cartels and clogs up the jails with nonviolent offenders.
I don’t even know where to being with that. But we at least know you don’t drink.
Oh, that’s definitely true. If I have one beer I puke for three days:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17659-alcohol-intolerance
Well, we also don’t include all the drunk driving deaths, or the “he gets like that when he drinks” abuse. Is cocaine worse? Yea probably. Is drinking safe enough for the favourable comparison just because it’s harder to OD? Ehhhhh…
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Pretty sure people can OD from cocaine quite easily.
Yep, and alcohol OD (poisoning) happens all the time and isn’t that hard to do either.
Edit: It sounds like I am all for cocaine, I never liked it, or any upper for that matter. It’s easier to die from cocaine for sure.
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You mean a 5th bottle of vodka, right? A 5th of a bottle of vodka is not much. That’s 40% so 1/5 * 0.4 = 8%. That’s like drinking a full bottle of wine, two bottles of cider or 4 pints of beer. You might get drunk but no fucking way you OD.
Most youngs need that amount to barely start getting tipsy…
a 5th of a bottle
No, a fifth is a bottle size in the US, it’d be a 750ml bottle outside of the US.
… Are you fucking kidding me… Of course not.
Anyway, that’s still not enough for OD.
Motherfucker, that’s breakfast.
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Luckily, alcohol doesn’t have this problem
Hard disagree. Coke is certainly worse, although… nowhere nearly as destructive as meth or heroin/opioids.
With alcohol and tobacco being legal (and hardly regulated), it tough to draw any lines without seeming both hypocritical and illogical. And with cannabis gaining legality in more and more places, everyone is finally getting the concept that the War on Drugs was lost the day it started.
I’ve known people with extreme serious and terrible cohabits, but they were never any worse off and other people I knew who were professional drunks. And I would include myself in the number of people I know who continue to smoke for decades after knowing exactly how stupid the thing that is.
Ignorance of drugs is what is a problem in our society reacts to their youth. All of the propaganda for nearly a century has blasted everyone with the idea that any kind of drug use is necessarily evil and a gamble with death, even though that is very much not true.
If tobacco and alcohol remain legal, and especially with the growing trend of cannabis legalization, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to legalize possession of small amount of cocaine.
Again, I discussed how I think drugs like methamphetamine and heroin under the opioids should not be legalized, but prohibiting cocaine use, for example, has never decreased its usage. It’s just a tool for cops to Rob citizens, and then claim the spoils for themselves.
Cannabis doesn’t fit here, since it’s not s hard drug and has also beneficial effects when taken correctly.
Cocaine also has legitimate medical uses.
But medical use based on proper research, a medical examination and review / temporary in general is completely different from recreational use.
I’d argue cocaine is the worst drug of them all because it impacts decision making.
thus its being far more destructive …to others and way more subtle
(come on let me blame the drug, i hope there aren’t this many terrible people)
All drugs impacted decision-making to some area, including alcohol
I’d say meth is much worse.
Good point, alcohol certainly doesn’t impact decision making. /s
I’ll stick to caffeine, thanks. An exacerbation of the problems I already have is absolutely not what I want.
Hell yeah. Legalize it and my job will become a lot easier.
Are you a drug dealer?
Drug dealers would have a much harder job. They’ll have to do taxes and a lot of profits will be gone. Cartels for example make most of the money because it is illegal. Just think about how many alcohol dealers there are, none, because it’s legal and is just sold in stores.
I like the cut of his jib!
I’m here for it
would be “sold like wine”
They literally used to put cocaine in wine and called it Coca Wine. Coca-Cola removed the wine during the temperance movement and replaced it with caffeine. They removed the cocaine after the drink got popular with African-Americans and didn’t want to be associated with “coked out <censored>”
This was from early February. Why is it being posted again? I remember seeing it on here when it was posted the first time when it actually occurred.
Yeah no.
The title leaves out another gem in the second part of the sentence: “…and it’s only illegal because it comes from Latin America”.
Now it has it all, the science-defying stupidity, the nationalist undertones and the “other countries are not treating us fairly” hint.
The tragedy of our times is that there really is one in every village and now they discovered that if they band together they can elect one as President.
Colombia is forced to fight this war against cocaine farmers and traffickers, the government against its own people. If Colombia doesn’t continue this war the US will force all of its trading partners into a trade embargo and Colombia will be shut off from the rest of the world. The Colombian president is trying to ease the pressure and bring light to the situation. His statement about the illegality because it comes from South America is valid, although possibly not 100% verifiable. We have an opiate crisis going on in the US, driven by big pharma, people are pushed to get prescriptions they don’t need. It’s still legal, nobody went to jail for selling oxycontin and all that other shit. The war on drugs was always a war on counter culture and minorities.
Well that fentanyl came from China as an attempt to flood us with drugs and destroy us from the inside. So, big pharma only gets part of the blame for opioid problems on the street.
Who did get the people addicted?
Also US intelligence and military are notoriously involved in drug trafficking around the world. Just that Fentanyl can be made completely synthetically without needing a plant based precursor and also as it is used in medicine regularly, it is quite easy to source the resources or just divert from a medical plant.
Some Chinese, even if organized by the government, joining the party is hardly the main issue.
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I dunno if legally selling blow to the public is the right idea, but I also know a possession ticket/jail stint hasn’t deterred many coke heads either.
Pretty sure whiskey is pretty bad too. I’m not for prohibition, or drugs being illegal. But I’m not in favor of people using cocaine or drinking alcohol.
How about using cocaine AND drinking whiskey? Classic combo. /Jk
How else does one properly enjoy a highball?
In the 19th century they have coked up wine. No joke. Even the Pope endorsed it.
And I am not going to mention Coca-Cola. Despite the stories, the time it DID have minute amounts of cocaine in it was very brief since they did get complaints to knock it off.
They still used spent coca leaves that had so little cocaine left that it was imperceptible, and it was only until 1929 before they finally stopped that.
So if you wanted to get coked up with coca cola you would need to go back to 1885 and within days of the first coca cola being served.
But if you went that far back just do ALL the drugs. There was no such thing as an illegal drug back then.
