An adult conversation about drugs?!

[eFestivals]

Glad to see your mind is as open as ever.

says the man who is pushing the "gateway drugs" idea but has never applied it to things to which it fits no less well.

There is a lot of evidence.

yep, there is - but it's only one set of evidence from which two very different sets of conclusions get drawn.

And you get those two different conclusions because it's not academic study at work, it's prejudice - an idea that gets applied to just some drugs, but to almost nothing else in life when it's not less applicable if the 'gateway' idea is one of substance.

(that doesn't mean that there couldn't be two sets of worthwhile conclusions, but we're a mile away from that situation as things stand).

Your counter-arguments to the arguments I put down for the gateway theory ranged from emotion dismissal to whataboutery. You didn't actually evidentially address any of the points raised.

that's because I've yet to see anything which isn't hugely laughable with the idea of "gateway drugs".

When the whole world of social research is applying the "gateway" idea in a consistent manner get back to me, because only then will the 'gateway' idea be something which the people who use that idea believe themselves.

As alcohol is one of the first drugs most people try then yes, it would easily classify as a gateway drug

and yet the gateway idea never gets applied.

Someone is doing something wrong somewhere with that. Until they get it right, it's all bollocks.

I'll bite - drugs are fantastic.

It's weak-willed cretins who are the problem - not drugs.

And I'll agree with that, despite my nickname being elephant head, with a drug-taking record of 30+ years.

The *ONLY* point I've tried making here is that until such time as ideas like 'gateway' are applied on an equitable basis across everything then anything which uses 'gateway' is worthless as an academic study - because it's clearly being applied by prejudice and not academically. It's really only a tautology, used to ensure that drugs are presented as bad/dangerous, etc - it means that weed can only ever be viewed in bad way, which ensures that it remains illegal. It's a self-satisfying idea, rather than an idea that can stand by itself.

[eFestivals]

agree completely with Sparty Mcfly above

I don't know anyone who takes drugs (hard ones) who hasn't tried cannabis, to suggest weed isn't a gateway drug is idiotic.

"oh I love to dabble in acid, heroin, crack and meth but i would NEVER even try cannabis"

has never been said by anyone, ever

you're not getting what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that weed isn't "a gateway drug". I'm saying the idea of gateway drugs is a worthless idea.

It will become something of substance only if beer is considered to be the gateway to spirits and butter as the gateway to cheese.

Until that happens - if it ever does - then it's merely propaganda to tell you that "drugs are bad".

Edited September 25, 2012 by eFestivals

[Ed209]

agree completely with Sparty Mcfly above

I don't know anyone who takes drugs (hard ones) who hasn't tried cannabis, to suggest weed isn't a gateway drug is idiotic.

"oh I love to dabble in acid, heroin, crack and meth but i would NEVER even try cannabis"

has never been said by anyone, ever

[eFestivals]

"oh I love to dabble in acid, heroin, crack and meth but i would NEVER even try cannabis"

has never been said by anyone, ever

Actually, you're very very wrong about this - as you'd realise if you'd mixed with drug scenes more than you obviously have done.

Drug scenes are perhaps (I don't know, it's a long time since I was part of one) more integrated nowadays than they used to be, but in the past there were certainly plenty of coke and amphetamine 'drug groups' who never went near 'dope' as it was 'dope' and they didn't want to be 'dopes'. And I know a few people who went from there into being smack addicts, without ever once going near a spliff. They knew what they liked, and they stuck with what they liked.

[abdoujaparov]

It isn't. But as you don't know that and just think that then we're talking insult. Did I really have to point that out?

[abdoujaparov]

you're not getting what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that weed isn't "a gateway drug". I'm saying the idea of gateway drugs is a worthless idea.

It will become something of substance only if beer is considered to be the gateway to spirits and butter as the gateway to cheese.

Until that happens - if it ever does - then it's merely propaganda to tell you that "drugs are bad".

[eFestivals]

the whole iea of a "gateway" drug is promoted by prohibitionists who want the public to believe that smoking a doob on Monday will inevitably lead to jacking up by the follwoing Wednesday. It's a nonsense argument, which isnt remotely related to reality....

spot on.

Thanks for saying in much better words what I was trying to say.

[eFestivals]

that "butter leads onto cheese" line I once said to a magistrate (not when I was before him in his work capacity, you understand ).

He was quite taken with the line, and as far as i'm aware it flipped his views a little ... so with a bit of luck he approached his work in a slightly different way after that.

[eFestivals]

You might as well say an adrenaline rush on a fairground ride, or a sugar rush from sweets is a gateway experience to wanting more

exactly ... but no one does, which gets to show the gateway idea as being one that's selectively applied when it suits a person to apply it - which makes it propaganda and not something of any more meaning.

[AcademicPistol]

But propaganda is the governments specialty always has been always will be.

[eFestivals]

But propaganda is the governments specialty always has been always will be.

yup, but that's not how they run their research in the background - that's done in a properly academic manner.

I was hugely surprised to find that out when people I knew started (about 20 years ago) working for the Home Office's research unit - I'd always presumed that such things would be done to push the agenda of the party in power, but they have systems in place to ensure that just can't happen.

The govt or a department's minister don't even get a choice about whether any commissioned research is published or not - it's published whether they like it or not, regardless of how embarrassing it might be to that minister or the govt. The only power they have over it is when it's published (where the standard 'trick' is to only sign it off on the day they get sacked).

Overall, they're exceedingly hesitant to commission any research on drugs, tho it does happen a small amount. Mostly they avoid it I think because of an inevitable Daily Mail backlash, where spending money on anything to do with "killer drugs" is beyond the acceptable. But of course the conclusions of drug research tends not to be how the Daily Mail says either, so that doesn't help.

Edited September 25, 2012 by eFestivals

[Ed209]

yup, but that's not how they run their research in the background - that's done in a properly academic manner.

I was hugely surprised to find that out when people I knew started (about 20 years ago) working for the Home Office's research unit - I'd always presumed that such things would be done to push the agenda of the party in power, but they have systems in place to ensure that just can't happen.

The govt or a department's minister don't even get a choice about whether any commissioned research is published or not - it's published whether they like it or not, regardless of how embarrassing it might be to that minister or the govt. The only power they have over it is when it's published (where the standard 'trick' is to only sign it off on the day they get sacked).

Overall, they're exceedingly hesitant to commission any research on drugs, tho it does happen a small amount. Mostly they avoid it I think because of an inevitable Daily Mail backlash, where spending money on anything to do with "killer drugs" is beyond the acceptable. But of course the conclusions of drug research tends not to be how the Daily Mail says either, so that doesn't help.

[eFestivals]

or the other option is if the government doesn't like the results, to just sack the head of the academic committee and then pretend that there is a conflict of interests and proclaim that the research can't be trusted e.g. Alan Johnson and Prof David Nutt.

yup - but its all out in the open. There's no opportunity to subvert the research they commission, there's only the option to not accept its conclusions.

[eFestivals]

which of course brings us back to on what basis the current laws exist.

And it's not research, it never has been. What was made illegal came about via of a conference where people expressed their prejudices against particular drugs (google for it if this is something you didn't know).

[worm]

No, I know you were making it up.

[abdoujaparov]

As much as you believe that I made it up, you cannot be sure.

Give me some respect and you may find me responsive.

Researchers working for the government often use academic research companies. It is permitted. It's not even news worthy or controversial anymore. It was in 2006. I find it equally hard to believe that a government dog's body, for want of a better word, has not come across this. It's as if you're asking me to prove the existence of providing the government with newspapers. Seriously, I don't know where to start.

[worm]

What I do not believe is that you were asked by a government department, or anyone else, to take someone else's research findings and write them up.

Edited September 26, 2012 by worm

[worm]

Your reluctance to answer any basic questions about what the research covered, its methodology, customer or focus all adds to my extreme scepticism.

[eFestivals]

Quantitative analysis based upon national demographics.

and you analysed this data how, so it actually meant something more than just some numbers on a bit of paper?

Without you analysing the data, you had nothing to write. So how did you analyse it?

[eFestivals]

To make clear the links between drugs and crime for a general readership.

for "a general readership" now, is it? That's very different to what you said previously, about it being written for reading by academics.

[abdoujaparov]

That's not what I said.

They gave me already established research data to write up. Most likely, unofficially. That's usually the case, hence annonymity. Then I'd imagine that whoever the client was in person would have used this to do their assignment given to them by their bosses. They'd have used the write up I'd have given them as a template.

This is effectively what happens. As I said, I've seen my psychological models used by Channel 4 in the national press with someone elses name tagged to it. The client in question clearly worked for Channel 4 and was asssigned a brief, which he secretely passed onto a research company. I end up writing it, no questions asked, and then they use it as a template for their brief and hand it in to their boss.

You never get to know the client. But you often see the work you did for them in some form of press eventually. And like with most jobs, you tend to get a feel for who has assigned you with the work. The instruction, topic and theme are dead give aways.

[abdoujaparov]

The links between drugs and crime pertaining to the nationally gathered quantitative data held by the government circa 07/08.

Quantitative analysis based upon national demographics. As I recall, the methodology was already complete. It was the framing of the results provided and the discussion that was of interest to the client.

Annonymous.

To make clear the links between drugs and crime for a general readership.

[eFestivals]

The links between drugs and crime pertaining to the nationally gathered quantitative data held by the government circa 07/08.

There's no way for the govt to collect the data that you've said via the justice system, or via any other standard operating procedure.

The govt would only have that data as the result of research - and that data wouldn't have been collected to be stockpiled. The data would be gathered by the same person (or grouping) or org that would write it up - which is *exactly* what a number of friends did and do.

With every statement you make you more-prove yourself a liar. Which is of course why you're being so very deliberately vague about everything, in the hope that your vagueness puts you in the right ball park for how these things work in reality rather than your fantasies.

[worm]

bored with this now

[abdoujaparov]

Sorry dude, but it's a reality. There's plenty of academic sites housed around the net. Been going for a long time now. I'm sorry to have caused you some frustrating psychological dissonance, but, well, that can happen.