K2 Banned
 

As medical marijuana is gaining momentum in a number of states, alternatives like K2 have been banned nationally. What do you say? Fair/unfair? Are they really a threat to public health?

Read/listen to the full story about the ban here:

DEA Bans 'Fake Pot' Products That Emulate Marijuana : The Two-Way : NPR

If the number of related poison control calls and ER visits really are as NPR reports, I'm inclined to agree with the ban, but I am curious why the DEA doesn't ban other equally harmful herbal "supplements.". Do they take a stand because of the number of incidents, or is it just because of its relation to a controlled substance.

I'm pretty sure I don't have to state my drug philosophy, but I'd also like to say that I don't agree with the whole H.J. Anslinger Legacy (TM) and find the DEA to be an organization that assiduously toils to find new enemies to justify its bloated existence. If the stats are legit, keep it banned. Although maybe this is just another case of 4 Loko; that being if you want to hurt yourself with something, you're going to hurt yourself with it, legal or not.

The nanny state is such because enough is never enough. It's why Hydroxycut lost its Ooomph! and why 4 Loko is a pop culture beverage.

Honestly, I would rather have people smoke a real plant instead of sucking in funky chemicals. Might as well go for model airplane glue.

...

And just because I'm me: "Oh, the pathetic things that people do to get high."

My own view is that people(adults) fundamentally have the right to harm themselves if they wish

It is undisputed that cigarettes kill millions of people, directly. No govt would face banning them because it would cost too much lost revenue and be too unpopular.

In terms of social damage, over consumption of alcohol causes more violence and problems than any illegal drug I am aware of. But its the same story.

If someone wants to take heroin, weed, E, whatever - I dont see that it is the state's role to prevent it.

The legalisation of all drugs in my opinion would save billions in crime, policing, ruined lives. Would more people die of the toxic effects? I think its hard to say. I dont think any adult that wants to buy a certain drug today finds it especially hard. I guess if I wanted to buy something exotic like Mescalin I wouldnt know where to go, but I have smoked weed about twice in my life (when at university) so I am hardly a regular drug user, but I am 100% sure I wanted to buy speed, cocaine, heroin, ketamine,ectasy or marjuana I could have some in my pocket by tonight.

If drugs were cheaper, had some form of control over there content (so the worst cases of toxicity could be removed) and were readily available I am not sure at all that more people would take them. But if they did, ultimately I believe it is there choice. The state has a role to educate people of the risks of certain activities. Playing rugby is dangerous and a lot of people get killed or badly (and I expect baseball or hockey is the same in the US)... people who take part know this and accept it.

I really dont see any moral argument that can apply to criminalising say speed, that doesnt apply to criminalising cigarettes and alcohol.

Force the people who sell these things into the light and treat them the same as the currently legal crugs people use in my view:

* Force the sellers to include health warnings
* Force some control of the "dosage" at least insofar as information and the prohibition of "cutting" the drugs with simple poison or varying strengths. (because a lot of ODs come from people taking something stronger than they expect)
* Take out the gangs, the hooligans and the criminals from the whole trade and tax it instead
* Regulate sale so it is only to adults (yes, thats hard to enforce, but its hard to enforce now too)

And if an extra 50,000 people choose to kill themselves by abusing these substances (and I dont believe that they would) is not that, ultimately and as harsh as this may sound, their own choice? What right to I have to say that another man shouldnt take 20 years of his life by taking too much cocaine? About as much right as I have to say he shouldnt take 20 years off his life by smoking cigarettes...

I totally agree with you in spirit, Strange. I'm all for legalizing marijuana and alcohol for people 16/18/21 and up. It should be their choice. Freedom'd.

The problem is that if you get rid of substance laws entirely that people complain that government isn't doing anything to help the self-inflicted problem.

Aside from the whole moral crusade, it seems that citizens crave conflict structure. They'd bitch about drug freedom as much as today's drug laws.

Everybody wants the freedom. "Man, I wish X was legal." But then if there were no laws regulating X, they'd cry about the occasional chaos.

Nobody is willing to take personal responsibility to enable freedoms. They want someone else to do the rule-making and heavy lifting.

So fuck you, America. You don't know what you want and you've proven yourself too goddamn lazy to handle actual freedom.

drugs in the workplace...

If it took amending the constitution to ban alcohol and another amendment to make it legal again, how is it that the DEA can just arbitrarily declare any substance to be illegal??????

The big problem with these is that since they're in a legal grey area, no active ingredients are disclosed and dosage varies. There are also a lot of people who bought the chemicals individually as powdered bulk product and determined their own dosages, which leads to problems because a gram of JWH-072, for example, is maybe 1/8 of a teaspoon in volume and is 30+ doses so a few grains can be the difference between a good high and a trip to the ER. They're almost all potent and specific cannabinoid agonists compared to the blend of natural cannabinoids you find in marijuana, whicih means smoking one dose of any particular one won't feel the same as smoking a bowl of weed, and they're more likely to trigger side effects; one common one I've heard of is people who are prone to seizures having them triggered by these synths because most of them are full GABA inhibitors. All of that comes together to lead to people easily smoking more than they should, getting more of the active compounds, and the negative effects feeling much more intense than things like classic weed-induced paranoia, racing heartbeat, etc.

Aside from that, these are all research chemicals with no studies done to find out what the short and long term health effects are. The solution to the problems with synthetic cannabinoids is simple: legalize marijuana.
Sounds like someone isn't thinking of the children.

If they legalized the personal growing and use of marijuana, I would be for banning this. And I think the use of other drugs would go down if cheap weed was prevalent.

If the government really wants to prevent slackers, just make it such that you have to have at least $2000 in paid income taxes in order to legally use or grow weed, (that can't be sold to others).

K2 wouldn't be necessary, teens would be working had in order to get some for parties, kids would learn a lot of about farming and growing plants, drugs crossing into the US would go down...

You should be on Comedy Central. This is the single most preposterous thing I've ever heard on the topic.

Legalize it all.

Deep, WhoaitsZ. I suppose you're following the lines of ASU who lives in a dream world where marijuana inspires learning in youth and where people who are inclined to substance use/abuse will pay their taxes. I don't know where this wet dream comes from, but it smells like a lot like Funyuns.

Back to K2: What's the appeal of smoking? If you have synthetic THC compounds, why not spray them on Pringles?

Since y'all probably won't make it through the whole post, I'm putting my point first, and my rambling 2nd. Point 1 - the more the nanny state attempts to block any possible way for their populace to hurt themselves, the more the populace tries to do just that. Point 2 - I obviously agree that the government needs to stay out of people's business, but K2 is hardly worth the argument as that stuff is shit anyway.

On to the rambling. First, the weed question...

Think about it this way. If you have a town of a hundred thousand people, and 20% of them are going to go out and ingest some sort of substance as a supplement to their good time, would you rather

a) Have loud, obnoxious, stupid drunks wandering around breaking things and generally being annoying, possibly drunk-driving, doing all manner of stupid things

b) have a bunch of chilled-out chuckle-fests augmented with doritos and jones soda.

Before you get all over that one, remember every time you've gone out drinking and every time you've smoked weed and think about it one more time. People do not use marijuana and then get loud, break things, or get in fights. The worst thing they might do is drive 40 mph in a 65 on their way to the nearest taco bell.

It is really and truly only a matter of time before weed is legalized anyway. I really don't understand what the fucking holdup is, but within a generation it'll be legalized nationally. Hell it's already legal or decriminalized in half a dozen states. Legalize, tax, let corporations cash in on it and so many of our problems will go "up in smoke" har har.

As far as the K2 bit goes, I've smoked a k2 type product on a few different occasions and, I'm here to tell you, that shit is hard to handle if you're not careful. Two hits off of this stuff and I'm borderline schizo, three and I'm off the deep end. It's not really enjoyable and it's not worth a legal battle. I detest the nanny state and agree with the theory that the DEA is self-perpetuation at it's finest, but this stuff is pretty stupid anyway. I'd love to go to battle for legalization but this is not that battle.

There are a lot of interesting ideas about weed in this thread.

Look at me, being all diplomatic.

Let's be frank, here -- marijuana is never going to be a force for good in society. The best you can hope for is that it's a neutral factor. I do know a large number of productive, often 'high value' folks who smoke a bit of mary jane now and then. Hell, I'm not going to out anyone, but I know quite a few right here in our own little cybercommunity. These folks are, on the whole, happy, productive people. They do pay their taxes, they don't get rowdy and break shit, they contribute to political and philosophical discussions in meaningful ways.

What I have never encountered is someone who is mentally and physically well who can make a sincere claim that weed has significantly bettered their lives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for legalizing, but let's not fuck around with all this 'teenagers will stop acting like teenagers' bullshit. Legalizing marijuana makes sense for two reasons:

1) Legalizing and bringing trade above board will drastically reduce the criminal element of it (duh), which has the tangential effect of reducing the criminal element as a whole. Drugs fund organized crime. Organized crime also does things like murder and human trafficking. Legalizing drugs takes away funds from organized crime, and makes it that much harder for them to do the things they do.

2) The government has no right to tell me how I can go about destroying my body, and it is particularly hypocritical for the government to ban substance x but allow substance y. I smoke a tobacco pipe. I enjoy my tobacco. My tobacco will probably give me throat cancer if I keep it up. But my tobacco is legal. It's very hard for me to smoke one plant and at the same time tell other people that they can't smoke another.

This all is veering away from the main topic, except that it's not really: the only reason folks seek out things like K2 is because marijuana is illegal. You get these dudes who don't want to stray across that line, but still want to get high, so they go for the next-best-thing. That's certainly not true of everyone who does it, I'm well aware. You have the curious, and the compulsive drug users for whom the legality doesn't enter into it. But a big part of the market, and a big part of the reason that K2 was popular is because it was legal.

I can't help but look at the title of this thread and think that the folks in charge of that decision got it drastically, disastrously wrong.

Righteous.

Not to mention the drug cartels in Mexico would undoubtedly shrink of course, shrinking the violence as well. Less people here in the states would go to jail for petty weed possession, lower crime rate and freeing up the prisons a bit and monies for such....i could go on and on. We should just let people have their damn weed!

You guys really think the drug cartels are primarily fueled by something as bulky to move and petty in value as marijuana?

Hilarious.

i wouldn't say primarily but you cant deny that the 30 tons of weed or so that was discovered in an underground trans-border tunnel last year wasnt a big deal

If you sprayed them on Pringles, you wouldn't get high. You could heat it so it leached into something fatty like peanut butter or cheese, but these chemicals come in powdered form with one gram being maybe 1/8 of a teaspoon and one dose being 1/30th of that. Ingestion also takes 30-45 minutes while smoking is almost instant, and overestimating a dose by a fairly small margin is likely to either leave you cowering in a corner paranoid and feeling like you're dying or land you in the ER suffering from seizures or atrial fibrillation.
Speaking of negative effects of overdosing ...