Bath Salts - the new drug problem

[Lace Neil Singer]

Over here recently, there's been a huge furore over "legal highs"; one, Meow Meow, was eventually banned after a series of deaths.

What gets me is that in a lot of cases, the parents of the kids who died taking these substances always blame the manufacturers and demand for the substance to be banned. While these items are dangerous substances, no-one forced the kids to take them. That's what I mean by personal responsibility. If your teenage daughter willingly takes a legal high and dies from it, then it's her fault. Hell, Red Bull and other energy drinks have been known to cause death; however, I don't see why the rest of us who have the brains to take them responsibly should suffer cuz of the stupidity of a few Darwin award winners.

[Greenday]

To those who use the Darwin excuse for why it should be legalized: Are you okay with adults killing themselves, leaving children alone and helpless? Are you okay with legalizing any drugs that could result in babies with horrible birth defects? I mean, what if you do these drugs while pregnant and it doesn't kill you but fucks up your baby? That's cool, since it's Darwinism and all, right?

[Andara Bledin]

To those who use the Darwin excuse for why it should be legalized: Are you okay with adults killing themselves, leaving children alone and helpless? Are you okay with legalizing any drugs that could result in babies with horrible birth defects? I mean, what if you do these drugs while pregnant and it doesn't kill you but fucks up your baby? That's cool, since it's Darwinism and all, right?

What I want is for the facts (not the crap propoganda that is popular now) to be made more readily available and encouraged reading. I want people who wish to explore these arenas to have better access to information about what they do, how they do it, and why they're a bad idea for some people and why they're ok for others and in what situations.

Maybe if "drug education" amounted to more than "drugs are bad, mmmkay" we'd have fewer kids and adults offing themselves with them.

The DEA pages used to have a lot more information on them than they do now. The page on LSD (when there was a full page devoted to it, and not just as a footnote under the banner of 'hallucinogens') used to state that there were absolutely 0 deaths attributed to the substance itself. It's actually impossible to overdose on it. Vitamin C and water more dangerous as far as that goes. Now it's just got a blanket statement about hallucinogens and that they're classified as dangerous without so many of those pesky facts getting in the anti-drug message's way.

I'm not for a complete opening of the floodgates. Some drugs shouldn't be in people's hands ever. Angel dust is a prime example. And some drugs do need to be kept under control. But there are other drugs with known benefits and/or lacking any especial danger that could be legalized without causing the collapse of society as we know it.

And, once the whole thing is yanked out of the shadows, and the stigma attached to drug usage stripped away, then we'll see a lot more people willing to admit they might have a problem and seek help, rather than hiding their problem and trying (and often failing) to go it alone.

^-.-^

[Greenday]

Are you seriously suggesting current drug education is the reason so many people do drugs? That they don't know why or that that drugs are bad? I flat out refuse to believe ANYONE doesn't know drugs are bad with or without a class telling them that. I'm pretty damn sure most people can figure out why they are bad. People just choose to ignore those reasons.

[linguist]

Are you seriously suggesting current drug education is the reason so many people do drugs? That they don't know why or that that drugs are bad? I flat out refuse to believe ANYONE doesn't know drugs are bad with or without a class telling them that. I'm pretty damn sure most people can figure out why they are bad. People just choose to ignore those reasons.

i think the problem is more that the current state of drug education is along the lines of telling kids "drugs are bad, and if you take them you will die." then, when for whatever reasons they do take them, and they not only don't die but they feel really good, it leads to a mistrust of what they've been told.

personally, i feel that drug education should have a much larger harm reduction component. something along the lines of "doing drugs is not the best idea, but if you choose to do so here are the possible side effects (both good and bad), and here's how to do it in the safest possible manner."

there is a wealth of harm reduction information available online--my personal favorite site is erowid.org. when i went through my period of experimentation, i never took anything without thoroughly researching it first, but not everyone knows where to find such information, and adding it to drug information curriculum could only help in the long run.

[Andara Bledin]

What linguist said, essentially.

There is so much mis-information fed to kids about drugs as a whole that once they figure out that they were lied to about one thing, they stop trusting any of the rest, which is a net loss to everybody.

There's a reason why some of the most active Just Say No volunteers among teens are also the biggest drug users. At least, that was how it was in my high school. One of my friends did an interview with a local paper after he'd cleaned himself up about how the Just Say No program was such a huge joke to all of the druggie kids.

^-.-^

[blas87]

I would never advise "But if you want to try, here is the safest way to smoke meth and not die!"

All it took was a few pictures of people before and after meth to convince me that it's bad news.

I'm also pretty confident if my bf and my friends got to spend a day or two with people on both sides of my family, they'd see what path their alcohol problems are leading them to.

[Boozy]

i think the problem is more that the current state of drug education is along the lines of telling kids "drugs are bad, and if you take them you will die." then, when for whatever reasons they do take them, and they not only don't die but they feel really good, it leads to a mistrust of what they've been told.

That's it in a nutshell.

There's also the common practice in school-based drug education programs of not differentiating enough between drugs.

No one should ever, for any reason, take crystal meth. That's terrible shit, and can hook you immediately. Marijuana is a different story. It's not terribly addictive for most people and can actually have some health benefits when used infrequently and in moderation.

So I can see a 14 year-old smoking a joint, nothing bad happening, and then saying to themselves, "I've been told the same thing about marijuana as I have about crystal meth, so maybe I'll give that one a try too."

Remember that most people begin experimenting with drugs when they're just teenagers. They don't have the reasoning skills that adults do; their brains just don't have the capacity for it yet. That's why schools need to be very careful about telling the truth. A teenager is far more likely to succumb to black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking, and it can lead them to wildly misinterpret the risks of some drugs.

[blas87]

This is going to sound really stupid and ignorant but I've tended to avoid bath salts because my mother told me that I'd be prone to yeast infections if I used them frequently.

In the winter, I tend to take a short bath every day before bed, not even half of a tub, mostly just to warm up, and I've had the same bottle of bath salts for the longest time.

[Andara Bledin]

That's not only not stupid, Blas, but it's true, for the most part.

Prolonged sitting in warm water with salts or bubble bath after washing can lead to a proliferation of yeast cells, both internally and externally.

This can be pretty much eliminated with an after-bath rinse with clean water and proper drying afterwards, however. Plus, shorter baths shouldn't be a problem.

^-.-^

[Cata]

People talk so much about the dangers of drugs like Meth, they're missing at least part of the point: If there were a legal and relatively safe method for getting high, there would be far fewer people going for the dangerous and toxic drugs. As it stands now, people who are inclined to try to get high are essentially required to trust that their local dealer is playing straight with them, or that the do-it-yourself information they get online is accurate.

[Greenday]

Did you put the words "meth" and "safe" together? Meth is one of the most addicting drugs out there. There is no safe way to take it.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Did you put the words "meth" and "safe" together? Meth is one of the most addicting drugs out there. There is no safe way to take it.

"safe" =/= "sound financial/emotional/social/etc. policy.

Given the choice between people doing something stupid badly and thus endangering themselves and people doing something stupid properly and endangering themselves less, I'll take option two. Besides, the point of living in a free country is supposed to be that we each have the freedom to make decisions others may or may not define as 'bad'.

[Greenday]

I'm unclear as to what option 2 is. Perhaps an explanation is needed.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I'm unclear as to what option 2 is. Perhaps an explanation is needed.

That would be the second one I listed: Taking the drugs using clean supplies in a safe environment, possibly with supervision and utilizing substances manufactured by experts under the weight of accountability.