Ecstacy is safer than weed?

[daveymark]

a user posted this graph in another thread and said X is safer than weed

Text

thought it was interesting. Does anyone know more about this study? I always figured weed would be safer. I haven't heard about deaths of weed smokers, but I've read about X related deaths.

Then again, I have read about cannibis killing off brain cells...

"harm" isn't limited to "deaths" and can include other types of damage to the body, maybe that's what they're referencing

interesting that LSD is also safer than weed.

do any of you users have first hand experience of this?

Kids, don't use this graph as an excuse to do anything against your parent's wishes...

 

[destrekor]

LSD should be among the lowest, period. I want to know the reports involved in the making of this graph. LSD has been shown to have no harm on any part of the body, thanks in part to the sheer minuscule amount that the dose is.

edit:
safety is also relevant to the purity of the drug involved. the more potent drugs like LSD and X tend to be tainted, LSD in particular due to the low supply ever since one of the major suppliers was busted in the late 90s (or early 2000-2001, cannot remember which).

 

[Cattlegod]

that graph is full of crap unless they define specifically what is involved in calculating a mean harm rating. hell, for all we know, the mean harm rating may just be how often the names are misspelled in google search.

 

[Eli]

Wee..

This will be a fun thread.

That graph means absolutely nothing without knowing the criteria they used to gauge harmfulness.

In general, I agree with it, though... although I would be extremely curious to know why cannabis is ranked so high compared to solvents, steroids and Ecstasy.... That's pretty confusing.

I tend to rank drugs on whether it is possible for them to kill you or not. Can you OD on E? You bet. Easily.

Can you OD on cannabis? No.

If they are trying to measure overall health effects, though.. that is another story, and this graph should not be taken seriously at all, since such things are largely subjective, not to mention we do not have enough data on things like E to know about long term effects yet.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I am wary of the concept of a globalized "harm rating," without knowing what it factors in. I don't know that it's fair to say that a "harm rating" necessarily means that one drug is more dangerous than another without information on what it's based on.

 

[Legendary]

A bad hit of ecstasy can kill you. Rare, but it still happens.
Weed cannot and has not killed anyone (just from usage)

 

[clamum]

Originally posted by: Eli
Wee..

This will be a fun thread.

That graph means absolutely nothing without knowing the criteria they used to gauge harmfulness.

In general, I agree with it, though... although I would be extremely curious to know why cannabis is ranked so high compared to solvents, steroids and Ecstasy.... That's pretty confusing.

I tend to rank drugs on whether it is possible for them to kill you or not. Can you OD on E? You bet. Easily.

Can you OD on cannabis? No.

If they are trying to measure overall health effects, though.. that is another story, and this graph should not be taken seriously at all, since such things are largely subjective, not to mention we do not have enough data on things like E to know about long term effects yet.

:thumbsup:

How exactly is a "mean harm score" determined? Haha.

 

[BD2003]

Anabolic steroids below tobacco? Yeah, ok....

 

[Eli]

I think Hell just froze over.

Six posts in a row, and we all agree. :shocked:

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Eli
I think Hell just froze over.

Six posts in a row, and we all agree. :shocked:

I just saw a pig in the sky too

 

[thecrecarc]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=65988
It shows the same scale and order of drugs the graph used

Here is another link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6474053.stm#drugs

 

[Green84061]

Yeah, E is a lot worse for you than weed anyday of the week.

 

[Alone]

That's probably the worst, most biased (or horribly made) graph I've ever seen.

 

[blackllotus]

Originally posted by: destrekor
LSD should be among the lowest, period. I want to know the reports involved in the making of this graph. LSD has been shown to have no harm on any part of the body, thanks in part to the sheer minuscule amount that the dose is.

Thats not entirely true. LSD users can sometimes have flashback hallucinations even if they haven't taken the drug recently.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: thecrecarc
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=65988
It shows the same scale and order of drugs the graph used

Here is another link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6474053.stm#drugs

Thanks.

They use three main factors to determine the potential harm that a substance causes:

(1) Physical harm to the user,
(2) Tendency to induce dependence in the user, and
(3) The effect of its use on families, communities and society in general.

:laugh:

Purely subjective.

I think the graph is generally on the right track, but those criteria are just too subjective. You could mix the data up a little and everything from the middle downward could be jumbled up, and it wouldn't change much.

 

[clamum]

BTW I am wondering what "Street methadone" is. I know what methadone is... though I've never heard of "street" methadone.

 

[RollWave]

one weekend of using X will change your brain forever....literally...itll look different and stay that way for a long time. There was a monkey study that simulated this.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: clamum
BTW I am wondering what "Street methadone" is. I know what methadone is... though I've never heard of "street" methadone.

I'm guessing it is methadone that is made in a kitchen lab, rather than at a pharmaceutical companies lab.

 

[potato28]

You can get a similar effect of ODing on pot, but it doesn't do anything to your body(other than kill a few brain cells.) X can kill you in a few doses if your not careful, and you can OD very easily. I must say this thread seems... different... :Q

 

[eakers]

I think anyone who has suffered "sketching out" after doing e can tell you that it is much more dangerous than pot.

 

[AAjax]

I call BS. I have seen that stuff drop hippies that could take enough LSD to trip an entire small baltic nation. The point being as with all these non-naturaly occuring drugs is your taking it and hopeing it is of good quality (not to mention just hopeing that its what you were told it was)

I remember having to carry a 6foot three inch hippie out of the Long Beach Dead shows who was tripping on X,
not a very fun time for either of us.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Legendary
A bad hit of ecstasy can kill you. Rare, but it still happens.

Please define 'bad hit' as I can find no data to back your claim. As to the others in the thread, this study was widely discussed a few months ago. You should be able to find more than enough information on the science behind it, but to get you started:

BBC News
Guardian Unlimited

Personally, I find this one of the most realistic views on drugs I've seen to date. I do hope this helps eventually drive drug policy.

Some outtakes:

"The scientists, including members of the government's top advisory committee on drug classification, have produced a rigorous assessment of the social and individual harm caused by 20 substances, and believe this should form the basis of any future ranking."

"They asked a group of 29 consultant psychiatrists who specialise in addiction to rate the drugs in nine categories. Three of these related to physical harm, three to the likelihood of addiction and three to social harms such as healthcare costs. The team also extended the analysis to another group of 16 experts spanning several fields including chemistry, pharmacology, psychiatry, forensics, police and legal services.

The final rankings placed heroin and cocaine as the most dangerous of the 20 drugs. Alcohol was fifth, the class C drug ketamine sixth and tobacco was in ninth place, just behind amphetamine or "speed".

Cannabis was 11th, while LSD and ecstasy were 14th and 18th respectively. The rankings do take into account new evidence that specially cultivated "skunk" varieties of cannabis available now are two to three times stronger than traditional cannabis resin.

The position of ecstasy near the bottom of the list was defended by Prof Nutt, who said that apart from some tragic isolated cases ecstasy is relatively safe. Despite about a third of young people having tried the drug and around half a million users every weekend, it causes fewer than 10 deaths a year. One person a day is killed by acute alcohol poisoning and thousands more from chronic use.

(btw MDMA deaths are almost always underhydration or overdydration, not a result of the drug itself)

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: AAjax
I call BS. I have seen that stuff drop hippies that could take enough LSD to trip an entire small baltic nation.

:laugh::laugh:

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: RollWave
one weekend of using X will change your brain forever....literally...itll look different and stay that way for a long time. There was a monkey study that simulated this.

Your thinking LSD not X (there sure is a lot of misinformed people on this subject..)

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: potato28
You can get a similar effect of ODing on pot, but it doesn't do anything to your body(other than kill a few brain cells.) X can kill you in a few doses if your not careful, and you can OD very easily. I must say this thread seems... different... :Q

:roll: Its almost impossible to OD on X. Now, X is often spiked with other drugs (caffeene, meth, etc) which it IS possible to OD on, but its important to not confuse those two points.