Millie Elder in court on P supply charges

[Forest]

Funny thing is she is not Paul Holmes' daughter,just stolen his name cause mumsie married him.

For those who saw the episode on 20/20 or Sunday a few months ago on Leanne Isherwood,she was a jockey who amassed a few $,she won a few of NZ big races during her time in the saddle.She tried P was hooked,made a few "friends" who used her for the money she had to get their high.Pretty hard to be a jockey if ya can't enter a racecourse.She was/is trying to cure herself and get her life back.Her estimate is it cost her in excess of $100,000,she would not be your steriotype person either,white mid 30's,successful.

Leanne Isherwood isn't a great example.

She deliberately started taking P so that she could contest a greater number of races than other jockeys. There was a good write up in North & South magazine about it.

[The Stranger:Me]

And alcohol is one of the more socially destructive drugs.

Is there a scientific or sociological basis to this statement or is based on statistics?

[Forest]

Is there a scientific or sociological basis to this statement or is based on statistics?

It is based on Science. Take a look at the attached graph.

A new paper published in The Lancet has looked at this issue and has put together a more rational scale to assess the relative levels of harm from drugs, both legal and illegal. The work was carried out by a cross-disciplinary group of rather eminent scientists, including Prof. Colin Blakemore, the head of the Medical Research Council (equivalent to the NIH). The study involved surveying two groups; a national group of leading psychiatrists, and a more general group made up of experts from a range of disciplines including forensics, pharmacology, the police and legal services, chemistry, and epidemiology.

The surveys were designed to rate drugs for harm for three different categories, on a scale of 0-3, with 3 being most harmful. Then an overall mean was taken. The categories were physical harm, dependence, and social harm. The first group of psychiatrists assessed the following drugs; heroin, cocaine, alcohol, barbiturates, amphetamine, methadone, benzodiazepines, solvents, buprenorphine, tobacco, ecstasy, cannabis, LSD, and steroids. You'll note both tobacco and alcohol on that list. In the words of the authors' "Tobacco and alcohol were included because their extensive use has provided reliable data on their risks and harms, providing familiar benchmarks against which the absolute harms of other drugs can be judged. However, direct comparison of the scores for tobacco and alcohol with those of the other drugs is not possible since the fact that they are legal could affect their harms in various ways, especially through easier availability."

The second group looked at the same drugs, and also khat, 4-methylthio- amphetamine (4-MTA), gamma 4-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), ketamine, methyl phenidate, and alkyl nitrites, some of which are not illegal in the UK but are still misused. As you can see from the graph, in the opinion of these experts, some of the drug classifications are spot on, such as cocaine and heroin, but others are a surprise. Alchohol ranks number 5, despite being perfectly legal, whereas ecstasy, currently a class A drug, is one of the least harmful.

The paper highlights the failings of the current Misuse of Drugs Act, and although they do not suggest that alcohol or tobacco ought to be criminalized, from a scientific perspective they "saw no clear distinction between socially acceptable and illicit substances. The fact that the two most widely used legal drugs lie in the upper half of the ranking of harm is surely important information that should be taken into account in public debate on illegal drug use."

[The Stranger:Me]

It is based on Science. Take a look at the attached graph.

Yeah, it was this issue

- However, direct comparison of the scores for tobacco and alcohol with those of the other drugs is not possible since the fact that they are legal could affect their harms in various ways, especially through easier availability. -

that concerned me in the earlier statement and your quote does not in my view adequately address the situation.

Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing for or against legalising one drug or another, fuck that shit, everyone's an expert (except me), I simply wonder at the accuracy of the science in this instance.

[Hinny]

Physiological dependency. Addiction forms fast and hard and users lose their ability to choose whether they take it or not - they need it.

And I don't think that substances like that should be used without medical supervision.

Ever been in a room full of junkies freebasing morphine and chewing their fingernails with impatience to IV it? It's mildly disturbing.

And bear in mind that even alcohol, which is quite poisonous, doesn't have the fine line between fun and fatality that heroin does. There is not an order of magnitude difference between a recreational and a lethal dose.

The Australian documentary 'The Devil you know' interviewed several heroin users who all said they could give up Heroin any time but not their cigarettes.

Britain's foray into legalisation had addicts register and collect their stuff (18p a dose) from chemists the same way that addicts here collect their substitute drug, methadone, which is apparently a lot more harmful and addictive drug.

Only morphine use I've ever seen was personal. Given to me as pain relief. Worked fantastically. Nothing else I was given worked anywhere near as well.

Your last line I believe is a popular misconception.
Their is plenty of research which shows that taking of even ten times a normal dose of Heroin is not going to kill you.
Try drinking ten bottles of wine at a sitting and see how you fare.
Bear in mind that the effects of overuse of either of these can be be readily reversed only in the case of heroin. Naloxone (widely marketed under the name Narcan ) can revive overusers even as they spiral toward death.
The problem with illegal heroin use is that most users have no way of knowing what strength their dose is nor what substances it has been cut with. Added to that is the risk of HIV and hepatitis from tainted needles.
In Britain none of the registered users died from its use, the number of users decreased and the crime figures showed a drop in illegal activities undertaken by people trying to finance drug habits.
One of these ways is by selling drugs, creating more users and so begins the spiral.
The other is pinching stuff and selling it. Who bears the pain of that?
Answer: us, Joe public, that's who.
18 pence a day versus the thousands of pounds a week that illegal drugs cost. Pretty hard to finance that sort of a habit and have any sort of normal or socially acceptable lifestyle.
With illegal drugs there is no way of knowing what sort of strength drug you are getting. Could be like the difference between being given a handle of beer or a handle of 'the green faerie' In one case you are OK in the other you are dead.
Apparently a person could take pure heroin for forty years and show no deleterious physiological effects.
It is certainly easy to see the effect of forty years of use of tobacco in the organs of a deceased person. It attacks everyone of them. And with nicotine 'Addiction forms fast and hard and users lose their ability to choose whether they take it or not - they need it.'

[Bikernereid]

Sadly, because people who are pretty, rich and white often get away with more than people who are not white, ugly as fuck, and dont have the money for top lawyers.

You are right and they have dome numerous forensic studies proving it!!

[The Stranger:Me]

Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing for or against legalising one drug or another, fuck that shit, everyone's an expert (except me)

Fuck what was I thinking?
This is KB, of course I am an expert - I had an apsrin once, it fixed my head ache so drugs are good.
Legalise the lot.

[jrandom]

Is there a scientific or sociological basis to this statement or is based on statistics?

Bit of all of it, really. Ta to Forest for doing the googling for me. I agree that the fact that alcohol is legal has to be skewing the results one way or another.

Only morphine use I've ever seen was personal. Given to me as pain relief. Worked fantastically. Nothing else I was given worked anywhere near as well.

I had an identical experience last year when I smashed my hand up in a highside. Nothing I was prescribed did jack shit, but 80mg/day oral morphine sulphate (which I got through 'other channels') was fucking marvellous.

Never tried opiates for fun, though.

Your last line I believe is a popular misconception.
Their is plenty of research which shows that taking of even ten times a normal dose of Heroin is not going to kill you.

Is the issue not also complicated by the fact that new opiate users have an order of magnitude greater sensitivity to the drug than regular users do?

The internet speaks tales of 500mg IV heroin doses at the extreme end of junkie-dom. I'm pretty sure that'd have a decent chance of killing you or me.

Still, I'd rather see people taking heroin than methamphetamine.

[marioc]

Hell no heroin is many times more addictive than meth and far more dangerous imo,it is not possible to be a "casual" heroin user
I lived in Cabramatta for a while,a real eye opener.

[Headbanger]

God damn some people are naive as hell, all the studies in the world aint going to tell ya shit. And what moron would believe the dribble that junkies talk?

[Quasievil]

I say let her off , but only if she shows us her tits

[KiwiRat]

I say let her off , but only if she shows us her tits

At last, a sensible post.

I think you all need to get a drug habit, a really good one. Then try recovering from it, and rebuilding your life. That pretty much means starting from scratch again socially, ditching your your old friends, as they are probably all users. See how much fun it really is. That means trying to rebuild relationships with your loved ones. That's on top of the mind games you will be playing with your self every time a situation arises where you are all stressed about something, and sub-consciously start thinking "toot" of this, or a "blast" of that will "make everything OK".

Until then you guys don't really know what you are talking about. You are all stone throwers living in glass houses.

I address this to both the "drugs are OK" gang, and the lynch mob members who want to lock up, execute or banish any weakling with a substance abuse issue.

If you haven't walked the walk, then you are really only quoting shit second hand from studies or even worse, the media.

How would you feel about the situation that Millie and countless others find themselves in, if that was you daughter or son?

Be honest now. I would like to hear how you would take the news.

I'm not trying to make excuses for anybody, don't get me wrong. The simple fact of the matter is that drugs are in our communities, and they are here to stay. There's no arguing that point is there now.

The question is, who do you want to be responsible for managing the distribution of those drugs?

[Patrick]

Uh, no, he died from injuries sustained in a car crash.

Of course, driving a car while under the influence of any psychoactive substance is a dreadful idea.

However, no, cannabis isn't toxic (particularly if taken via non-smoking means). There are no recorded instances of death through overdose.

As I said, depends on how you look at it.....

No overdoses maybe, but the same can be said about cigarettes....

[Headbanger]

I address this to both the "drugs are OK" gang, and the lynch mob members who want to lock up, execute or banish any weakling with a substance abuse issue.

I'm in neither camp, I don't care who does what until it impacts on others

The question is, who do you want to be responsible for managing the distribution of those drugs?

No, The question is how do people want the drug menace handled, the current model is condemning it and policing the problem (no shit it won't ever be solved, People love drugs) and others have advocated Government sponsored drugs for junkies, I'm sure there must be more ideas then just those two.

Bizarre to think people would advocate the Government turns a profit by selling hard drugs to the populace, great way to encourage and normalise hard drug use,But hey, If the world goes mad then sign me and a few hundred thousand others up for some of that crazy shit, can't beat high quality cheap drugs.

[scumdog]

Is there a scientific or sociological basis to this statement or is based on statistics?

You had to ASK that????