"Legal Highs"

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biggeordiedave
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"Legal Highs"

Post by biggeordiedave » Wed Aug 13, 2014 9:23 pm

Should they stay legal, or should they become controlled substances? Perhaps some should and not others?

Discuss.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Ramone » Wed Aug 13, 2014 10:21 pm

I think the majority of legal highs are only legal because the effects have not been fully researched. I've done salvia once before and it was f***ing terrifying, I would not recommend it to anyone.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Seagull » Wed Aug 13, 2014 10:27 pm

Ramone wrote:I think the majority of legal highs are only legal because the effects have not been fully researched. I've done salvia once before and it was f****** terrifying, I would not recommend it to anyone.
I've only heard terrifying stories about salvia. A friend of a friend went completely blind for about 10 minutes as soon as he took it.

In regards to the OP, I think it's very much a case by case basis and turns to a wider debate on what parameters should be set for a drug being legal or illegal. Don't really have much of a knowledge on current legal highs, only a bit about previous legal drugs such as khat or mephedrone.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Duke » Wed Aug 13, 2014 10:54 pm

It depends entirely on what it is. Mood enhancers like DMAA which was in some preworkout supplements and stuff wgot banned a while ago and seemed fine to me really, and phenibut which is still legal. Tried salvia and it did f*** all.

Things like meth or anything as strong are an absolute no brainer.
I dunno

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by ALF » Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:39 pm

Definitely depends what it is, although I barely know anything about most of them.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by overseasTOON » Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:15 am

I was once told that if you smoked the contents of an asthma inhaler disc you'd be off your t*** so all the guys in my dorm went off down to the school medical centre to become registered asthmatics and only one was successful enough. No matter how hard I wheezed and pretended to be unable to exhale the matron knew I was lying during the test and told me to **** off.

So with one dorm buddy having been diagnosed as asthmatic and coming up to the summer holidays, the medical centre supplied him with almost two months’ worth of inhaler discs and we duly took the cardboard box full of the drugs across the far side of the school field to get 'titless'.

At first we were apprehensive due to having no knowledge of quantities to add to the rolled cigarette so we began with just one small portion of the disc and passed it around.

Nothing.

We went bigger and bigger until it came to one entire disc in a cigarette and we smoked it and waited.

Nothing still.

Two entire discs

Bugger all.

Three entire discs.

Nada so we went large.

We snorted two discs each and then had two disc spliff each.

We eventually managed to smoke or snort all his asthma medication in one afternoon and had no affect so we decided to chill out and relax a bit anyway with a few beers from the local shop. We returned to our normal place, cracked open a can each and lit a cigarette just as someone announced loudly “Aha! I’ve got you now…” and then came crashing down from a tree, landing face first with a large impact.

We scarpered ASAP and one of the guys was still convinced that the sight of someone face planting themselves out of a tree was all part of his imagination brought about by our asthma medication binge and beer.

It wasn’t.

It was my Maths teacher trying to bust me for something to get me expelled and he was too embarrassed to tell the head that he’d sustained fractured ribs and serious whiplash from his attempt.

So. Legal highs. Most of them are utter dross so let them stay legal.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Bodacious Benny » Sat Aug 23, 2014 11:33 pm

I've never had a drag on a cigarette or taken any form of drug other than alcohol. People must lead pretty boring lives if they need drugs (legal or otherwise) to have a good time IMO. Never seen the fascination. Mates at school tried things, but with peer pressure all you need to do is say no, it's not difficult.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Sir Bobby » Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:52 am

Bodacious Benny wrote:I've never had a drag on a cigarette or taken any form of drug other than alcohol. People must lead pretty boring lives if they need drugs (legal or otherwise) to have a good time IMO. Never seen the fascination. Mates at school tried things, but with peer pressure all you need to do is say no, it's not difficult.
As a weed-smoking, cocaine-snorting, DMT-smoking, heroin-injecting, but a complete teetotal, person I find you boring for drinking.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Don Sholeone » Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:04 am

Legal highs are stupid, I could go out buy chemicals, bleach, sugar, some parmesan cheese, some ant powder, plant food, or whatever, blend them all up put them in a capsule and give them out as a legal high. I think the term is equally dangerous as some of the highs themselves, it sends out the impression they are safe when they really aren't, taking a legal high is the equivalent to picking up that open can of lager left on a step and thinking its perfectly good to drink just because it has a label on the front saying its a drink, but any old tramp could have pissed gozzed s*** in it or spiked it.

Like Ramone said, most are only legal because they haven't been extensively researched. So you are basically playing Russian roulette, in some messed up way its probably "safer" to take a banned hard drug, because you at least have some knowledge on it before you start pumping it into your system.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Shadowthrone » Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:00 am

Bodacious Benny wrote:I've never had a drag on a cigarette or taken any form of drug other than alcohol. People must lead pretty boring lives if they need drugs (legal or otherwise) to have a good time IMO. Never seen the fascination. Mates at school tried things, but with peer pressure all you need to do is say no, it's not difficult.
I consumed psychedelic drugs mainly out of interest and curiosity and trying to learn more about many things like art psychology, god, death, the universe etc., but never out of boredom, through peer pressure or just to get "smashed."

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by biggeordiedave » Wed Aug 27, 2014 7:44 am

Cabella The Redeemer wrote:Legal highs are stupid, I could go out buy chemicals, bleach, sugar, some parmesan cheese, some ant powder, plant food, or whatever, blend them all up put them in a capsule and give them out as a legal high. I think the term is equally dangerous as some of the highs themselves, it sends out the impression they are safe when they really aren't, taking a legal high is the equivalent to picking up that open can of lager left on a step and thinking its perfectly good to drink just because it has a label on the front saying its a drink, but any old tramp could have pissed gozzed s*** in it or spiked it.

Like Ramone said, most are only legal because they haven't been extensively researched. So you are basically playing Russian roulette, in some messed up way its probably "safer" to take a banned hard drug, because you at least have some knowledge on it before you start pumping it into your system.
That's the worst part for me - legal = safe <erk>.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Sir Bobby » Fri Aug 29, 2014 11:53 am

Shadowthrone wrote:
Bodacious Benny wrote:I've never had a drag on a cigarette or taken any form of drug other than alcohol. People must lead pretty boring lives if they need drugs (legal or otherwise) to have a good time IMO. Never seen the fascination. Mates at school tried things, but with peer pressure all you need to do is say no, it's not difficult.
I consumed psychedelic drugs mainly out of interest and curiosity and trying to learn more about many things like art psychology, god, death, the universe etc., but never out of boredom, through peer pressure or just to get "smashed."
I'd say without a doubt the drug that has the greatest peer pressure is alcohol. I was never pressured to have cigarettes, weed, or any other drug by anyone (I was offered but never pressured as if I would be letting people down by saying no) but you get pressured into having alcohol by loads of people, even family members.

This is despite the fact that many studies suggest alcohol also has a higher addictiveness than speed, cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy and LSD.

I think to get a true understanding of why alcohol is legal, and many other damaging drugs aren't, you have to look at the history of the drugs (i.e. alcohol has more or less always been around and so it's more difficult to take away (evidenced by prohibition in America and it's backlash), compared with say LSD which in the 1950s was easy to ban cos it hadn't been around long and only really got banned cos in trials it made soldiers "disobedient" and unruly in a time when the American government was fearful of a generation of unruly hippies).

As a comparison between the two, take this list of risks of LSD from drugfreeworld.org (I'll highlight, in bold, the parts that could apply to alcohol):
The effects of LSD are unpredictable. They depend on the amount taken, the person’s mood and personality, and the surroundings in which the drug is used. It is a roll of the dice—a racing, distorted high or a severe, paranoid1 low.

Normally, the first effects of LSD are experienced thirty to ninety minutes after taking the drug. Often, the pupils become dilated. The body temperature can become higher or lower, while the blood pressure and heart rate either increase or decrease. Sweating or chills are not uncommon.

LSD users often experience loss(gain) of appetite, sleeplessness(sleepiness), dry mouth and tremors. Visual changes are among the more common effects—the user can become fixated on the intensity of certain colors.


Extreme changes in mood, anywhere from a spaced-out “bliss” to intense terror, are also experienced. The worst part is that the LSD user is unable to tell which sensations are created by the drug and which are part of reality.
Some LSD users experience an intense bliss they mistake for “enlightenment.”

Not only do they disassociate from their usual activities in life, but they also feel the urge to keep taking more of the drug in order to re-experience the same sensation. Others experience severe, terrifying thoughts and feelings, fear of losing control, fear of insanity and death, and despair while using LSD. Once it starts, there is often no stopping a “bad trip,” which can go on for up to twelve hours. In fact, some people never recover from an acid-induced psychosis.

Taken in a large enough dose, LSD produces delusions and visual hallucinations. The user’s sense of time and self changes. Sizes and shapes of objects become distorted, as do movements, colors and sounds. Even one’s sense of touch and the normal bodily sensations turn into something strange and bizarre. Sensations may seem to “cross over,” giving the user the feeling of hearing colors and seeing sounds. These changes can be frightening and can cause panic.

The ability to make sensible judgments and see common dangers is impaired. An LSD user might try to step out a window to get a “closer look” at the ground. He might consider it fun to admire the sunset, blissfully unaware that he is standing in the middle of a busy intersection.

Many LSD users experience flashbacks, or a recurrence of the LSD trip, often without warning, long after taking LSD.

Bad trips and flashbacks are only part of the risks of LSD use. LSD users may manifest relatively long-lasting psychoses or severe depression.

Because LSD accumulates in the body, users develop a tolerance for the drug. In other words, some repeat users have to take it in increasingly higher doses to achieve a “high.” This increases the physical effects and also the risk of a bad trip that could cause psychosis.
In short my point is, alcohol is just as bad, if not worse than many illegal drugs. If you are in a good state of mind and know what a moderate amount is then alcohol and other drugs can enhance a situation. If you are in a bad state of mind and take an excessive amount then they can lead to devastating problems. To be so against illegal drugs as a whole but so in favour of alcohol is naive, imo.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by skalpel » Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:21 am

Sir Bobby wrote:I'd say without a doubt the drug that has the greatest peer pressure is alcohol. I was never pressured to have cigarettes, weed, or any other drug by anyone (I was offered but never pressured as if I would be letting people down by saying no) but you get pressured into having alcohol by loads of people, even family members.
This is a great point within a great post which deserves more attention than it has had so far.

So many people seem to find it impossible to celebrate something without a drink of something with alcohol in it. This sounds like a pretty simple comment, but it is actually amazing how true it is. And the implications are such that one can be made to feel like a killjoy for preferring to celebrate with, for instance, water or tea. But it goes way further than pressure from the individual too. I reckon that because of the importance of pubs to the culture of Britain, it's pretty much built into the fabric of the country.

Obviously pubs are a great British tradition; a good pub has a warming communal atmosphere into which one is free to mingle or to socialise with friends or even simply be left in peace by staff and patrons both, where one can sit for hours without being made to feel as though one is taking up space (not as small or common a virtue as it may sound). Good pubs are to British neighbourhoods what churches once were to British towns; in short, they fulfil their title of Public House absolutely. But they're so based around the consumption of alcohol that the phrase 'going to the pub' immediately implies that you're going to drink alcohol and possibly get sloshed to some degree. And their greatest asset, their informal social atmosphere, means that asking for a cup of tea in the average pub after seven at night will usually raise brows on both sides of the bar. And because we grow up so used to seeing almost every adult we know having a drink in a pub, the association continues: we turn eighteen (well, younger but you know..), enter the pub and get a pint from the hopefully great selection of taps. Incidentally, this sort of conditioning also means that many people even shake their heads in disgust at drug users over a pint, wondering why the silly bastards need to supplement their lives with varying doses of intoxication, wondering why they don't just say no.

People talk about importing European "cafe culture" to Britain in order to cool this pressure, but that's a stupid idea for many reasons. It would be better if the Pub = Alcohol association was softened to the point at which it was just as normal to order a good tea or coffee as it is to get a good beer. Britain is asking for it already; look at the insane volume of big chain coffee places like Caffe Nero or Costa, they're not at all like the waitered European cafe, they're basically alcoholless pubs, lumbered with the unfortunate social barriers that come with being merely a cafe.

Well, this digression on the pub ended up so long and so far off topic that I probably shouldn't click submit. But I've typed it all now, so f*** it.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by PTAO? » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:13 am

The day I see people enjoying a line or two of MCAT with their evening meal, or use liquid gold as a cooking ingredient, I'll agree with you.

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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by LaFraise92 » Wed Sep 03, 2014 11:10 pm

Pull the Arfa One wrote:The day I see people enjoying a line or two of MCAT with their evening meal, or use liquid gold as a cooking ingredient, I'll agree with you.
You don't? <scratch>
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by biggeordiedave » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:29 pm

I know I'm a total hypocrite for dismissing drugs but drinking (far too much) alcohol, but I think it depends on what you drink and how you drink it. I like to think I drink for the taste. I don't neck drinks I don't enjoy or because they're 5 for a £5 purely to get as drunk as possible. To me, a good night out involves having a few drinks I enjoy and remembering it all. That's not to say I have a few too many sometimes and act a complete cronut, but I wake up from those nights absolutely guilt-ridden and ashamed of myself.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Bodacious Benny » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:54 am

I drink for enjoyment too rather than to get drunk as quickly/cheaply as possible. I've got no interested in waking up the next morning with no memory of the night before. Been there done that. A few quality drinks with friends in a decent pub is ideal.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by biggeordiedave » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:49 pm

Bodacious Benny wrote:I drink for enjoyment too rather than to get drunk as quickly/cheaply as possible. I've got no interested in waking up the next morning with no memory of the night before. Been there done that. A few quality drinks with friends in a decent pub is ideal.
This. Like I've said, it's not to say I don't go over the top now and again, but I get no pleasure from drinking anything with the word "bomb" in its name.
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by Seagull » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:55 pm

Bombardier?
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Re: "Legal Highs"

Post by ALF » Wed Sep 24, 2014 12:56 pm

I drink for enjoyment, but I do enjoy getting absolutely biltzkreiged to the point I remember very little.

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