Morphine causes hallucinations; unpleasant ones. Does that sound like a nifty way to die? Obviously that’s why they’ve outlawed medicinal marijuana. Because you never know when a paraplegic might strike, or someone ridden with Cancer, on their death bed could jump out at any given moment and bitchslap you.
Yes clearly these fearsome creatures are a threat to our society. But ya know, gosh if you don’t agree than why not run over to http://www.wamm.org/index.htm Because Santa Cruz isn’t goin down without a fight.
Morphine is a hallucinogen and thisclose to being Opium or Heroin.
It's also crushed on the streets and snuffed up folk’s nose. Also after a prolonged period Morphine it shuts down your internal organs one by one.
Tell me again why Marijuana is so bad? And yet doctors prescribe
Oxycontin for a lil headache?
I'm sorry but I think it ought to be left alone. What real harm is this doing? Oh no! Our tax dollars! Well while we're at it I say we start heavily taxing the Catholics because they clearly don't know when to stop; that goes for the Mormons also.
People who spit out bubble gum on the middle of the street are cost nearly a billion in cleanup. Why not kill all those people?
And don't forget the fat people and those darn smokers; God I hate them so much. Screw fining them; let's just add the death penalty; that'd be a lot quicker.
The mentally challenged; complete waste less use of our time. Hitler killed them off, perhaps we should consider.
Canada has a very relaxed law about Cannabis; the government themselves admitted that the heroin problem was much more of a concern.
Morphine causes hallucinations; unpleasant ones. Does that sound like a nifty way to die?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - E.P. Herrington
All psychoactive schedule one classified substances are made illegal, not because of their imminent health risks, but rather their a-motivational capabilities. Our government does not endorse or allow its citizens to use these substances because of their mind-altering capabilities. Alcohol and Tobacco are the two most deadly substances consumed by humankind. This year more people will die of these two substances than ever schedule one substance combined. So why are they legal? They are legal because they elicit antidemocratic activity from their users. Cannabis, Acid, Opium derivatives and other, non-classified, substances cause users to open their minds to many antidemocratic ideals such as socialism and communism. Ever since Acid was made illegal following the perceived anti-democratic actions of hippies like Ken Kesey and Richard Albers, drug legislation has attempted to retain control over the mind states of the citizens of this nation and keep these ideas at bay. Anti-democratic activity includes mass cultural movements, i.e. the LCD buses of Ken Kesey and the radical teachings Richard Albers espoused during his time as a Harvard professor. Other such activities include revolutionary ideals, i.e. Kent State and furthermore the risk of mass cultural movements such as those which took place during the 1960’s.
When using drugs, either in a recreational or exploratory manner, we are exposed to non-realities (Both dis-topian and utopian realities). We are able to step out of ourselves and gain invaluable perspective on our world. This idea represents the exploratory side of drug usage, which can lead to spiritual, intellectual and socio-political enlightenment. On the other hand drugs can have solidly negative anti-social effects. Considering the experiences of my colleagues at Grinnell College, many of who have, without knowing so entered into the realm of drug abuse. When drugs are utilized recreationally they cause people to “wanna just stay in [their] room[s] and listen to music. ” When people are not social nor motivated the government perceives them as burdensome to the democracy.
What must take place henceforth is a congressional re-examination of drug policies. We must allow drug usage, in regulation, to open the minds of citizens and politicians to new perspectives. We need not look at only the negative sides of any substance for “nothing is neither good nor evil in and of itself it’s only its use which makes it so.” In an information age in which we are constantly bombarded with advertising, news media, and entertainment media in all forms; the value of being able to remove ourselves from this cocoon of information will prove to be worthwhile.
2 - E.P. H.
CORRECTION TO MY PREVIOUS POSTING PLEASE IGNORE EARLIER ONE.
All psychoactive schedule one classified substances are made illegal, not because of their imminent health risks, but rather their a-motivational capabilities. Our government does not endorse or allow its citizens to use these substances because of their mind-altering capabilities. Alcohol and Tobacco are the two most deadly substances consumed by humankind. This year more people will die of these two substances than every schedule one substance combined. So why are they legal? These substances are legal because they are habitually associated with are culture and can be easily regulated. Cannabis, Acid, Opium derivatives and other, non-classified, substances cause users to open their minds to many antidemocratic ideals such as socialism and communism. Ever since Acid was made illegal following the perceived anti-democratic actions of hippies like Ken Kesey and Richard Albers, drug legislation has attempted to retain control over the mind states of the citizens of this nation and keep these ideas at bay. Anti-democratic activity includes mass cultural movements, i.e. the LCD buses of Ken Kesey and the radical teachings Richard Albers espoused during his time as a Harvard professor. Other such activities include revolutionary ideals, i.e. Kent State and furthermore the risk of mass cultural movements such as those which took place during the 1960’s.
When using drugs, either in a recreational or exploratory manner, we are exposed to non-realities (Both dis-topian and utopian realities). We are able to step out of ourselves and gain invaluable perspective on our world. This idea represents the exploratory side of drug usage, which can lead to spiritual, intellectual and socio-political enlightenment. On the other hand drugs can have solidly negative anti-social effects. Considering the experiences of my colleagues at Grinnell College, many of who have, without knowing so entered into the realm of drug abuse. When drugs are utilized recreationally they cause people to “wanna just stay in [their] room[s] and listen to music. ” When people are not social nor motivated the government perceives them as burdensome to the democracy.
What must take place henceforth is a congressional re-examination of drug policies. We must allow drug usage, in regulation, to open the minds of citizens and politicians to new perspectives. We need not look at only the negative sides of any substance for “nothing is neither good nor evil in and of itself it’s only its use which makes it so.” In an information age in which we are constantly bombarded with advertising, news media, and entertainment media in all forms; the value of being able to remove ourselves from this cocoon of information will prove to be worthwhile.
3 - Bennett
Brooke, Where do you get the idea that morphine causes hallucinations? I provided hospice care to a buddy, he was taking 330 mg twice a day. Never reported any hallucinations. My Mother had pancreatic cancer and eventually went on morphine, no reports of hallucinations. Both had ativan and other valium type drugs to deal with panic attacks which morphine can cause, especially when upping a dose to deal with increased pain. Please pose a link that describes these hallucinatory effect.
Thanks!
4 - Tristan
I don't think it takes drugs to open your mind to these possibilities. People are perfectly capable of thinking and functioning without the use of drugs.
I may or may not have tried some of the drugs you have listed ;) As has been related to me, acid makes you feel essentially drunk and awake. Pot just makes you as mellow as you've ever felt. Both of these are pretty nice feelings, but hardly mind-opening. Do I believe marijuana should be legalized? Yes. Of course. It is as has been stated, less dangerous than alcohol. Nobody has ever died of an overdose of marijuana that I have heard of. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places.
However, as far as opening the mind, that's just bull. You cannot make your mind see more clearly by altering it. All it took for me to take a look at these other systems in a non-judgmental way was a healthy dose of reality. The current events in the world are my mind-opening drug.
5 - Sunny
I am a substance abuse counselor. I have seen many people do great damage to their lives as a result of using this "harmless" drug.
6 - Dave Nalle
Sunny, how would you compare the impact of Marijuana with that of alcohol? How many people have you seen toke themselves to death?
Dave
7 - adam
Of course marijuana should be legal. It causes less harm than alcohol. I'd rather hang out with a stoned person than a drunk.
8 - Taloran
Re: Comment 4 by Tristan:
"acid makes you feel essentially drunk and awake... (a) pretty nice feeling, but hardly mind-opening."
Whoever told you that didn't know what he/she was talking about. I "experimented" with acid a few times 25-odd years ago. Acid makes the user see dragons coming out of the wall sockets, the floor breathe, and musical notes and bell curves traverse the sky. Clouds become solid, graspable objects with which one can hold an enlightening conversation. When one takes acid, one trips hard - thoughts flow through the tripper that are completely unlike "usual" thoughts. Creativity (musical and artistic) is enhanced a hundredfold. Acid is completely unlike other drugs. A good acid trip is one of the most mind-opening things one can experience.
However, a bad acid trip is the worst thing imaginable - ten times as bad as a good trip is good. Intense paranoia, self-loathing, and fear of the very real hallucinations one experiences barely begins to describe it.
9 - Bennett
I still want to know where it says that morphine causes hallucinations.
My personal experience with LSD was 27 years ago, and is somewhere between the two examples given thus far. No dragons, no grasping talking clouds, no bad trips (I know this can happen, just never happened to me), lots of laughs, thought capacity expansion (absoultely! sadly temporary), amazingly great jam sessions with the band!!!
Wouldn't do it now, too much on my plate and all, but at twenty it was a gas.
10 - Taloran
Bennett, when I consumed what some might consider "moderate" or "normal" amounts of acid I had experiences similar to what you describe above.
What I described above is what I experienced when my friends and I put 8-10 drops of liquid A in each eye, which even the most hard-core heroin and coke abusers I've ever met considered outrageously reckless. (They're right.)
11 - Margaret Romao Toigo
"How many people have you seen toke themselves to death?"
Lots of people have tried to toke themselves to death, but in over 5000 years of recorded history no one has ever succeeded in doing so.
I wonder if the people who still think that marijuana is more dangerous/damaging than alcohol believe that this lack of marijuana overdoses is due to a lack of effort.
12 - Brooke Lee
Wow! And I wrote this when I was drunk!
Bennett, when my Grandfather had Cancer he was given morphine. He talked about other people being in the room (people who are dead), kept going on about a baby, etc etc etc.
My Aunt was on morphine for primary pulminary hypertension, and she was always yelling at folks who weren't there. They had to take her off it because it shutdown her kidneys.
My therapist tells me a story of her Mom while in the hospital and on morphine; she was sure the flowers were bugged and the FBI was watching her through the sprinklers on the ceiling.
Also her husband was on it and wigging out.
I've just heard lots of stories, that's all.
13 - joe shmoe
One must read the emperor wears no clothes by jack herer and the sacred mushroom and the cross by john m. allegro before entering in drug related disputes such as these.
14 - RJ
LSD is very bad. I've heard of people having very bad trips that have led to a lifetime of panic attacks.
MAGIC MUSHROOMS, on the other hand, from anecdotal evidence, do not lead to bad trips. Or at least, they are less likely to. Because I do not know anyone who has had a bad trip from 'shrooms...
15 - Bennett
Taloran!!! When I was 20 some guys we knew had scored some liquid lsd, and one of them had heard about the 'ol "drops in the eye" thing. My buddies and I said "No Way!" but he insisted. So right after he put the drops in, we broke out a black light....
LSD flouresces under black light, freakin' amazing!!! You could see it being absorbed in the blood vessels of his eyeball!
He went to a concert "Day On The Green" in Oakland and reported that it was the most "visual" trip he ever had.
YOU are one brave dude. How's the eyesight?
:-]
16 - Bennett
Brooke,
Ahhhh... Delusions!
Old folks also have a hard time with valium type drugs as their systems do not flush it out fast enough and it leads to "dimensia". Very sad stuff to watch friends and family suffer the slow death of cancer. Changes one's perspective, eh?
17 - Dave Nalle
That's 'dementia', Bennett.
Dave
18 - gypsyman
I have had a chronic pain condition for the last three years and been taking 300mg.s of long term morphine plus 10 mg tabs for breakthrough. Not once in this time have I ever experienced what could be known as seeing or hearing things.
Conversly from the time I was thirteen until I was thirty three I was a substance abuser, primarily "harmless" marijuna and alcahol. I was hopelessly addicted and my life was almost gone when I stopped.
Sure the drug laws in North America are hypocritical, about all things. Morphine is not dangerous or addictive if it is being taken to treat pain. It does not cause damage to your internal organs, none of mine have ceased to function, including my bowls which people say are the first to go. In Canada even heroin is leagle for pain relief if you can get a doctor to perscribe it. Unfortunately no doctor has perscribed it enough for the companies to stock it, so there is none to be had.
Any thing that can aleviate the suffering that people undergo from pain should be use if it is effective.
19 - Bennett
That's 'dementia', Bennett.
Dave
Thanks Dave. It didn't look right, but I had to run out for a bit. Lazy bastard I was.
20 - Brooke Lee
Well if by old you mean folks startin around 40, then yes; you're right.
21 - joe
opium is NOT a hallucinogenic AT ALL. It is an opiate narcotic analgesic. It's quite ignorant to mistake opiates for hallucinogenics...
22 - Crazy Train
Comment 4 by Tristan....
You obvioiusly DON'T know what you're talking about. Nor have you or your "friends" ever taken any clinical strength LSD.
I just buried my brother, he was taking lots of morphine, dulaudid, vicodin before he lost the battle with Agent Orange related cancer (pancreas, stomach, liver, lung) he was still in a lot of pain, until memorial day (how approprate. I was at his beside every day, and saw the whole ordeal from a very real perspective.
Don't fool yourselves, killing yourself would have been much less painful. We put animals down when they are useless or wracked with pain... but we let humans suffer through the entire ordeal... even during "Last stage care"
it's stupid. My bro would have much rather died sooner than REALLY suffer so long.
23 - Jeremy
Cannabis (marijuana) should of course be legalized, and so should all other drugs both natural and man-made. The reason is very simple which I will cover in a moment. First I must correct the #1 and #2 comments made by
E.P. Herrington in which he stated "all schedule 1 psychoactive drugs are illegal because of their a-motivational capabilities". This isn't quite correct (and besides, cocaine, meth and "speed" do precisely the opposite, causing a flurry of activity in which a person feels that he HAS to be doing something and keeping moving). No, these drugs were made illegal for somewhat more complex reasons than that, but equally illegitimate. One driving force behind them being banned was racism; remember that opium was first banned early in the 1900s because of an irrational racist fear that Chinese immigrants were luring white women into opium dens and seducing them. In the 1930s the same hysteria was used to make marijuana illegal, claiming blacks and hispanics were getting high and then seeking out white women to rape, as well as wrongfully associating pot use with violent behavior in general like strongarm robberies, murders etc. when the real and hidden motive was because marijuana (actually more its cousin hemp) were a growing threat to the then-newly developing artificial fiber industry (principally pioneered by the awful DuPont) and also the paper industry, the rope industry etc. as hemp is a much better, more efficient and enviornmentally safer alternative to cutting down forests to make paper and making artificial fibers in a lab that won't biodegrade for hundreds of years. Also legal marijuana would impact sales of prescription painkillers as many would choose pot instead of some pill to ease chronic pain, a simple headache, back pain etc. So the hysteria was just a tool to brainwash the population into wanting marijuana outlawed (and hemp which has almost no THC in it whatsoever), and it worked. Countless movies (that would be nowadays laughed right out of the theater) horrified people about the "dangers" of marijuana, claiming that it turns men into rapists and murderers and turns women into prostitutes. The man more responsible than anyone for outlawing it, Harry Anslinger, who spoke in such drastic and false ways about pot's imagined "violent dangers" to society would just ten years later (1947 instead of '37) be saying that marijuana should stay illegal because it makes people mellow, non-violent, complacent, thus it would make it "easy for the Communists to take over". So this horse's ass was essentially saying the total polar opposite about marijuana than he said before Congress ten years before, and the only thing that stayed the same was that he still thought it should be illegal! A leading reason why it remains illegal and why most other drugs are as well is largely because of the extremely narrowminded "church mothers" and their ilk who think if someone does something they themselves don't do or don't approve of then it should be against the law, never realizing for an instant the tyranny that this way of "thinking" embodies, and I use the word 'thinking' loosely. Because in this country those type of people have such political clout, their political puppets seek to satisfy their demands with ever-increasing punishments for drug "offenses", so it's politically expedient and popular to "get tough on drugs". This became even more pronounced in the Reagan years. Along with the racism factor we've mentioned, the tiny-minded "church mother" factor and the economic competition factor regarding marijuana, also wrapped up in a lot of it is that frankly some parts of the government have made a a great deal of money in the drug trade, for erxample the C.I.A. during the Vietnam War flying tons and tons of heroin and opium out of Vietnam and Laos and selling it, the money being entirely off-the-books and thus could be funneled into C.I.A. programs etc. with no oversight whatsoever. The C.I.A. did precisely the same thing in the 1980s with importing vast amounts of cocaine from Colombia (a lot of it into Mena Airport in Arkansas) and selling it in the U.S., the money being funneled into funding the 'Contras', the fascist Nicaraguan exiles fighting against the elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua, especially after Congress voted to cut off taxpayer funding for the 'Contras'. Certainly it occurred in other instances I'm not privy to as well. In all of this the drugs involved had to be illegal or else they would not have been a lucrative business as anyone buying them would have instead bought from a liscenced dealer shop instead of a man on the street and the prices would also be far less, but with the drugs illegal the price is way up there. Add to all of that the fact that the U.S. government regardless of if it's a Repub. or a Dem. in the White House, is probably the world's most disinclined to admit when it makes mistakes, the more so the more grave and long-term the mistake is. It would be very painful and embarrassing for them to admit that they have been wrong all along about the drug matter, so they continue to cling to their ridiculous point of view no matter how many times reality shows it for what it is. They would rather constantly keep changing their "reasons" why it "needs" to be illegal as they keep getting discredited (like the 1970s crap about "Smoking marijuana makes teenage boys grow breasts"), the only thing remaining constant is their fanatical insistence that "drugs should be illegal", basically saying, "Don't confuse me with the facts, I already have my mind made up". This is because it's psychologically easier for them than to admit they were and are consistently wrong about the drug matter and that because of their wrongheadedness they have literally ruined millions of peoples' lives in a tyrannical, puritanical persecution, a modern-day witchhunt. The bottom line is that all drugs need to be made legal because they are an individual adult's decision as to what to injest and completely none of the government's business what an adult chooses to do in the privacy of his own home so long as he isn't violating anyone else's civil rights, such as it is with alcohol in that it is legal for someone of the drinking age to sit at home and drink a bottle of whiskey but if he or she decides to start driving drunk around town then he is violating others' civil liberties by endangering them unnecessarily with his drunken driving, so drunk driving is illegal. If someone gets drunk and holds up a bank at gunpoint they still charge him with bank robbery right? So if all drugs are legalized (and regulated for quality etc. like alcohol and tobacco, and sold in liscenced stores like liquor stores are for alcohol) and someone were to take LSD and drive their car into a storefront then they would be charged the same as if they were drunk and did that but if the same adult chose to sit in a safe place and trip on LSD then who in the hell's business is it if he does that?? The drugs are not going anywhere; the failed effort called the "War on Drugs" is as big a flop as Prohibition (of alcohol) was, actually it's far worse, but just as futile. Drugs are here to stay, you can't "un-invent" man-made ones and the natural ones God obviously put here for a reason anyway and they're definitely not going anywhere, and as they are 100% an adult's own personal decision it is as preposterous to try to legislate drug use out of existence as it is to try to tell people that certain sex positions are illegal and try to enforce it. Legalize all drugs, regulate them as alcohol and tobacco are, and have a minimum legal age like 18-- you can't honestly call someone a legal adult if he or she isn't free to make the adult decision whether or not to use a drug; the government trying to "make the decision for us" is condescending, paternalistic and basically says we as average adult human beings and tax-paying citizens are not capable of making such a decision. Furthermore, if our government is persecuting a segment of the population and treating them as second-class citizens, and it demeans us all regardless of drug use or non-use by inferring that all American citizens aren't fit to make such decisions about our own lives, no thinking person can honestly call America a free country.
24 - Chief2Kool
I agree that alochol and tobacco are the worse of all evils these days.I am no weed smoker, but; I never saw any hippie back in the 60's-70's rob anyone.
25 - Jennie
Never used Marijuana but had morphine twice (an hour apart) in the ER a month ago for pain related to an intestinal infection. It was given in my IV and worked immediately. I just laid there 99% pain-free and the other 1% I was like "I'm in pain but who cares!?" People who walked by grinned at me because I must've had a silly grin on, while I started blankly at them.
Oxycodone, on the other hand, did nothing for me for the pain, so they switched me to Vicodin after and that worked.