Shifting the Blame
Written by enadmin7 on July 23, 2013
I have a fun game to play!
It’s fun to play because if you’re the one doing the shifting… you are ALWAYS right! Not only right, but morally superior too!
And a God among humans!
…
Ok, probably not the last one.
Ecstasy death toll rises to 14 as women, 27 and 29, die after taking pills sparking police warning to users – The Daily Mail
“The incidents, which came on the same weekend as a teenager died in an Oxford park after allegedly taking the drug, brought the death toll by the drug to 14 this year, prompting police to warn of the dangers of taking drugs which may be stronger than expected or adulterated with poisonous substances.”
It seems that some either particularly stupid or nasty producers have decided that ParaMethoxyAmphetamine (PMA) is an acceptable substitute for MDMA when producing ecstasy pills.
What’s going on here?
MDMA is a relatively safe drug in comparison with other legal and illegal drugs. It has a few potential risks which can largely be mitigated by knowing your body (don’t take too much! Keep the fluids up if exerting yourself!), knowing your mind (mental health family history etc.) and knowing your substance. Read about MDMA at ISCD.
On the other hand, PMA carries with it far more risk. Erowid’s PMA vault says, “At dosages from 60-80 mg (lower than those used regularly for Ecstasy), it can cause a sudden, large, and potentially fatal rise in blood temperature, body temperature and blood pressure. One of the recently reported deaths came after a young woman ingested 3 pills, not uncommon with ecstasy, but potentially deadly with PMA.”
The reporting on this issue is, as usual, a little lacking though…
“The death of a 27-year-old woman from the Sale area over the weekend is the 12th to be linked to ecstasy in the region this year… It comes after three deaths in Macclesfield, two in Bolton, two in Wigan, two in Buxton, Derbyshire, and further fatalities in Salford and Warrington.” – Manchester Evening News
‘Ecstasy’ is more like a brand name than a description of a specific and particular thing. Once upon a time it was intended to refer to only MDMA, as a slang-term for it… but as with most of these slang terms, its meaning has been lost in a sea of chemical oddity.
Now the word ‘ecstasy’ refers to many mystery powders that might be able to be passed off as similar to MDMA. Although this is the case, people still seem to believe that ecstasy is a term used to refer to a specific and particular thing.
When someone writes about an issue, they should be careful to define what they’re talking about. This barely ever happens. Language, communication and culture allow us to assume a lot of the meaning which somebody intends in their words. Generally it seems to work, because we seem to know what each other mean. More complex issues usually require more explanation… but a time-poor and content-hungry public demand information regardless of the quality of that information.
It seems that people have a high demand for content which uses presumptuous language to simplify complex issues which really need a lot of explaining in order to understand well.
Reporting deaths as caused by ‘ecstasy’ will quickly create a trigger in people’s minds who do not critically engage this content, which is very easy to do with issues that involve illicit or potentially illicit drugs. The trigger is set off when someone brings up ecstasy… the memory of the various news reports relating to deaths from ecstasy are vaguely recollected and there’ll probably be a defensive reaction.
Those in authority who are actively engaged in drug prohibition make an assumption that if they are able to reduce supply to the market, demand will fall. This is why there are always news reports gloating about drug seizures… it’s intended to look as if some heroes have saved people from their own bad decisions.
The problem is – reducing supply DOES NOT reduce demand. Instead, there is unfulfilled demand which either slips to a substitution product (another similar psychoactive substance) or is fulfilled by new supply to the market.
High profit margins due to risk potential and high demand are great incentives to keep supplying a market, no matter what…
And it’s the ‘no matter what’ part that seems to end up causing some problems.
Using a different substance and selling it as if it is like another psychoactive or is another psychoactive drug seems problematic.
If someone sells something as similar to something else, it’d be rather important to find out how it is different to that other thing. There’s a bit of this going on lately with the explosion of research chemicals onto the market.
If someone sells something as if it IS something else, then we can start to get in really dangerous territory.
In a black market – there are no rules. There is no regulation and by its very nature it exists outside of the regulation and laws of society that other businesses must operate by.
There is a way to fix this. If the drugs that people really want (ie. MDMA) were available through a regulated means, then many risks are removed, including all of the risks that a black market brings with it.
Instead it seems popular for authorities to keep pushing scare tactics and make overly simplified stupid metaphors such as, “It’s like playing Russian Roulette”.
If it is like playing Russian Roulette, then the police and politicians that support prohibition are the ones blocking the door, forcing you to play this stupid game.
Demand is not reduced by attacking supply… but attacks on supply may just remove some of the better quality substances from the market. The market still fills in the gaps… but it seems to fill them in with shittier products. The consumer is the one who ends up baring the brunt of bad policy and shitty black markets. And then authorities go and blame everyone and everything but their own stupid policies… the stupid policies that seem to be setting this situation up in the first place.
Prohibition is the first domino in a cascade of stupid, harmful shit that doesn’t need to happen.
Reader's opinions
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Psychedelic Frontier On July 26, 2013 at 02:36
Thanks for this Nick — it’s time legislators and police took accountability for their central role in these deaths, instead of pawning it off on users and producers. The Drug War has become far more toxic than the drugs themselves, exacerbating all the risks associated with drug use — and in the name of safety! And the media uncritically acts as though policy has nothing to do with it.
We should have learned from American Prohibition in the 20’s: You can’t outlaw drug use; you can only outlaw safe and regulated drug use. If it’s Russian Roulette then Congress and the police are loading the guns.