Forces Go Soft On Drugs
Short Blunt Shock
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No, and neither is anyone else in the Netherlands.
Contrary to popular (read 'trendy progressive') beliefs, drugs are NOT legal in the Netherlands. They have simply chosen not to enforce the law by prosecuting or even cautioning individual users. It is still illegal to buy cannabis in the Netherlands - you just won't get done for it. Growing, refining or producing drugs still carry heavy penalties under Dutch law. An utter contradictory nonsense if ever I saw one.
And my, are they reaping the 'benefits' of their liberalisation. Crime is rife (the ones that they still choose to prosecute for, that is) unemployment is soaring, Mental health problems are skyrocketing, school and college dropout rates are astronomical.......you get the picture. And hard drug use (concentrating on which the govt used as an excuse to go soft on cannabis) is out of control. Not exactly the tranquil, liberal paradise the trendies would have you believe.
16B
Contrary to popular (read 'trendy progressive') beliefs, drugs are NOT legal in the Netherlands. They have simply chosen not to enforce the law by prosecuting or even cautioning individual users. It is still illegal to buy cannabis in the Netherlands - you just won't get done for it. Growing, refining or producing drugs still carry heavy penalties under Dutch law. An utter contradictory nonsense if ever I saw one.
And my, are they reaping the 'benefits' of their liberalisation. Crime is rife (the ones that they still choose to prosecute for, that is) unemployment is soaring, Mental health problems are skyrocketing, school and college dropout rates are astronomical.......you get the picture. And hard drug use (concentrating on which the govt used as an excuse to go soft on cannabis) is out of control. Not exactly the tranquil, liberal paradise the trendies would have you believe.
16B
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In Switzerland the government 'issues' class A drugs to habitual users as its cheaper than trying to treat someone in the long run and has led to a reduction in crime and death by over-dose.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/dru...p/switzerland/
Intrestingly they also point out that motorists who are involved in car accidents who are found to have THC's in their bloodstream are usually found to be positive for alcohol too.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/dru...p/switzerland/
Intrestingly they also point out that motorists who are involved in car accidents who are found to have THC's in their bloodstream are usually found to be positive for alcohol too.
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Stacker
You are missing the point!! Regardless of what is going on in any pinko lefty society, thre is NO place for illegal drugs in the military. If people are doing it on the quiet, thats up to them, if they are less than discreet and get found out then its time for a career change.
You are missing the point!! Regardless of what is going on in any pinko lefty society, thre is NO place for illegal drugs in the military. If people are doing it on the quiet, thats up to them, if they are less than discreet and get found out then its time for a career change.
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If people are doing it on the quiet, thats up to them, if they are less than discreet and get found out then its time for a career change.
If we are going to have one rule for one intoxicant and one for another there is always going to be the appearance of hypocrisy in the system.
Perhaps we should introduce breathalysing for the service personnel who are suspected of being still under the influence of alcohol. Breathalyzers are used within the NHS and branches of civil aviation.
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I have no problem with breath testing anyone at random in an aviation environment, and no problem with a duty authoriser saying breath in here before you go flying. We DO have one rule for one intoxicant and another rule for the other type. That rule is ONE IS ILLEGAL THE OTHER ONE IS LEGAL. endex. There are strict rules surrounding the use of alcohol prior to flying, and the amount of alcohol allowed in the blood is so low it may as well be zero. If any line manager or member of a peer group thinks someone is hung over and working on aircraft or associated components and support duties then they have a responsibility to sort it out.
The crux of the matter as you put it is nothing to do with the reasons you give. The crux of the matter is that time and time again people like you refuse to listen, refuse to read, refuse to comprehend and refuse to modify your thought process even when people state the bleeding obvious to you. IT IS ILLEGAL Stacker, regardless of your thoughts on Beer, Drugs ARE ILLEGAL. Now can you comprehend that last sentence?
Bye the way, there is a failing in the random drugs testing system. If you eat a bread roll for lunch that is covered with poppy seeds, within 30 minutes of consuming said bread roll you will prove positive for opiates!! Absolutely true.
I have no problem with breath testing anyone at random in an aviation environment, and no problem with a duty authoriser saying breath in here before you go flying. We DO have one rule for one intoxicant and another rule for the other type. That rule is ONE IS ILLEGAL THE OTHER ONE IS LEGAL. endex. There are strict rules surrounding the use of alcohol prior to flying, and the amount of alcohol allowed in the blood is so low it may as well be zero. If any line manager or member of a peer group thinks someone is hung over and working on aircraft or associated components and support duties then they have a responsibility to sort it out.
The crux of the matter as you put it is nothing to do with the reasons you give. The crux of the matter is that time and time again people like you refuse to listen, refuse to read, refuse to comprehend and refuse to modify your thought process even when people state the bleeding obvious to you. IT IS ILLEGAL Stacker, regardless of your thoughts on Beer, Drugs ARE ILLEGAL. Now can you comprehend that last sentence?
Bye the way, there is a failing in the random drugs testing system. If you eat a bread roll for lunch that is covered with poppy seeds, within 30 minutes of consuming said bread roll you will prove positive for opiates!! Absolutely true.
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Tourist
you surprise me. Considering the subect of this thread your comment is totally purile and really f
me off. Are you one of the types of commercial pilot jet set that ive seen who likes to indulge??
you surprise me. Considering the subect of this thread your comment is totally purile and really f
me off. Are you one of the types of commercial pilot jet set that ive seen who likes to indulge??
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Originally Posted by 16 blades
No, and neither is anyone else in the Netherlands.
Contrary to popular (read 'trendy progressive') beliefs, drugs are NOT legal in the Netherlands. They have simply chosen not to enforce the law by prosecuting or even cautioning individual users. It is still illegal to buy cannabis in the Netherlands - you just won't get done for it.
16B
Contrary to popular (read 'trendy progressive') beliefs, drugs are NOT legal in the Netherlands. They have simply chosen not to enforce the law by prosecuting or even cautioning individual users. It is still illegal to buy cannabis in the Netherlands - you just won't get done for it.
16B
Just wondered
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???
I want to hear more about these lethal flashbacks... And the class B hard drugs. And how someone who may have used drugs once prior to joining up should get the boot even if they no longer use drugs... Or how deeply respectful you are all to every letter of the law... and how a drug user is nothing more than a druggie, while someone who has a pint is a bloke who just had a pint... I drink, but im not currently drunk. I fully agree that drugs and alcohol have no place in any precision, or hazardous, or engineering, or safety critical environment, but the drugs training courses mentioned above sound 1950s era rubbish. Oh, and 16 Blades, wind your neck in. You might be an aviator, but your sure as fek no pharmacologist... For everyone, drugs is a very wide ranging word, and drugs testing picks up and ids certain legal and illegal drugs that stay in the body for periods varying from 12hours or so for some stimulants to >3 months for cannabis (cos the THC is soluble in body fat, so becomes passively deposited). Please try to understand that there are differing degrees of drug and drug use. THERE IS a difference betwween clintons 'one toke on a spliff but didnt inhale' and chronic heroin or crack addiction. To be fair, in the latter case your colleagues should be able to spot severe impairment no?
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Tigs, you have an amazingly blinkered mind
I was pointing out that sometimes people make a big deal out of laws when it suits them.
and I quote "drugs ARE ILLEGAL"
but so is speeding and if you pretend you never have you are even more of a moron.
As I keep saying, I have never and have no intention of doing illegal drugs, even if they become legal. If they became legal I would still want them banned, like alcohol, from being imbibed within a suitable time frame of dealing with or flying aircraft.
The point I keep trying to make is that Prohibition has failed, as it always has done throughout history.
An extraordinary percentage of the UK population does illegal drugs on a daily or weekly basis. Most people joining the UK military today will have tried illegal drugs. An amazing percentage own up to it at AIB or service equivalent.
The sheer amount consumed per week is easy to interpret from the effect that massive drugs busts have on the street price of drugs. None whatsoever. When £50 million of drugs are captured it is a totally insignificant proportion of the amount being used.
Drugs illegality has not stopped this in any way. All that keeping them banned does is make massive amounts of money for scum.
It is a very simple equation. Because of their illegality, instead of being cheaper than paracetamol, drugs are relatively very expensive. This gives criminals an enormous profit margin, only matched by the bootleggers in the US during prohibition. This makes it worth their while to sell them, even with the attendant risk.
Because they are scum the will happily cut the drugs with rat poison and such like to make more money thus causing more deaths etc.
Because you cannot tax illegal substances, drugs do not pay their own way with the NHS as do Cigarettes and Alcohol for example.
People who become addicted to the drugs cannot afford to buy them so turn to crime to feed their habit. Drug related crime is an enormous percentage of petty crime. This is crime caused by the addict needing money, notcrime caused buy the addict being off his/her head. Alcohol use incidentally is a major cause of crime due to immediate effects of inebriation.
Simple solution.
Legalise all drugs
EFFECT:
Drugs are still used by same large percentage of population.
These people are now not criminalised.
The drugs they now use meet EC standards (less drug related deaths) and carry health warnings and are sold in shops.
The tax pays for the NHS costs of dealing with the problems that already exist.
Drug dealers no longer make a decent margin so move to some other business or more likely go out of business entirely, because no other business is so easy to make money from.
The police enjoy massive drop in petty crime. Even addicts on the dole can easy afford to feed their habit.
You people don't get it do you.You seem to be under the impression we are manning a dam and managing to hold the flow of drugs to a small trickle used by an evil and tiny proportion of bad people in the UK.
Outside of the military, drugs are ubiquitous in all walks of life, from the Royal Family to pikey council estates to Presidents to MP's to policemen. My god CHURCHILL was on Coke!
We have lost the battle against drugs. Humans like messing with their heads and experimenting, just like we all drank before we were 18 even though "it was ILLEGAL"
Fact of life.
Any of you codgers with kids at Uni are living in a dream world if you imagine that your little darlings have never tried it even once.
All we can do is minimise the damage. Just like we currently do with the most damaging mind altering substance of all..
Alcohol
I was pointing out that sometimes people make a big deal out of laws when it suits them.
and I quote "drugs ARE ILLEGAL"
but so is speeding and if you pretend you never have you are even more of a moron.
As I keep saying, I have never and have no intention of doing illegal drugs, even if they become legal. If they became legal I would still want them banned, like alcohol, from being imbibed within a suitable time frame of dealing with or flying aircraft.
The point I keep trying to make is that Prohibition has failed, as it always has done throughout history.
An extraordinary percentage of the UK population does illegal drugs on a daily or weekly basis. Most people joining the UK military today will have tried illegal drugs. An amazing percentage own up to it at AIB or service equivalent.
The sheer amount consumed per week is easy to interpret from the effect that massive drugs busts have on the street price of drugs. None whatsoever. When £50 million of drugs are captured it is a totally insignificant proportion of the amount being used.
Drugs illegality has not stopped this in any way. All that keeping them banned does is make massive amounts of money for scum.
It is a very simple equation. Because of their illegality, instead of being cheaper than paracetamol, drugs are relatively very expensive. This gives criminals an enormous profit margin, only matched by the bootleggers in the US during prohibition. This makes it worth their while to sell them, even with the attendant risk.
Because they are scum the will happily cut the drugs with rat poison and such like to make more money thus causing more deaths etc.
Because you cannot tax illegal substances, drugs do not pay their own way with the NHS as do Cigarettes and Alcohol for example.
People who become addicted to the drugs cannot afford to buy them so turn to crime to feed their habit. Drug related crime is an enormous percentage of petty crime. This is crime caused by the addict needing money, notcrime caused buy the addict being off his/her head. Alcohol use incidentally is a major cause of crime due to immediate effects of inebriation.
Simple solution.
Legalise all drugs
EFFECT:
Drugs are still used by same large percentage of population.
These people are now not criminalised.
The drugs they now use meet EC standards (less drug related deaths) and carry health warnings and are sold in shops.
The tax pays for the NHS costs of dealing with the problems that already exist.
Drug dealers no longer make a decent margin so move to some other business or more likely go out of business entirely, because no other business is so easy to make money from.
The police enjoy massive drop in petty crime. Even addicts on the dole can easy afford to feed their habit.
You people don't get it do you.You seem to be under the impression we are manning a dam and managing to hold the flow of drugs to a small trickle used by an evil and tiny proportion of bad people in the UK.
Outside of the military, drugs are ubiquitous in all walks of life, from the Royal Family to pikey council estates to Presidents to MP's to policemen. My god CHURCHILL was on Coke!
We have lost the battle against drugs. Humans like messing with their heads and experimenting, just like we all drank before we were 18 even though "it was ILLEGAL"
Fact of life.
Any of you codgers with kids at Uni are living in a dream world if you imagine that your little darlings have never tried it even once.
All we can do is minimise the damage. Just like we currently do with the most damaging mind altering substance of all..
Alcohol
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Tourist
In response to your comment of
"I sometimes speed in my car.
that is also illegal.
Burn Me!"
Why do i have "an amazingly blinkered mind" for stating
"Considering the subect of this thread your comment is totally purile and really f me off."
Did at any time i mention in my post that i have never sped or imply that i have never sped? I never mentioned the subject as it has no relevance here.
As such i take great exception to you calling me a moron.
To try and put you back on track Tourist, we are not debating the UK's drug problem and the rights and wrongs of it. We are debating their suitability for use by members of HM forces considering they are an Illegal mind altering substance. If you are able to answer without resorting to personal comments it would be appreciated. Feel free to curse as much as you like at me but i take exception to your comment.
In response to your comment of
"I sometimes speed in my car.
that is also illegal.
Burn Me!"
Why do i have "an amazingly blinkered mind" for stating
"Considering the subect of this thread your comment is totally purile and really f
me off."Did at any time i mention in my post that i have never sped or imply that i have never sped? I never mentioned the subject as it has no relevance here.
As such i take great exception to you calling me a moron.
To try and put you back on track Tourist, we are not debating the UK's drug problem and the rights and wrongs of it. We are debating their suitability for use by members of HM forces considering they are an Illegal mind altering substance. If you are able to answer without resorting to personal comments it would be appreciated. Feel free to curse as much as you like at me but i take exception to your comment.
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The subject has every relevance because you make a big deal out of legality as the most important issue.
"IT IS ILLEGAL Stacker, regardless of your thoughts on Beer, Drugs ARE ILLEGAL. Now can you comprehend that last sentence?"
We are not arguing about the legality.
Everyone knows they aren't.
What we are arguing is whether they should be.
We do not suggest that you should throw people out of the military for speeding, even though it is illegal.
ergo, it is not the illegality of drugs that offends people, but something else.
hence illegality is not the issue.
Q.E.D.
"IT IS ILLEGAL Stacker, regardless of your thoughts on Beer, Drugs ARE ILLEGAL. Now can you comprehend that last sentence?"
We are not arguing about the legality.
Everyone knows they aren't.
What we are arguing is whether they should be.
We do not suggest that you should throw people out of the military for speeding, even though it is illegal.
ergo, it is not the illegality of drugs that offends people, but something else.
hence illegality is not the issue.
Q.E.D.
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Tourist
perhaps you should re-read Talk Wrenches original post and you will see that no one is discussing if they should be legal, they are discussing if they should be permitted/tolerated (just like all of our speeding and illegal parking which is tolerated by everyone, except the police when you get caught). I for one do not believe they should be. As you continue to personally slag off for no adult reason perhaps Tourist it may be better if you start your own Website called PPJuNe
The Professional Pilots Juvenile Network
There are a few prime candidates around who could join you, then you could slag each other off to your hearts content. Last comment from me on this, refuse to participate with small minded people.
perhaps you should re-read Talk Wrenches original post and you will see that no one is discussing if they should be legal, they are discussing if they should be permitted/tolerated (just like all of our speeding and illegal parking which is tolerated by everyone, except the police when you get caught). I for one do not believe they should be. As you continue to personally slag off for no adult reason perhaps Tourist it may be better if you start your own Website called PPJuNe
The Professional Pilots Juvenile Network
There are a few prime candidates around who could join you, then you could slag each other off to your hearts content. Last comment from me on this, refuse to participate with small minded people.
Short Blunt Shock
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An extraordinary percentage of the UK population does illegal drugs on a daily or weekly basis.
People who become addicted to the drugs cannot afford to buy them so turn to crime to feed their habit. Drug related crime is an enormous percentage of petty crime. This is crime caused by the addict needing money, notcrime caused buy the addict being off his/her head.
DON'T BE A TW@T AND TAKE DRUGS!
The point I keep trying to make is that Prohibition has failed, as it always has done throughout history.
Perhaps you think that people who download pictures of children being sexually abused should be gone easy on as well - after all, THEY are 'addicted' and need to commit crime to feed their habit. And they are not doing the abusing, they are just 'the market'. My point is - remove the market (by jailing anyone who takes drugs and keeping them in solitary for 6 months, perhaps) and there is no money to be made anymore.
Drug dealers no longer make a decent margin so move to some other business or more likely go out of business entirely, because no other business is so easy to make money from.
The police enjoy massive drop in petty crime. Even addicts on the dole can easy afford to feed their habit.
The police enjoy massive drop in petty crime. Even addicts on the dole can easy afford to feed their habit.
As for the drop in crime, well hey - let's just go the whole hog and legalise rape and murder. After all, an awful lot of people commit rape and murder - just think of all the people we could 'decriminalise' - and the drop in crime figures! If it's no longer a crime, it's no longer a crime figure! Jeez, you are a f**king genius!
Outside of the military, drugs are ubiquitous in all walks of life
The sheer amount consumed per week is easy to interpret from the effect that massive drugs busts have on the street price of drugs. None whatsoever.
We have lost the battle against drugs. Humans like messing with their heads and experimenting, just like we all drank before we were 18 even though "it was ILLEGAL"
notcrime caused buy the addict being off his/her head.
the most damaging mind altering substance of all..Alcohol
16B
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16 Blades.
Name a criminal activity that you believe has the same profit margin as drug dealing.
"It will ALWAYS fail if you let the market grow, by going soft on users / addicts"
You miss the point. It has already grown. It will not go away. Learn the lessons of history.
"And what on earth makes you think that prices will plummet? It is NOT the 'illegality' that dictates price, it is the demand - what the product is WORTH to the purchaser"
The price is vastly artificially infated by the drug dealers. It is the law of supply and demand. Legal supply would slash demand because there would be competition. The demand for Mars Bars is enormous, but they still cost 50p, even though they are more complex and expensive to produce than drugs.
Incidentally, where are you going to find another 20 million prison cells.
"As for the drop in crime, well hey - let's just go the whole hog and legalise rape and murder. After all, an awful lot of people commit rape and murder - just think of all the people we could 'decriminalise' - and the drop in crime figures!"
Any law which criminalises the majority of the people it affects is a bad law.
And there aren't a lot of people who commit rape and murder or child abuse, though there may be in amongst your group of friends.
You mention that you believe I was recently a student.
This is not the case, however I am glad you brought up students, since you seem to agree with me that most student try drugs. The majority of people now go to college
Therefore the majority of people now try drugs.
Anyone who says that alcohol is not a mind altering drug is an idiot. The fact that it is a nerve impulse suppressant only describes the mechanism through which it alters the mind.
We have all done something due to alcohol which we would not do sober.
ie it alters your mind.
It beggars belief that you don't believe that drug use is ubiquitous.
When there is next a big drug bust, note the actual quantity of pills captured. Note that this is the captured number, not the far larger percentage that gets through.
Lets assume an ecstasy user uses 4 pills per weekend for example( I am sure someone with greater knowledge can tell me an average use?)
Divide that into the drugs bust number of pills.
The number you now have, is the number of users that this confiscated pile of drugs was going to supply for the weekend.
The number always has a lot of zeros.
Name a criminal activity that you believe has the same profit margin as drug dealing.
"It will ALWAYS fail if you let the market grow, by going soft on users / addicts"
You miss the point. It has already grown. It will not go away. Learn the lessons of history.
"And what on earth makes you think that prices will plummet? It is NOT the 'illegality' that dictates price, it is the demand - what the product is WORTH to the purchaser"
The price is vastly artificially infated by the drug dealers. It is the law of supply and demand. Legal supply would slash demand because there would be competition. The demand for Mars Bars is enormous, but they still cost 50p, even though they are more complex and expensive to produce than drugs.
Incidentally, where are you going to find another 20 million prison cells.
"As for the drop in crime, well hey - let's just go the whole hog and legalise rape and murder. After all, an awful lot of people commit rape and murder - just think of all the people we could 'decriminalise' - and the drop in crime figures!"
Any law which criminalises the majority of the people it affects is a bad law.
And there aren't a lot of people who commit rape and murder or child abuse, though there may be in amongst your group of friends.
You mention that you believe I was recently a student.
This is not the case, however I am glad you brought up students, since you seem to agree with me that most student try drugs. The majority of people now go to college
Therefore the majority of people now try drugs.
Anyone who says that alcohol is not a mind altering drug is an idiot. The fact that it is a nerve impulse suppressant only describes the mechanism through which it alters the mind.
We have all done something due to alcohol which we would not do sober.
ie it alters your mind.
It beggars belief that you don't believe that drug use is ubiquitous.
When there is next a big drug bust, note the actual quantity of pills captured. Note that this is the captured number, not the far larger percentage that gets through.
Lets assume an ecstasy user uses 4 pills per weekend for example( I am sure someone with greater knowledge can tell me an average use?)
Divide that into the drugs bust number of pills.
The number you now have, is the number of users that this confiscated pile of drugs was going to supply for the weekend.
The number always has a lot of zeros.
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Tigs,
Well said Sir, although I think you may be pushing the the old smelly stuff up the hill as far as Stacker is concerned.
Stacker - You need assessment and to listen to people who know just a little bit more than you.
Kind rewgards
TSM
Well said Sir, although I think you may be pushing the the old smelly stuff up the hill as far as Stacker is concerned.
Stacker - You need assessment and to listen to people who know just a little bit more than you.
Kind rewgards
TSM
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16 Blades Said
Please provide evidence to substantiate this claim. And, for a second time, alcohol is NOT a mind-altering substance - it is a nerve-impusle supressant. Alcohol does not use or alter neurotransmitter chemicals to achieve its effects. Comparing alcohol to illegal narcotics is pointless - can you not see this?
Just to correct the above comment I'm going to quote verbatim from 'Physiology of Behaviour, 7th Edn. by Carlson, N. R. published by Allyn and Bacon (2001)
'Alcohol has greater costs to society than any other drug. A large percentage of deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents are related to alcohol use, and alcohol contributes to violence and aggression. Chronic alcoholics often lose their jobs, their homes, and their families; and many die of cirrhosis of the liver, exposure, or diseases caused by poor living conditions and abuse of their bodies. Women who drink during pregnancy run the risk of giving birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, which includes malformation of the head and brain. The leading cause of mental retardation in the Western world today is alcohol consumption by pregnant women (Abel and Sokol, 1986). Therefore, understanding the physiological and behavioural effects of this drug is an important issue'.
Here comes the mind altering bit....
Alcohol, like other addictive drugs, increases the activity of the dopaminergic system and increases the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens as measured by microdialysis (Gessa et al., 1985; Imperato and Di Chiara, 1986). The release of dopamine appears to be related to the positive reinforcement that alcohol can produce. An injection of a dopamine antagonist directly into the nucleus accumbens decreases alcohol intake (Samson et al., 1993), as does the injection of a drug into the ventral tegmental area that decreases the activity of the dopaminergic neurons there (Hodge et al., 1993).
In low to moderate doses, alcohol appears to have two major sites of action in the nervous system, acting as an indirect antagonist as NMDA receptors and an indirect agonist at GABA receptors (Chandler, Harris, and Crewes, 1998). That is, alcohol enhances the action of GABA at GABA receptors and interferes with the transmission of glutamate at NMDA receptors.
NMDA receptors are involved in long-term potentiation, a phenomenon that plays an important role in learning. Therefore, it will not surprise you to learn that alcohol, which antagonizes the action of glutamate at NMDA receptors, disrupts long-term potentiation and interferes with the spatial receptive fields of place cells in the hippocampus (Givens and McMahon, 1995; Matthews, Simpson, and Best, 1996). Presumably, this effect at least partly accounts for the deleterious effects of alcohol on memory and other cognitive functions.
Withdrawal from long-term alcohol intake (like that of heroin, cocaine, amphetamine, and nicotine) decreases the activity of mesolombic neurons and their release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (Diana et al., 1993).
The second site of action of alcohol is the GABAA receptor. Alcohol binds with one of the many binding sites on this receptor and increases the effectiveness of GABA in opening the chloride channel and producing inhibitory postsynaptic potentials.
The reinforcing effects of alcohol is at least partly caused by its ability to trigger the release of the endogenous opioids'.
I hope that all of the above provides enough detail to explain that alcohol is in fact a powerful mind altering drug.
Regards,
Tragic Rug
Reference
Carlson, N. R. (2001) Physiology of Behaviour 7th Edn, published by Allyn and Bacon.
Please provide evidence to substantiate this claim. And, for a second time, alcohol is NOT a mind-altering substance - it is a nerve-impusle supressant. Alcohol does not use or alter neurotransmitter chemicals to achieve its effects. Comparing alcohol to illegal narcotics is pointless - can you not see this?
Just to correct the above comment I'm going to quote verbatim from 'Physiology of Behaviour, 7th Edn. by Carlson, N. R. published by Allyn and Bacon (2001)
'Alcohol has greater costs to society than any other drug. A large percentage of deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents are related to alcohol use, and alcohol contributes to violence and aggression. Chronic alcoholics often lose their jobs, their homes, and their families; and many die of cirrhosis of the liver, exposure, or diseases caused by poor living conditions and abuse of their bodies. Women who drink during pregnancy run the risk of giving birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, which includes malformation of the head and brain. The leading cause of mental retardation in the Western world today is alcohol consumption by pregnant women (Abel and Sokol, 1986). Therefore, understanding the physiological and behavioural effects of this drug is an important issue'.
Here comes the mind altering bit....
Alcohol, like other addictive drugs, increases the activity of the dopaminergic system and increases the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens as measured by microdialysis (Gessa et al., 1985; Imperato and Di Chiara, 1986). The release of dopamine appears to be related to the positive reinforcement that alcohol can produce. An injection of a dopamine antagonist directly into the nucleus accumbens decreases alcohol intake (Samson et al., 1993), as does the injection of a drug into the ventral tegmental area that decreases the activity of the dopaminergic neurons there (Hodge et al., 1993).
In low to moderate doses, alcohol appears to have two major sites of action in the nervous system, acting as an indirect antagonist as NMDA receptors and an indirect agonist at GABA receptors (Chandler, Harris, and Crewes, 1998). That is, alcohol enhances the action of GABA at GABA receptors and interferes with the transmission of glutamate at NMDA receptors.
NMDA receptors are involved in long-term potentiation, a phenomenon that plays an important role in learning. Therefore, it will not surprise you to learn that alcohol, which antagonizes the action of glutamate at NMDA receptors, disrupts long-term potentiation and interferes with the spatial receptive fields of place cells in the hippocampus (Givens and McMahon, 1995; Matthews, Simpson, and Best, 1996). Presumably, this effect at least partly accounts for the deleterious effects of alcohol on memory and other cognitive functions.
Withdrawal from long-term alcohol intake (like that of heroin, cocaine, amphetamine, and nicotine) decreases the activity of mesolombic neurons and their release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (Diana et al., 1993).
The second site of action of alcohol is the GABAA receptor. Alcohol binds with one of the many binding sites on this receptor and increases the effectiveness of GABA in opening the chloride channel and producing inhibitory postsynaptic potentials.
The reinforcing effects of alcohol is at least partly caused by its ability to trigger the release of the endogenous opioids'.
I hope that all of the above provides enough detail to explain that alcohol is in fact a powerful mind altering drug.
Regards,
Tragic Rug
Reference
Carlson, N. R. (2001) Physiology of Behaviour 7th Edn, published by Allyn and Bacon.
Last edited by Tragic Rug; 3rd Mar 2006 at 10:13.