Coronavirus

[Dave2002]

The state you have in mind is Oregon - which has decriminalised all drugs.

All drugs? Several states have made cannabis legal to use and buy for personal use in specific situations. I was unaware of any state allowing any drug.

[Bryn]

All drugs? Several states have made cannabis legal to use and buy for personal use in specific situations. I was unaware of any state allowing any drug.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/01/oregon-decriminalizes-all-drugs-offers-treatment-instead-jail-time/4311046001/

[Serial_Apologist]

All drugs? Several states have made cannabis legal to use and buy for personal use in specific situations. I was unaware of any state allowing any drug.

Well, that was what I heard on today's lunchtime BBC news, Dave.

[Dave2002]

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/n...me/4311046001/

OK - but it's probably still illegal to push, give, sell etc. hard drugs - but possession is going to be decrimiinalised according to that news item. Will be interesting to see how that pans out.

[Bryn]

OK - but it's probably still illegal to push, give, sell etc. hard drugs - but possession is going to be decrimiinalised according to that news item. Will be interesting to see how that pans out.

Came as quite a shock to me when that came up as a result of in Internet search for "oregon drugs law".

[jayne lee wilson]

This was interesting.....

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/06/meet-carl-hart-parent-columbia-professor-and-heroin-user

He was on Newsnight last night (15/02) as well.....

[muzzer]

There are so many competing factual issues around drug use. But as I read that article I can only confess to a simmering rage building. Thank you for the link. As a near lifelong smoker, it never ceases to infuriate me how the psychology of addiction is ignored by addicts.

[Joseph K]

Came as quite a shock to me when that came up as a result of in Internet search for "oregon drugs law".

Didn't believe my post #5044?

[teamsaint]

The Newsnight Yet another sensational piece of free publicity for PRH. Nobody ever seems to ask questions about these things.

Why bother to find your own story ?

[Joseph K]

This was interesting.....

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/06/meet-carl-hart-parent-columbia-professor-and-heroin-user

He was on Newsnight last night (15/02) as well.....

I agree with him.

Although I'm not so sure about skunk not causing psychosis - in my experience using after using it daily for about seven months and then leaving university (graduating in fact) this was when I first experienced auditory hallucinations after having smoked it. I guess perhaps it might have been something that only occurred when I smoked weed, and thus not a genuine case of psychosis, but in fact, while I continued to occasionally smoke weed in the years after uni, I didn't always experience hallucinations but I almost always didn't enjoy it, would throw up and feel paranoid - pretty stupid really. But then I tried MDMA and discovered that not only did that enable me to smoke trees of weed at a time, but that it could be euphoric, magical etc. though had the misfortune of doing it with cretins, and it was that and speed etc. which caused the psychosis proper.

Despite of but also because of the foregoing I still agree with Hart that all drugs ought to be decriminalised - though I think other aspects of society should be transformed along side of it, for a better set and setting.

[vinteuil]

The Newsnight Yet another sensational piece of free publicity for PRH.

... PRH, kesskesay?

.

[oddoneout]

... PRH, kesskesay?

.

Yes, googling isn't exactly helpful on this one - Princess Royal Hospital Telford, Penguin Random House publishers...

[oddoneout]

Don't know about anyone else but I don't find this particularly reassuring - notwithstanding the PM's track record on U-turns.

slow, controlled easing of restrictions that would not have to be rolled back again – a process he[the PM] described as “cautious but irreversible”.

To me it seems to plant the idea that "normal" will not only return(assumed sooner rather than later as that is what people want), but will be set in stone.

[french frank]

Yes, googling isn't exactly helpful on this one - Princess Royal Hospital Telford, Penguin Random House publishers...

Yes, I tried "coronavirus PRH" "politics PRH" and "right-wing PRH". Decided it must be Penguin Random House given ts's publishing background.

Incidentally, on the question of vaccine hesitancy among health workers, I thought this BBC piece was interesting. It confirms what one might suspect - that people with a wide range of expertise/qualifications can also hold a wide range of views. Doctors are preaching the risks of (any) vaccination, scientists are climate emergency sceptics, economists have divergent views on economic policy. It seems to me that sceptics emerge mainly on the (extreme) right - viz Mr Steve Baker's new "Covid Research Group" - another of his libertarian 'give us back control' running hares.

[oddoneout]

Yes, I tried "coronavirus PRH" "politics PRH" and "right-wing PRH". Decided it must be Penguin Random House given ts's publishing background.

Incidentally, on the question of vaccine hesitancy among health workers, I thought this BBC piece was interesting. It confirms what one might suspect - that people with a wide range of expertise/qualifications can also hold a wide range of views. Doctors are preaching the risks of (any) vaccination, scientists are climate emergency sceptics, economists have divergent views on economic policy. It seems to me that sceptics emerge mainly on the (extreme) right - viz Mr Steve Baker's new "Covid Research Group" - another of his libertarian 'give us back control' running hares.

I think the current crisis has brought to the fore a difficulty which has always existed. Those with expertise, knowledge and experience may reach a different conclusion about any given issue from the mainstream or accepted/desirable view. They then have to decide what to do about or with that different view, and I think that can be a very hard decision. Pushing against the establishment stance may in medical settings result in important benefits for patients, but at the other end of the spectrum it can result in such people going rogue and causing harm through their misuse of their medical status , as covered in the Panorama programme last night about the 'Ask the Experts' (I think that was the title)video that was circulating online https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000scy8 There is also a kind of halfway situation where medical professionals may advocate for a line of action which they themselves would not or might not choose for themselves or about which they have some doubt, but not enough cause to advise against.