Poll: Am I a Mean dad, or responsible?

Shoju wrote:Honestly, Drugs are the last thing that I have to worry about with my son.

His mother is a real life bonafide crack whore.

And you copulated with this woman! Tsk tsk.

Hey now, she might not have always been a real life crack whore.

13 years ago, when we were teenagers, she was a marilyn manson loving short short wearing purple haired cute girl I met at work when she came through my line. Like Lev said, not yet the amazing piece of work that we have today.

Shoju wrote:13 years ago, when we were teenagers, she was a marilyn manson loving short short wearing purple haired cute girl I met at work when she came through my line. Like Lev said, not yet the amazing piece of work that we have today.

Yeah, I read back up and read where you had met, condom broke, etc. I had no idea you were so young! That must've been quite challenging for you.

It was a level of suck that I don't ever wish on anyone.

Shoju wrote:It was a level of suck that I don't ever wish on anyone.

I have a few people I would wish it on, but I don't think I could wish it upon an unborn child. That is just really cruel.
(Not making a crack at shoju, I grew up with a lot of young parents, and one of my best friends had a kid her senior year. IT is a level of shit, and its one of those "Grow up or get fucked up" things)

I was one of those kids, and I wouldn't wish my upbringing on anyone else, either. It wasn't until I was around 2 years old or so that my mom figured out that you can't treat a baby like you treat your dolls.

For one, our heads don't pop off quite as easily as a Barbie or Ken doll.

Fivelives wrote:Pot {info}
For LSD, just take him on a shock tour of a long term care ward at a Charter mental hospital, or your local equivalent.
Ecstasy dehydrates the body and raises core temperatures to a dangerous level. It's quite easily fatal, even in relatively small doses.

Do you know where I can find corroborating evidence? Please feel free to tell me "l2google", actually.

Regarding sex, I'd rather my kid have smart, safe sex than do drugs or drink to excess. That's a matter of education though

Oh, I agree 100%.

Before we had so many things that could kill or maim us, the child-rearing philosophy was "let them stick their hands in the fire. It's the best way to teach them that fire is hot". Using your table-saw as an example, run a hot dog or chicken drumstick through it. Let him see what happens first hand, instead of just telling him "no, that's bad".

Edit: Oh shit, we were talking about a hypothetical kid here. My bad, mis-read it and thought you were talking about your actual kid.

Great idea on the table saw. And, I am talking about my kid ... but he's 2.5 right now, so it's almost hypothetical in that it'll likely be a decade before I have some of these conversations with him. (Well, probably earlier.)

http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/ecstasy.html <- the NIH site regarding ecstasy (MDMA)
http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/hallucinogens.html <- NIH site about hallucinogens (LSD)

The "use examples" thing relates to how children think. If you're interested, look up information on Piaget (cognitive development), Kohlberg (moral development), and Vygotsky (biopsychosocial development). It also just makes sense - children have a tremendously good imagination and are easily led by adults. I won't get into the details here, since I could probably write a thesis on the topic and this is, after all, the asylum.

Hokahey wrote:

Kelaan wrote:As far as drugs? Well, a discussion of what drug possession/trafficing/dealing convictions have on job prospects or school admissions, not to mention the effects of the drugs themselves, ought to help. It's hard to say for things like pot/lsd/ecstasy where many users claim there are no detrimental side effects ... I don't really know enough about them to be able to mount an effective argument via "look how this affects you" the way one could for tobacco, alcohol, or meth. Fortunately I have a decade or so before I will be too worried about that.

Pot/Marijuana/Hashish= all the health concerns of smoking Tobacco, plus the additional concern of impaired judgment and it being illegal. Also, the people who say its "not habit forming" are lying/misinformed.


...and it appears someone beat me to it.

Anything can be habit forming however Pot isn't as addictive as tobacco

Lightbeard wrote:Pot/Marijuana/Hashish= all the health concerns of smoking Tobacco, plus the additional concern of impaired judgment and it being illegal. Also, the people who say its "not habit forming" are lying/misinformed.

Anything can be habit forming however Pot isn't as addictive as tobacco

From what I've read, its toxicology and addiction rates are less than for nicotine ... but that's like saying that robbing a store isn't as bad as killing someone: I don't really want my kid doing either.

Lightbeard wrote:

Hokahey wrote:

Kelaan wrote:As far as drugs? Well, a discussion of what drug possession/trafficing/dealing convictions have on job prospects or school admissions, not to mention the effects of the drugs themselves, ought to help. It's hard to say for things like pot/lsd/ecstasy where many users claim there are no detrimental side effects ... I don't really know enough about them to be able to mount an effective argument via "look how this affects you" the way one could for tobacco, alcohol, or meth. Fortunately I have a decade or so before I will be too worried about that.

Pot/Marijuana/Hashish= all the health concerns of smoking Tobacco, plus the additional concern of impaired judgment and it being illegal. Also, the people who say its "not habit forming" are lying/misinformed.


...and it appears someone beat me to it.

Anything can be habit forming however Pot isn't as addictive as tobacco

my family, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents.... from an early age told me never to smoke... I could not bring myself to smoke pot until I was in college, it was a metal block, I just couldn't do it and I hung out with, and still do, massive potheads.... I've never had a cigarette, closest thing I did was a spliff and I hated it

Lightbeard wrote:

Hokahey wrote:

Kelaan wrote:As far as drugs? Well, a discussion of what drug possession/trafficing/dealing convictions have on job prospects or school admissions, not to mention the effects of the drugs themselves, ought to help. It's hard to say for things like pot/lsd/ecstasy where many users claim there are no detrimental side effects ... I don't really know enough about them to be able to mount an effective argument via "look how this affects you" the way one could for tobacco, alcohol, or meth. Fortunately I have a decade or so before I will be too worried about that.

Pot/Marijuana/Hashish= all the health concerns of smoking Tobacco, plus the additional concern of impaired judgment and it being illegal. Also, the people who say its "not habit forming" are lying/misinformed.


...and it appears someone beat me to it.

Anything can be habit forming however Pot isn't as addictive as tobacco

Fail. Pot is just as addictive as tobacco. What makes CIGARETTES so addictive are the additives in them.

Your parenting is bad and you should feel bad! Sex, drugs, and rock and roll from cradle to the grave! WHOOO!!!

Fivelives wrote:Fail. Pot is just as addictive as tobacco. What makes CIGARETTES so addictive are the additives in them.

Or just the nicotine. It's plenty in itself to make it addictive.

Side note: You may embed only 3 quotes within each other. What the hell?

False. It's a result of many years of misleading education. If you boil it down to THC and nicotine, they are both just as addictive as each other. The difference is in the additives to cigarettes. If anyone's interested in the basis of chemical dependency, toss me a PM and I'll tell you exactly how it works - not going to get into it here.

So addiction to snuff is something else then? Why is the physical addiction curbed by nicotine patches/gum? Also, can you say that nicotine ultimately doesn't release dopamine?

And if it's only additives, how would that affect pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff and even different brands of cigarettes?

Ever talked to someone on a nicotine patch? They are getting nicotine but still crave cigarettes. Explain that.

No, nicotine does not affect dopamine. It affects nicotinic acetylcholine, which is from the muscarinic cholinergic family of neurotranasmitters. Dopamine is from the serotonic family of neurotransmitters. They do entirely different things in the body (cholinergic neurotransmitters are responsible mainly for excitatory post-synaptic potentials, and serotonic neurotransmitters are responsible for inhibitory post-synaptic potentials, mainly. They both do various other things as well, but that should highlight one of the major differences between the two without me going off onto a dissertation about neurotransmitters and the chemistry of addiction).

All commercially available tobacco products have addictive additives in them. This is mandated by the FDA, to the extent that they say "You must put preservatives in cigarettes". The tobacco companies are smart, and decided to use addictive chemicals as preservatives, and load the shit out of their products with them. Generally, you find less in chewing tobacco, and most pipe tobaccos are sold nearly pure. This is why pipe smokers and cigar smokers don't smoke as often or have cravings that are as pronounced as a cigarette smoker. Chewing tobacco is the same as cigarettes, but the method of delivery is different. It's akin to the difference between transdermal pain control medication patches (e.g. fentanyl transdermal patch aka "duragesic") and pain pills. One is a higher dose with a slower release (duragesic) and the other is a lower dose with a faster release (say vicodin).

Long story short: yes, nicotine is addictive. So is THC. It's the additives that tobacco companies put in cigarettes that make them more addictive than pot. Once pot becomes legalized and regulated by the government (which will be happening soon, IMO), you'll find the same issue with pot. Suddenly, marijuana cigarettes will be just as addictive as tobacco cigarettes.

Hm. That's interesting, and a side effect of the legalization crusade that I had not expected. Why is there a requirement for additives/preservatives?

Everything that's purchased for consumption has to have preservatives in it to avoid spoilage related illnesses - like ergot poisoning or botulism. Even "organic" food, the only difference there is that the preservatives are organic rather than chemical. But that's a whole other rant for another time.

Fivelives wrote:Ever talked to someone on a nicotine patch? They are getting nicotine but still crave cigarettes. Explain that.

A large part is psychological addiction, more than nicotine perhaps. And that patches don't work as well, will come back to that.

No, nicotine does not affect dopamine. It affects nicotinic acetylcholine, which is from the muscarinic cholinergic family of neurotranasmitters. Dopamine is from the serotonic family of neurotransmitters. They do entirely different things in the body (cholinergic neurotransmitters are responsible mainly for excitatory post-synaptic potentials, and serotonic neurotransmitters are responsible for inhibitory post-synaptic potentials, mainly. They both do various other things as well, but that should highlight one of the major differences between the two without me going off onto a dissertation about neurotransmitters and the chemistry of addiction).

If only the brain was single point-to-point connections. It's not. Alot of substances end up producing some way or the other. Adrenaline, sex, nicotine, THC, alcohol, LSD, amphetamines, MDMA, opiates, benzodiazepines, sugar and fat. That's qutie alot. The point is that there are several pathways, like the cannaboid receptor affects a series of connections that end up releasing dopamine in the limbic system (as does the others, but they have other pathways to the dopamine releasing parts of the limbic system).
And, then comes the next part:

All commercially available tobacco products have addictive additives in them. This is mandated by the FDA, to the extent that they say "You must put preservatives in cigarettes". The tobacco companies are smart, and decided to use addictive chemicals as preservatives, and load the shit out of their products with them. Generally, you find less in chewing tobacco, and most pipe tobaccos are sold nearly pure. This is why pipe smokers and cigar smokers don't smoke as often or have cravings that are as pronounced as a cigarette smoker. Chewing tobacco is the same as cigarettes, but the method of delivery is different. It's akin to the difference between transdermal pain control medication patches (e.g. fentanyl transdermal patch aka "duragesic") and pain pills. One is a higher dose with a slower release (duragesic) and the other is a lower dose with a faster release (say vicodin).

The surge and top concentration is what produces the sense of well being, or in stronger stimulation, you get high (don't know the proper word for it). That's why eating hashish last longer, but gives less rush and you get less high. Smoking cocaine > sniffing > eating. Injecting amphetamine > eating it. Intravenous opiates > eating them. In general, the fast surge forces more dopamine release before it's downregulated. Also, the top concentration is higher, even if the drug don't get first pass metabolism. And as you say with Durogesic vs Vicodine, it's the same, less of a surge.
Many smokers go for snuff over gum/patches, because of the fact that it releases nicotine as fast as cigarettes. That's how it is in Norway and Sweden, who have alot of snuff (snus as it's called here).

Long story short: yes, nicotine is addictive. So is THC. It's the additives that tobacco companies put in cigarettes that make them more addictive than pot. Once pot becomes legalized and regulated by the government (which will be happening soon, IMO), you'll find the same issue with pot. Suddenly, marijuana cigarettes will be just as addictive as tobacco cigarettes.

Published articles, or it didn't happen. And preferably from some well established publisher.

What part of "I really don't want to get into this on the forum" didn't come across there?

Anyway, I could list all of the 599 publicly available cigarette additives and link you to the information about how addictive they are, but that would be a MONSTER post. So instead, here you go - a list of all of the publicly released cigarette additives:

http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotin ... dients.htm

Look through them and see if you can identify the ones at a glance that are addictive. Hint: arsenic, chocolate, and cocoa are addictive.

If only the brain was single point-to-point connections. It's not. (other stuff)

Actually that's exactly what the brain is. Every signal sent to or from the brain takes one and only one neural pathway, called a labeled line.

The surge and top concentration is what produces the sense of well being, or in stronger stimulation, you get high (don't know the proper word for it).

I believe you're looking for the word "euphoria"

Published articles, or it didn't happen. And preferably from some well established publisher.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040350/ <- National Institute of Health findings on the pharmacological and chemical effects of cigarette additives.

Now I'm going to stop posting again.

Fivelives wrote:What part of "I really don't want to get into this on the forum" didn't come across there?

If you post, you have to expect replies

Anyway, I could list all of the 599 publicly available cigarette additives and link you to the information about how addictive they are, but that would be a MONSTER post. So instead, here you go - a list of all of the publicly released cigarette additives:

http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotin ... dients.htm

Look through them and see if you can identify the ones at a glance that are addictive. Hint: arsenic, chocolate, and cocoa are addictive.

If only the brain was single point-to-point connections. It's not. (other stuff)

Actually that's exactly what the brain is. Every signal sent to or from the brain takes one and only one neural pathway, called a labeled line.

How about no, because the brain is the place where you actually have axons that split up. On signal can transmit at one place, and modify at another.

The surge and top concentration is what produces the sense of well being, or in stronger stimulation, you get high (don't know the proper word for it).

I believe you're looking for the word "euphoria"

Thanks, that was what I was lookng for

Published articles, or it didn't happen. And preferably from some well established publisher.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040350/ <- National Institute of Health findings on the pharmacological and chemical effects of cigarette additives.

Now I'm going to stop posting again.

True that it helps, but it doesn't say anywhere in that article that the additives makes cigarettes more addictive than pot. I'm not saying it's not, but you haven't posted evidence that it is.

NIH wrote:Our findings indicated that more than 100 of 599 documented cigarette additives have pharmacological actions that camouflage the odor of environmental tobacco smoke emitted from cigarettes, enhance or maintain nicotine delivery, could increase the addictiveness of cigarettes, and mask symptoms and illnesses associated with smoking behaviors.

I think he was saying that the nicotine+additives is more addictive than nocotine on its own, and that if pot were legalized and regulated, they'd likely get lots of the same chemicals stuffed into them too, and thereby be more addictive than it is now.

Also:

Fivelives wrote:arsenic [is] addictive.

Heh ... the irony in that is so funny. "I can't stop eating this, OH GOD it's killing me". Funny in a sad way I guess, as that's effectively what most addicts are doing too ... but arsenic. Heh. That's messed up. Apologies if that offends anyone.

I don't think it is ever too early to have the safe sex talk. One of our patients just turned up 6 months pregnant - she is 13.