[lbo-talk] opium deaths?

Mycos mycos at shaw.ca
Sun Apr 24 01:37:43 PDT 2005


Gary Williams

http://mycos.blogspot.com/

Michael Dawson wrote:
>>Tobacco.....340,000-395,000+
>>
>>Alcohol(excluding crime/accidents).....125,000+
>>
>>Drug Overdose(prescription).....14,000-27,000
>>
>>Drog overdose(illegal).....3,800-5,200
>>
>>MARIJUANA......0
>>http://groups.msn.com/silverdragons/whatdoyouknowaboutmarijuana.msnw
>>
>>Best,
>>Mike B)
>
>
> So nobody -- zero -- died from lung cancer or accidents caused by THC? You
> believe that? Why? Heavy daily smoke inhalation is somehow nontoxic in the
> one case of MJ?

And you know what else. Magic mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe have never been implicated in the death of anyone either. You might find a report by Alain Gerault, a French toxicologist who tried to make a name for himself (and no doubt the funding from the government) by claiming he was the first to uncover such a death.

quote: Summary

The authors report the fatality of a 22-year-old man after he and a group of friends voluntarily consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms, in this case Psilocybe semilanceata (Fr. : Fr.) Kummer. According to the best of our knowledge, up to now, this cosmopolitan species had never caused any fatalities, this is the first observation of this type ever made in the world, so the so-called innocuousness of hallucinogenic mushrooms is now questioned."

http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=10488

That claim is highly dubious. Who am I? A mycologist.

So. Do you know what the prohibition of psilocin means? It means that the governments of the world have been chasing down and imprisoning people for decades, trashing their lives with criminal records, all to protect "We The People" from killing ourselves with drugs that not only don't kill, but are amazingly SAFE. Think about it. The claim of zero or even 1 death cannot be made for ANY prescription drug nor probably 95% of the OTC drugs.

Naturally you ask yourself, How could our governments possibly be that wrong?

Well....It's not necessary for you to know 'how', but is for you to know that they 'are'.

I'm not sure what it is that makes non-drug users so sure that only illegal drugs are terribly dangerous, but please just open your mind to the hypothetical, to the idea that maybe some of them aren't dangerous and that the black market status (i.e. big bucks) is what makes their association so dangerous. Once you allow yourself that brief window of perspective, it will become immediately apparent that the war-on-drugs is a hysterical mess.


>
> And BTW, those illegal drug OD numbers are lite. I believe the real figures
> are about triple that, even if you accept the premise that the reporting
> system captures and records all the cases. Does every homeless junky get an
> autopsy and proper death certificate?

Believe me, if heroin is found in the system of somebody who hasn't died of any other readily apparent means, they are listed as an overdose.

Do better-off junkies' families allow
> anybody to know what killed their kids?

Autopsies aren't done by the families.


>
> I'm not against all drug use, but neither am I in favor of peddling stoner
> propaganda.

Please. Prohibition only leads to a black market in the drugs that are are either safe or already dangerous. Yes, some drugs are certainly problematical. But undoubtedly, pushing them into back alleys where the problems festers and the money goes into *anyones* hands (terrorists too!) does not get rid of the problem. People will ALWAYS do drugs. Regulate it. It's the only way

Gary Williams


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