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Theres a guy Grant Harding on YT etc. who sends gas station pills for testing and some of the things he finds are scary. Seriously addictive drugs being sold O
by v8xi 2mo ago
Theres a guy Grant Harding on YT etc. who sends gas station pills for testing and some of the things he finds are scary. Seriously addictive drugs being sold OTC with no meaningful consumer warning or guardrails
- sigmoid10 2mo ago>Seriously addictive drugs being sold OTC Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in existence and it is sold everywhere. If governments actually cared about addiction risk, a whole lot of things would have to disappear from normal stores.
- Forgeties79 2mo agoNicotine is far more regulated and generally won’t lead you to pass out behind the wheel of a car or drown in a hot tub. You can’t even smoke in the vicinity of many buildings, but kratom? It’s basically an unregulated opiod that anyone over 18 can get and use wherever, whenever, with little to no control over what’s actually in it because it’s not food, medicine, etc.
- sigmoid10 2mo agoSo are most OTC drugs. Doesn't change the fact that you can get them everywhere. And long term nicotine use causes dependence similar to heroin.
- Forgeties79 2mo agoIt doesn’t even compare man. I am pro legalization of drugs but it doesn’t mean they should be as unregulated as kratom currently is
- pstuart 2mo agoDrug regulation should be very simple: 1. Purity, strength, and disclosure of ingredients. 2. Responsible advertising/promotion/distribution. I'm pro kratom but I find it abhorrent the way it's marketed and sold without any warnings or acknowledgements of addiction.
- ipaddr 2mo agoNot really but great talking point. The exact quote is it's as hard to quit smoking as heroin. But in reality getting off heroin cold turkey can kill you, where you need to be locked in room sweat it out. People quiting smoking still go to work but their mood is poor. Not the same at all.
- switchbak 2mo agoAlso you can just walk in a farmer's field, pick a mushroom out of a cow patty and boom - you're high AF! Someone should regulate cow shit, there's little to no control over it!
- sanktanglia 2mo agomost states require farmers to put additives in their cow feed to specifically prevent those mushrooms, they are already actively regulated
- switchbak 2mo agoThank God, we can't just have people getting high for free.
- AngryData 2mo agoGot a source for that? Ive never heard of that in my life and ive worked on multiple dairy and beef farms.
- amanaplanacanal 2mo agoYou just made that up, didn't you?
- switchbak 2mo agoSupposedly it’s an urban (rural) legend going around for a long time. Good story, even if it’s not true.
- ipaddr 2mo agoSo is caffeine.
- ralph84 2mo agoAnd sugar
- Forgeties79 2mo agoThese are incredibly reductionist arguments y’all are engaging in.
- rithdmc 2mo agoHow so? Sugar is having taxes added in many jurisdictions due to the health effects & habituation it can cause.
- Forgeties79 2mo agoDifferent things are bad in different ways and need to be handled differently. You can’t functionally just go “both can be addictive and kill people therefore your argument is moot.” You’ve removed all qualifiers and context. To compare them is to respond to a discussion on the threat of guns with some point about people weaponizing their cars and running people over because both can cause bodily harm. I think we can both agree that comparison strips all context and nuance from most conversations about guns OR cars and makes it difficult to talk about either in productive ways outside of the narrow/niche discussions. TL;DR: this comparison spikes the conversation. Sugar and kratom do not present enough analogous health issues or enough of the same types risks to those around you to warrant lumping them together like that.
- rithdmc 2mo agoWe're talking about dangerous substances you can buy OTC, and the health implications of those. Of course kratom and sugar fall into that bucket.
- vitally3643 2mo agoYou have to provide ID and be over 21 to purchase nicotine. You can't advertise nicotine products. You have to be licensed to sell nicotine products. Same for alcohol. Restrictions on who can buy, who can sell, and how you can advertise and market. These are not the same as some random pill from a gas station sold to anyone with cash with zero regulations, safety, restrictions, or even any requirement to tell you what's actually in it.
- newsclues 2mo agoWhen I was a kid, there were cigarette vending machines. I am not that old.
- bullfightonmars 2mo agoThen what happened? Better regulation, better enforcement, anti-smoking advertising campaigns, banning public smoking, and drastically reduced amongst youth and the general public. Cigarette regulation to reduce smoking starting in the mid/late 90s is the poster child for public policy done well.
- stasomatic 2mo agoI don't think it worked. I was floored by how much smoking I saw on a recent trip to Europe, by young people of all. Scary slogans on the packs, no effect. Cigs are barely a thing in the states now, you are kind of a low caste pariah if you smoke, but I guess vaping and cannabis picked up the baton. I am an ex pack-a-day smoker myself, but quit about 10y ago. Don't crave cigs or the smell, but do crave nicotine.
- pests 2mo agoI think it did. I recently started collecting some sealed Pokemon products for my collection so been going to lines and camp outs and meeting new people. Our new friend group is about 8 people sometimes more. Not a single person smokes cigs. In a line with 20/30+ other people there might only be a single person stepping aside to light up. Sometimes its hard to even find a lighter for other purposes.
- Legend2440 2mo agoGovernments have spent considerable effort on it, but it's tough to ban something as popular as tobacco or alcohol. Voters tend to get what they want, and a sizeable fraction of voters smoke or drink.
- pstuart 2mo ago> Voters tend to get what they want I wish that was true. In the case of tobacco and alcohol, there's enough monied interests to ensure it would never be illegal. So this defines the classic simple argument about the issue: alcohol and tobacco are dangerous and other than a weird House episode, have no medical value, and yet society has decided that some dangerous drugs are ok, because the right people are making money from it. Propaganda has effectively sold the War on Drugs as "protecting people", but it's never been about that -- it's about enabling tools of oppression.
- Legend2440 2mo agoThat's cynical nonsense and I don't believe a word of it. Prohibition was repealed by popular vote, not by bought-out politicians. And we're not 'oppressing' fent addicts by arresting them when they pass out on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. They are causing a problem for the rest of society that we now have to deal with. That's why we do the war on drugs.
- pstuart 2mo agoYour certitude is not supported by your ignorance of history: Prohibition was that generation's war on drugs, and it's not pretty. The government went to obscene lengths to "discourage drinking": https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-poison-10000-americans/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-poison-10000-am... And the "voting" was the money'd class, not "the people": https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/prohibition-centennial https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/prohibition-centennial Let's not forget how well it funded organized crime, but not nearly to the extent that the current WoD has literally created the drug cartels south of the border. Moving on to your "observations" of failure. The fact that we literally have a fent crisis nationally shows that the war not only was an abject failure but literally created the fent crisis (cheaper and easier than heroin and easier to smuggle). As far as the oppression angle, there's plenty of documented history on this issue. For starters there's this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race-mass-incarceration-and-disastrous-war-drugs https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race... I've lost friends to drugs, my brother died of a heroin overdose and my mother died from complications of alcoholism and smoking. Your simple-minded dismissal of the problem is insulting to their memories and millions of others. Nobody should be doing fent recreationally, let alone passing out on the street. But if your answer to that problem is "Give the DEA billions of dollars more, and fill our prisons with those moral degnerates" then you are sadly mistaken.
- jambalaya8 2mo agoThis was happening during the early 2000s, though in more "reputable" places (like nutrition and supplement stores; different "drugs" and chemicals, though). Not really surprised it is still going on in the weird little label producers.
- zingababba 2mo agoYou used to be able to find some wild stuff in GNC ~20 years ago, the 'pro-hormone' era was funny. All the cannabinoid analogs are a good example too, people just want to get high. I do miss salvia extracts though. Being able to pick that up in a head shop was nice before it got banned.
- jambalaya8 2mo agoYeah, there were far better (albeit questionably legal) alternatives to caffeine or ginseng for energy back then available at places like GNC that were better than either (and not at all much stronger, just easier to metabolise for me). Ads for that stuff used to be all over Muscle and Fitness, etc. I don't think any of the new stuff ever had the level of public awareness that stuff did. It also doesn't have anyone actually caring that it is untested and unsafe. The other stuff, often self-policed.
- mullingitover 2mo agoGNC used to sell freaking GHB in the 80s and early 90s!
- sanktanglia 2mo agoyou miss salvia extract??? everyone i know who has done it(myself included) their response was "never doing that again!"
- NDlurker 2mo agoSalvia is great if you're in the right setting and headspace. Its been years since I used it, but I'm glad I did. There's one trip in particular that I sometimes think about and has remained a meaningful part of my life.