Opinions - Alcohol and Benzos

[splish6]

Sorry if this was asked before, but why don't they ban alcohol and replace it with drinks with benzos in em? All you're losing is brain and liver damage, right?

[splish6]

Or maybe GHB?

Reputation Comments on this post:

made me think

[Zaprenz]

Well ignoring the fact that drug laws tend to go in one direction (banning new things before they become too popular) then alcohol has a few self limiting properties.

Alcohol is very toxic to the body and it breaks down in to acetaldehyde. This causes a lot of negative feedback. Just think whenever someones had too much to drink they usually dont feel like alcohol for quite a while. People do get addicted to alcohol but considering how many people drink alcohol the amount of people who are really addicted is not that many.

Benzo's being less toxic do not have as much negative feedback and as such are probably more likely to cause addiction and habitual use but also cause more varied effects like paradoxical behavior, more drowsiness (some people do benzos in a night club but SWIM would guess if everyone did most people would just fall asleep).

GHB has too high a dose response curve to be put in drinks in a way similar to alcohol. I.e If one beer was a certain dose you couldn't just drink one beer feel slightly tipsy, drink two beers feel twice as tipsy. It would be more like one GHB-beer feel nothing, two - feel something, three - feel very drunk , four- pass out.

SWIM has read benzo-partial agonists as possible replacements but has never read about one being tested. (It would be the buprenorphine of benzos and could in theory be a replacement, SWIM is unconvinced so far)

[fnord]

the insaneness of benzos/ghb in a bevrage prevents this from happining,swim wishs he could go to the store and a get a 30 rack of xanax

[zera]

Well at one point they did try making alcohol illegal, it did't turn out so hot. And benzos are a pretty poor substitute for alcohol, I am confident that vast majority of the population would find alcohol better for social situations. Despite widespread prescriptions benzos are not really popular recreationally, so this wouldn't really eliminate the demand for alcohol. GHB might be better, but once again even though GHB enthusiasts tend to love it, there is a very sizeable chunk of people who try it and don't like it at all.

[bcubed]

SWIM's only had experience with his ma's valium (many, many years ago when he was underage) and found it underwhelming. He only took the remainder whenever alcohol was unavailable at all or in insufficient qty. He knows that benzos are much more "targeted" in their effects; he's heard (no experience) that barbs are closer to booze because they're less targeted.

SWIM again has no knowlege of GHB (which he hopes to remedy) but, hearing about its effects, wonders if it could be marketed to alcholics with liver damage to keep them from killing themselves (possibly "GHB clinics" as w/ methadone).

Also, one saving grace of alcohol is that it's weaker by volume or mass than almost anything else, so that even straight alcohol is difficult to OD on accidentally. If one was to sell "downer drinks" then it would be imperative to set a maximum legal concentration. Even that, however, would be easy to get around via distillation or evaporation. After all, strong liqour has such a taste that it's unlikely the kiddies would accidentally down an LD50 dose. Contast that with a "600 proof" valium cocktail that tastes like kool-aid...

[csharpprogrammer]

Originally Posted by bcubed

SWIM's only had experience with his ma's valium (many, many years ago when he was underage) and found it underwhelming. He only took the remainder whenever alcohol was unavailable at all or in insufficient qty. He knows that benzos are much more "targeted" in their effects; he's heard (no experience) that barbs are closer to booze because they're less targeted.

SWIM again has no knowlege of GHB (which he hopes to remedy) but, hearing about its effects, wonders if it could be marketed to alcholics with liver damage to keep them from killing themselves (possibly "GHB clinics" as w/ methadone).

Also, one saving grace of alcohol is that it's weaker by volume or mass than almost anything else, so that even straight alcohol is difficult to OD on accidentally. If one was to sell "downer drinks" then it would be imperative to set a maximum legal concentration. Even that, however, would be easy to get around via distillation or evaporation. After all, strong liqour has such a taste that it's unlikely the kiddies would accidentally down an LD50 dose. Contast that with a "600 proof" valium cocktail that tastes like kool-aid...

SWIM thinks an alcohol overdose is MUCH more serious than a benzodiazepine OD, and probably much easier... Just SWIM's opinion.

[Psych0naut]

A overdose on benzodiazepines itself will not be fatal, only when it's combined with other CNS depressants. A overdose on alcohol is fatal, even on itself without anything else.

[zera]

Originally Posted by Psych0naut

A overdose on benzodiazepines itself will not be fatal, only when it's combined with other CNS depressants. A overdose on alcohol is fatal, even on itself without anything elsel.

From a theoritical viewpoint alcohol seems pretty dangerous. The low lethal to effective ratio makes alcohol dangerous, however due to the high volume vomitting will almost prevent a person from absorbing a lethal dose, and even if it doesnt stomach pumps are more effective in alcohol OD cases than other ODs. Fatal alcohol poisoning is an incredibly rare thing, occuring in about .1 adults out of 100,000. Considering how many people drink alcohol, and more so how many drink regularly and heavily, this is incredibly low. More so the vast majority of alcohol deaths are the result of mixing with other drugs or vomitting asphyxiation due to vomit, both of which are just as much if not higher risks with benzos.

Alcohol related traffic fatalities cause probably 20 times as many deaths as alcohol overdoses. In a given year about 1400 people will die from alcohol poisoning, and about 80% of those 1400 will be because of drug mixing (so its not alcohols fault alone). However about 20,000 people will die from alcohol related car accidents. Its in the traffic fatalities that I have to believe the switch from alcohol to benzos would just really be terrible, especially given benzos horrible reputation of causing people to black out, think theyre sober and then drive. Yes people may drink and drive, but when people are drunk they always know theyre drunk. When people are fucked up from benzos they have a tendancy to think theyre sober, which is pretty dangerous, especially when instead of taking them at home people would now be taking them at bars away from home.

[stoneinfocus]

replace it with olanzapines, -one pill and you´ll be crawling across the floor with blurred visions, slobbering, being too lazy to talk and think of anything, but that hell that you´re in _allright you skip the state of lack of restraints, pakistani-beating-up, soccer-watching and slandering anyone you don´t like in the most evil ways, while loosing every grip on intellectual and important, but brittle thoughts that might come to mind, just before you get into the olanzapine state of being a zombie with no dick.^^

[stoneinfocus]

I never felt sober on benzos and when I did, I could do anything as if I was sober.

On ecstasy swim feels like he´s completely lost his sense for the speed of his car (in fact he doesn´t, he knows when the g-force in a curve tells him),this is very dangerous, so there´s hardly any question arising wether to drive or not on a high/recreational dose MDA/MDMA.

Although this might be adaption to a drug´s influence or the dose/tolerance or both, one manages to drive safely if expereinced, even with a little buzz of alcohol or when taking a low dose bezo which is just relaxing but not sleep-inducing or anything alike.

however benzos, when they kick in, or when you´re hung-over with ´em, are horrible concerning driving-performance and I would never touch a car if I don´t gfeel like driving, when I´m on a benzo (which happens 1-2x a year and mostly when I´m, chilling at home or pre-surgery^^, so there´s no q about driving on for me)

[DrMuffy]

SWIdr had been taking venzos for so many years biw, He has GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), so he been prescribed a couple of benzos just tl see wghich ones works the best. He is now currently prescible clonazepam 1 mg twice a day with a trial run of 15 mg Tranxene a day too. So far has gained great amount of tolerance to benzo's becuse of his recent binge. He went to Mexico (Puerto Penesco0 AKA Rocky Point) for string break. He was with friend who really liked to party hard but I had to start out reeeeaaaalll slow on the drinking. SWIdr already got a blister pack of 30 1mg tablets of Alpazolam (Xanax) from a Mexican pharnicia. He took 2 mg Xanax and sipped on a beer for a while, after 45 minutes of nothing but a slight buzz SWIdr wanted to see if he got ripped off so nstead he took 2 mg of his prescribed clonazepam with another beer......after another hour he still just felt a slight uzz, do he popped 8 more mgs of alprazolam (I know, a very high and dangerous dose which no one shoul try!!) Twao hours after that and 3 beers later SWIdr finally started to ge his desired effects: no anxiety, pretty goof euphoria, very very relaxed. He actually and have a fun time around alot of people, not to mention some hot chicas. ody and muscled (due to the 12 hour non-stop car ride)

[x cynic x]

swim is confused because he feel that there is a seriously drastic difference in the effects of alcohol compared to benzos. alcohol makes swim feel very mindless and vacuous whilst tho he has only had experience with diazepam 5mgs and alprazolam 2mg bars, they only give him a feeling of moderate gratification and security. swim does not enjoy benzos recreationally as much as he does alcohol. he says that he prefers benzos to manage times when he is overloaded with work, debt and other causes of stress he has to deal with.