International - Pro-drug pressure groups

[discodave]

who are the best of these? like anti-eurad groups?

[cra$h]

what? I can't comprehend what your asking. Elaborate please.

[Alfa]

EURAD is the reason we have had many bans in Europe. And also the reason why legal highs are currently under fire in several countries. They have an excellent network, lobby, PR, legal research, ect. And all just to get rid of legal drugs and drug related industries. They are funded by DEA, the church and Sweden.
Use the search engine to learn more.

AFAIK there is no anti-eurad group. There is ENCOD, but they do not have the resources to counter EURAD.

[discodave]

u know funds just buy you peoples time and their resources, it should be possible to leverage the desire for a common goal to recruit to an underfunded group.

look at obama, $10 from everyone beats down a million from a few. thanks i will look at these encod people.

[infekt]

I'm not that sure what type of groups you are referring to, but would NORML be one of them? (National Organization for the Reformation of Mairjuana Laws)

I believe they have done a lot of good here in the US in terms of getting Medical Marijuana awareness up.

[vinylmesh]

Do you mean groups that are actually pro drugs or just groups that are anti-prohibition.

transform seem to be quite big. They're based in the uk.

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/

there's no reason we shouldn't be able to take them on. I think there's more of us than them (i'm talking about die hard anti drugs campaigners). we just need to organise loads of protests and stuff.

Reputation Comments on this post:

useful

[mouthwater]

Drug Policy Alliance Network (drugpolicy.org) fits into the anti-prohibition category. And Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (maps.org), which outputs more research than they do legislative help, if I'm not mistaken.

I doubt you'll find a lot of established, explicit "pro-drug" foundations.

[doggy_hat]

I think that the erowid foundation and MAPS are the two most important ones. Erowid helps spread alot of the truth about drugs, and their website is an important resource for educating many drug users, who can then be smart users that can help support anti-prohibition movement. And MAPS does alot of solid research to back up anti-prohibition with scientific info.

[Sven99]

In the UK there is Transform Drugs Policy Foundation. They aren't pro-drugs, but they support legalisation and regulation of all recreational drugs as the most beneficial option to society as a whole.

[MotherSuperior]

Off the top of my head in the UK, the National Users Network started out really well, have a very active chat group(yahoousergroups). Blackpoppy magazine had some good links.

The Methadone Alliance are probably one of the most repected 'users of Methadone prescribing' voices but not 'pro-drug'.

Did you have any drug in mind are all of them?

[Alfa]

The OP is not asking for pro drug groups, but pro drug pressure groups to counter EURAD's actions.

[MrG]

OMG, I have to confess to being entirely unaware of EURAD's existence. I have had a quick look at that site and it reeks of the usual church busybody types. You know the Maude Flanders "think of the children!" school of ignorant reactionaries.

Their reports are crammed full of knee-jerk bullshit but, because they have a church on their side, they've got the money and the leverage to keep on rolling over everybody else's views.

They are saving our souls people, we should be grateful!

In all seriousness, this is yet another example of how utterly ridiculous it is that society continues to give religion free access to declare themselves mankind's moral guardian.

Originally Posted by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Holy See the Third Committee on Item 109, International Drug Control

" In all of its phases and dimensions," the nuncio said in opening remarks, "the illicit drug scourge robs the human person of his or her innate dignity.

No, drug prohibition does that. The church is more concerned about the empty pews and collection plates.

Originally Posted by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Holy See the Third Committee on Item 109, International Drug Control

My delegation notes with special concern the ever more obvious links between the illicit drug trade and other human tragedies, such as the trafficking of human beings, the proliferation of illicit small arms, organised crime, and terrorism."

Obvious link? Smuggling contraband of any kind is still the same basic principle.

Oh, you mean the "link" between dirty drug users who want to rape smuggled prostitutes and then shoot them afterwards in one easy segway?
Subtle Celestino, subtle.

Ok, I'm all for taking these idiots on, any suggestions?

[vinylmesh]

Originally Posted by MrG

Ok, I'm all for taking these idiots on, any suggestions?

spam the fuck outta their email inbox. Prank all their phone numbers. Send them letters containing drugs. Send them letters containing glucose, and claim it is drugs. Send them ordinary letters and claim the stamp has lsd in it. Send them letters and emails where you claim to have had amazing spiritual experiences on drugs and how drugs saved your life ect. Get a photo of you with some drugs and using paint block out your head. Then put a caption on it saying "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah you can't get me!" or something simmilar, or a photo of some weed and caption it, do you think 35% (or whatever the figure in your area is) of people deserve to go to jail?

Start an anti-eurad website named "eurad is lying to you" and get everyone here to link to it at the end of every post so it comes up top of the list when you type in "eurad" into google (not sure if this is how google works but someone here should know right?). Make vicious jokes about it's members on every discussion board you can find.

If they're being funded by certain churches make a huge deal of it as if they're the crazyest a bunch of extreme fundamentalists. Start rumors that they get money off the american government.

shall i continue?

[Alfa]

These people push many bans through governments quite successfully. Your suggestions may be annoying to them, but nothing more than that. They wont stop a single ban. Nor will in counter their credibility.

Originally Posted by vinylmesh

If they're being funded by certain churches make a huge deal of it as if they're the crazyest a bunch of extreme fundamentalists. Start rumors that they get money off the american government.

They state this themselves on their website, so there's not much use spreading rumours.

[Mr. Giraffe]

Originally Posted by vinylmesh

spam the fuck outta their email inbox. Prank all their phone numbers. Send them letters containing drugs. Send them letters containing glucose, and claim it is drugs. Send them ordinary letters and claim the stamp has lsd in it. Send them letters and emails where you claim to have had amazing spiritual experiences on drugs and how drugs saved your life ect. Get a photo of you with some drugs and using paint block out your head. Then put a caption on it saying "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah you can't get me!" or something simmilar, or a photo of some weed and caption it, do you think 35% (or whatever the figure in your area is) of people deserve to go to jail?

This is more or less what people do already, and believe me, it's the fuel which sustains her crusade. She lives on the hatred of the young. Believe me, I know a certain fictional character who has a happy relationship with Ms. Kenny and understands something of her (admittedly warped) mind.

Originally Posted by vinylmesh

If they're being funded by certain churches make a huge deal of it as if they're the crazyest a bunch of extreme fundamentalists. Start rumors that they get money off the american government.

shall i continue?

They are a bunch of crazy extremists, and they very well may get funding from the US government. They are very close to certain extremist American 'anti-drug' groups.

[vinylmesh]

really? ah poo . Come to think about it, that actually makes sense.

guess if there was something that could be done, someone would have tried it.

SWIM might try and start an activist group someday (nothing huge, just a few SWI-us handing out flyers). what else SWIM could be doing (realistically)?

-EDIT. I think i remember seeing her once on a video. One of her main arguments was that addiction is purely chemical and all about dopamine (she kept saying this to make it sound like she knows a lot). SWIM would have loved to say to her; "GHB inhibits the release of dopamine yet addiction still occurs, how do you explain that?"

[Joe Duffy]

I remember when I first chanced upon the EURAD site many years ago, I laughed and

I laughed and I laughed and I laughed again, it was one of the funniest spoof

websites I had ever encountered. It wasn’t until years later while reading a

newspaper that I discovered to my horror that the site was in all actuality a genuine

one.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Hilarious.

[G_nome]

If ye click the Get Involved thing on the Transform website it'll take you to a template of a letter for to be sent to your local MP, i would urge everyone in the UK to do this.
It's worth a try innit.
I've just emailed my local MP, a certain Douglas Alexander. I look forward to seeing the response i get from him.

[Desertfox]

I sent them the following e-mail at their contact address and at their "research" doctor's e-mail.

Do you realize you are causing the pain and suffering of thousand if not millions of people? You're organization has led to many stricter drug laws and has turned any person who has chosen the lifestyle choice to smoke marijuana into a criminal. Even if your so called "research" suggests that since marijuana causes reproductive changes in some people that's reason enough to ban it completely and anyone who has chosen to use it is treated as a sick criminal. And in reading over your website I can't help but notice all of the blatant lies, half-truths and uninformed "facts" that you in turn are telling the general public.

"It is a fat soluble drug (unlike alcohol or heroin, cocaine, ecstasy etc) which means it is absorbed by the fatty tissues in the body (the brain is one third fat) and lingers for weeks or months depending on the amount smoked) leaving the user in a permanently stoned condition."

What marijuana was used in this research? No marijauna I've run into in my life has ever had this effect on anyone. The quote above of simply untrue, a person that ingests marijuana is not stoned for months at most a few hours. If that were the case than many marijuana smokers would have a lot more money in their bank accounts due to a small amount causing them being stoned for months. Your other research states that marijuana alters brain chemisty, this part is true, no one can argue that, but then you've taken that info and changed it around to assume that means negative changes and that its brain damage. And your other research articles take most of their info from the NIDA studies done over 25 years ago that suggest marijuana is a very unsafe drug to be ingested by mice but to try and say it has no medical value what so ever and that hard, unnatural, synthesized, habit-forming opiates is better for the mitigation of pain is propaganda. In my own life I've seen people close to me get injured and then go on pain medication only to come out as strung-out opiate addicts that now depend on the medications to feel normal, and would otherwise never have chosen to do these drugs but are ignorant and only listen to what doctor's tell them is safe for them but now will be paying for it for the rest of their lives. And many people get sick from the ingestion of opiates and usually the response to this is oh why don't we give you this other drug to help with that and pretty soon that person is taking so many medications that it is actually deterioratating their health and leading to the prolonged unenjoyment of their lives. If that sick person simply chose to self medicate with marijuana, and not feed thousands of their own dollars to the pharmaceutical companies, this person would be demonized in society and have many of their rights taken away because they have chosen a lifestyle choice you don't agree with. I can see that you honestly think you are helping people but much of what you have done is exactly the opposite and many people are now suffering for it. Your desire to keep marijuana and all other drugs prohibited is leading to the suppression of thousands of people, and I know this may be hard to understand but your are in turn banning a person's own personal right of spiritual exploration and mind-expansion. For some reason you see someone who chooses to do marijuana as less human, and they are not using free-will when they choose to ingest these substances, but this kind of oversimplification of the marijuana smoking population needs to stop. If methamphetamine and methyhlphenidate can be prescribed to millions of children and be considered medicinal because it changes the child's mental state and make him/her easier to handle, why can't marijuana be prescribed to the population as a mood regulator? Many deaths and negative health/behavioral effects have occured from amphetamines and stimulants, yet marijuana is ignored by the medical community. Nature has given us this wonderful substance with so many positive benefits that far outweigh any negatives, I don't understand why you want it completely ignored in society. There is record dating back the medicinal use of cannabis as far back as 3000BCE, being consumed safely by millions of people for many generations. It can even by ingested safely and does not need to be smoked for it effects to be felt it can be orally taken just like any other medicine. Total deaths caused by marijuana in the history of humanity is zero while legal drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs have killed more people then all of the illegal 'unsafe' drugs combined. What good is your word if you are so hypocritical in what you do and support? You see this as protecting the people as required by law but what you are really doing is suppressing the populations freedom of choice. It's insanity to suggest that once someone takes a drug their free-will is compromised so we might as well take away their free-will completely and never allow them to choose to explore what these substance have to offer. If you have even taken the time to read this or consider any of the information that lies within then I thank you. If I had more time I would have included more info but felt that I should atleast see if you respond to any of this and to see if your mind is open to discussion on the subject and I assume the longer I make this the less likely your are to actually read it so I'll stop here.



Do you think they'll even look at it?

[samsa]

I've been sending similar letters to groups like these for while, and no, i dont think they will read it. Valiant effort, though, it doesnt stop me from sending them in.

"Oh, it's another letter from those fucking druggies."

Alas, you can't change these people's minds with 'facts' and 'evidence'.

[G_nome]

Well i got a wee postcard yesterday from the House of Commons saying that my MP will soon be in touch with me regarding the email i sent him.

[Lunar Loops]

Originally Posted by G_nome

Well i got a wee postcard yesterday from the House of Commons saying that my MP will soon be in touch with me regarding the email i sent him.

Not wishing to rain on any parades, but I wouldn't hope for too much. That is pretty much a standard (almost automated) response. I do think that following this line of action has some benefit if enough people choose to do it (and that is where the fignt lies).

[G_nome]

Yeah i'm not as naive as to think i'll actually get anything meaningful back from my MP, if at all. Still may be interesting to see what he does write back with. But anyway, the idea is to flood parliament with these letters, and then hopefully something will change. It's worth a try anyway. Better than sitting here doing nothing about it.

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Letter_to_MP.html

[Lunar Loops]

Originally Posted by G_nome

Yeah i'm not as naive as to think i'll actually get anything meaningful back from my MP, if at all. Still may be interesting to see what he does write back with. But anyway, the idea is to flood parliament with these letters, and then hopefully something will change. It's worth a try anyway. Better than sitting here doing nothing about it.

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Letter_to_MP.html

No, and I would encourage as many people as possible to do so, but that is where the problem lies. No MP is going to put his neck on the line unless there is a massive groundswell of opinion. We are preaching to the converted here, but out there in the 'real' world most people feel they have far more pressing issues to write to their MP about.

[believer91]

A lot of people is rehabilitated from drug abuse or is in the process. The statistics of the United States says that thirty three percent of the crimes that were committed by the actual prisoners were under the influence of drugs. "The treatment community does not contend that society is at risk from the behavior of all drug abusers or even the great majority of them." (Rosenthal, Mitchell S. ,1993). The society must understand that if everybody is not against the drug legalization, everybody is going to live in a totally different place. If the people start being weak in their decisions, this will affect not only our life but also the next generation way of living.