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Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington
As Sue says, there are drugs out there which were formulated for one purpose and they were useless for that purpose(for whatever reason.....i.e, they didn't do what they were supposed to, or had other effects that were damaging.etc, etc) but were found to be useful in other areas of medicine...maybe at different doses or formats.
I have nothing at all against MDMA being used for medical purposes...under supervision/prescription, but am against it being taken for recreational purposes......where the person using it has not been assessed by a medical practitioner. In this respect it is an unknown quantity...you just do not know how the person will react to it. The other difficulty with recreational drugs is that they support a whole raft of criminal activities....and because the pushers want to make more money the drug is adulterated with all kinds of substances...which in themselves may be harmful when taken.
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People have been using psychotropic drugs since the dawn of time and it has been argued that altered states of consciousness have led to the birth of religions and culture.
The fact that science today can come up with new substances with these properties means that there will always be new experiences to try and there will always be people who want to experiment with them, as there have always been.
Surely the fact that illegal drugs support criminal activities is an argument for removing this connection by removing bans. Then substances could be sold under controls such as apply to alcohol and tobacco and the pushers would not have the upper hand. Then individuals would be free to decide for themselves whether or not to partake of any particular drug - as they do with alcohol and tobacco. The harm they may do to themselves, or not, would be up to them.