Talk:Recreational drug use

fix brackets at end of first paragragh

I understand why this article is locked, and I think it's a good idea to keep it so. The result should be a more objective and professional-looking entry, but in this case, there is a simple editing error which produces the opposite effect.

quoting:

Understood broadly, this is [recreation]].

That is how it actually reads. I'm pretty sure that what was meant was:

Understood broadly, this is recreation.

with the double brackets escaping out as an internal link. I hope someone regularly monitors this page and can make this easy, practically one-keystroke fix, which I would if the article weren't locked which it is and I'm not complaining about.

my sig:

<{: )}>

alcohol not consumed by whom?

Under Types: Common Drugs: second bullet, ethanol: religious proscription of alcohol is described as follows:

not consumed by members of some religions.

Use of the contrapositive is not as transparent as it might be. If alcohol is forbidden, are those who consume it no longer adherents to Islam, LDS, or some other christian sects? Naming the prohibiting religions is not my intention, nor is assessing the imperiled state of the soul of any particular adherent, which I think we can agree is beyond the scope of an objective reference work. But if you think about it, the statement "Alcohol is prohibited, and therefore not consumed by muslims" is as misleading as, "methamphetamine is not consumed in the United States, because it is illegal."

the logical conundrum (whether "not by all" or "not by some" is meant) could be solved by:

not consumed by some members of some religions.

But I find this to be awkward and unsatisfactory, as well as unelucidating. Here is my suggestion for an alternative, using the "many" to cover a multitude of indiscretions:

forbidden by some religions: therefore not consumed by many of their adherents, or consumed only clandestinely.

I cannot edit this article, as it is locked, which I still agree with, but I hope someone who checks here occasionally will see the merit of this edit and include it. Thank you.

my sig:

<{: )}>

dd

Under the heading, "Drugs which can be smoked," there are two subheadings. The first, "Plants" seems straightforward. This is the second subheading:

Substances (also not necessarily psychoactive plants soaked with them):

I hate to make a joke here, about what the person was smoking when they wrote this, because that might be seen as ad hominem, and if it was the result of multiple edits, it might be more accurate to say that it was Wikipedia itself (herself?) whose mind was temporarily addled.

At first I thought it meant, "These substances can be smoked, and some of them come from plants, some of which also can be smoked, and some can't." I thought, that's confusing, but it could be cleared up. Methamphetamine can be smoked, and the amphetamines are derived from the ephedra plant. I've never heard of anyone smoking ephedra, so maybe that was what "not necessarily" meant.

I have heard that dimethyltryptamine (DMT) has been mixed with spearmint tea leaves, and then smoked, and perhaps that is what the writer intended by "Substances (also not necessarily psychoactive plants soaked with them)." Almost anything can be considered a "substance" and many of these substances are combustible, so it is technically true that any drug can be added to anything that burns and the resulting smoke can be inhaled, but in many if not most cases the results would be much less than salubrious, and I think that this could be asserted, without affecting the "neutrality" of the article. For example, the San Francisco Oracle reported, tongue in cheek, that banana peels could be dried in an oven and then smoked, and this has been repeated seriously in many publications, but has no basis in truth and I hope does not belong in this article unless a new section is created called "ways people have tried unsuccessfully to get high," which I am not recommending.

I guess the structural problems with this article have been discussed, but if the talk pages have not been locked, then I haven't been able to find them. Without getting too deeply into the pros and cons, the article becomes a list, of various mind-altering drugs, their methods of administration, and something about their effects, and I want to go on record stating that I think this sort of list has value. It's a basic reference tool which others can build on in various ways. But by "structural problems" I mean this: First the drugs are listed as "most popular" and "other popular." What the basis for the division is, is not clear, but this is not a crucial flaw. Following the list of drugs by, I suppose, descending order of popularity -- or perhaps degree of unfamiliarity by the non-drug-using, English-speaking public -- is a list by method of administration. There is definitely some overlap here, e.g. all inhalants are inhaled, but I see inhalants listed in three places. Types of drug lists: (quoting)

inhalants – solvents, propellants and fumes of glues containing these, but also nitrous oxide (laughing gas), Poppers (alkyl nitrites), diethyl ether and others (see also the section about them)

Perhaps this could say, "see below." I suggest this change because the next section, "Routes of administration," says, "inhalation – all inhalants (listed above), as the name suggests". The problem here is that if you try the link, inhalation, which I have faithfully checked as the previous editor did not, you are led to the WP page on the act of respiration by living organisms, and not the WP page intoxicative inhalant which is a much more comprehensive article which also makes the distinction between the huffing of solvent-based fumes and nitrous oxide. Although Nitrous can completely "put you out," which is why it is used as an anaesthetic in surgery, there is no lethal dose. The huffing of aerosol, petroleum fuel or other solvent fumes is, however, as cited in the WP article, "more likely to result in life-threatening respiratory depression" than heroin, a point that I hope can be emphasized somewhere in a revision of this article.

Back to the heading, "Routes of administration," the first entry says, in part:

but almost every substance (with some exceptions) can be injected

I find this statement to be troubling. Marijuana cannot be injected. Opium cannot be injected. The mold from my grandmother's refrigerator could be scraped and dissolved in sterile water and cooked in a spoon and injected -- but it would probably kill me before it made me see the "wee people" and not after. I realize that, since most cultures, and most people in this culture, believe that self-injecting for recreation is an inherently dangerous activity -- and I'm not just talking about society-induced pressures of unsanitary conditions or adulterants, but also the actual danger inherent in getting high on pure drugs from spoon to arm for fun -- since people know that shooting is dangerous but some people do it anyway, it does not seem out of place to say, "some substances are not meant to be injected," and then perhaps list those that can -- or at least have been known to have been injected regularly by some people, some of whom have still lived past the age of 25. This article, although controversial, is a public service and saying, "almost every substance (with some exceptions) can be injected" is a disservice that I think can be easily avoided.

I hope to see some feedback on this and some of the other issues I've raised. Sorry I haven't logged in, but my IP is real and I don't mind being traced back, if such a thing is possible.

But apart from issues of public health and safety, my main beef is aesthetic. After listing types of drugs and then methods of administration, some of the information is sort of re-cross-referenced by listing

Drugs which can be smoked

And again, this classification into "plants" and the ever-objectionable

Substances (also not necessarily psychoactive plants soaked with them):

If anyone can tell me what this actually means, I will withdraw my objection.

I wish that material from the European Union's scientific re-evaluation of the relative lethality of substances could be included. It did not have the force of law, but was considered to be the basis for ongoing policy initiatives and perhaps contributed to the U.K. loosening the restrictions and penalties for marijuana use. From memory, it was the product of an international symposium in Switzerland in the early 1990's (because that was when I read it), and the results were similar, but not identical to, the U.K. graphic chart in the article.

Thanks for all the good work, and thanks for listening. Hello? Is anyone listening? <{: )}> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.67.211 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 8 January 2014(UTC)

In 2009 it was estimated that about 3% to 6% of people 15 to 65 had used illegal drugs at least once (149 to 270 million).[4]

The reference is about cocaine use, not recreational drug use in general. The numbers are in the abstract and refer to just cocaine use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.172.72 (talk) 01:05, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Did you read the whole paper? It states "The 2011 world drug report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that 149–271 million people aged 15– 64 years (3·3–6·1%) had used an illicit drug at least once in 2009." We can likely update it to the UNODC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:38, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Both Amphetamines and Methamphetamine have the potential to be neurotoxic

It depends on dosage. "the stimulant amphetamines are clearly neurotoxic in laboratory animals. MDMA causes selective and persistent lesions of central serotonergic nerve terminals, whereas amphetamines damage both the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems." from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181923/. Though Methamphetamine has a much higher chance of causing brain damage due mostly to the context (environment) in which they are illegally abused and to a lesser extend their mechanism of action. I have updated the page to reflect this as before it made a statement that said amps are safe, meth is not safe.Boilingorangejuice (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Stand-alone lists

Does anyone mind if I make stand-alone lists and link to them in the article instead of having these lengthy lists that take up so much main article space? PermStrump(talk) 03:59, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably not a bad idea. I spun off List of designer drugs from its main article since the list was growing large. Are you proposing List of recreational drugs? My only concern is such a list could become extremely large as more and more obscure substances are added. Sizeofint (talk) 07:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

True, but at least it wouldn't be an extremely long list in the middle of the article. I haven't really thought this all the way through yet. Right now at least, they wouldn't be too too long if there were lists named after the subsections, like... List of popular recreational drugs, List of routes of administration (recreational drugs), etc. Some already exist, like List of psychedelic plants. We should add List of designer drugs. I just did ctrl F "design" and that word isn't even in the article at all apparently. I bet lists like the one for psychedelic plants will need to be synched with what's in the article, so only keeping them as stand-alone lists would help that problem. As a "class" of drugs gets longer, it could get its own spin off list similar to List of designer drugs. I think it's ok if there's overlap, like synthetic cannabinoids might be on both List of designer drugs and List of cannabinoids. I'm just thinking out loud. Tbh, I haven't even finished scrolling through the entire article yet, because it's so long. PermStrump(talk) 11:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Just came across this long list List of ethnic slurs and thought the layout could be good for recreational drugs too. It's like a glossary list format. PermStrump(talk) 13:15, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

There is also List of psychedelic drugs already. Sizeofint (talk) 00:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh man, there's also: List of psychoactive plants, List of plants used for smoking, and Drugs controlled by the UK Misuse of Drugs Act (which is really a list article). I think I might have hit the end finally, maybe. I'm putting them here to keep track, because I had too many tabs open. PermStrump(talk) 06:15, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

(talk) 08:27, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if going into the legal status lists is necessary. It would probably be easier to link to drug prohibition law which should then link to relevant articles/lists. Sizeofint (talk) 19:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking maybe the common recreational drug list could stay in the main article if the others had their own list articles. This is my first draft: Talk:Recreational_drug_use/Druglist. Anyone can feel free to edit as you like. A few of the lists were already tagged as needing sources, so I left that. PermStrump

Yes, that seems reasonable. Sizeofint (talk) 19:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking the prose of "Types of recreational drugs" should be a part of the main article. We could then link to List of stimulants, List of depressants etc. Template:Recreational drug use may be helpful for assembling the lists. Sizeofint (talk) 19:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

And delete the prose from list page, like this... Talk:Recreational drug use/Types of recreational drugs? I only did the first couple because I wasn't sure if that's what you meant. PermStrump(talk) 01:58, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's along the lines of what I'm thinking. Sizeofint (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Undue weight on evolution hypothesis

Signedzzz, re: your revert to my edit. (1)Evolutionary theory doesn't belong in its own section as it gives WP:UNDUE weight to one of many theories about why people start using drugs (which are listed under Reasons for use). Of the theories, evolution is not a prominent one. It fits perfectly in the "Reasons for use" section, though that subsection may not belong under Risks, but that's a different conversation. (2)Both studies you cited were written by the same group of researchers and the premise of their paper is that they're offering a hypothesis that challenges the mainstream view. The abstract of the 2002 article says, "According to a conventional evolutionary perspective, the human propensity for substance use is the product of a ‘mismatch’ between emotional mechanisms that evolved in a past without pure drugs or direct routes of drug administration, and the occurrence of these phenomena in the contemporary environment. The primary purpose of this review is to assert that, contrary to the conventional view... Our second, and more speculative objective is to suggest provisional hypotheses of human substance-using phenomena that can incorporate the evolutionary implications of a deep time relationship between psychotropic substances and people. We discuss hypotheses of selective benefits of substance use..."[1] In the conclusion they acknowledge that their idea has not been tested yet. The next article was published in 2008 and they state that still no research had been done towards exploring their hypothesis. In 2015, the same authors wrote a chapter in this book and still no research had been done. Personally, I think evolution could be mentioned in one word in the list of possible explanations for use. If we're going to say more than that, it shouldn't be more than 1 sentence about the conventional evolutionary theory. This isn't the right place to go in depth about all of the new and untested speculation about evolution and drug use. PermStrump(talk) 04:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not a "theor[y] about why people start using drugs". zzz (talk) 04:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The authors say it is. In positing the reasons for substance abuse, the conventional perspective is logically dependent on a mismatch between an emotional reinforcement mechanism that evolved in a past without pure drugs or direct routes of administration and the novel occurrence of these phenomena in the contemporary environment. However, the evidence presented above positing a deep-time relationship between psychotropic chemicals and people undermines the logical consistency of the conventional view. Also here, We also questioned the importance of hedonic reinforcement in the etiology of substance use, emphasizing that the first experience of ubiquitously used drugs is often aversive. And here Our focus is on the most enigmatic phase of drug use—initial drug seeking and its acute effects, which we detail here... PermStrump(talk) 04:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The evolution, or origin, of recreational drug use, obviously has the potential to inform debate about the cause of drug use (which the authors would have been remiss to ignore), but the article section does not examine that aspect. However I agree with Sizeofint's edit placing it under Reasons for use.zzz (talk) 04:56, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Your recent reverts do not reflect the sources. You've re-added, "Genetic research has indicated that man and his distant ancestors "may have evolved to counter-exploit plant neurotoxins"." But this is not what the sources say. The authors said that no research had been done thus far to explore whether humans have evolved to "counter-exploit plant neurotoxins." They stated several times that their goal was to substantiate a reason for evolutionary biologists to research this area as the primary authors are anthropologists. This sentence, "Chemical–ecological adaptations, and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochromeP450 have led researchers to propose that "humans have shared a co-evolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances that is millions of years old."" splices 2 different sentences, one from each article, and directly implies that there is evidence supporting their hypothesis, when there is none. The actual sentences from the sources say,

Emerging insights from plant evolutionary ecology and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochrome P450, indicate that animal and hominid taxa have been exposed to plant toxins throughout their evolution.2008

The primary purpose of this review is to assert that, contrary to the conventional view, humans have shared a coevolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances.2002

As I stated above, if we're going to talk about evolution in this article, it should be the conventional view, not a new and untested hypothesis as it's WP:UNDUE. PermStrump(talk) 05:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not aware of any controversy surrounding the evolutionary hypothesis. If you are aware of any, (perhaps a source for what the "conventional view" currently is) this could be added. Chemical–ecological adaptations, and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochrome P450 have led researchers to propose that "humans have shared a co-evolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances that is millions of years old". The quote is from the source, and the first part is a summary of "Among what could be called chemical–ecological adaptations, the most relevant are the cytochrome P-450 and other liver enzyme systems, which have evolved specifically with the function of metabolizing allelochemicals by oxidation, hydrolysis or reduction", also from the same source [2]. zzz (talk) 05:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

That's better than the first version, but it's still WP:UNDUE. The authors themselves call their theory controversial and refer to the "conventional" theory multiple times. I like how this source puts it. First they explain the conventional theory:

"...for many toxic compounds, the dangers of which are perceived as a bitter taste, each of which appears to trigger an opioid response (Gilbertson and Kim, 2002; Sullivan, 2002). This helps to explain why drugs of addiction are commonly smoked, snorted, or injected but rarely chewed up and eaten: our bodies have natural mechanisms that prevent ingestion of toxins. That some of these toxins, taken in moderation, selectively activate specific “reward” centers in the brain that govern addiction appears to be an accident of plant-herbivore coevolution. This “accident” nevertheless displays all the hallmarks of an adaptation in natural settings.²⁶"

Footnote 26 is in reference to the articles we've cited. The footnote says,

"26 This hypothesis is not completely uncontroversial—some argue that substance abuse may have been around long enough for the human genome to have developed defensive mechanisms (see, e.g., Sullivan and Hagen, 2002). The debate, however, is mostly one of degree: no one would argue, for example, that hypodermic needles have been around long enough for humanity to develop an innate aversion to heroin."

Our current sources might actually summarize the conventional theories more succinctly and I think they're a good choice for secondary source in that context. I don't even think a footnote is really appropriate considering that this isn't an evo psych article. Their hypothesis is interesting, but I think an Evo Psych article would be the place to go into it. PermStrump(talk) 05:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I think the evolutionary origin of recreational drug use is certainly relevant and of interest to readers. If you have a source for the latest research (ie, later than the 2008 source in the article section), that should be added - especially if a contradictory theory is being proposed, obviously. zzz (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Images

Sizeofint, the new images are  Great! Also, thanks for moving those lists to the end. I finally read the article's actual content in full for the first time. I'm working on a draft of a stand alone list that I'll make a subpage for, so other people can add stuff that I'll inevitably overlook by accident. PermStrump(talk) 06:23, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, although they were already in the article. All I did was put them in a multiple-image template. Sizeofint (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Funny, I didn't notice them before. PermStrump(talk) 20:38, 23 March 2016 (UTC)