On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
As to Asgaard and his claim that the FDA is to be trusted, he is welcome to trust them. I don't think they are _dishonest_, merely in thrall (*) to special interests, drug companies, and, above all, to bureaucratic stodginess.
I could write an answer to this (about that I only said to trust FDA until there exists an alternative web of trust and reputations in the pharmaceutical business; that truly diseased people are not in the mood for researching the competence of a 'doctor' or 'healer' but are happy that entering a clinic guarantees that the guy examining them is a physician authorized by a non-profit entity of long-standing integrity and not a comlete quack; that the physicians, who are bombarded with manipulated information from the multinational drug companies would be at a great loss without independent trustable second opinions; and about how it would take quite some time to build up an alternative, private structure without bureaucratic stodginess - and even about the hypothesis that basic medical care might be counted together with justice and national defence as best paid for by involuntary taxes in the best compromise for total anarcho-capitalism that we might see in our lifetimes) but I won't :-) because of the off-topicness of the topic.
(* Asgaard should be happy that I am using a word derived from Old Norse, "thrall," as in "enthralling." A thrall was a slave in Icelandic and Old Norse.)
The substantive 'tral' (with double dots over the a) and even more the verb 'trala' are used in current Swedish. I commend your versatile and exact use of the American-English language. Your posts are always a pleasure to read (and learn from, for a reader with another native tounge).
His speculation that my friend's mildly retarded son is not helped is unknowable to him. In fact, the nootropic in question, Piracetam, is sold in Europe (and Mexico, as I noted), and elsewhere, for the treatment of Alzheimer's, dementia, and to alleviate mild retardation. My friend thinks
For a good (in my opinion) review on nootropics, see: http://www.damicon.fi/sd/nsa-sd-article.html (courtesy of Alta Vista) For comparison, Sweden has around 2,000+ prescription drugs. Germany has 20,000+. This doesn't mean that Germans are healthier.
Whether my friend is deluding himself or not, it is not for men with guns to tell him he may not buy something to consume. The "drug laws" are nothing more than "dietary laws," and have virtually nothing to do with public or personal safety. If safety was the issue, then the drug ethanol, which kills at least 40,000 Americans a year would be outlawed while
That's another issue. One problem is that the overall mortality is 100%, in the end. The long-term side effects of alcohol and tobacco are not that bad compared to many potent pharmaceuticals that FDA approves of, for cautious use in diseased persons, after risk/benefit analysis (morphin, cytostatics, immuno-suppressives). The political question, if a (healthy) individual has the right to use (recreational) drugs of his choice, really isn't centered around safety. Even if there was a completely harmless opioid, central stimulant or psychedelic drug available, strong forces would act against legalization out of moral or religious convictions ('God created man to suffer, so we shall suffer').
winner. (The statistics I saw a few years ago were easily memorizable: tobacco: 400,000, alchohol: 40,000, drugs: 4,000.)
These figures would look a bit different if 200,OOO,OOO Americans regularly used crack or heroin.
We are not free when someone tells us which foods and herbs are legal to eat, and which are not.
I generally agree. But I have a slight problem with the concept of Death Pills (f ex cyankalium) sold in any store, under various brand names, for better profits: Instant Nirvana, God's Face, Bye Bye Bella, Moon's Reincarnation. In these days of designer drugs, the consumer would have a lot to gain if FDA (or a private entity with a similar reputation) approved new recreational drugs before they entered the market, avoiding tragedies like the Parkinson epidemic (in California, wasn't it?) caused by MTPT. Asgaard