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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

It seems different because it has the addiction proclivities of heroin coupled with crazy cheap and ubiquitous availability. Any semi educated person can cook it locally.

Plus it's devastating physically. The welts, scratching, paranoia, food avoidance, tooth eating qualities, etc, are pretty unique. It wrecks your body pretty fast. Serious meth addicts seem to age at a 10x+ factor compared to other addicts. Twentyish old people look 40+ after just a year or so after getting hooked.

I'm pretty liberal, but I would fight against legalization of meth. It's really terrible. Meet a girl in her 20's that's been on it a year or two and you might see the issue. Not yet 30, but no teeth left, massive skin issues on their face/arms/upper torso from the welts/scratching, emaciated, and infertile. Also often HIV and/or Hep-C from trading sex for drugs. That shit is pure poison.

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I think the effects you're describing are mostly all the result of developed behaviors / personal neglect from taking large does regularly. Taking high doses of, ex. Adderall for two years would likely have similar effects.

Maybe. I recall uppers/amphetamines (phenphen/etc) being popular in the 90's with college kids, bored/depressed housewives and high stress occupations. Bad effects for sure, but I don't recall toothless pockmarked emaciated zombies carrying serious STDs.

I do feel differently about marijuana, ecstasy, benzodiazepines, mdma, etc. They don't seem much different from alcohol, which we openly condone, despite the obvious issues. At least none of them (mostly) destroy lives in the span of a few years.

Opiates are somewhere in the middle for me. Legalization seems dangerous, but not as obviously stupid as for meth. It's in the same category as crack for me. No real casual/functioning users, really, just almost inevitable misery.

Actually MDMA is probably the most dangerous drug that people are trying to get legalized. If I had a teenager, I wouldn't be concerned at all if xanax or weed were legal. Plenty of people take these every day and get by just fine. I could totally see a stupid teenager taking MDMA 1-2 times a week for a good time, and then totally frying out their brain as a consequence. Look at what it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Long-term

That said, I would still support its legalization as long as it could only be administered in controlled environments.

That's fair. I have no real personal exposure to MDMA users. I have, though, lots of personal exposure to crack cocaine, opiate, and meth users. There's very few functional addicts. All three are life ruining, if not life ending.

I actually have met a few functional opiate addicts in my days, and I know very functional people that take meth on occasion, but which are not addicted to it. That said, I think it's more important to protect the 90% of people that can't use these drugs responsibly than for the remaining 10% of responsible users to be able to enjoy their favorite high.

> Look at what it does:

> As of 2015, the long-term effects of MDMA on human brain structure and function have not been fully determined.

MDMA in itself isn't as bad as other drugs, as has been mentioned. It's the compounds that it's cut/mixed with that poses most of the immediate dangers. In fact, the therapeutic potential of MDMA is reason enough for it's rescheduling.

http://www.maps.org/research/mdma

That's true in aggregate, but there is still obvious evidence that when taken over long periods, MDMA results in neurodegeneration, and that this is only partially reversible. Serotonergic pathways are especially effected, which is why acute MDMA use causes short-term depressive symptoms (tolerance), and long-term MDMA causes long-term depressive symptoms (neurotoxicity).

I'm not saying MDMA is as bad as other drugs, nor that it should be illegal. My cousin's uncle's daughter's brother has taken it several times, and he thinks it definitely has a lot of potential for therapy - can't attest to PTSD, but he can absolutely see it working for couple's counseling.

What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be something you can pick up for $5 at the gas station. If MDMA were legal, I would want there to be some pseudofed-like limit to how often you could purchase it (one dose every 3 months is generally considered safe), and I would also want it to be required to take the drug immediately after purchase.

I see cocaine as a higher risk, due to the long term permanent damage it causes to the heart and the brain. MDMA abuse causes a fairly rapid onset of negative symptoms and a reduction of positive effects that gets most people to stop before they can do too much damage to themselves (the long term impact of heavy MDMA abuse is still uncertain but anecdotal evidence suggests that recovery is possible).

But wouldn't the physician prescribing them notice the neglect and take appropriate action? Whereas a meth addict only has the self to decide whether to make some get dome or not? In other words it's less likely you will see those effects on an Adderall users since they are under some medical supervision.

Great observation. I personally know opiate users that resort to meth when the opiates aren't available. The need for any kind of "high" overrules everything else. There's no check/balance at all. They are free to over indulge with all the obvious downsides. The suppliers only care about sales.

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