The FDA in the U.S. have lost their minds. They can't tell the difference between smoked tobacco and vaporized tobacco, nor do they really know how to handle the many food issues.
The Escapist has wonderful threads on drug use, just bring your flame strategy. I personally recommend the simplest, that being the Taoist stance of action through non-action.
Diet in some countries has proven interesting from a purely health standpoint. I don't want to pick on the U.S. again so I'll point at the Japanese practice of eating significant amounts of raw mercury laden fish.
Many classification systems exist but do not work well for all substances. Others are highly complicated and don't provide a simple broad view.
I think I have a way to encapsulate many of the underlying issues across the board. The following ranking system gives us a handle on the most basic things to consider in everything we take in. It can also be used as a tool to decide which substances should be regulated in some way, and which should be left alone. It might even end a few arguments regarding said regulations that happen here. I won't be holding my breath on that last one at all, but to those who hate drug threads wouldn't it be nice to simply say to yourself, "I know what the ratings are for me, the hell with all of you and your silly arguments. I'll ignore those threads and enjoy myself elsewhere."
I considered the typical usage for a given substance for an actual user. Not many will give themselves lethal doses of sodium thiopental but in the cases where it is used one would consider the effects on the patient or inmate.
The categories I see as most needed are:
Health benefit/Detriment (HBD) - A basic overview of whether or not the substance will sustain you or increase your health, or cause harm or kill you. At 0 the substance is not needed at all and provides no benefit, but will never harm you. I suppose nitrogen might be an example. I saw water at optimal intake as a 10. Obviously possibly everything with too high of an intake is lethal, and I used the highest possible intake for water to show how that can change the numbers. Cocaine would have a negative number between 0 and -10. Some wines would have positive numbers, although possibly less than 1 to account for a lethality rating over 1.
The next three all range from 1 to 10 inclusively, with an exception listed under lethality rating.
Lethality rating (LR) - Many substances are eventually or even instantly lethal at rather low doses. At rating of 1 means the substance poses no harm at normal intake levels. A 5 means it will kill you eventually, but the bus with your name on it tomorrow will get you sooner. A 10 means have fun, please write me a letter in about 30 seconds when you get where you're going. Over a ten indicates that you took others with you, or at least killed others while being lucky enough to be alive yourself.
Necessity/Physical addictivity (NP)
The more you need a substance to survive, the higher this number. The stronger the physical addiction the substance creates the higher the number.
Psychological addictivity (PP)
This is almost purely subjective, although we can talk about the average user or the mean rating of a substance. A rating of 1 is the lowest, while a number of people I've loved to have as friends would have to put a 10 for sex.
Composite Rating
By multiplying all the numbers together you can get a quick feel for how different substances compare to each other. Obviously this means you have to be careful in how you assign the HBD. From -1 to 1 gets interesting, which is also useful for scaling back the effects of the other numbers if that's warranted. A 0 cancels out the effects of everything else. If a substance has an LR over 1 you should not assign an HBD of 0.
I listed some examples here. Obviously not everyone is going to agree with some of my ratings but I suspect I'm at least in the ballpark for most here.
*Some of them I gave ranges or various values. While one guy can use meth for months and do fine, sometimes the next guy keels over or drives into a bus. Fat is a needed macro-nutrient but it's clear we have no clue in many cultures how to handle our fat.
Name HBD LR NP PP Composite Rating
Water 10 1 10 2 200
Water (overuse) -10 10 1 1 -100
Marijuana -0.5 1 2 6 -4
Smoked Tobacco -5 5 10 10 -2500
LSD -2 3/10/100* 2 4 -12/-160/-1600
Meth -7 6/10/100 10 10 -4200/-7000/-70000
Fat -0.5/0.5 1 10 4 -20/20
Protein 10 1 10 2 200
I'm curious if others see value in this. More importantly, if enough people do, how quickly do you think we can enlist 4chan in helping to force the FDA in the U.S. to actually think while at work, whether or not I can get anyone to actually use this system?
EDIT: How the hell do I force spaces so the chart is more readable?
The Escapist has wonderful threads on drug use, just bring your flame strategy. I personally recommend the simplest, that being the Taoist stance of action through non-action.
Diet in some countries has proven interesting from a purely health standpoint. I don't want to pick on the U.S. again so I'll point at the Japanese practice of eating significant amounts of raw mercury laden fish.
Many classification systems exist but do not work well for all substances. Others are highly complicated and don't provide a simple broad view.
I think I have a way to encapsulate many of the underlying issues across the board. The following ranking system gives us a handle on the most basic things to consider in everything we take in. It can also be used as a tool to decide which substances should be regulated in some way, and which should be left alone. It might even end a few arguments regarding said regulations that happen here. I won't be holding my breath on that last one at all, but to those who hate drug threads wouldn't it be nice to simply say to yourself, "I know what the ratings are for me, the hell with all of you and your silly arguments. I'll ignore those threads and enjoy myself elsewhere."
I considered the typical usage for a given substance for an actual user. Not many will give themselves lethal doses of sodium thiopental but in the cases where it is used one would consider the effects on the patient or inmate.
The categories I see as most needed are:
Health benefit/Detriment (HBD) - A basic overview of whether or not the substance will sustain you or increase your health, or cause harm or kill you. At 0 the substance is not needed at all and provides no benefit, but will never harm you. I suppose nitrogen might be an example. I saw water at optimal intake as a 10. Obviously possibly everything with too high of an intake is lethal, and I used the highest possible intake for water to show how that can change the numbers. Cocaine would have a negative number between 0 and -10. Some wines would have positive numbers, although possibly less than 1 to account for a lethality rating over 1.
The next three all range from 1 to 10 inclusively, with an exception listed under lethality rating.
Lethality rating (LR) - Many substances are eventually or even instantly lethal at rather low doses. At rating of 1 means the substance poses no harm at normal intake levels. A 5 means it will kill you eventually, but the bus with your name on it tomorrow will get you sooner. A 10 means have fun, please write me a letter in about 30 seconds when you get where you're going. Over a ten indicates that you took others with you, or at least killed others while being lucky enough to be alive yourself.
Necessity/Physical addictivity (NP)
The more you need a substance to survive, the higher this number. The stronger the physical addiction the substance creates the higher the number.
Psychological addictivity (PP)
This is almost purely subjective, although we can talk about the average user or the mean rating of a substance. A rating of 1 is the lowest, while a number of people I've loved to have as friends would have to put a 10 for sex.
Composite Rating
By multiplying all the numbers together you can get a quick feel for how different substances compare to each other. Obviously this means you have to be careful in how you assign the HBD. From -1 to 1 gets interesting, which is also useful for scaling back the effects of the other numbers if that's warranted. A 0 cancels out the effects of everything else. If a substance has an LR over 1 you should not assign an HBD of 0.
I listed some examples here. Obviously not everyone is going to agree with some of my ratings but I suspect I'm at least in the ballpark for most here.
*Some of them I gave ranges or various values. While one guy can use meth for months and do fine, sometimes the next guy keels over or drives into a bus. Fat is a needed macro-nutrient but it's clear we have no clue in many cultures how to handle our fat.
Name HBD LR NP PP Composite Rating
Water 10 1 10 2 200
Water (overuse) -10 10 1 1 -100
Marijuana -0.5 1 2 6 -4
Smoked Tobacco -5 5 10 10 -2500
LSD -2 3/10/100* 2 4 -12/-160/-1600
Meth -7 6/10/100 10 10 -4200/-7000/-70000
Fat -0.5/0.5 1 10 4 -20/20
Protein 10 1 10 2 200
I'm curious if others see value in this. More importantly, if enough people do, how quickly do you think we can enlist 4chan in helping to force the FDA in the U.S. to actually think while at work, whether or not I can get anyone to actually use this system?
EDIT: How the hell do I force spaces so the chart is more readable?
