Drink 'more Harmful Than Drugs'

Just slightly off topic I read in The Racing Welfare magazine last night about a drug that is now being slipped into ladies drinks by rapists at parties for instance. It is a drug called PROGESTEREX - which is a drug used by vets to sterilise large animals. I couldn't believe this but evidently this drug dissolves in drinks very easily and it is being used together with Rohypnol.

If the victim is raped there will be no evidence for a paternity test later if she were to fall pregnant because the girl will NEVER BE ABLE TO CONCEIVE ie. it is permanent. Evidently there are serious worries that this drug is about to break out everywhere as according to reports there have been 350 cases of this drug being used in London.

Has anybody else heard about this as it is news to me. It is repulsive and shocking.
 
Crikey, on reading some of the comments on here they may as well make alcohol illegal - God forbid that anyone would actually enjoy having a drink as they're in danger of being labelled an alcoholic & becoming a social pariah!
 
Originally posted by Kathy@Mar 25 2007, 11:00 AM
Just slightly off topic I read in The Racing Welfare magazine last night about a drug that is now being slipped into ladies drinks by rapists at parties for instance. It is a drug called PROGESTEREX - which is a drug used by vets to sterilise large animals. I couldn't believe this but evidently this drug dissolves in drinks very easily and it is being used together with Rohypnol.

If the victim is raped there will be no evidence for a paternity test later if she were to fall pregnant because the girl will NEVER BE ABLE TO CONCEIVE ie. it is permanent. Evidently there are serious worries that this drug is about to break out everywhere as according to reports there have been 350 cases of this drug being used in London.

Has anybody else heard about this as it is news to me. It is repulsive and shocking.
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There are frequently scare stories about date rape drugs. Although I have no doubt that they exist and are used - it seems on a much less scale than many people think. There was that recent sscientific study that showed most of those who thought they had been drugged just had very high levels of alcohol in their system . Doesn't mean that their drinks weren't spiked or that they weren't raped - just that an old fashioned manner of knocking someone out was used.
 
Originally posted by Songsheet@Mar 25 2007, 11:11 AM
True :P

Nah, as I said, most things in some degree of moderation are usually fine ! ^_^
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True - except for tobacco,heroin,crystal meth and probably cocaine.
 
The reason (or rather, my flawed logic) in saying that drugs should be decriminalised, Songs, is because their policing, let alone the cost to support the addicts in hostels, with counsellors, with replacement drugs, in hospitals, takes up tens of billions of tax payers' pounds, dollars, rands, whatever, worldwide, already. I'm looking slightly beyond the shores of dear old Blighty to a more global scale, including paying-off the opium growers in Afghanistan to grow something rather more useful to mankind.

People smash themselves up all the time doing other recreational things like skiing, snowboarding, motorbiking, horse-riding, and so on. No-one says those activities should be banned because of the cost to the NHS and taking up beds that 'ill' people need. Millions of pounds get spent rehabilitating the badly-injured who've indulged in some sort of passion for something reckless, yet nobody bats an eyelid about that. Take a drug and have to be pumped out in the hospital, and suddenly everyone's in hysterics.

You also seem to think that all drug addicts are the desperate poor. The four people I've known of were certainly not. They were or are all middle-class earners. The one still in love with heroin holds down a full-time job. They can certainly afford to pay for their prescriptions. One would adopt the same scale as with any other prescription medicines: those on 'benefits' would be the same as any other patient on benefits and pay nothing, those who weren't and were working would pay.

What I'm trying to address is the SCALE of 'the war on drugs' which is lost, anyway. You have literally BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of the world's money going illegally into the pockets of a variety of global 'organisations'. At the same time, BILLIONS AND BILLIONS are poured uselessly into trying to stop the business. Put that little lot together legally, decrim people's use of drugs in the same way that smoking is not (yet) a criminal offence, no matter how many billions that also costs the world in terms of illness, and put the money into healthcare.

I don't see a drug user as a whole lot different to an adrenalin junkie. They're both seeking some sort of change to their perceptions. Both risk becoming dependent on their activity, both risk damage to themselves, and both risk inflicting that damage onto their families, and the cost to their country. In one case, the country bears the burden without a murmur, in the other case, it haemmorhages billions of its own money into trying to stop it. And it's not working. When a system ain't working, it's broke, and it needs to be fixed.
 
Originally posted by Ardross+Mar 25 2007, 10:16 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Ardross @ Mar 25 2007, 10:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Kathy@Mar 25 2007, 11:00 AM
Just slightly off topic I read in The Racing Welfare magazine last night about a drug that is now being slipped into ladies drinks by rapists at parties for instance. It is a drug called PROGESTEREX - which is a drug used by vets to sterilise large animals. I couldn't believe this but evidently this drug dissolves in drinks very easily and it is being used together with Rohypnol.

If the victim is raped there will be no evidence for a paternity test later if she were to fall pregnant because the girl will NEVER BE ABLE TO CONCEIVE ie. it is permanent. Evidently there are serious worries that this drug is about to break out everywhere as according to reports there have been 350 cases of this drug being used in London.

Has anybody else heard about this as it is news to me. It is repulsive and shocking.
Click to expand...
There are frequently scare stories about date rape drugs. Although I have no doubt that they exist and are used - it seems on a much less scale than many people think. There was that recent sscientific study that showed most of those who thought they had been drugged just had very high levels of alcohol in their system . Doesn't mean that their drinks weren't spiked or that they weren't raped - just that an old fashioned manner of knocking someone out was used.[/b][/quote]
I hope you are right, Ardross.

If this story is correct and people are able to access this Progesterex drug the implications for the victims are horrific. I haven't had time to do a Google on the illegal use of this drug yet as a busy day ahead but I will have a quick look through later.

Just amazed it has only a small column in the Racing Welfare magazine.
 
Thanks, Gareth. I will send an e-mail to Racing Welfare and let them know! I should have checked before posting but time was against me this am. :shy:

I wondered why I hadn't heard about this drug before.
 
I wondered about it - but as Ive been out of the veterinary world for a couple of years I just assumed it was a very very new one.(still thought it a bit odd that it wouldnt have been mentioned on countryfile or in the papers if it had existed - would've been one heck of an innovation!!)
 
Sorry Kri but again, I still believe your logic is flawed (she said nervously, wondering if the electric prod may be coming her way :P ).

Addicts are addicts, whether supplied 'officially' or not. We've no way of knowing - just as with alcohol - if a someone who, without any 'excess' of life's problems - has an addictive predisposition or not. If they are exceptionally stressed, depressed etc, it may be even worse for them.

If a 'middle class' income earner decides to pop along to his chemists just to spend a few quid on some recreational drug, how do we know if that poor sods is the one with the addictive predisposition ?

And how do we decide who gets NHS rec drugs (or whatever the substitute authority to dispense is) ? How do we know if that particular person will be able to enjoy his/her drug of choice without wanting to try it again - and again and again and.... ?

So you still end up with addicts - of all income groups - who still need counselling etc etc and, presumably, who won't get further drugs on prescription? The ordinary person in the street - how do you know they are able to cope with the drug? What about some 15yo runaway, sleeping on the streets, who needs a lift to their spirits - or rather just wants to blank life out ? Do they get counselling or some kind of pre-qualification first? No reduction in bureacracy there then! And so we stll end up with a nice niche for the illegal drug barons to fill...

Of course people smash themselves up doing all sorts of leisure-related pastimes but if we're genuinely worried about the cost to the NHS, then we should insist, as a country, that anyone partaking in a dangerous activitiy should hold insurance - in a similar way to motor insurance but which covers all medical bills.

And even if the UK were to decriminalise drugs (all drugs? or just some drugs?), that only works if the rest of the world follows suit. And if some drugs remain 'illegal' then they will be the drugs of choice for those people who - as you point out - are adrenalin junkies because it's probably the very illegality that attracts them in the firstplace. Especially those poncy middle class users who think it terribly 'cool' and 'hip' to be just outside the law.....

Nothing like a bit of rebellion, is there!?!
 
Blimey! Nobody expects... the Somerset Inquisition! I'm so exhausted now I'm off for a quick line to pick me up...
 
krizon, I doff my cap to you, for your series of super-enlightened posts on this thread.

If only there was a 'thumbs-up' icon, I would use it.
 
Never mind an emoticon, grasshopper, can I have a ten-foot illuminated scroll, please? :D

Well, we all have our own views, coloured either by personal or secondhand experience, or none at all. These are mine, whether folks think they have any merit or not. I would like to destigmatize real addiction - of course I'm not talking about those who use their drugs for pleasure. At that level, there are millions of people worldwide indulging in a bit of puff or a line of coke here and there. They have enough money to support this and they may be regular users, but not addicts, just as smokers and drinkers can enjoy their habit without being driven to, or by, it. In fact, I have a few friends (and they're not particularly rich!) who do just this. (So, yes, I'd be decriminalizing a variety of drugs, while putting others legally to hand via prescription. As for Julie's idea that the rich could get these, they'd have to pay the full prescription price after being assessed for dependency.)

And for the people who go over into heroin or crack addiction, I'd like a different approach where they're not seen as criminal, immoral, pathetic, or evil, where they don't have to be ground through the huge, expanding, professional business which is a bye-blow of addiction - towards being 'remoralized', or face jail and be forcibly taken off their drug, because governments refuse to manage the industry sensibly.
 
As you can probably tell from my earlier posts, I completely agree with you Kri. It's tragic that no government would ever have the balls to actually face up to the reality of the situation.
 
Originally posted by Kathy@Mar 25 2007, 04:51 PM
Thanks, Gareth. I will send an e-mail to Racing Welfare and let them know! I should have checked before posting but time was against me this am. :shy:

I wondered why I hadn't heard about this drug before.
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I have had an e-mail back from Racing Welfare stating that they are going to do some more research on the article they printed.
 
Fecking hell, I make a response and it's the Inquisition ! :(

A reasoned response would have been great but I agree, it's probably too exhausting and I can't be arsed either to continue - I have rather a lot on my plate right now and can't justify the time!
 
:laughing: :laughing:

There was a very good film on tv last night which I hadn't seen before, called 'Traffic'. Worth watching for Beneficio de Toro's performance alone. A very interesting docudrama style film by Steven Soderbergh, positing America's 'war on drugs' (headed by the 'new drugs tsar' - WHY are they always called 'tsars'?? - Michael Douglas) and the brutal war for drugs in Mexico, between two competing cartels. I think it pretty much ran along the lines I've been thinking of re 'wars on drugs' - they don't work, they cost an enormous amount of time, money and lives on both sides, the current illegality of even pot, let alone the heavy stuff, flies in the face of its daily, light usage at all levels of society and there's no coherent world policy either. The USA fights against illegal drugs while the drug-growing and supplying countries are riddled with corruption or apathy. So take the benefits of it being illegal away, manufacture under proper conditions, let the growers of marijuana and coca grow them like any other crop, market forces will prevail, tax will be garnered, and jails will be filled by the real nasties of the world. Simplistic, yes, but what's happening now is unrealistic.
 
Kri; "Traffic" the film was based on a UK mini-series called "Traffik" from 1989. It's a very similar structure, but based in the UK, Germany and Pakistan and, being 5hr+ long, goes into a lot more depth. Well worth looking out for.
 
At the moment I'd certainly agree that alcohol is harmful - the hangover is just threatening to kick in so I'm off to bed.......ready to start again at 6pm!! :D
 
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