The Other Pandemic - Cocaine

Jequ0n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628782#Comment_117628782

Yes, naturally. But the poster I had responded to had alluded that the quality was automatically better if obtained close to the source, which is not necessarily true.

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117626182#Comment_117626182

Absolutely ridiculous post. How exactly are you a scumbag for taking Coke? It’s people’s personal choice, some will abuse it and some others won’t. Grow up

o1s1n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628818#Comment_117628818

Ah, we're just arguing linguistic semantics at this stage! :D

The probability of a batch of cocaine making it all the way from Columbia to Ireland and remaining purer than the majority of cocaine is Columbia is very very low.

I'm sure it happens, but the likelihood is that it would be purer closer to the source.

So one could almost assume by sheer mathematical probability that the cocaine you take in Columbia would be better.

As an aside, I am not advocating traveling to Columbia to take cocaine :D

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117623624#Comment_117623624

Might want to take a history lesson mate, are you aware of African community and slavery issues with alcohol production?

You probably sync a few pints once a week like most others, alcohol is too a drug with a dark history.

Jequ0n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628850#Comment_117628850

ok

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628843#Comment_117628843

Ridiculous post? Grow up?

I guess a cocaine user doesn't like being called a scumbag for taking cocaine.

No surprise there. The fact remains, if you take cocaine, you're a scumbag. Scumbags are never good people. Only a bad person would take cocaine, despite all the excuses they make to themselves or justifications they offer to others. It's right up there with the kind of people who watch underage porn and worse. Satisfaction, no matter the cost to those caught up during the production.

Only a scumbag would think otherwise.

Potential-Monke

Alright, lets go the other route. Anyone who drinks alcohol is a scumbag. It's still the biggest killer in the world, and especially here in Ireland. So yeah, if you drink, you're a scumbag. Yeah, makes sense.

https://www.hrb.ie/news/press-releases/single-press-release/article/drug-related-deaths-hrb-publishes-latest-figures/

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629270#Comment_117629270

As he sits there wearing Nike and/or Adidas clothing stitched in a sweat house with forced child labour - guess that makes you a scumbag too lol

Grow up kid

whisky_galore

Each to their own, but it'll be fun to see rehab services stretched to its limits in a few years with cokeheads and their issues. Maybe you might be lucky, who knows?

Enjoy it while you can. I'll have my pint, thanks at least I have a reasonable idea what goes into the production of that. Wonder how many cokeheads are antivax, hmmm?

TefalBrain

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628858#Comment_117628858

I'm a non drinker.

listermint

Few in here a shoe in for new pub in crumlin. Yup yup. Gwan the lads wha. Wha ... Wha..

Frozen Veg

Would ye have any issue with yer kids taking coke?

Jequ0n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629935#Comment_117629935

Not if they are getting it in Colombia at the source, of course.

joseywhales

I mean I wouldn't mind a weeks party on the beach in Columbia once a year and just limit coke intake to that week. That's probably the healthiest way to do it, if I don't od. Would be hard to explain to the wife though, might get away with it once.

Tomaldo

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629270#Comment_117629270

would u get off the stage, coke dealers sell to consenting people, their customers get enjoyment from coke, paedo victims don't or consent. On what factual basis did u come to that comparison. Apart from both being against the law, there is no comparison between the 2. False equivalence, as usual.

Tomaldo

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629270#Comment_117629270

Only a scumbag would post that, so Macca and Jagger are scum, a lot of people would do anything to sleep with them, millions of people paid good money to see them live. Can u say the same about yourself.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630590#Comment_117630590

Well, I dunno about your mate 'Macca' but the likes of posh prat Jagger have spawned countless provincial drug addicts with lives that never go anywhere. It seems your argument is based around bright lights, drugs and celebrity, which suggests to me that your values have been created for you by the work of PR people whose job it is to put lipstick on pigs. PR folk also make a huge deal of excess (inc. alcohol and drug use) in order to glamourize their anti-establishment product. And a thousand suckers are spawned...

Jequ0n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630581#Comment_117630581

I find that as soon as someone decides to throw a random paedo comparison the discussion has reached a point where it is not worth continuing.

paw patrol

I'm fond of the cocaine I must say.

Its important to recognise its potency and not engage in mindless or meaningless sessions. On a night on the lash sure - usually split an 1/8 with a partner in crime.

But a generic saturday - just cos it is saturday - where you've 3 lads (and not a woman in sight) at a kitchen table at 5am texting like mad to find some dealer who will deliver. prob not the best idea - at least regularly.

The problem (imo) with drink or drugs isn't the drink or drugs itself - it's the lack of other options in peoples lives. like a hobby or interest. If I'm on the lash every weekend I won't make my activities the following day so it's an occasional thing cos I've other interests. if you've nothing else and your default is drink/drugs then that can lead to substances filling a void and being a crutch and that leads to problems.

paw patrol

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629935#Comment_117629935

I find these comments fascinating in they are so misguided.

Once they are adults they can do what they choose. My like / dislike is irrelevant - a life spent living by the rules of your parents is a life wasted - it's their life not yours. Not withstanding the fact that one can love their kids without approving of what they do.

As a parent your natural reaction is to wrap your kids in cotton wool but good parenting is overcoming this reaction and allowing them to live their lives freely. This is a general rule not related to drugs exactly.

In fact a life without bad choices or risky behaviour sounds a bit sterile to me.

323

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117623568#Comment_117623568

Not to mention tobacco which kills many thousands of times more. But governments make the big money there so okay.

Wasn't cocaine recommended by the temperance movement instead of alcohol.

olestoepoke

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117625870#Comment_117625870

I know a guy who used to take coke regularly on the weekends. His reason for taking it was simple, he was a lightweight when it came to drinking. So instead of going out at 8pm and having to go home at 11pm steaming drunk he'd pull out a baggie take a few bumps and drink and stay out drinking with the rest until the early hours of the morning. Adding to that, I've heard that sharing good coke with a partner for a heightened sexual experience is also widespread.

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630993#Comment_117630993

I’d be just like your friend.

its a social drug and if done properly can be enjoyable. Obviously there are people out there who will abuse it (similar to alcohol.)

There is a lot of terrible Coke in Dublin so it’s important that you buy it from the right people and test it before you use it (not rubbing it on gums) but dropping it in a glass of water. Good Coke will float and bad coke will sink (due to it being mixed.)

Again, like anything within reason it’s fine.

nj27

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630923#Comment_117630923

That last bit is dead right. Plus whatever options that existed prior to getting into whatever immediate high they get into suddenly end up looking a lot less interesting when they get used to the alternative. Take some real commitment to keep up with your semi professional tiddlywinks career when a coke binge is an ever present temptation.

Tomaldo

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630690#Comment_117630690

Sadly, I'm not Macca's mate, just a fan. I know Jagger is promiscuous and has fathered kids to women he wasn't married to, but as far as I know he pays some sort of maintenance for their upbringing. I know a few other men who have done the same and don't pay a penny or give an eff about their kids.

TomSweeney

https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2021/0720/1236113-crack-and-the-community-cocaine-ballymun-dublin/

I thought knocking the towers was supposed to stop this ?

katiek102010

Cokeheads are junkie scum end off. How pathetic and how sad do you have to be to rely on artifical substances to give your life meaning or enjoy yourself.

It is so pathetic it really is.

Jequ0n

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639720#Comment_117639720

Finally a measured response to drive the discussion

fits

cocaine was absolutely endemic during Celtic tiger times. I absolutely hated the effect it had on the nightlife atmosphere - and left Dublin never to return. It’s a horrible drug.

dulpit

To the fans of cocaine, how do you rationalise the fact that you have to source it from crime gangs? There is no other way to get it, so you're putting money (indirectly at least) into the pockets of the Kinnehans and the like.

While you can argue for it to be legalised, the fact is that it currently is illegal. And by consuming it, you are both breaking the law and increasing the hold that gangs have...

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639867#Comment_117639867

And this is exactly why the war on the drugs is complete and utter failure. How did prohibition of alcohol work out?

The harms associated with drugs are very serious but I’ve come to the conclusion that what a criminal conviction does to a young person far outweighs the harms drug use is actually doing and in turn feeds the next generation of drug dealers.

Young people can go through drug use as a phase and outgrow it and go on to live normal healthy lives … But when a young person is criminalised, even brought into the system, it sets off a chain of events – a poor relationship with the guards, it makes them vulnerable to criminal gangs who want to exploit them, it cuts off their chances of employment, to travel, to get insurance, in some cases to get education. And the policy has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of young people.

You can point the finger all you want at people who “use” cocaine once off every few weeks/months or you can take a real view of the underlying laws that feed that system and exploit young people in disadvantaged areas.

No child is born a drug dealer.

paw patrol

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639867#Comment_117639867

Precisely what Relax Brah said above and I'd add that my own view on my own behavior is that the state chose this route with its drugs laws. Who are these law makers to tell me what I can or can't do to myself?

I'd rather buy a quality product from a proper vender but we are where we are.

Mike Murdock

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639720#Comment_117639720

Would you say the same about people that visit the boozer twice or three times a week?

Drexel_3

The war on drugs has failed miserably around the world. It's just a fact of life that people will use substances like this. We have for thousands of years.

The sooner politicians have the bravery to accept this the better for everyone.

Regulation of some sort is at least worth a try. We can keep wasting resources and locking people up til the cows come home but there will always be someone else in line who wants to make money selling this stuff.

dulpit

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639987#Comment_117639987

Who are the law makers? The people who make laws? That's their job??

paw patrol

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640254#Comment_117640254

yes those people. cos it's their job I should just obey them? blindly , just because....

If you want to obey the law cos some special interest group in the Dail decided make a bill . fine, do that. However I've one shot at life and I'm not bound by others curtailing what I want to do to my own body. Any law that curtails the freedom of an individual is perversion. It is immoral (IMO) for the state to control my day to day life. If my occasional cocaine use is that hill to die on so be it - I'd rather it was something more noble but the civil liberties argument due to covid restrictions had been made multiple times over the last year or so - so here we are.

I'd suggest , if you have the desire , read Frédéric Bastiat the law. his views has somewhat shaped mine.

if you want another thread on this beyond the drugs issue we could go for hours

.

katiek102010

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640116#Comment_117640116

Yes I would

mikethecop

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640393#Comment_117640393

i think i see what our problem is , and your right it would take more than a thread on boards to solve it for you .

in short you being happy in the short term is more important that people around you being happy in the long term.

thats fine for you but that mentality fails when other people with the same mindset start to effect your life negatively

at the end of the day it comes down to a lack of personal responsibility leading to a general lack of social responsibility

enricoh

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639858#Comment_117639858

Having a few pints in the local yesterday and was chatting to a barman who retired a year or two ago. Said he doesn't miss it at all, that the coke made it tough work and liable for anything to kick off.

SEPT 23 1989

Its a good drug but I don't like the violence associated with it

Arghus

I've taken it a handful of times over the years, mainly at the tail end of a night when my decision making was at a low ebb. I can see the appeal.

It's been a while at this stage and I can't see myself using it again anytime soon to be honest. Though I don't really judge people if they decide to take it, I'd have a very lonely life if I did, considering that it seems to be used by all sorts. There's no real stereotypical coke user - it cuts across all social groups.

There's a few things that turn me off. I don't like the experience of snorting things, the physical sensation of powder going up my nose. I'd also be afraid with enough practice I'd like it too much, I've seen it happen to people and that's something I want to stay away from.

And also, for me, there is a sordidness to it. If people want to take coke that's their business and I won't stop them, but there is the murkiness linked to where it comes from, who benefits from it and the associated misery and mayhem that exists because of that. I guess some people can point at the attitude of the law as being the root cause - there's undoubtedly some truth to that - but I think that's an easy moral justification that I, personally, can't use to write off my own tiny contributing factor as an end user.

It's a fact that some scumbags are getting rich and others are getting dead indirectly bringing these drugs to me and other people like me - all so we can have a cracking night out. I find the argument that it's the laws fault to be morally tenuous and doesn't stack up considering that we all know where these drugs come from and what we as consumers make a free choice to contribute to. I don't feel comfortable with the thought of lining the wallets of these people. I know of people who are big into political causes, ethically sourced goods and foods, but yet don't bat an eye at where their drugs come from. I find that depressing.

Jequ0n

Sometimes I almost pity people who allow their lives to be restricted just because someone else decreed something. But each to their own.

B.A._Baracus

Only an idiot does cocaine.

... and i've heard all the retorts before like Do you like a drink? do you like coffee? there's a big difference between a brewery like Guiness, which you can visit! :p and going to some cocaine farm hidden in the jungle of Columbia. Where the farmer adds kerosene, bleach and other mad chemicals to break down the coca leaf to make the cocaine paste. Then the cartels add their own garbage to make the powder. Then it gets cut with what only what down all the supply-chain before it goes up your nose.

I'll stick with a can of guiness and a cup of coffee any day thank you very much lol.

JupiterKid

I've never touched cocaine (many times been offered it over the years) and I probably never will, but to those who say that coke users - the tens of millions of them worldwide - are funding/turning a blind eye to drug gangs, shootings, massacres, torture, forced labour, intimidation, etc - these unsavoury things are taking place because the drug is illegal.

Drug prohibition has utterly failed and has only caused more problems than it was intended to solve. It is a Victorian morality mindset that cannot and will not accept that people do things with their bodies and lives that they themselves do not - or do privately in contrast to their hypocritical public stances.

Drugs prohibition has no place in the 21st Century.

paw patrol

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640829#Comment_117640829

we are all one society all interconnected? Sound a bit like collectivism to me which isn't for me.

I'm happy for others to do their thing and if something bothers me I'll try fix it,

Arghus

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117641951#Comment_117641951

I understand and agree with a lot of what you have to say.

I fully agree that the fundamentals of why drugs and crime are interlinked is mainly down to the illegality and prohibition of drugs in the first place, of course.

But nonetheless those unsavoury things are still taking place and we know they are, we can't plead ignorance.

And while there's deeper, systematic reasons underpinning why this is all taking place in the first place that is, in real terms, removed from the action of individuals to a large extent.

As a consumer you are still knowingly contributing to the continuing unsavoury aspects of it all, that's where you, as a free individual, make a choice and can exercise agency.

As a consumer, when you buy a bag, your money is going to filter through the system filled with unsavoury characters and deeds - whatever about the deeper fundamental truthes about why that system exists as it does in the first place, in real terms you're still making a decision - with that knowledge - that helps all of that thrive, today in the here and now. I think that is turning a blind eye to be honest.

I know this exists firstly because of the war in drugs which has allowed this economy to develop, but I also know, despite that, that my money feeds the beast and indirectly helps propagate all those unsavoury aspects you mentioned. I can abstractly bemoan the state of affairs, or I can choose to not play a part.

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117641862#Comment_117641862

More absolute nonsense, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You need a history lesson mate, look at the slavery and working conditions people suffered in during the prohibition period of alcohol.

this comes back to my previous post, none of the above would be an issue if it wasn’t for a failed war on drugs.

drugs will always be in demand, people will use them (alcohol is also considered a drug,) how we fix the issue is legalisation, education and supporting people who are troubled with it - not convicting them.

take a look at Portugal for example who have done exactly this. Crime has dropped as has addiction issues. Instead of blaming the average Joe soap who does a bump every few weeks, why not take a look at the legislations and comparisons to other countries before pointing the finger.

B.A._Baracus

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117642921#Comment_117642921

lol. You say I "clearly have no idea what I am talking about" then show you are living on another planet lol.

Think what you want to think mate. I'm out. My sanity is not worth engaging with you.

mikethecop

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117641980#Comment_117641980

you seem to have missed the point but only caring about yourself is a fairly well established side effect of long term cocaine use you know

what if something your doing effects or bothers some one else ?

Relax brah

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117642946#Comment_117642946

Then correct me with data lol you mad?