RE: Tim's friend's mildly retarded son

[Asgaard <asgaard@sos.sll.se>]

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