TimmyH"Binge Popping" - The great challenge of the Y Generation
April 1st 2008 02:21
The Y Generation is expected to be the first in human history whose life expectancy will go down. The reasons for this are many and varied including simple things like poor diet and lack of exercise. Alcohol in recent days has also been widely criticised as a major health threat to young Australians. But Alcohol is not anywhere near as dangerous as the other substances young people are abusing their bodies with.
Forget the thousands of young Australians pouring alcohol down their necks and think about the hundreds who use large numbers of illicit drugs. "Binge Popping" will present a far greater challenge for the community than "Binge Drinking". The neural problems associated with the use of ecstasy alone are enough to make you cringe. It's literally like taking Ice-cream scoops out of your brain.
When you hear about the health problems associated with a person having 12 drinks in a night, spare a thought for the brain's of those young people using 12 pills at raves and outdoor music festivals.
While im sure he can attest to the personal impact of a night of alcohol abuse, has Kevin Rudd ever seen a person come down from an ecstasy binge? Somehow i doubt it. They aren't people. They cease to exist for days at a time. All the goodness, all the brightness, all the passion and vitality is sucked from them and they become hollow non-entities. Imagine when these reactions reach critical mass and those brains can't just take 3 days off to recover. Instead these poor people will be mentally bankrupt.
The $53 million anti binge drinking campaign should be cancelled immediately and used to increase funding for mental health facilities nation-wide. Even if studies into the effects of long term "E" use are years off, the investment in mental health needs to come now.
Australia needs to learn fast. Looking at the massive impacts of Heroin in Ireland and the US should give a good guide. But our problem is not Heroin, yet. Our problem is is definitely Pills.
Euro's, Green Diamonds and Purple Hearts have become socially acceptable, especially in the inner cities. The result is going to be catastrophic if the Government's of Australia don't do something to deal with the fallout, and soon!
Forget the thousands of young Australians pouring alcohol down their necks and think about the hundreds who use large numbers of illicit drugs. "Binge Popping" will present a far greater challenge for the community than "Binge Drinking". The neural problems associated with the use of ecstasy alone are enough to make you cringe. It's literally like taking Ice-cream scoops out of your brain.
When you hear about the health problems associated with a person having 12 drinks in a night, spare a thought for the brain's of those young people using 12 pills at raves and outdoor music festivals.
While im sure he can attest to the personal impact of a night of alcohol abuse, has Kevin Rudd ever seen a person come down from an ecstasy binge? Somehow i doubt it. They aren't people. They cease to exist for days at a time. All the goodness, all the brightness, all the passion and vitality is sucked from them and they become hollow non-entities. Imagine when these reactions reach critical mass and those brains can't just take 3 days off to recover. Instead these poor people will be mentally bankrupt.
The $53 million anti binge drinking campaign should be cancelled immediately and used to increase funding for mental health facilities nation-wide. Even if studies into the effects of long term "E" use are years off, the investment in mental health needs to come now.
Australia needs to learn fast. Looking at the massive impacts of Heroin in Ireland and the US should give a good guide. But our problem is not Heroin, yet. Our problem is is definitely Pills.
Euro's, Green Diamonds and Purple Hearts have become socially acceptable, especially in the inner cities. The result is going to be catastrophic if the Government's of Australia don't do something to deal with the fallout, and soon!
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Comment by Journeywoman
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Comment by Louie
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Binge drinking is a walk in the park compared to the drug problems. A change in perspective is needed, yes underage drinking is bad BUT if solving that problem is creating a bigger one then we need to take a look at things.
Just one of the stories I know: my young cousin got addicted to Ice as his drug dealer laced his pot with it, by the time they "tried" it they were addicted, he has mates that are impotent, age 20, but can;t get off the ice,...NOW my cousin thinks he is off drugs because he only takes E's, not ICE.....terrible, he got busted with pills and almost put away for drug dealing because he had 16 pills on him, yes people, it was truthfully for personal consumption for an all weekend party, the only thing that saved his ass, some of the pills were duds and the polce drug test only proved 3 contained illict substances.
Comment by Harry
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Comment by Troy McNaughton
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I think it’s far to simplistic a view to single out a particular drug, such as ecstasy. Although the number of pills people are consuming in a night may be high, the number of people using ecstasy in Australia is still quite low, especially when you consider that 800,000 Australians over the age of 14 use marijuana each week!
The reason the government is focusing on Alcohol and Tobacco use in Oz is because the vast majority of drug related harm in our country is related to these two in particular. That does not mean I think other illicit substances are less important, however I can understand that the government needs to prioritise things and this is proportional to use.
Great topic!
Comment by TimmyH
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If you think about the current state of mental health care and the cost of having 30somethings in mental health care facilites for some 40-50 years, I foresee a huge shortfall and massive problems.
Hey, i hope Im wrong. But watching someone take 10 15 pills in a matter of hours is scary..Thanx for reading!
Comment by Aspiring Revolutionary
It's bad for you because it dehydrates you if you dont drink enough water, (easily avoided), if you drink alcohol with it (pretty much the only way you can die on E because you're mixing an upper with a downer and people who do that are the ones who give E such a bad rep because of ignorance), if you neglect eating for days at a time, if you take 12 pills at a time!, if you have heart problems to begin with. These are things people should just know, and if they choose to neglect that then it's them knowingly putting their lives at risk. It's like when someone's on prescription medication that has a label saying "do not mix with alcohol" and they drink a 40 of vodka anyways. We can't do anymore than let them know and trust them to use their own discression. We should know by now that it's impossible and unfair to control the masses.
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Comment by TimmyH
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The American Journal of Psychiatry published a paper in 2005 which stated that...
"Ecstasy users carrying the s allele, but not comparison subjects carrying the s allele, showed abnormal emotional processing. On the basis of a comparison with acute tryptophan depletion, the authors hypothesize that chronic Ecstasy use may cause long-term changes to the serotonin system, and that Ecstasy users carrying the s allele may be at particular risk for emotional dysfunction."
This hypothesis has been tested against controls in studies in over a dozen countries. ALL of which did Diagnostic brain testing as part of their research and found that the grey matter of the brain could be killed through excessive MDMA consumption, showing large black spots of dead brain matter on a users brain, in a similar way to Cocaine.
I think that constitutes a complete understanding. No?
Comment by TimmyH
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Thankyou anyway.
Comment by Anne Tootill
Thanks for an insightful read Timmy.