An adult conversation about drugs?!

[worm]

Which government department commissioned this piece of work (which appears, from what you are now saying, not to be research at all but writing up someone else's research)?

who did they commission it from?

who undertook the fieldwork?

what was the subject of the research?

what was the research methodology?

the problem is, I have worked in two different government departments. I know how government commissions research and how it handles it. I know how the publication process works. What you have described, as a process, is something I have never heard of happening before and cannot imagine happening, other than in your imagination.

If you cannot provide some facts to back up your assertion, you have no credibility, sorry

[abdoujaparov]

Credibility? On an informal forum? Haway......

You don't get to see the department. It's annonymous.

The work was given to me as a collection of data sets/ results already undergone by the government. I had to collate this data into a rather large dissertation and write up the various links pertaining to positivist control.

Outsourcing of this kind happens all the time. I've had my work appear in the newspapers, only, it's not my work as I sold the rights to channel 4.

Seriously, it's no biggie. The point I was alluding to was that while the government look at drugs as a thing to be controlled it will not be able to accept its own role in the link between drugs and crime. This is the point I was intending to discuss, not my own anecdotal route in. Think whatever you like about that, I really don't give a shit. It's not important.

[worm]

The trouble is that you have obscured the point you were trying to make by making shit up.

[worm]

Government departments do not outsource "rather large dissertations" as you describe it. Even if you were obliged not to name the department concerned, you have conveniently ducked all the other questions I asked - what sort of data were you provided with? What was the research methodology? What was the research testing and how?

[kaosmark2]

Really mature and adult conversation everyone. Well done.

[worm]

Really mature and adult conversation everyone. Well done.

[grumpyhack]

I love the way so much cannabis research is described as 'jointly funded.'

[eFestivals]

The point is in any study you can construct the research to yield the results you want, be it intentional or not.

yep, a person can - but that makes them something different to what they claim to be.

You can easily argue cannabis is a gateway drug.

you can - but only if you're stupid, because it's a worthless empty idea.

It's an idea which is *VERY* selectively applied within the drugs sphere, and classed as utterly ridiculous outside of the drugs sphere. Or are you going to go with the idea that butter leads to cheese?

Getting stoned on a regular basis normalises drug use, realising getting stoned on a longer-term basis stops being as much fun or as intoxicating as the early use can motivate towards stronger drug use

yep, that's an idea.

But no one says that drinking beer on a regular basis gives a very strong likelihood that you'll end up as a whiskey pisshead, do they? Yes, it might happen, but there's a far greater chance that it won't - just as the vast majority of cannabis smokers stay as just cannabis smokers.

and cannabis dealers often have other drugs for sale or know people who do.

and all pubs always have harder alcohol for sale.

On the anecdotal front I started with crap soap bar, graduated to weed, and eventually decided to test in just about every drug known to man.

ditto.

But that's not most people, and even for those that it is, there's a big difference between testing and becoming a user.

I once tested out drinking whiskey and coke as perhaps being my new tipple. I gave it go for a bit, and then decided I still preferred beer. Shall we ban beer?

As I say the point is of a study is you can easily argue even highly contradictory positions, and you can almost certainly find masses of "evidence" for each side of the debate.

The highly contradictory positions are long established - such as the idea of a gateway drug itself.

It's by ideas such as that one never being challenged on an equitable basis with other things (as I've jokingly done above) within society that we end up contradictory positions, rather than from any actual research data.

There's only one set of evidence for both sides of the debate. The only reason that that research can give two different answers from that is because one set of research is worthless as a piece of research - it is not working from the evidence or the widespread ideas of society, but instead from a baseless preconception of (just certain) drugs being bad by default - which gives us that "gateway drug" idea.

Because - all joking removed - if the idea of gateway drugs is true, then butter leads onto cheese. And if 'gateways' are how it works, then alcohol is indisputably the real 'gateway' drug that needs banning to protect people from other drugs.

No one is so stupid to think those 'gateway' ideas are worth something - apart from of course for showing that the whole idea of 'gateway drugs' is ridiculous.

(Nowhere here am I trying to argue that any drug is good. I'm merely arguing that the basis on which drugs are declared 'bad' is a joke. It's as far from academic as it's possible to get - but even the academics play along with the pre-set culture of prejudice)

[eFestivals]

You don't get to see the department. It's annonymous.

which only gets to prove that *you* were not commissioned by the govt as you claimed.

The work was given to me as a collection of data sets/ results already undergone by the government. I had to collate this data into a rather large dissertation and write up the various links pertaining to positivist control.

personally I stopped writing essays when I left school, but never once was I foolish enough to call that essay 'research' or a 'dissertation'. I know language enough to know that an essay is neither, it's a shame that the self-proclaimed language expert doesn't.

But on the basis that you're not bullshitting here (), care to tell me what statistical analysis you carried out on those data sets, to make your writings something less than laughable?

Outsourcing of this kind happens all the time. I've had my work appear in the newspapers, only, it's not my work as I sold the rights to channel 4.

which makes you a paid writer, not an academic.

The point I was alluding to was that while the government look at drugs as a thing to be controlled

except they don't. This is where you expose yourself by your own bullshit.

The govt does not pre-decide the results of the research it commissions. If you'd been involved in just one piece of research for govt, you'd not be so stupid as to make that claim.

Think whatever you like about that, I really don't give a shit. It's not important.

It is important, because you're spreading bullshit with your lies.

[eFestivals]

Really mature and adult conversation everyone. Well done.

that's the problem with convos about drugs - everyone lies.

It's just that the lies here aren't the ones that those people with some actual experience in the field of drug research for the govt might have expected.

I've got to say, worm has excelled himself here, a real cracker.

[abdoujaparov]

Clearly you weren't taught manners.

[worm]

Since when is calling someone for making shit up a matter of bad manners?

[eFestivals]

It isn't. But as you don't know that and just think that then we're talking insult. Did I really have to point that out?

and yet ... by your own words you've since admitted that your initial claim of having been commissioned by the govt to do some research is a false claim - because if *YOU* were commissioned you'd know who had commissioned you.

That aside, some of us here have been involved in govt research, and we know enough to know that what you've said just isn't how it works.

So you can deny that you're lying all you like. Some of us know that lie.

[worm]

which only gets to prove that *you* were not commissioned by the govt as you claimed.

[worm]

and yet ... by your own words you've since admitted that your initial claim of having been commissioned by the govt to do some research is a false claim - because if *YOU* were commissioned you'd know who had commissioned you.

[AcademicPistol]

Q: How can you tell when an addict/worm is lying?

A: When he opens up his mouth/posts on this forum.

[worm]

So you can deny that you're lying all you like. Some of us know that lie.

[worm]

Q: How can you tell when an addict/worm is lying?

A: When he opens up his mouth/posts on this forum.

[eFestivals]

This isn't a game of politics you freak. I know it was the government. I don't have to prove it to you. It's actually hilarious looking at you flayling around trying to asses whether I'm telling the truth or not on the basis of my words. Absolutely hilarious. Have you got nothing better to do? Has Cameron been quiet this week?

PMSL ... even if I accept that the research happened, and that it was commissioned by the govt - both of which I do happen to think is bullshit, but that's of no relevance just here - you're still billy-big-bullshitter by your own words.

*YOU* were *NOT* commissioned by the govt.

If *YOU* were commissioned by the govt to do that research then *YOU* would know which department of govt had commissioned it (when you've stated very clearly that you do not).

Someone else was commissioned the govt. Not *YOU*.

Edited September 25, 2012 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

No, it gets to prove that the client's details are not held by me.

and that's because....?

It's because *YOU* were not commissioned by them.

Look man, you don't know. Neither of you do. Hypothesise all you like, I really don't give a toss. It wasn't a big deal. Just a first hand experience of what the government do anyway.

but those of us who actually know how the govt do things know beyond all doubt that they don't do things as you claim.

They always write up their academic findings in relation to positivist control. Until they stop this, all of their links between drugs and crime will be as exactly how they want it to be. Self-fulfilling bollocks, drugs are bad m'ckay.

and even more of your bullshit.

Which part of "the govt do not pre-decide the style or results of the research they commission" don't you get??

You clearly don't know that govt funded research is carried out to the highest academic standards, and has just about the highest reputation of any establishment that does social research - including against any Uni you could name.

But hey, keep digging. I'm loving this.

Edited September 25, 2012 by eFestivals

[worm]

How can I put this:

Move on......

[eFestivals]

How can I put this:

Move on......

Take your own advice matey. We never move on from the endless bollocks you post. And you never move on from believing there's no one who you can't con with your bullshit.

Sad to say that we're not all as stupid as you like to believe, and you're far less smart than you think of yourself.

Edited September 25, 2012 by eFestivals

[worm]

Take your own advice matey.

Edited September 25, 2012 by worm

[Spartacus Mars]

you can - but only if you're stupid, because it's a worthless empty idea.

[nightcrawler13]

agree completely with Sparty Mcfly above

I don't know anyone who takes drugs (hard ones) who hasn't tried cannabis, to suggest weed isn't a gateway drug is idiotic.

"oh I love to dabble in acid, heroin, crack and meth but i would NEVER even try cannabis"

has never been said by anyone, ever