uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

I can't read the full article, the public part solely references Nutt's data.

So MDMA and mushrooms are 'automatically' in the 'most dangerous' category ?

Looks to me like they've been carefully assessed, checked and rechecked by parliament over the years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugs_con … _Drugs_Act

And looks like this Nutt guy has a history of malfeasance.
"He served on the Committee on Safety of Medicines where he participated in an enquiry into the use of SSRI anti-depressants in 2003. His participation was criticised as, owing to his financial interest in GlaxoSmithKline, he had to withdraw from discussions of the drug paroxetine."

Seems like he's not really an academic, he has an agenda and is seeking to make a profit out of recreational drugs, not really the go to person for impartial information.

Anyway, good luck with your hobby, maybe it will be legal some day and poor peasants won't need to risk death and imprisonment so you can get your fix.
nobody is getting killed over MDMA, LSD or mushrooms. you are wholly ignorant.

the drug cartels in central america's biggest export is marijuana.

parliament's laws are out of touch with scientific opinion. that's sort of the whole thrust of that report, duh. 'checked and carefully rechecked', lol, by politicians, clamping down on drugs to win votes. very well done dilbert at missing the point.  any scientist hired by the government who gives an inconvenient opinion on their policy is summarily dismissed. in fact, the legality and tight control of many drugs against medical wisdom has stymied potentially valuable research. hence the situation today, at last, where drugs are finally starting to be taken off the shelf again and given a fair look.

ketamine is now being prescribed by the NHS as an experimental anti-depressant.
MDMA therapy is a thing.
mushroom therapy is a thing.

it's just the beginning. the high water-mark of the counter-culture hysteria, with the 'war on drugs', is fading away. you are a relic. it's too bad that your views are unscientific and ignorant. mind you, a man who can vote for an evangelical prime minister whilst decrying religions of all form clearly has a lot of work to do on his cognitive dissonance. might i suggest some MDMA therapy?

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 05:31:17)

Dilbert_X
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Taking multiple factors into account the Liberals were the least bad option, I did not want to see another Labor govt, definitely not one led by a corrupt weasel like Shorten.

'Scientific opinion' - This boils down to a single fruitloop with an agenda who is hoping to make a personal fortune by getting alcohol marginalised and people pushed onto benzos. This is not a consensus.

'any scientist hired by the government who gives an inconvenient opinion on their policy is summarily dismissed' - Nope, just this Nutt guy.

Yes, drugs can have therapeutic uses, still doesn't mean teenagers should be taking them at dance parties, sorry.

Pretty sure you're wrong about Central America, this is the only data I can find.

https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/drug_traffic.jpg

Locally 24% of road deaths last year were drug related. Hey lets get more people on drugs though!
https://www.police.sa.gov.au/sa-police- … g5iwVUzayo
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uziq
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are you really mentioning road deaths as a favourable comparison? i mean, it's not like drink driving fatalities aren't incredibly common. and are you seriously fucking using a sample size in SA of ... 80? jesus fucking christ you are a joke when you come across as the 'ur-scientist' man of reason.

Around 30% of road traffic deaths in Australia involve alcohol, which is one of the worst records amongst high-income countries for drink-driving fatalities.

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) reported there were 1,295 road traffic deaths in 2016 – an increase of 7.5% compared to 2015 – which suggests that as many as 388 Australians tragically died last year due to drink-driving.
what a bizarre fight to pick, of all the available ones. drink-driving is an endemic problem, widely publicised, and alcohol is an almost uniquely terrible drug with which to get behind the wheel of a car (excepting prescription drugs like opiates or benzos, which similarly affect reactions).

and it's not a single fruit loop at all. there are multiple reports, the one just cited in that paper having nothing to do with david nuts, who you claim you're 'disappointed in' (poor them!). there are multiple research groups agitating for changes to drug legislation. your attempts to paint this whole 'let's reconsider drug harm' thing as the project of one man is absolutely ridiculous.
Dilbert_X
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Right, so most people drink, few people take drugs and yet the road death figures are about level. (The sample size is 113, try to pay attention)

Makes u think.

Like I said, I can't read the paper, the only evidence cited I can see comes from the Nutt guy you've repeatedly referenced over the years and who clearly has an agenda and an interest in making money for himself.

'multiple research groups agitating for changes to drug legislation' Why would they be doing this, do they think kids taking drugs is a good thing?
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Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

Around 30% of road traffic deaths in Australia involve alcohol, which is one of the worst records amongst high-income countries for drink-driving fatalities.
Drug driving is a contributing factor in up to 41% of road fatalities in Australia
https://research.qut.edu.au/carrsq/wp-c … e-2017.pdf

Hey lets get the kids onto drugs though!
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SuperJail Warden
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uziq wrote:

the drug cartels in central america's biggest export is marijuana.
Meth, heroin and cocaine come from south of the U.S. border. Most illegal marijuana in the U.S. comes from legalized states. The stuff is so easy to produce that prices bottomed out in many legalized states.

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2020-01-02 14:09:14)

https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

Around 30% of road traffic deaths in Australia involve alcohol, which is one of the worst records amongst high-income countries for drink-driving fatalities.
Drug driving is a contributing factor in up to 41% of road fatalities in Australia
https://research.qut.edu.au/carrsq/wp-c … e-2017.pdf

Hey lets get the kids onto drugs though!
that statistic includes prescription painkillers/opioids, benzos, and antihistamines. i fail to see how that's relevant in a discussion of re-grading/classifying illegal 'party' drugs based on their harm. i already acknowledged in my last post that, like alcohol, loads of easily available and commonly used drugs make you a danger behind the wheel. i'm sure a statistic that classes people on hayfever medication as 'drug driving' will look scarily high. well done. can you read what you link next time instead of googling around to cherrypick the most convenient/alarmist line? again, your scientific rigour is badly wanting.

this is also completely missing the behavioural point about these drugs, too: who the fuck is trying to drive whilst on MDMA, LSD or mushrooms? you really are being so thick. people don't drive on these drugs, they're taken indoors or at parties, not at roadside pubs where everyone over-indulges and then risks the journey home. it's an entirely different context. people driving on cocaine or amphetamines (notably long-distance truck drivers), yeah, fair enough, that's definitely A Thing. being on a stimulant is a lot better than being on alcohol, though. speed is literally prescribed for this purpose, in other contexts (e.g. fighter pilots).

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 14:16:02)

uziq
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SuperJail Warden wrote:

uziq wrote:

the drug cartels in central america's biggest export is marijuana.
Meth, heroin and cocaine come from south of the U.S. border. Most illegal marijuana in the U.S. comes from legalized states. The stuff is so easy to produce that prices bottomed out in many legalized states.
yes, the export picture is changing because of weed legalisation, but a huge amount of the cartels' stuff has an atlantic link to west africa.

a lot of the violence that dilbert talks about, and feigns sympathy for, is between cartels whose main crop and territory is weed.
uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

'multiple research groups agitating for changes to drug legislation' Why would they be doing this, do they think kids taking drugs is a good thing?
no, they think people being locked away at great cost and criminalised, effectively ruining their lives, for trivial choices of personal consumption is a bad abuse of public justice.

it's not very complicated, dilbert.

what exactly is so suspicious about wanting to reform the drug classification system so that it is based on actual harm? seems like a no-brainer compared to the current system based on fear, taboo, hysteria, and 'the war on drugs' (the great success of our epoch, second only to the wars in iraq and afghanistan). regulations can be relaxed about drugs with possible medical benefits, new clinical routes tested, and meanwhile our prisons aren't full of people who were caught with a bit of weed for the 3rd time.

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 14:30:52)

SuperJail Warden
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I do think people are tool flippant when it comes to drug legalization. I remember when I was younger and a supporter of "just legalize all drugs". The effects of the opioid epidemic should be enough to bury that idea.

So while I enjoy marijuana and would like to see it legalized, I acknowledge that it would be a public health nightmare. Not as bad as the Drug War obviously but most Americans were never directly affected by that anyway.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
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Reforming the classification system will result in more kids taking more drugs, why would anyone want that?

People know the consequences, the person in prison for his 3rd cannabis offence made a choice, they ruined their own life over a trivial choice.
What are we supposed to say exactly? It was their conscious choice, no-one made them do it.

You keep conflating medical and recreational use, they're not connected and shouldn't be.

Still waiting to hear from someone besides this Nutt guy who thinks crack cocaine is less harmful than alcohol.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-01-02 15:06:33)

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SuperJail Warden
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I think it is obvious that the guy who made the chart was assessing the relative damage each drug has caused to society overall rather than just how bad each is for you.
https://i.imgur.com/hM8xrHc.png
For instance there are way more drunk driving deaths than crack overdoses because way more people drink than smoke crack. That is why the dark purple line for crack is shorter than the dark purple line for alcohol.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
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How many people crash their cars while high on crack?
I would guess crack overdoses and car crashes would be on the blue line - mortality, not the purple line.

This Nutt guy has a long history of garbage research and adjusting data to suit his agenda.
Now we learn he has a stake in a company and owns patents which make it in his financial interests to have people take drugs instead of drink alcohol.

But yeah, people blithely assume legalising drugs will solve all problems, because keeping people out of prison is more of a priority than keeping drug-addled nutcases out of the community.
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Dilbert_X
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What we need is more of this



Just think, if we legalise everything we'd have the same freedoms as the people of Kabul

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-01-02 15:35:57)

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uziq
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ah, yes, 'zombie possession' drug tropes and people in a ravaged war-zone on heroin. it's totally comparable!

i've searched high and low and can't find any footage anywhere on the internet of drunk people, people made homeless because of their drink problem, people fighting when drunk, mangled car-wrecks from drunk drivers ... i think my google is broken
uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

How many people crash their cars while high on crack?
I would guess crack overdoses and car crashes would be on the blue line - mortality, not the purple line.

This Nutt guy has a long history of garbage research and adjusting data to suit his agenda.
Now we learn he has a stake in a company and owns patents which make it in his financial interests to have people take drugs instead of drink alcohol.

But yeah, people blithely assume legalising drugs will solve all problems, because keeping people out of prison is more of a priority than keeping drug-addled nutcases out of the community.
we don't 'now learn' anything you disingenuous dingbat. many scientific researchers in medicine have side businesses, patents, private interests. this is all declared when research is submitted, and thoroughly vetted for conflict of interests in peer-review. that you think the world's most prestigious journal isn't doing due process, and you've 'rumbled' them by looking at his fucking WIKIPEDIA, is you exercising your right to be a moron. we haven't 'learned' anything. you haven't just broke some heretofore unknown piece of information to these people. get a grip.

people don't assume legalising drugs will solve all problems. we were discussing reclassifying drugs based on harm. that was the point of the article. i've never condoned a free-for-all.
SuperJail Warden
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Dilbert_X wrote:

But yeah, people blithely assume legalising drugs will solve all problems, because keeping people out of prison is more of a priority than keeping drug-addled nutcases out of the community.
We should let more people out of prison but also make them live in the forest. They can rake the leaves to protect it like Trump is saying.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

people don't assume legalising drugs will solve all problems. we were discussing reclassifying drugs based on harm. that was the point of the article. i've never condoned a free-for-all.
I'm fine with putting all the drugs in the highest classification.
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uziq
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which, as people keep pointing out, doesn't make any sense, considering alcohol is more harmful – to the individual and to society – than many of them.
Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

....considering alcohol is more harmful – to the individual and to society – than many of them.
According to Mr Nutt and no-one else.

Still, drugs aren't zero-harm and many of the issues are as yet unknown, there's still no case for legalising something harmful.
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uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

....considering alcohol is more harmful – to the individual and to society – than many of them.
According to Mr Nutt and no-one else.

Still, drugs aren't zero-harm and many of the issues are as yet unknown, there's still no case for legalising something harmful.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
A comparative risk assessment of drugs including alcohol and tobacco using the margin of exposure (MOE) approach was conducted. The MOE is defined as ratio between toxicological threshold (benchmark dose) and estimated human intake. Median lethal dose values from animal experiments were used to derive the benchmark dose. The human intake was calculated for individual scenarios and population-based scenarios. The MOE was calculated using probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations. The benchmark dose values ranged from 2 mg/kg bodyweight for heroin to 531 mg/kg bodyweight for alcohol (ethanol). For individual exposure the four substances alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and heroin fall into the “high risk” category with MOE < 10, the rest of the compounds except THC fall into the “risk” category with MOE < 100. On a population scale, only alcohol would fall into the “high risk” category, and cigarette smoking would fall into the “risk” category, while all other agents (opiates, cocaine, amphetamine-type stimulants, ecstasy, and benzodiazepines) had MOEs > 100, and cannabis had a MOE > 10,000. The toxicological MOE approach validates epidemiological and social science-based drug ranking approaches especially in regard to the positions of alcohol and tobacco (high risk) and cannabis (low risk).

Many governments in Europe have favoured more restrictive policies with respect to illicit drugs than for alcohol or tobacco, on the grounds that they regard both illicit drug abuse and related problems as a significantly larger problem for society. Drug rankings can therefore be useful to inform policy makers and the public about the relative importance of licit drugs (including prescription drugs) and illicit drugs for various types of harm.

Our MOE results confirm previous drug rankings based on other approaches. Specifically, the results confirm that the risk of cannabis may have been overestimated in the past. At least for the endpoint of mortality, the MOE for THC/cannabis in both individual and population-based assessments would be above safety thresholds (e.g. 100 for data based on animal experiments). In contrast, the risk of alcohol may have been commonly underestimated.

Our results confirm the early study of Gable who found that the margin of safety (defined as therapeutic index) varied dramatically between substances. In contrast, our approach is not based on a therapeutic index, which is not necessarily associated with risk, but uses the most recent guidelines for risk assessment of chemical substances, which also takes the population-based exposure into account.

A major finding of our study is the result that the risk of drugs varies extremely, so that a logarithmic scale is needed in data presentation of MOE (e.g. Figures 1–3). Therefore, we think that previous expert-based approaches which often applied a linear scale of 0–3 or 0–1003,9, might have led to a form of “egalitarianism”, in which the public health impact of drugs appears more similar than it is in reality (i.e. more than 10.000-fold different as shown in our results on a population basis, e.g. Fig. 2 and ​and3). As expected, for an individual the difference between the impact of different drugs is not as large as for the whole society (i.e. only up to 100 fold, Fig. 1)

Currently, the MOE results point to risk management prioritization towards alcohol and tobacco rather than illicit drugs. The high MOE values of cannabis, which are in a low-risk range, suggest a strict legal regulatory approach rather than the current prohibition approach.
compared to many experts, multiple research groups, and, as the original economist article clearly stated, a group made up of some ~30 global health leaders. why are you so stubborn about the obvious truth?

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 17:01:43)

uziq
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The Australian drug harms ranking study in the J. Psychopharmacology (i.e. a top-tier journal)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 … 1119841569

Background/Aim:
The aim of the current study was to review drug harms as they occur in Australia using the Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methodology adopted in earlier studies in other jurisdictions.

Method:
A facilitated workshop with 25 experts from across Australia, was held to score 22 drugs on 16 criteria: 9 related to harms that a drug produces in the individual and 7 to harms to others. Participants were guided by facilitators through the methodology and principles of MCDA. In open discussion, each drug was scored on each criterion. The criteria were then weighted using a process of swing weighting. Scoring was captured in MCDA software tool.

Results:
MCDA modelling showed the most harmful substances to users were fentanyls (part score 50), heroin (part score 45) and crystal methamphetamine (part score 42). The most harmful substances to others were alcohol (part score 41), crystal methamphetamine (part score 24) and cigarettes/tobacco (part score 14). Overall, alcohol was the most harmful drug when harm to users and harm to others was combined. A supplementary analysis took into consideration the prevalence of each substance in Australia. Alcohol was again ranked the most harmful substance overall, followed by cigarettes, crystal methamphetamine, cannabis, heroin and pharmaceutical opioids.

Conclusions:
The results of this study make an important contribution to the emerging international picture of drug harms. They highlight the persistent and pervasive harms caused by alcohol. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed. Policies to reduce harm from alcohol and methamphetamine should be a priority.
https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/jopa/2019/jopa_33_7/0269881119841569/20190621/images/large/10.1177_0269881119841569-fig2.jpeg

but i guess it's just david nutt?

Still, drugs aren't zero-harm and many of the issues are as yet unknown, there's still no case for legalising something harmful.
yeah, the complete non-toxicity of psilocybin and LSD, and their manifold harms ... look at how they dominate the above chart! and the issues certainly are unknown, we haven't been testing them for decades, or anything. frightening, they must be kept at class A!

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 17:30:59)

Dilbert_X
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Non-toxicity? LSD cannabis etc are certainly non-zero on your own chart. I thought they were harmless?

And we don't know the long-term effects at this stage at all, whereas we do for alcohol which will obviously skew it.

Looking at the US opioid crisis I'm very doubtful its less harmful than the occasional lager.


Looking at your study:

"Study design - A facilitated workshop with 25 experts from across Australia, representing a range of professional domains, was held in April 2018"
"The workshop followed standard decision conferencing processes, which have been previously reported (Nutt et al., 2010). "

Right so it was a single day conference, using the Nutt data as the starting point and the same methodology and based on people's opinions, no actual data was presented or included. "Hands up who thinks alcohol is bad! OK great work guys"

Oh and look here:

https://i.imgur.com/Lix2iTV.png

So they factored out all the harmless alcohol consumption and only included the harmful alcohol consumption - but didn't do the same with the illegal drugs - to conclude that harmful alcohol consumption is harmful and that means all alcohol consumption must be harmful.

That is a neat trick, shit methodology and wouldn't meet an academic rigour test.
What is it with the pro-drugs crowd not being able to put a cogent argument together?

D- Worse than your previous attempt, strongly inclined to withdraw your degree.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-01-02 17:56:14)

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uziq
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'consumed at levels above australian low-risk guidelines'. that just means consuming more than '4 standard drinks' (where a small glass of wine is 1.5) on any given day and 10 per week.

https://cdn.adf.org.au/media/images/standard-drink-infographic.width-1524.png
https://adf.org.au/insights/guidelines- … -drinking/

i don't think anyone has ever argued that having one beer with food is catastrophic. my point was that alcohol is an addictive, harmful substance, and evidently causes huge amounts of harm to the individual and society. lots of people drink more than the low-risk guidelines. the same guidelines say

No safe level of drinking

While there is no safe level of drinking, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has developed some guidelines to help us understand the impact of drinking on our health, wellbeing and safety.
you're acting like they've dishonestly taken out all 'normal' alcohol drinkers, which just isn't the case. your own alcohol consumption is probably above the 'low-risk' guidelines. it's so fucking ironic that the australian govt's definition of 'harmful' drinking, by which you think they're 'cheating' the methodology, is 4.5 pints of beer a week.

Last edited by uziq (2020-01-02 18:12:18)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
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Whatever, if you factor out all the data which doesn't suit your agenda it renders your argument moot.

Try to find a paper which doesn't use this Nutt guy as a basis.

Also, the website you quoted doesn't say 10 units a week, it says 2 units/day or 14/week, just like the UK one.
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-fa … uidelines/

Seems your drug-addled brain is imagining things.

Derpzique wrote:

you're acting like they've dishonestly taken out all 'normal' alcohol drinkers, which just isn't the case
Once again, you're talking shit based on no data

"HOW many standard drinks do you clock up in a week?

Think about your total — that glass of red wine with dinner, the after-work trip to the pub on Friday, the occasional Saturday night bender.

If your number exceeds nine standard drinks in a week, you’re probably consuming more booze than the average Australian.

A major study by the Foundation of Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), which surveyed 1820 Australians, found that most of us are “moderate drinkers” — that is, we have nine or fewer standard drinks per week.

While the percentage of drinkers has increased from 77 to 82 per cent since last year, more than three-quarters do so no more than two days a week."
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/ … 05f0f444fb

So at least three-quarters of drinkers are well within the current low guidelines, and >60% of the population as a whole drink with little to no risk at all, but these are excluded from the study you quoted.
What a disastrous problem, we must put a stop to this and get these people on synthetic drugs some guy can personally profit out of.

So yeah, if you dismiss the bulk of the available data you can draw any conclusion you like.

Snorting snuff is safer than drinking two bottles of vodka a day -> People should switch from the occasional Chardonnay to smoking crystal meth.

F - Please hand over your certificates for destruction and leave the campus. The Guild of Hipsters has been notified and will be cancelling your accreditation.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-01-02 20:34:35)

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