http://www.youtube.com/w...0OCU&feature=related

That sums it up basically.

Not in the least. SWIM has tried cocaine and didn’t find it at all enjoyable. You choose to become addicted to it out of your own personal preference for it. And for that reason, I have no sympathy for cocaine addicts. They are addicts by choice. If it was all that addictive, SWIM would be an addict too and he’s not. Several others here have also tried it and did not become addicts to it. Addiction is a mental choice you make. As a human being, I expect you to be a little more intelligent than a mouse, and to make the right decisions about what you chose to take into your body. It’s all about choice. Cocaine doesn’t force people to use it. People use it out of their own free will.

Everything is choice.. Including addiction. Addiction is choice.

As per usual, Ron, your world is just chock full of easy answers. You ought to write a romance column, or take your show on the road.

I actaully tried it once years back, hated it and didnt find it addictive in the least..but thats just me..

He is right though.

Once you fish through the politics of it all, one way or another you could say money is the greater evil that's fuelling the political issues surrounding cocaine. But you can do good things with money also.

It's not that complex really.

There are people that exist that eat and eat and eat constantly, weighing over 500 pounds. Some people will eat ice-cream all day until their stomach needs to be pumped. That doesn't make ice-cream bad. People and animals can become addicted to all sorts of things they find pleasure in. It doesn’t make the items of their desire inherently bad.

I resonate most strongly with this statement. I think sometimes it takes someone who has delved most deeply into a situation to have the best perspective on it. And as someone who has delved deeply, I say, "Good riddance."

Do any of you that dislike cocaine ever have occasional drinks?.. and if so, how is occasional cocaine usage any different than occasional alcohol usage?.. other than the addictive/enjoyment factor.

I said "good riddance" to alcohol too actually. Nothing sustainably good has come to me from it.

That is respectable. Although I think alcohol has its time and place too.

I actaully find alcohol use to be at least on par with cocain use. Ive watched family members go downhill with horrible alcohol addictions, I havea friend who is dying from liver complications from alcohol addiction..my best friends mother is addicted to crack and alcohol, and every time she tries to detox, its the alcohol that is the hardest to quit. Both of my grandfathers were hard core alcoholics, one still is.. the other quit like that, one day stopped and never ever drank another drink again after my grandmother threatened to leave for good. He was a heavy heavy alcoholic and was lucky that he was able to handle the withdrawls becasue I know alcohol withdrawl is not nice. Alcohol is no benign thing, alcohol withdrawl can cause seizure and death..its on par with heroin, and trust me, my grandfather that still drinks does it all day and is definatily in no better shape than a heroin addict and it's killing him, doctors told him so and he still doesnt care.

Tons of people drink occasionally and dont become addicted, while tons of other develope savage alcohol addictions.

SWIM doesn’t like alcohol one bit, and knows alcoholics that have been ruined by it. But that doesn’t make alcohol bad either. It’s useful for making tinctures. I would hate to see it made illegal because it does have some good uses.

To the alcoholics: JUST STOP DRINKING IT. YOU HAD ENOUGH ALREADY!

To the cocaine addicts: JUST STOP USING IT. YOU’VE SPENT TOO MUCH ON IT ALREADY!

To the food addicts: JUST STOP EATING TOO MUCH. YOU ALREADY WEIGH MORE THAN 3 PEOPLE!

To the internet addicts: JUST STAY AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER FOR A WHILE! YOUR EYES ARE ALREADY TIRED!

I've read reports that claim the effects of pure cocaine are much more 'wholesome' (for lack of a better word) than the effects of the cut-to-hell stuff that the vast majority of users are putting in their bodies.

Also, levamisole has recently come into prominence as a cutting agent for some reason (at the distribution level, before entering the US), which can cause permanent immune system damage in users.

I'm a recovering alcoholic - so the answer to whether or not I imbibe in the occasional drink is no. For me, alcohol and crack and heroin are completely interchangeable. I can't use any of them (to any degree) without fucking my life to pieces. This doesn't mean this is the case for everyone. I would never pretend any differently.

There is, however, a hierarchy to potentially addicting substances (with ice cream somewhere low on the pyramid and crack somewhere up near the top), and anyone who says any differently is simply speaking out of ignorance. I'm the guy who could conceivably lose his shit over ice cream - I'm wired to the hilt for addiction. Does this make me anti-ice cream? No. Am I anti-cocaine? Maybe... I don't know. If so, it's only in so far as I know where it takes me and a great many others I've known throughout the years.

Honestly, the issue of psychedelics in general (and DMT in particular) are very complicated for me, and although they've caused me to see my own issues from a previously unexplored vantage point (which I believe has been very positive), I don't always view my own personal usage as a healing and positive endeavor. Does this make me anti-DMT? Absolutely not.

We're not all as morally and physiologically unimpeachable as our lofty 69Ron. But as I can't compete with the utter consistency of his typically self-righteous ramblings, I'll just hang it up now before I get any nastier (as is my weakness).

I think both 69ron and Uncle Knucles are right. Drugs are molecules and they are not directly responsible if the user becomes and addict of that substance. Also, it is true that some drugs are more difficult to leave if used regularly. Some people just want to keep on doing the drug and some others have Addictive Personality Disorder (which doesn't help them). If humans beings are involved... it depends... it depends.

Something I am learning lately in the DMT-Nexus is that there are not simple answers when dealing with drugs. Now, is it OK to use cocaine occasionally? Yes, but chances are you will regret it in the future. Of course, you may be one of the few that were perfectly OK and didn't have negative consequences. But I repeat, chances are against you.

Congratulations to all those who have self-control and high self-esteem.

I take it from time to time... But i dont like coke on its own. Combined with alcohol it can be nice though.

Btw the fairly pure stuff (straight from the ass) is really something different from the junk you find in the clubs.
But i cant recommend it. Amphetamines are way better for stimulation and euforia. Cant recommend those either..

And yea, buying it does add to the problems in those countries... you got me
But then i ask, arent we using allot of stuff that puts others in a difficult situation? (i know that is no excuse)
I think that allot of cheap for you, will cost someone else.

Don't worry Freud came back ten years later, after ten years of saying similar things, prescribing it to friends and using it himself, and said he was wrong. He saw that cocaine = no good. Nothing good will come of it.

The other day I was talking with a friend who showed me a knife scar just below his heart (I have friends from all walks of life). He found out that his girlfriend had been smoking crack (for the length of their relationship), so he found her stash, and called her up to give her the option "crack or me". She came back to him with her arms out in a hug...and when she "hugged him", her arm came around and stuck a knife in him, barely missing his heart. I understand that cocaine is not all that different from crack, crack is just a smokable form.

For the "addiction is a choice" crowd, I'm curious what it is you think the cocaine offers these people that makes them put it before friends and loved ones and life?

On the other hand upon further reading I have found that the coca leaves the Incas and their descendants have chewed, "medicinally", for centuries, actually do contain cocaine as a primary alkaloid. It is cocaine they're using, and evidently helpful for workers at high altitudes. Cocaine just hits the brains and (IMO) screws with one's dopamine/etc handling systems much more efficiently, when extracted into freebase or whatever usable forms.

Fractal Enchantment, that link doesn't work in my country, the good ol' USA.

hmm, typical of the US..guess they dont want to loose any money on cocaine sales due to people seeing on youtube just exactly what cocaine production does to the rainforest, dumping bleach and petroleum off into the river systems..

Molecules are just molecules.

But, please, consider how your molecules are acquired. The process of creating and distributing cocaine is not exactly nice. More like raping the earth, actually. I would personally choose not to ingest that energy. It's so sad. If you choose to act with love toward the earth, if you have compassion for people, plants, all creatures great and small, cocaine ingestion becomes impossible.

The tragic energy involved with production, I feel, carries over to those who would ingest...

There are members here who have witnessed firsthand the tragedies of DMT-containing plants being mistreated, from the visions imparted by the plant teachers themselves. Imagine what Mama Coca has to say.

I also in no way mean to discredit anyone's experiences with cocaine and people, I just wanted to make note of the entire process. Tragedy from start to finish.