Whether you are pro or anti, not trusting your kids (even though they start trying to pull the wool over your eyes from age about 3:wink:) to the extent of invading their privacy in such an invasive way is a really dumb way to try and protect them from anything.
To be able to protect them, they have to be encouraged to be honest with you, and they have to feel that they can tell you things without you being judgemental. That’s the only way to find out what they’re up to. A drug test will tell you they have taken them, but it will also cause them to feel (justifiably) wronged, and cause them to tell you nothing about their lives.
From my own point of view, telling my kids not to do something I have done lots is thoroughly hippocritical, and not something I will do. Information and education so they can make their own choices is the only intelligent thing to do IMO.
If other people want to screw up their relationships with their own children, then that’s up to them. The laws governing human rights do apply to children too though, so I will laugh heartily when the first parent gets sued for breaching them….:wink:
As for the Ritalin/Cocaine argument –
Johnsee wrote:
Both cocaine & methylphenidate (the generic name for Ritalin) target the brains dopamine system by blocking the ability of neurons to reabsorb dopamine, therefore increasing dopamine levels. Both Ritalin & cocaine compete for the same binding sites on neurons & have strikingly similar chemical structures (the same double ring structures with cocaine having an ether group & Ritalin containing more carbon atoms, however the primary ring structure is identical…I think) & the functional groups arrangements, & it’s properties is most similar to methamphetamine/amphetamine (well known for it’s parallels with the behavioural effects of cocaine, also targets the dopamine system & along with cocaine & other dopamine agonists, exerts it’s reinforcing effects in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens – implicated in addiction, there are now links between Ritalin use & increased susceptibility to cocaine abuse in later life). The main difference between the 2 is that cocaine takes seconds to take effect (thus explaining it’s addictive properties as reinforcement is v.immediate) & Ritalin takes approximately an hour when taken as prescribed. However, recreational users of Ritalin crush up the pill & snort it & report effects not too dissimilar to cocaine (it targets the same binding sites) & animal studies have shown that rats will readily substitute Ritalin for cocaine. The following link (you may just get the abstract) is a study conducted on the 2:
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/methcomp.htm
lots of drugs affect the dopamine receptors, and in a variety of different ways (hell, even chocolate causes a dopamine response).
The dopamine response is essentially the “well being” hormonal response, and is the main pathway for psychological addiction – dopamine is a neurotransmitter that modifies behaviour, usually to arouse the body/mind in some way (there is usually quite a lot of it around after sex for instance:wink:).
Pretty much every stimulant either inhibits the degradation of intersynaptic dopamine, or causes the production of excess – that and the action on norepinephrine and noradrenaline are the way they produce the stimulant effect. The tendency to use/abuse stimulants is more related to the biological make up of the individual (some are thrill seekers, while others are not. Thrill seekers tend towards stims, where more sedentary types have a tendency towards drugs that decrease synaptic arousal – ie barbiturates, opiates etc, which cause a slow down by the release of endorphins/enkephalins). Even caffeine can be said to be similar in action to cocaine by this comparison….
And although they compete for roughly the same binding sites in the brain (as far as positron emission tomography of carbon molecules can tell), the 2 chemicals are very different: See a comparison in 2D here . A look at the differences in psychoactive properties of the various LSD related chemicals, and their hugely varying effects related in TIHKAL where tiny changes (even down to the stereoisomers of the same chemical structure) alter the effect drastically will show how different the 2 chemicals are.
The study you linked to says that although the binding sites are somewhat similar, the [SIZE=-1]pharmacokinetics of them are very different (cocaine takes about 20 mins to clear from the striatum, where methylphenidate takes about 90 mins). As for the speed of uptake:
[/SIZE]
Quote:
[SIZE=-1]For both drugs, their fast uptake in striatum paralleled the experience of the “high.” For methylphenidate, the high decreased very rapidly despite significant binding of the drug in the brain. In contrast, for cocaine, the decline in the high paralleled its fast rate of clearance from the brain. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]CONCLUSION: We speculate that because the experience of the high is associated with the fast uptake of cocaine and methylphenidate in the brain, the slow clearance of methylphenidate from the brain may serve as a limiting factor in promoting its frequent self-administration.[/SIZE]
Basically meaning that the longer half life makes it less addictive, as there is less need to re-dose…
The mechanisms of addiction are complex, and different depending on the person, but the main mechanism of physical addiction is in the high/tolerance/maintaining high cycle, where the need to re-dose due to the comedown becomes more frequent, and the doses become higher due to tolerance, resulting in a physical change in body chemistry where the external chemical becomes necessary to produce a “normal” ground state. This is what causes withdrawl. Psychological addiction is different in different people – which explains the way some smokers have a nightmare when quitting, while others do it with hardly a problem – the habit and reward response are different depending on biological/psychological make up between human beings. Not sure what that means for the difference between humans and baboons, or rats etc, which are the usual subjects for these studies…:crazy_diz
The double ring structure (which is a benzene molecule in it’s pure ring form) is present in all aromatic organic compounds btw (the Adenine-Guamine pairing in DNA strands being an example of a body chemical that contains theser simple organic aromatic rings, as do many other chemicals…)
So as a conclusion (as I’m starting to ramble badly now:wink:), YES – you can say Methylphenidate and Cocaine are similar, but you can say the same for Caffeine and Cocaine , or even Dopamine and Cocaine. This doesn’t mean they are the same, or even have the same effect…And as for addiction, most substances that produce a hormonal response in the body are addictive to some degree. Methylphenidate is used (where cocaine isn’t) in treatment of ADD/ADHD because the risks are less, not because there are no risks…
