Silk Road forums

Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: Annonymous Coward on August 18, 2012, 08:11 pm

Title: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Annonymous Coward on August 18, 2012, 08:11 pm
The word "drugs" has already been tainted, and does not properly represent the tools or medicines provided by the good folks here.  If we change the name, then we will be able to change how people perceive this subject.  SR lead the way!  If it is left the way it is (Drugs), It's like a parent calling their new born child Adolf Hitler, not that there is something wrong with the name, it just carries too much baggage with it. 

Off topic:  Are there people still living that go by the name Adolf Hitler? LoL ;D
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: rise_against on August 18, 2012, 10:47 pm
yes, and the Guns section to "Personal Defense Mechanisms".
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Soccerpros on August 19, 2012, 04:03 am
I disagree with the OP simply because some drugs (most actually) act as an escape for people mentally. Although I am a big fan of almost all drugs, they should not be called medicines because they are not "a substance (as a drug or potion) disease" usually; although another definition of medicine is "a substance (as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease". So technically it could go either way.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Annonymous Coward on August 19, 2012, 01:20 pm
I disagree with the OP simply because some drugs (most actually) act as an escape for people mentally. Although I am a big fan of almost all drugs, they should not be called medicines because they are not "a substance (as a drug or potion) disease" usually; although another definition of medicine is "a substance (as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease". So technically it could go either way.

A mental escape, as you refer to it, is also a form of self medication, it does not matter whether you administer it yourself or someone else prescribes for you.  You, and only you know what is best for yourself.  You can take in and digest  information from external sources about the medicine you suspect can help you, but at the end you will have to make the leap and make the decision.  People who claim that they are only using "drugs" for recreational purposes only and for a 'mental escape', are just deluding themselves, but they will come around, after all it is 2012  ;D

To support the argument for a name change, I present the following:

1-Adderall-medicine for ADD or ADHD
2-Ambien-medicine that helps you sleep
3-Cannabis-medicine that does lots of things, depending on the strain and what not
4-Valium/xanax-medince that reduces anxiety
5-Viagra-medicine that makes wives and girlfriends happier ;)


Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: 5tbzd65r on August 19, 2012, 10:25 pm
Fuck that, imo.

People smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, use mind-altering prescription medications and can't admit they are using drugs. I agree that drugs is tainted but SR is doing the right thing and admitting it. We can change the name to medicine but then outsiders will just say "oh look they are calling drugs medicine! What lying derelicts!" Instead, we need to wait for people to stop picking and choosing what they call drugs arbitrarily. This will sort of sound like a stretch, but try to see the underlying logic: Calling drugs medicine on here would be like black people in the 1950s abolishing their own sub-culture so they could earn respect from whites, instead of showing the value of their sub-culture and then earning respect.

Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Soccerpros on August 19, 2012, 10:49 pm
Fuck that, imo.

People smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, use mind-altering prescription medications and can't admit they are using drugs. I agree that drugs is tainted but SR is doing the right thing and admitting it. We can change the name to medicine but then outsiders will just say "oh look they are calling drugs medicine! What lying derelicts!" Instead, we need to wait for people to stop picking and choosing what they call drugs arbitrarily. This will sort of sound like a stretch, but try to see the underlying logic: Calling drugs medicine on here would be like black people in the 1950s abolishing their own sub-culture so they could earn respect from whites, instead of showing the value of their sub-culture and then earning respect.

^^Yessir, I agree^^
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: gonzorx on August 20, 2012, 12:46 am
prepare yourself for a forthright statement or don't read (hippy scum):

I fucking hate going to the US for work and dealing with dope smokers referring to their fucking 'medicine' in relation to cannabis . As much as I do indeed believe in the utility of cannabis in low toxic pain treatment , who cares!? Stop trying to validate your vice... People (especially in the US) place so much weight on such terminology it is pathetic. Whether the word 'drug' or 'medicine' is used to define it is irrelevant due to the social stigma attached . It will always be a nasty 'drug' to those ignorant to toxicology...so fuck them (and you)

I work in healthcare and so much of it is bullshit. 'medicines' approved by the FDA are rubbish and mostly placebos (ADHD treatment anybody!? placebo effect for a non existent disease diagnosed to those who are idle or who lack discipline) .

No need to worship false idols (reads: idles) . Medicine is riddled with as many hacks and pipe dreams as any other industry. preventative medicine = true medicine. Curative medicine is a borderline criminal activity with excellent marketing.


summary: fuck semantics
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: ppass on August 26, 2012, 11:17 pm
Additionally one might wonder how much bullshit baggage could be brought along with claiming all substances sold as medicines. "Vendors on silk road claim to sell medicines" kinda like how the herbal supplement market can't call their stuff anything but a supplement as "medication" is such a loaded term.

Plus I am not too sure on how meth and GHB have too much medical usage other than the rare sleep disorder.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: kryptoz on August 26, 2012, 11:24 pm
Certain 'drugs', yes can be considered medicine, however others with no medicinal value ARE drugs.

I don't think it should be changed, it is what it is. I just don't like how the sites reputation is a DRUG WEBSITE, even though there are plenty of other categories here :-\
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: ppass on August 26, 2012, 11:53 pm
Certain 'drugs', yes can be considered medicine, however others with no medicinal value ARE drugs.

I don't think it should be changed, it is what it is. I just don't like how the sites reputation is a DRUG WEBSITE, even though there are plenty of other categories here :-\
Oh indeed.
This suggestion might not be making it to the table.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Shroomeister on August 27, 2012, 12:45 am
To support the argument for a name change, I present the following:

1-Adderall-medicine for ADD or ADHD
2-Ambien-medicine that helps you sleep
3-Cannabis-medicine that does lots of things, depending on the strain and what not
4-Valium/xanax-medince that reduces anxiety
5-Viagra-medicine that makes wives and girlfriends happier ;)

And if you were to go out and get any of that stuff legally....would you goto the "Medicine Store? or the "Drug Store" to get those scripts filled?

:)
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: kryptoz on August 27, 2012, 12:58 am
Also, almost all of those medicines are abused and more than likely most people buying them on here _are_ abusing them, and not taking them on the recommendation of a doctor. Most, not all.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: Shroomeister on August 27, 2012, 03:22 am
Also, almost all of those medicines are abused and more than likely most people buying them on here _are_ abusing them, and not taking them on the recommendation of a doctor. Most, not all.

Word up.

Fear of sounding like a total douche - I'll say OP it seems you just want a way to be able to rationalize something. I don't know what exactly.

This thread is like the guy that wants to call "Hookers" - "Escorts" to help himself feel better about having to pay for sex.

Drugs are drugs. The word drug is not a dirty one, unless you feel it is. :\

Sorry man.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: draffen on August 30, 2012, 03:11 am
"Pharmaceuticals" would be a far more neutral term. It's a little ill-fitting for weed and other non-synthetic drugs, though.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: PhilipJFry on October 30, 2012, 08:22 pm
"Substances" would be even more neutral :)
Title: Partial transcript of Terence McKenna in Mexico 1996. Interview by Luc Saia.
Post by: Xe on October 31, 2012, 06:09 pm
"Drugs" is a word that has polluted the well of language.
Part of the reason we have a drug problem is because we don't have an intelligent language to talk about substances, plants, psychedelic [and] sedative states of mind, states of amphetamine excitation. We can't make sense of the problem and the opportunities offered by substances unless we clean up our language.

"Drugs" is a word that's been used by governments to make it impossible to think creatively about the problem of substances and abuse and availability and so forth and so on. So it's a kind of a paradox isn't it? "Drugs" mean that which cures us and the greatest social problem of the generation.

Apparently there are "good drugs" sanctioned by science and medicine and "bad drugs" used by brown people in strange rites and growing in unusual plants in distant parts of the world. This kind of thinking, because it's naive, leads of course to social problems and bad politics and bad social policy.
Every society chooses a small number of substances, no matter how toxic, and enshrines them in its cultural values, then demonizes all other substances and then persecutes and launches witch hunts against those users whenever some political pretext requires...So it's an old game and it's been played in many places.

Hopefully part of the advancement of society toward ideas of universal human rights and that sort of thing it certainly must include the idea of the universal human right to take responsibility for and to alter your own state of consciousness as you see fit.
I don't think we can even pretend that we are on the edge of a civilized dialogue until we grant that people's minds, like their bodies, must be a domain free from government control. In American law we have the notion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the pursuit of happiness means anything it must mean the right to use and experiment with substances and plants.

The state should not, in the matter of drugs, any more than in the matter of sex, act as the secret agent for the agenda of the church, and that's what's happening.

Just Stuff..
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: liesistruth on November 06, 2012, 01:32 am
personally, I think the term 'Psychoactives' would suffice both in terms of equality and unbiased terminology, as well as describing the contents quite clearly and precisely.
Just my opinion, though  :)

Peace and Love,

liesistruth
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: mickymisseri on November 06, 2012, 07:19 pm
To me it seems like you're talking about something useless: who cares if they're called drugs, shit o whatever as long as you're able to buy them.
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: CiscoYankerStuck on November 07, 2012, 07:56 am
Off topic:  Are there people still living that go by the name Adolf Hitler? LoL ;D

Yes, read below for hilarity and sadness.

http://www.ibtimes.com/parents-adolf-hitler-continue-fight-after-losing-custody-battle-650630

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/adolf-hitler-campbell-custody-battle-nazi-names-new-jersey_n_1561046.html

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Nazi-Naming-Parents-Adolf-Hitler-Custody-156345855.html
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: liesistruth on November 09, 2012, 02:09 am
To me it seems like you're talking about something useless: who cares if they're called drugs, shit o whatever as long as you're able to buy them.

on the one hand, i agree that as long as the hedonistic nature of man can be indulged thanks to inter-continental networking - then GREAT, lets keep it that way ^_^
but i also think it's important to clarify such things because we are fighting a war, after all. and thanks to SR, we have dug a trench around them on all sides, and we can - albeit slowly - circle them as we draw ever closer to plunging the final steel through their chests, thereafter ending this pointless struggle of their making, and once again freeing mankind from the tyranny of the controllers.
Once again we shall be free, my brothers and sisters!!

 ;D

Oh, and *smiles* at that news story...why is it that just because that one guy all those years back headed some nasty shit(-but who was only PART of the evil; there were may names, I'm sure, who contributed to the horrid deeds) that people freak at a potentially awesome person just because of the name they share with them?
surely there were many names who did horrible things in the past?

peace and love,

liesistruth
Title: The euphemism treadmill runs on...
Post by: Leapfrogger on November 09, 2012, 02:19 am
"Linguists are familiar with a phenomenon, which may be called the euphemism treadmill. People invent new words for emotionally charged referents, but soon the euphemism becomes tainted by association, and a new word must be found. Water closet becomes toilet, which becomes bathroom, which becomes restroom, which becomes lavatory. The treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are primary in people's minds. Names for minorities will continue to change as long as people have negative attitudes towards them. We will know that we have achieved mutual respect when the names stay put."

- Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist and linguist
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: TalkToFrank on December 12, 2012, 03:44 am
I concur...Medicines would be more appropriate...it's just a matter or semantics anyway. Plus, using the word the drugs brings with it all the negative associations linked to the word. These negative associations are the things that SR has solved, and evolved the 'drug' marketplace. Semantics is very important, as it validates and helps us come to terms with the things we are doing or have done. You never hear of a newspapaer report that a marine shot in cold blood a possibly innocent, unarmed person, but rather that combatants were eliminated. It makes it easier for the audience to digest and the perpetrator to justify it to themselves. Hypocrisy and contradiction are a intrinsic attribute of humans, but the very nature of these notions means that they are incredibly hard for people to spot and realise.   
Title: Re: Suggestion: change the "Drugs" category to "Medicines"
Post by: LeetPwner on December 12, 2012, 09:21 am
Will respect to other people's opinions, I personally disagree with the OP, I don't think that coining a new term "medicines" will make the masses any less arrogant about what drugs are and what they do. Unfortunately, I don't think a bit of world play will change their minds that easily. Of course i'm sure some where in history word play has changed the course of civilizations but I don't think it will in this case. Just my opinion.