Philip Seymour Hoffman has carked it

MichaelW

Always thought there was something a bit iffy about heroin.

nicklouse

70 baggies in the house.

But it seems there was an issue with the brand.

More info will be forthcoming.

VTech

mamba80 wrote:

entershikari wrote:

Yes you are correct that I accept peoples right to do as they wish with their own body; its none of my business. But to say that the media and society as a whole accept drug use is just plain ridiculous.

Drug users are demonised horribly by the media and most of society views most people who take drugs (other than alcohol) as the scum of the earth

Are they? maybe if you are a thieving crack head in a run down estate but if your are a celebrity, then it is at the very least tolerated and in some cases celebrated.

Hoffman is no more worthy of all the praise he is getting than some squalid heroin user, found dead in her flat, she may have had few other options but he could afford the very best in treatment and help.

Your bang on there.
Ive been to many places where you wouldn't turn a head for taking drugs and often looked at oddly if you didn't accept.
As you say, being a crack-head and burgling houses is far removed from doing the same type drugs but having the funds to buy them and although the same results of the substance, the acquisition and perception is the only difference.

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

entershikari wrote:

Yes you are correct that I accept peoples right to do as they wish with their own body; its none of my business. But to say that the media and society as a whole accept drug use is just plain ridiculous.

Drug users are demonised horribly by the media and most of society views most people who take drugs (other than alcohol) as the scum of the earth

So no regard for the law then?

I too think people should be able to do what they like with their own body, but with one important proviso. That it does not affect anybody else, and personally I would say hard drug use does.

I have not noticed Mr Hoffman being horribly demonised. He only seems to be being lorded and no mention of him being scum of the earth.

Kids TV presenters can give drugs to their partners that then OD and die, and cricketers can drive around smashed out of their heads potentially killing you, I or our children/family, but everyone just says what great guys they are :?

I think a swinging celeb would get a harder time!
Phil Mitchell really made a boo boo when he went dogging, snorting coke would have been a much safer bet.

Indeed; no regard for the law. The legal system is meant to be their to protect people from other people who would seek to hurt them; people such as robbers, muggers, murders etc. All of these crimes have victims.

Drugs use has no victims, apart from arguably the drug user themselves. It is not the governments role to protect people from themselves and trying to do so causes far more problems than it solves. List of problems caused by the drug war:

- Filling the prisons with non-violent drug offenders (which is VERY expensive and often turns previously non-violent people into violent ones)
- Allowing violent gangs to make money selling drugs (which allows them to buy weapons; guns aren't cheap)
- Funding terrorism through drug sales ie poppy growing in Afghanistan
- Drug users overdosing due or having far more serious health problems than they would have otherwise because of impure drugs

Also I agree with you that celebrities are given much more of a free pass to use the drugs they choose but drug users as a general demographic I think are heavily demonised by the media.

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

entershikari wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

I just do not like how the media/society seem to accept the drug use.

I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.


The drug war killed Mr Hoffman, not heroin

Nope, it was definitely the heroin he decided to take. No one made him and there were no reports of any gangs or shootings etc.

He was meant to be clever enough to know what he was getting into so he made an educated choice.

Why did you only quote part of my text? I was referring to the media/society accepting drug using celebs mainly.

The heroin user does have to take responsibility for their actions however if there was no drug war Mr Hoffman would have been able to measure the dose of heroin that he was receiving accurately. This would make unintended overdose extremely unlikely, as it stands though, street heroin purity varies by a great deal which makes overdosing a much more likely possibility

entershikari

Heavymental wrote:

Surely there is some understanding in you that drug abuse is a symptom of other problems? It's not really a simple decision to take, or not take, drugs. I think it is something that an addict will slide into for reasons most of us can't understand or imagine. There must be plenty of people here who smoke or drink and don't consider the consequences? Not everyone here is a tee-totaller, surely? Drug addiction is only a situation a few stages on from the 'just one more' attitude we all have at some point.

This is something that a lot of people don't seem to get. If we treated drug use as a medical issue instead of a criminal one we would have far fewer problems caused by drugs use.

The drug war costs somewhere between £20 billion and £100 billion a year (the reason for the very large gap between the numbers is that it depends what you count; do you count prison costs for holding non-voilent drug offenders, do you count wasted court time dealing with these cases etc). If we spent that money on treatment of mental health issues, eduction on the REAL dangers of drug use, harm reduction measures, more help for people to get off drugs etc. we would have far fewer drugs related problems.

Imagine; no large violent gangs funded by selling drugs, fewer drug overdoses due to impure drugs, no drug dealer selling drugs on street corners.

Anonymous

Cannot be bothered to type too much but....

A/ what do you think all the drug gangs are going to do with their time when drugs are legal?

B/ Mr Hoffman lived in this world not one of the future so he needed to deal with the situation as it was/is, not some hypothetical one.

C/ Am I not a victim of drugs if some scumbag nicks my bike to buy them (which is far more likely than to buy fags, booze or anything else)?

D/ If someone is high on drugs are they not far more likely to commit crime (even if they fund the drug use legitimately) than if they were just drunk (that one is a genuine question)?

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

Cannot be bothered to type too much but....

A/ what do you think all the drug gangs are going to do with their time when drugs are legal?

B/ Mr Hoffman lived in this world not one of the future so he needed to deal with the situation as it was/is, not some hypothetical one.

C/ Am I not a victim of drugs if some scumbag nicks my bike to buy them (which is far more likely than to buy fags, booze or anything else)?

D/ If someone is high on drugs are they not far more likely to commit crime (even if they fund the drug use legitimately) than if they were just drunk (that one is a genuine question)?

A. The gangs would still exist but they would need to shrink substantially since they would have lost most of their funding.

B. Mr Hoffmans death was very tragic and all I'm saying is that it could have been prevented if these drugs were legal and controlled.

C. We already have laws against someone stealing bikes; peoples motives are not relevant. If someone stole your bike to fund the purchase of their new TV does that mean we should ban TVs? Also if drugs were legal they would be cheaper which would allow people addicted to them to more easily afford them through legitimate means. Heroin currently cost around £60-£80 a gram if it were legalised by some estimates it would come down to <£10; even with a heavy habit people in the lowest paying jobs could afford that.

D. Depends a lot on the drug. Someone high on heroin is no thread to anyone, someone high on PCP may well be more of a risk to themselves and others. However this is highly questionable; there was a series of experiments done in the 1980s and 90s on how much self control people have while under the influence of alcohol. Turns out that when people are given a monetary intensive to do something even while really drunk they are still capable of controlling themselves and doing said action.

laurentian

Alcohol is legal, taxed, controlled and legislated for.

It's my guess that it is the cause of more addiction, misery, crime, violence, social problems, and illness than all of the class A drugs put together.

Anonymous

A/ So do the gangs have voluntary redundancies or just fight it out?
B/ Seems a very pro drug solution to the problem. His death could have better been avoided by him not taking drugs.
C/ Of course peoples motives are relevant. Drugs are addictive, T.V.'s......... not so much.
D/ Well, I think we should just stick to alcohol. Just seems a whole lot more social.

Anonymous

laurentian wrote:

Alcohol is legal, taxed, controlled and legislated for.

It the cause of more addiction, misery, crime, violence and social ill than all of the class A drugs put together.

Would not say all of those things are 100% correct but even if they are then just ban alcohol too.

Two wrongs do not make a right ;-)

laurentian

Carbonator wrote:

laurentian wrote:

Alcohol is legal, taxed, controlled and legislated for.

It the cause of more addiction, misery, crime, violence and social ill than all of the class A drugs put together.

Would not say all of those things are 100% correct but even if they are then just ban alcohol too.

Two wrongs do not make a right ;-)

You replied during my edit wherein I included "It's my guess that . . . " anyway, the point being that I don't think legalisation would solve the problems.

pblakeney

laurentian wrote:

Alcohol is legal, taxed, controlled and legislated for.

It's my guess that it is the cause of more addiction, misery, crime, violence, social problems, and illness than all of the class A drugs put together.

This merely highlights that legalising any drug will not make it safe.

Which I assume was your point?

And I would also assume that a taxed class A drug will not be cheap. Can you imagine the Chancellor's budget speech?

Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNbExvU42q4

entershikari

laurentian wrote:

Alcohol is legal, taxed, controlled and legislated for.

It's my guess that it is the cause of more addiction, misery, crime, violence, social problems, and illness than all of the class A drugs put together.

This is true but lets look at the alternative: prohibition

This was in fact tried in the 1920s and 30s in the US. Alcohol was officially made illegal to possess and consume but since people still wanted alcohol the amount of alcohol consumed did not change much (slight decrease) but the amount of violent criminal gangs there to supply demand rapidly increased (think the famous Al Capone). As well as the huge increase in violence there was also a large increase in the number of alcohol users having sever health problems, this was mostly caused by the alcohol being poorly produced resulting in similar but far more dangerous substances being produced (methanol). In the end it was concluded that the laws to try and prevent alcohol consumption were doing far more harm than the alcohol itself was doing in the first place so the laws were repealed in the early 1930s.

I do agree with you that this society has a problem with alcohol consumption but prohibition is not the way to solve it (I know you never said this but I thought it was implied). Education and trying to change minds is the best way to solve these kind of problems. It was not long ago when it was socially acceptable to drink drive but now with high profile advertising campaigns highlighting the dangers of drink driving its become highly socially unacceptable to drink and drive. I think we need similar techniques to be applied to alcohol and other drug use (and I mean proper education not just scare campaigns.

Prohibition of things that people want does not work and causes more problems than the thing that it was trying to stop in the first place

Edit: history of alcohol prohibition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition#United_Kingdom

Anonymous

Alcohol and hard drugs are very different though and you are only linking for the benefit of your argument.

I do not think people want hard drugs in the same way as they want alcohol lol.

The other thing thats annoying is that now mr Hoffman is dead it has been mentioned he had problems when it suits the pro drug argument, yet drugs are being talked about as a good/nice thing at other times.

BelgianBeerGeek

Carbonator wrote:

Alcohol and hard drugs are very different though and you are only linking for the benefit of your argument.

I do not think people want hard drugs in the same way as they want alcohol lol.

The other thing thats annoying is that now mr Hoffman is dead it has been mentioned he had problems when it suits the pro drug argument, yet drugs are being talked about as a good/nice thing at other times.

How about looking at drugs/alcohol etc as neither a good or a bad thing? The fact is some people enjoy a drink and will not become winos on a park bench. Just as plenty of drug users will not end up selling their bodies for crack, or burgling houses for smack. Plenty of people do both, drink and drugs. And smoke, gamble etc.
Addiction of any kind is sad. Many people know where to draw the line and others don't, or make bad choices. We should be trying to help those who need or want it rather than making many people criminals in a "war on drugs".

Anonymous

I prefer to look at alcohol and gambling as a good and bad thing, illegal drugs as illegal and people who break the law as criminals.

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

A/ So do the gangs have voluntary redundancies or just fight it out?
B/ Seems a very pro drug solution to the problem. His death could have better been avoided by him not taking drugs.
C/ Of course peoples motives are relevant. Drugs are addictive, T.V.'s......... not so much.
D/ Well, I think we should just stick to alcohol. Just seems a whole lot more social.

A. Imagine being a gang member; right now you can make good money since the gang is well funded by selling drugs. As soon as you remove drugs as a source of income the gang becomes much poorer suddenly being in a gang and more importantly joining a gang in the first place is far less appealing result is the gang shrinks greatly

B. I'm not denying that his death could have been prevented by not taking drugs but there are other factors at play here, one of the major ones being the varying quality of heroin caused by the drug war.

C. People steal for all sorts of reasons and most drug users do not steal. Also your talking as if all illegal drugs are addictive, many of them aren't; cannabis, LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA, DMT to name but a few

D. Thats fine I respect your right to consume alcohol if you wish but extend the same tolerance to others and do not tell them what drugs they can/can't use

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

I prefer to look at alcohol and gambling as a good and bad thing, illegal drugs as illegal and people who break the law as criminals.

Maybe you should take the time to look at the issue and think for yourself. Would you have been in support of homosexuality being illegal in the 1920s I wonder?

Paulie W

A fine actor who had that surprisingly rare talent among actors of being able to play people other than himself. Loved him in Talented Mr Ripley, Happiness, Magnolia, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, Capote. He seems to have been highly thought of by his peers both as an actor and as a person. I always find it astonishing that random people appear in threads such as these to pass judgment on an individual knowing little of their life or their death. Maybe some of these people have experienced the pain and anger of losing someone to drug addiction in which case it is perhaps understandable. The rest of you are entitled to have your view no doubt; just know that it marks you out as a bit of a pr!ck.

Anonymous

entershikari wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

I prefer to look at alcohol and gambling as a good and bad thing, illegal drugs as illegal and people who break the law as criminals.

Maybe you should take the time to look at the issue and think for yourself. Would you have been in support of homosexuality being illegal in the 1920s I wonder?

I have thought about it and happy enough with hard drugs being illegal.

As I have already said, I think people should be able to do what they like as long as it does not affect others detrimentally, so as I cannot think of anything 1920's homosexuals would do to others I do not think I would have thought it should be illegal.

I don't think that everybody should just be able to do anything they like though because it always has an effect on others in some way.

Anonymous

Paulie W wrote:

A fine actor who had that surprisingly rare talent among actors of being able to play people other than himself. Loved him in Talented Mr Ripley, Happiness, Magnolia, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, Capote. He seems to have been highly thought of by his peers both as an actor and as a person. I always find it astonishing that random people appear in threads such as these to pass judgment on an individual knowing little of their life or their death. Maybe some of these people have experienced the pain and anger of losing someone to drug addiction in which case it is perhaps understandable. The rest of you are entitled to have your view no doubt; just know that it marks you out as a bit of a pr!ck.

Do not think I have passed judgement on him other than things that seem pretty factual.

Do you really find it astonishing that people comment on certain people in certain ways on a forum.

Have nothing against this guy and obviously feel for his family but other than facts and stuff about others (i.e. not him) what has really been said?

The same type of you don't know him blah blah blah stuff was said when that cricketer died in Wimbledon.
It was pretty obvious that he had got smashed and drunk drove but people still said it could not be commented on.

Well I am sorry but if my family could be walking along the road and killed by a celeb then I feel I have a right to talk about it on a forum where people are discussing it and be a little upset that everyone seems to just be saying what a great guy he is.

Anyway R.I.P. Mr Seymour Hoffman.

Paulie W

Most people have posted saying 'great actor, sad loss' - they dont know him but they know and respect his work and that is why they have posted.

Others, you included, have posted about the nature of his death and what you 'think' that says about the nature of his life. Someone in fact suggested that the nature of his death invalidated what he's achieved. I have a problem with that kind of posting particularly before the full facts of the death are in the public domain.

heavymental

Carbonator wrote:

The same type of you don't know him blah blah blah stuff was said when that cricketer died in Wimbledon.
It was pretty obvious that he had got smashed and drunk drove but people still said it could not be commented on.

Well I am sorry but if my family could be walking along the road and killed by a celeb then I feel I have a right to talk about it on a forum where people are discussing it.

Thing is, that didn't happen did it. That cricketer didn't kill anyone. The story is tragic because he was obviously struggling with his issues and it ended badly. Same with Hoffman, ok it's fine to discuss drugs laws but you can't slam the guy for something that didn't happen. "oh his children could have eaten his stash!!" maybe, but it didn't happen.

From what I've read, Hoffman was a troubled soul. Users describe heroin as like the most comforting hug you could possibly imagine; the complete cessation of pain and worry and the removal from a reality that hurts. This is a straightforward article that might help understand Hoffman's demise... http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/885 ... ng-a-hole/ For all his faults, Russell Brand talks well and from experience about addiction. Also, it makes no difference if you are rich or poor. Like many illnesses, it doesn't discriminate by wealth; it just changes the nature of the logistics of the addiction. Drive your Ferrari to go get your fix, or ride your stolen bike, it's the same problem.

Anonymous

I have not had a go at Hoffman though and know nothing about him apart from he choose (for whatever reason) to take drugs and they killed him.

I would probably not get too excited about his acting but would say he was probably very good at his job and that may well be partly due to his demean-a.

As for the cricketer I completely disagree. I don't give a damn about his problems but I do despise him for choosing to potentially kill people.

heavymental

Carbonator wrote:

I have not had a go at Hoffman though and know nothing about him apart from he choose (for whatever reason) to take drugs and they killed him.

I would probably not get too excited about his acting but would say he was probably very good at his job and that may well be partly due to his demean-a.

As for the cricketer I completely disagree. I don't give a damn about his problems but I do despise him for choosing to potentially kill people.

Demeanour? Suggests an outward appearance. The difference is relevant. I think it was probably more his disposition that is in question. Sorry for being picky.

As for the 'potential to harm' argument. I guess it's true but such an argument is usually overshadowed by the tragedy of the individual's death... if no harm has actually occurred. Despise him for the potential when no harm was intended? Not my point of view.

rayjay

He was a fine actor.

Anonymous

Yeah, disposition, thats the one. Damn spellcheck!

We are going to have to agree to disagree on the cricketer then.

To me Its a bit like a guy going into a children's nursery blindfolded with an AK47, unloading the whole magazine around the room and then saying its ok because he missed all 30 kids and his wife had left him.

entershikari

Carbonator wrote:

Yeah, disposition, thats the one. Damn spellcheck!

We are going to have to agree to disagree on the cricketer then.

To me Its a bit like a guy going into a children's nursery blindfolded with an AK47, unloading the whole magazine around the room and then saying its ok because he missed all 30 kids and his wife had left him.

Excellent! Something we can agree on. Using drink or drugs then driving causes risk to OTHER people who did not consent to this increased risk. Even if nothing bad came of it this time it still put other people at risk and there would have been no way of knowing before hand getting in the vehicle that everything would come off fine