Out of pure interest...

[Grade_A_Beef]

You sure? My views are purely conceptual, but it seems that the only direct negative effects of heroin is the risk of lungs relaxing too much to breathe.

Apparently all other risk factors are mainly because it's illegal and unregulated. Since it's illegal there's no form of government regulation whatsoever, and as a result the producers don't really much care what cuts the heroin (as long as its white and powdery). Even, as mentioned before, if said chemical is really bad when injected directly into the bloodstream. Illegal substances also attract organized crime, which is also a risk factor but not because heroin itself is lethal.

Overdosing is also a side effect but mainly a side effect of not knowing how pure the substance you're smoking/injecting/snorting is. If it were regulated people would know exactly how much is in a gram of the stuff and "use" accordingly. Sort of like alcohol, really.

On the other hand tobacco may be less addictive but the damaging effects have been proven long ago. That stuff ruins the lungs for sure. Lung cancer, heart attacks, cardiovascular problems, among others. Compared to simply death from lung failure (which only applies during overdose, which again can be mediated if we had regulation) I would see tobacco as much more deadly than heroin.

Again, all of this is purely conceptual on my part. I don't have the time to fully research the topic. I got this mainly from reading wikipedia and my views on consensual crimes. So I warn you beforehand that this is a very shallow view of the subject. Going off topic though...

[bobbin]

You sure? My views are purely conceptual, but it seems that the only direct negative effects of heroin is the risk of lungs relaxing too much to breathe.

Apparently all other risk factors are mainly because it's illegal and unregulated. Since it's illegal there's no form of government regulation whatsoever, and as a result the producers don't really much care what cuts the heroin (as long as its white and powdery). Even, as mentioned before, if said chemical is really bad when injected directly into the bloodstream. Illegal substances also attract organized crime, which is also a risk factor but not because heroin itself is lethal.

Overdosing is also a side effect but mainly a side effect of not knowing how pure the substance you're smoking/injecting/snorting is. If it were regulated people would know exactly how much is in a gram of the stuff and "use" accordingly. Sort of like alcohol, really.

On the other hand tobacco may be less addictive but the damaging effects have been proven long ago. That stuff ruins the lungs for sure. Lung cancer, heart attacks, cardiovascular problems, among others. Compared to simply death from lung failure (which only applies during overdose, which again can be mediated if we had regulation) I would see tobacco as much more deadly than heroin.

Again, all of this is purely conceptual on my part. I don't have the time to fully research the topic. I got this mainly from reading wikipedia and my views on consensual crimes. So I warn you beforehand that this is a very shallow view of the subject. Going off topic though...

Add to that heart and kindey problems, danger of choaking in vomit while unconcious and heightend risk of infections

The main danger of Heroin is that it is highly addictive and extremely potent, therefore it is very easy to accidently overdose, there is very little room for error. No amount of legalisation would prevent people overdosing (people do it with alcohol regularly and thats legal).

Your also confusing the chemical toxicology of the drug with the effects resulting from the method of delivery, the inhalation of any burned substance is bad for you lungs. If tobacco is chewed it causes far less problems (but is still dangerous) where as if heroin is smoked it causes more (although carries less risk of overdose).

Depend if your from the UK or not you might have heard of a guy called David Nutt, he was the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (the body that advises the UK government on the risks posed by new substances) but was recently sacked for critising the govenments stance on the legality of various substances. He quite rightly pointed out that certain illegal substances were infact far less damaging and dangerous than things such as alcohol and tobacco and that possesion laws were out of touch with the scientific evidence. This is taken from one of his papers.

You'll note from the graph he produced that although tobacco is a very harmful drug (much more than people would realise) it is still nowhere near as dangerous as heroin.

[Ludens]

Guys, this is not the right forum for either drugs or modern politics. Please take it to PM. Alternatively, you could apply for Backroom membership (see the "permission groups" in your settings menu) and I can move the posts there. Either way:

[dominique]

I found this and this:

The population of the world circa AD 1 has been considered to be between 200 and 300 million people. In that same period, the population of the early empire under Augustus has been placed at about 45 million.

http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php

In China's first known nationwide census taken in 2 CE, the population was registered as having 57,671,400 individuals in 12,366,470 households.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty

I don't take these numbers for granted, but they give a picture.

It means that almost half the world's population was living in these two behemoths!

It's only speculation (and it's funny), but if the Han and the Roman had fought each other punic war style, I don't think even the word epic cover the possibilities.

[Grade_A_Beef]

Thanks for the info, as I said before it's just my views on consensual crimes and also as said before I'm going off topic...

I didn't know the Mediterranean could support so many people at that time period.

[Mediolanicus]

I didn't know the Mediterranean could support so many people at that time period.

I don't know about the Mediterranean, but I do know that the argiculutrural production of the Belgae was about three times higher than during the Middle Ages. IIRC the production was only surpassed somewhere around 1800. (According to JANSSENS, "De Oude Belgen")

[antisocialmunky]

If anything, the land quality would have been much higher back then and more productive than it is now if you look at old cultural hearths like the Levant and Mesopotamia where highly advanced civilization has existed and intensive agriculture has been practiced since pre-history. The land has been fairly screwed up by war/overuse/salinization/deforestation/pollution in those places.

Granted yield wise we have post-industrial agriculture and Green Revolution super crops that suck up petroleum based fertilizer so that kinda borks the actual numbers so its hard to compare actual crop yields.

If anything those population numbers are fairly conservative since the Han Dynasty census is for taxable population and the Rome one is the most conservative estimant.

[WinsingtonIII]

I don't know about the Mediterranean, but I do know that the argiculutrural production of the Belgae was about three times higher than during the Middle Ages. IIRC the production was only surpassed somewhere around 1800. (According to JANSSENS, "De Oude Belgen")

Maybe this is true specifically for the Belgian lands for some strange reason, but overall it's well established that grain yields in Northern Europe were three times higher in the Central Middle Ages (10th/11th Century) than in Roman times. The Romans/their contemporaries still used the two field crop rotation, which is much less efficient than the three field crop rotation of the Middle Ages, and Medieval farmers also had access to the rigid horse collar (horses are much more efficient plow animals than oxen, and they were producing enough excess grain with the 3-field rotation to be able to feed horses), nailed horseshoes (it's hard to be efficient when your horse keeps breaking a hoof), and the iron plow. I can't find my notes so I cannot remember exactly what distinguished this plow from Roman-era plows, but I believe there was a design difference that made the plow more efficient.

I didn't know the Mediterranean could support so many people at that time period.

It's important to realize that at its High Medieval peak in the late 13th/early 14th century (before the disastrous population crash of the 1300's) the European population reached over 80 million (and this isn't even including the Middle East, which had an even higher population), so for the Roman Empire to have a population of 45 million at its height isn't that surprising; in fact, compared to Medieval Europe and the Middle East, it was a small population.