User talk:Schizmatic

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Welcome!

Hello, Schizmatic, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Thanks for the welcome. I'm glad to be here - I've been using this place for research for a while now. Schizmatic 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Your recent letter.

Hi there, I've noticed that you are inputting new information into Wikipedia off of this site: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ghb/ghb_faq.shtml . While we appreciate good edits to articles at Wikipedia, copying and pasting information is not the way to go. Please do your own Original Research on the topic and refer back and edit the article accordingly. Thanks. Schizmatic 22:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sir,

I appreciate youre concern. However, the site you refer to was not the one I used. It itself is a 'copy and paste' - as you put it - of the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute's site (www.ceri.com).

Since I made references to the appropriate articles and websites, we believe that no rules were broken. All the of the scientific studies (Chin, Krutzer et al) are in the public domain.

We have been studying GHB for over ten years, and am the Chair of the UK health pressure group, 'Campaign for Ethical Medicine' (CEM). A group that champions cheap, and effective medicine, putting people before profit. We have in the past lobbied the UK government in particular to reverse it's schedule change in 2003 of GHB, amongst varied concerns over the UK drug agency 'NICE' over the excessive proposed regulation of the supplement industry. We also take strong exeption to youre term of 'vandalism'. As a professional group of volunteers, we strive to cross check and examine any material we come accross, so we cannot see how this particular edit was 'vandalism'.

I have personally spoken to one of the researchers at CERI, - Steven Wm. Fowkes - on two occasions to seek his counsel on how to proceed to attempt to reverse the schedule change of GHB in the UK.

As to youre question of 'research' our research is thus: searching and compiling, and editing down relevant paragraphs or sections of scientific papers over GHB. This can originate from libraries, medical organisations, journals such as 'New Scientist', 'Nature' or in this case, a well documented and trusted website (www.ceri.com). 'Original' research over GHB has already been done, there is over forty years of research. In any case, 'original' research is often done by trawling through existing documented evidence, and compiling and republishing.

Seeing as a proportion of the previous edit was actual quotes from published studies, one cannot avoid some degree of 'copy and paste' I dare say that the edit as it now stands, has been copied and pasted or re-worded from some medium or other.

In closing, I am of the opinion that although the edit as it stands now is well intentioned, in places it is innaccurate, alarmist, and does not contain enough references to peer published papers. We will be contacting www.ceri.com and ask Steven if he will condsider editing the Wiki entry on GHB. If he does not wish to, I will formally ask his permission to use his research and website in an aid to correct the article. I do not see any reason he will refuse. Both Steven and I share the same passion over lifting the veil of demonisation over GHB.

Expect even more accurate and referenced edits to the GHB article in future. We would appreciate it if any changes to that edit, to be factual and free of alarmist tone.

With all due respect, CEM has researched and studied orphan drugs such as phenytoin, GHB, Nootropics and nutritional supplements for a respectable period. Wiki's staffers or admins, have not.

Best regards,

Keith C Macrae Bsc

Chair, Campaign for Ethical Medicine.

In all fairness to myself, I referred to your edit after my revert as vandalism - the edit in which you removed the heading "Uses". While I understand that you want to improve Wikipedia's understanding of this drug, copy/pasting large amounts of texts creates various problems, first and foremost the copyright complications (I believe such material is copyrighted unless you get expressed permission from the author, which you have not). Secondly, it creates all sorts of Wiki formatting problems. If you and your organisation are as knowledgeable in such fields as you say you are, then please edit the article inputting your own knowledge rather than copy/pasting at your own whim. Schizmatic 01:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sir,

thankyou for you're reply. We appreciate clarification of procedures, and now understand the problems large formatting can cause. We apologise for the inadvertant removal of the word 'Uses', an mistaken mouse click is all too easy. Any future revisions will use current research re-written to comply with copyright, quoting studies and referencing peer papers and paragraph numbers where neccesary.

Best regards,

Keith C MacRae Bsc

Chair, Campaign for Ethical Medicine.

Sounds great, thanks for understanding. Schizmatic 23:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I noticed you've uploaded Image:151.jpg and I thought I should warn you about your mistake. You shouldn't upload images with such names, because they're hard to track and we can't really know what it is about without actually looking at it. We suggest you rename your image with an intuitive name that describes the image itself. Thanks, and good editing! Stifle 00:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I see, thanks for the information. I'll edit the name next time I get a chance. Schizmatic 15:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Devotees of Anthony Weldon infesting the King James article.

Would a source like this ever be accepted by the liberal elitist POV pushers, here at Wikipedia? IP Address 08:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

That is quite biased source - it becomes obvious when considering the site is very protestant. However, I'm getting quite annoying with all these trolls adding rubbish to an otherwise quality article. People don't seem to get the NPOV policy properly.
Coming back to the source, I wouldn't put it on the article. It doesn't really add much to the article, and is somewhat the opposite of a website I removed from the article that glorified James' homosexuality quite pointlessly. Lets just keep the article in line with the NPOV policy, and not worry about these trivial external sites. Schizmatic 21:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I don't think the current title fits the idea of NPOV, but I'll leave it for others for now. --Irishpunktom\talk 15:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Elaborate. Whilst the article is named James I of England, it is stated that he did also rule Ireland throughout. It's more of a convenience to call it James I of England, and renaming it James I of Ireland would certainly not fix anything anyway.

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Decanoic_acid.gif

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[edit] Fuck Censorship, Providing Sources Is The Shit! Get 'Em Pissed, Get 'Em Pissed, Get 'Em Pissed!

Hello. Considering your previous post there, you may want to add your opinion on the recent developments at Talk:The Fall of Troy (album). Regards, -- 62.147.36.186 20:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cannabis gateway drug study

Hi. You should really read the actual study (I found it and referenced it in the Health issues and the effects of cannabis article). Before I start, I want to say that although I disagree with how it has been interpreted in the press (which is what you are perpetuating), I think there is a lot of value to the actual study.

First off, from a scientific point of view, the study is far from a smoking gun to prove the gateway drug hypothesis (the study uses this word hypothesis, so its not proven fact yet). This is obvious when you consider the differences in the animal model testing compared to real life experiences by humans. Specifically, the rats are hooked up to heroin and allowed to self-administer it, they don't seek it out themselves. How can it be said that THC is a gateway drug when the "gateway" is created by the researchers by forcing the animals to do more drugs? Additionally, both the controls and the THC treated rats dosed themselves at equal rates in the beginning. The only difference, this is where the importance of the study comes in, is the THC treated rats ability to tolerate increasingly larger doses of heroin than the controls. The study explains this (in its own words) as being "associated with discrete alterations of the endogenous opioid system in limbic-related neuronal populations known to mediate reward behavior." I would hardly say that your wording of "damages" is NPOV and even accurate. That is why I used the word "altered" instead.

This study is important because it has launched new curiosity into the overlap between the cannabioid and opioid systems. It would not be correct at this point to refer to this research as the end-all-be-all evidence to prove Cannabis as a gateway drug. Regards, --Howrealisreal 19:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The point of the study was to assess how THC affects the brain in regards to other drug intake. Using Herd's own words, and even putting the qualifier "researches noted that", means that the "damages" phrasing is quite accurate in that context. Of course it's not a conclusion that cannabis is a gateway drug, but the study does prove, to a certain extent, that the rats were desensitised. Your wording is very sympathetic to THC, and even makes the study sound like speculation with words like "The rats that had previously been administered THC consumed a much greater dose of heroin than those that had not because of gained tolerance, according to the reasearchers." The point is that taking THC increases the probability of taking more Heroin due to this tolerance by "altering", as you so put it, the receptors, which in turn is proven (note the proven) to increase the chances of addiction to Heroin. Schizmatic 19:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The "damaging" wording is not accurate because, although it appears in the New Scientist magazine article (a secondary source that is not as well respected in science compared to peer-reviewed journal articles), that word is not used at all in the actual study. I put the "according to researchers" in there because that is who is making the claim. You really should read the actual study because you will find that the researchers 'believe the altered opioid receptors are responsible for the increased opioid use, but (taken from the actual journal) "[the] study does not exclude the contribution of other factors such as genetics, environment, and social issues that could influence the direct neurobiological effects of early THC exposure to either enhance or attenuate the progression to adult drug abuse." You can't say that something is proven on a human scale, just because some preliminary finding in rats looks promising. It is down-right incorrect to say that THC during adolescence increases the chances of addiction to heroin, because both rat groups (even the controls) became addicted to the drug. The difference, I emphasize again, is that the THC treated rats abused a greater dose than the others. BTW, the woman who ran the study is Dr. Yasmin Hurd (currently working here in New York City at Mount Sinai) not Herd, as you have written in the article and this talk. Regards, --Howrealisreal 22:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The word "damaging" doesn't just appear in the New Scientist article, it's an actual quote from van Oshe. "According to the researches" is implied by the context of the paragraph - there is no need to repeat it. If you're talking about a study, you're obviously talking about research carried out by researchers. Moreover, adding "according the researchers" seems to change the tone of the paragraph to imply speculation, when just stating the actual fact of the study would be sufficient. To quote the article, "Hurd says reduced sensitivity to the heroin means the rats take larger doses, which has been shown to increase the risk of addiction" - that is my justification for the increase in chances of addiction by desensitivity to Heroin. Oh, and thanks for correcting a typographical error so bluntly, I'm sure that will be of use to me in the future. Schizmatic 22:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I took the "according to researchers" out. I changed the most recent version you wrote because it's Van Os who makes the claim about "overwhelming research", who was not involved in the study at all. I also countered his claim with another quote that explains that the study is really preliminary and there is no consensus yet. I think this section is kind of pointless and we should work on scraping the New Scientist and Nature editorialization. I propose some sort of wording that references just the actual article and steers clear of magazine interpretation of the study. How do you feel about that? --Howrealisreal 23:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote the section in light of new information. --Howrealisreal 00:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Alright, but why remove the quote from van Oshe? Schizmatic 16:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The quote is still there from Jim Van Os (I think New Scientist made an error by printing "Van Oshe"). --Howrealisreal 16:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You are purposely trying to play up the connection between cannabis and opioid receptors, while playing down the similar situation for alcohol and nicotine. That is clearly non NPOV. I don't understand your desire to place extra qualifiers on the data that was expressed by the study's leader (Dr. Hurd) when she told Nature that nicotine and alcohol also stimulate opioid cells. The double standard here is obvious, you are not persuing any sort of qualifier on the cannabis connection (you have not asked me to provide details that explains that biochemical interaction), but yet when I try to provide a backround that alcohol and nicotine act the same way, a red flag goes up? You are obviously more interested in campaigning against cannabis than truely being interested in protraying the data from the study (and discussion of the study) in a neutral and accurate fashion. There is nothing more to say besides: nicotine and alcohol also stimulate opioid receptors in the brain. I would ask you to provide information to me that the alcohol and nicotine is not appropriate for mention in the section. What I have added, and you continually removed, is sourced and relevant. --Howrealisreal 16:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Two naltrexone experiments demonstrate that nicotine and alchol also have effects on the opioid system. Naltrexone is an opioid receptor antagonist that is used for many drugs of abuse because of their overlap into the opoioid system. Naloxone challenge in smokers. Preliminary evidence of an opioid component in nicotine dependence and Effects of naltrexone on the acquisition of alcohol intake in male and female periadolescent and adult alcohol-preferring (P) rats on PubMed prove this. --Howrealisreal 17:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
None of that was able to answer my actual query - to what extent does alcohol and nicotine alter the opioids in comparison to Heroin? You can't just put a claim like "nicotine and alcohol could feasibly be gateway drugs if the same logic is used" when you don't state how nicotine and alcohol alter the opioids in relation to Heroin. Is it a little? A lot? Schizmatic 14:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

How much does cannabinoids alter opioid receptors? We don't know the answer to that either but yet that topic is in the article. The qualifiers you are placing on the nicotine/alcohol statement are disproportional compared to the same statement about cannabis. There is no specific information out there on any of these preliminary results. All that is known at this point is that the opioid system becomes stimulated by other types of drugs and that high doeses can cause changes in the system to make them more sensistive. --Howrealisreal 15:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

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