The Inner Ear & Crystal Glass

[Confused]

Some time ago I watched a BBC documentary. It was about an independent academical study of harmfulness of 20 (legal and illegal) substances. They took three aspects into consideration : social harmfulness, health harmfulness and death risk. The conclusion was - the most harmful drug on the market is obviously heroine. The next 3 places (I'm not completly sure this was the exact order but probably so): cocaine, methamphetamine and annabolic steroids. Number 5 ...alcohol.. Some academic commenting on this said 'if alcohol was invented recently there would be probably no chance for it to be legal anywhere in the world'. No 9 - tobacco, 10 - marijuana. No 17 - LSD, 18 - ecstasy (both are schedule 1 drugs in many countries meaning in the same group as heroin and in the USA marijuana is in the same group too).

 

BTW I think that a study on the infleunce of drugs on the perception and creation of music could be an interesting one.

 

Any thoughts on that, guys.?

 

And BTW my abovementioned 'non-alcoholic' period is in no way connected with watching this documentary.

 

This reminds me of the tail of the slightly unfortunately named Professor David Nutt. He was employed by the UK government to head up the 'Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs'. After much research, David and his team advised that Ecstasy (MDMA) should be down graded to a class B drug. The research showed that that Ecstasy was far less harmful than cocaine or heroin, indeed it indicated that overall it was less harmful than alcohol. The incumbent government did not take this advice too well, and PM Gordon Brown sacked poor old Proffessor Nutt.

 

Anyway, back on topic. If I am auditioning new kit or trying different things in my system, this will always be done stone cold sober. I also regularly listen to music whilst in the sober state and enjoy it tremendously. However, I would argue that music is itself a drug, and for me if is one of those rare occasions where I have had a drink or two, I actually start to crave music! As an example, about this time last year we had our department Christmas lunch. After the meal (with adequate wine) I made great moves to ensure that the after lunch drinks took place in a bar with a juke box. Not only did I crave music but I also wanted half a chance of listening to something chosen by myself. These things are subtly interrelated I think, going back to the afore mentioned Ecstasy, this is a drug more associated with a type of music that a type of person. It's all about feeding and stimulating the brain, one way or another.