Anyone want a coke?

[pasithea]

Swiped this link from Schlake. I've considered this many times in the past (I'm sort of strange in that I don't generally like sweet things the way other people do) but it's interesting to see a paper on it.

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000698

And note that it is a _PAPER_ not an opinion column or a bad news-source summarization but an actual paper. Scary, no?

Comments

[physicsguy.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I've seen a lot of really, really stupid crap published even in reputable journals. Not sure about an online journal. Anyone browsing arxiv.org knows what can get "published" online.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

Hey, if it wasn't for the... let's say widely-varying content and/or quality of scientific papers, the IgNobels wouldn't exist. :)

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

*volunteers for human trials*

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Dr. House but that won't be necessary.

[nikki-nmt.livejournal.com]

One thing that is interesting is how later in the article there is the mention of how monkeys continued to use cocaine when offered an alternative of a sugar tablet.

It's interesting how this may not cross the rodent-primate barrier, or how it's something along the lines of we want our sweet drinks more than our sweet food.

There are quite a few steps between rats and human psyiology.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

*nod* Though they do mention that the monkeys were given a relatively small sugar dose (probably just a placebo that was the same size and shape as the cocaine dose is my guess) and they state that additional tests would be needed to find out which way monkeys went when doing this specific test.

That's part of what made me appreciate the paper. It's decently written and quite open about where it varies from other studies and what things could be studied to give more deterministic data.

However, I strongly suspect that the additional study won't be done any time soon. Any time a study suggests a drug may be less harmful than something legal and making a lot of money, the report tends to get buried and go away. Never challenged or disproved. Just ignored.

For instance. There have been tests which suggested that people smoking marijuana were FAR safer drivers than people drinking alcohol (personally, I doubt this, having experienced both in the past, I'd never drive in either case) But more realistically.. Compared with alcohol or tobacco in terms of addictiveness and damage, marijuana and LSD have repeatedly been tested to be more benign.