[threedaymonk]

Potency is a pretty misleading comparison. There are drugs that are prescribed in μg (mcg) doses, and drugs that are prescribed in mg - mistaking μg for mg has caused deaths.

The LD50 of caffeine for an average male is about 14 g. That's the same (in terms of mass) as the alcohol in a beer. Does that make caffeine more or less "powerful"? It takes something like a hundred cups of coffee to reach caffeine's LD50; for alcohol, it's slightly over one bottle of strong spirits. Despite caffeine's higher potency, it's a lot easier to kill yourself by drinking too much whisky than too much coffee.

[nknighthb]

I cannot begin to understand what point you're trying to make. The person I was replying to was explicitly comparing the potency of GHB to alcohol, both depressants commonly encountered in a highly concentrated form.

Making this about caffeine or any other substance that can be lethal in small amounts seems a non-sequitur.

[shabble]

There seem to be 2 confused issues in this (sub)thread.

Firstly, the Therapeutic Index argument (ratio of effective dose to dangerous/fatal dose), for which the 2 drugs are (very) roughly equivalent, based on some back-of-envelope estimates (~10:1 for EtOH, 14:1 - 3:1 for GHB).

The second is the 'commonly encountered form' argument, which I think was your main point, and appears to be misunderstood. Alcohol, with the benefits of being legal and easily available, is available in known purity solutions anywhere from 1~90%.

The biggest problem (AFAIK) with things like GHB in a bar/club environment is the fact it must be concentrated enough to be small enough to easily smuggle in/out. It has specific other unfortunate properties as well, like being very destructive to many types of plastic. Dosing with an eye-dropper into an existing drink is apparently quite common, and I can easily imagine this leading to accidental overdosing in a crowded/loud/intoxicated environment. You must also account for the fact that there's not nearly the same quality control in terms of purity from batch to batch, which combines badly with the low Therapeutic/Effective Index.

The other difference is, even if your bartender is serving you 180 proof rum, he's probably not going to let you chug the whole bottle of it, regardless of demand.

[mikeash]

The point is that what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass. We don't generally consider capsaicin to be more powerful than alcohol even though, purely on the basis of how much you have to ingest, it's far easier to kill yourself with it.

[threedaymonk]

To be slightly pedantic, I used the term "potency" specifically because that does have a pharmacological meaning: it's a measure of drug activity in terms of concentration. "Power", on the other hand, is a rather ill-defined concept.

[nknighthb]

> what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect per unit mass

Um, OK, that may be true for you, and maybe even for society at large, but I've personally never heard such a thing before right now. It's certainly not how I would define the words.

To address the point I think you're trying to make (which still doesn't make much sense to me), in the forms they are commonly encountered in, GHB is unquestionably much more dangerous/"powerful" than alcohol. So I still don't see why my comment attracted this sort of argument.

[wavefunction]

Dangerous? Alcohol has much more systemic toxicity than GHB in general. Consider if you consumed 3.5 grams of tylenol. You will die. Does that make it more "powerful" or "dangerous" than alcohol?

That is the point we are trying to make.

[shabble]

Are you talking about 3.5g Tylenol (Acetaminophen/Paracetamol) in conjunction with [moderate to large] amounts of alcohol? Because otherwise, it's unlikely to be fatal even in a single dose, and is within normal dosage guidelines for daily use (typ. 4000mg/day)

It takes somewhere around 10g in a single dose, or 6g+ repeated over several days to cause serious damage[1], although obviously it varies by individual.

Note: This is not to downplay in any way the seriousness of APAP/Paracetamol toxicity, it's [iirc] the 2nd most common drug of fatal overdose, and is a truly horrible way to die[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_toxicity

[2] Although prognosis is good if you get proper treatment in ~8hrs.

[vilhelm_s]

In this case it was used as a treatment for opium addiction, right? A doctor prescribing a given drug will specify a suitable amount to get the desired effect. One drug might be more dangerous than another e.g. because it has a more narrow therapeutic index, but surely not because it has a bigger effect for a given mass of drug, or because it is "commonly encountered" in big doses?

[pstuart]

> much more dangerous

Only if taking the same amounts, which is ludicrous.

Alcohol is plenty dangerous already and we're all ok with that.

[nknighthb]

I think you think I'm making some sort of profound safety and/or merits-of-substance and/or political argument. I'm really not.

Edit: Regardless, I surrender, this conversation is both useless and utterly uninteresting because nobody is talking about the same thing I am. I deeply regret having entered it.

[pstuart]

I'd love to hear what point you were trying to make. All I saw was hand-wringing over a "dangerous drug".

GHB is now known as a date-rape drug, even though the leading date-rape drug is alcohol. Your dialog seemed to be buying into the fear.

disclaimer: I personally advocate for the legalization of all drugs.