Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Drugs:Fact and Fiction

Drugs:Fact_and_Fiction

• Strong Delete I don't think Wikibooks needs anything promoting drug use. For specific violations of the official policy here are a few: it violates NPOV in many instances - most importantly it does not say anything about the harm of drugs; it is violation #1 and #2 from Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks#Wikibooks_is_not_a_soapbox by advocating drug use and having personal essays (for example see Drugs:Fact_and_Fiction/Meth), in fact one of the beginning paragraphs of the book encourages personal essays. If not delete all of it, at least some parts of it.--Konstable 06:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - While I in general support the NPOV dispute as a valid argument for module cleanup, and that this needs to be organized into chapters and turned more into a book-like format (at least for Wikibooks-like format), this is slightly more than a stub and is something that has general value to Wikibooks readers. There is no reason to delete the factual information about psycedellic drugs that are illegal in many countries. This is more a discussion about the effects of such drug consumption, and often is even included in the core curriculum of many school systems as a required subject. The harmful effects of drug useage should be documented, and Wikibooks is certainly an appropriate place to do that sort of documentation, given a NPOV and objective fact checking. --Rob Horning 16:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I have not found any significant attempt to present NPOV in this article, no long term effects are mentioned, nothing about addiction and only very limited mention of negative short term effects and dangers. There is a lot of work that needs to be done ot make it be useful rather than damaging, and to conform to NPOV. It seems to me that the whole idea that the authors of the book try to present is viewing drugs from the perspective of the user, hence the article is written in a fundamentally NPOVish way.. This reason I listed for Delete rather than suggesting a clean up, but maybe in fact it would be better to just clear or heavily alter some sections of it - in particular some particular modules that I've noticed: Drugs:Fact_and_Fiction/Meth, Marijuana Myths section, Personal notes on Hydrocodone and Ritalin Trip Report. --Konstable 23:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess I could say BE BOLD and do it! I don't deny that this book needs some cleanup, but the topic is certainly not too far off for a project like Wikibooks. The only point of deleting a book like this is to wipe the slate clean so that a proper book on the same topic could be written that would follow NPOV guidelines. That was done BTW for Monopoly and a few other Wikibooks, but it is a drastic step. --Rob Horning 21:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep There's no reason we should not have the book because its about drugs- please remember that drugs are not illegal everywhere. THere's probably a few turns of phrase that ought to be cleaned up and a few places with bias showing (the marjuana page ought to stress that smoking the sutff is just as harmful as smoking tobacco, although you tend to smoke fewer blunts to lessen the total effect). But it shouldn't be deleted for those cleanups, it should be fixed. If you want to nominate some of the user stories, I might support deleting those. --Gabe Sechan 00:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Most of the individual drug pages are NOT written by me, but by some of my collegues on an internet forum. I have not had time recently, but I will in-time get around to changing those stories into more factual works.

  The legality of drugs is not the issue at hand here, however. The book in now way recommends or encourages drug use. It encourages the knowledge of them, and the choise of the individual as to whether he or she wishes to persue that lifestyle.

  Also, just to point out, marijuana should not be compared to tobacco in terms of detrimental health effects. The act of smoking anything is harmful; The substance itself is not. - Floydian 23:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep This book has not encouraged me to use drugs, because it includes lists of scary side effects. --Kernigh 00:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• Cleanup or delete. This book is written for druggies by druggies. As such, it includes, um, original research in violation of WB:WIW. This makes the book a problem for the reputation of Wikibooks that could negatively affect our efforts to be taked seriously and to attract good authors. It needs to be refocused to be straight-up informational. In particular, the first non-template paragraph encouraging first-hand accounts with the various drugs needs to go (as well as the existing first hand accounts). Slang geared to a druggie audience (like "tweaked") needs to go. My guess is this. There is enough good stuff here to be worth keeping if someone is willing to take on the cleanup task. However, there is not so much good stuff to be worth keeping it around in the vague hopes that some good samaritan will come along and take on the cleanup task. Ask for someone to do the cleanup. If someone volunteers in, say, a month, then great. Otherwise, delete. --JMRyan 09:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately you won't find many places with actual proven facts on most drugs. "Druggies" (Obviously a derogative term, there's some irony there) would provide the best facts with written accounts of their experience since many of them have been doing said substances for several years and thus would have the best account of long and short term side effects.

Or you could go look up a study done by the American government (NIDA) that would be misleading and completely false. Drug studies cannot be trusted because all too often the "facts" are made up simply to discourage the use of a substance.

Also, I am not a druggy. While I may use them from time to time, I definately do not fit the classic (And for the most part false) cliche of a druggie.

I have also moved all of this to the Talk page of the article. -Floydian 07:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP

Honestly, who would seek out an article/book written about drugs besides either A)Curious people who wish to gain more knowledge, or B)Other "druggies". Most of my friends that do drugs wouldn't be able to read 5 words into that without getting bored and going to do something else.

Also, this article wouldn't encourage anyone to use drugs, because it also catalogues the harmful effects which could occur. If anything, it DIScourages drug use.

Prometheuspan 02:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP

So far this book is a mirror mostly of Wikipedia anyways. The issue I would be pushing if I were you guys is linking to that information so that the Author realizes that their responsibility is to provide details not allready available.This brings me to a thought I have had a lot about the whole thing over the last few days. Writing ThinkStarship, The first thing to do in my order of operations is link to any and all existing architectures on the network that are relevant. If i didn't do that, I'd be duplicating Wikipedia at a very expensive personal rate. That is the kind of thing Wikibookians could do in a situation like this...go find all of the relevant links and splice that information in. This will also help to sort out errors and the approach of the Wikipedians will help set the model for a precedent of how to approach the subject sans POV. I think the book is currently a mess, but I think that we ought to have a book like this on the topic, And for my own purposes, it would be nice to have a "basics" book to link back to when I go into the Depth Materials. THINKSTARSHIP/Psychonautics

Kept. An anonymous user removed the {{vfd}} tag at 20 March. --Kernigh 01:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)