At 06:17 PM 10/19/99 -0400, Dave Walton wrote:
>Damn good points, Jim.  While we are on the subject, look at the main
>ingredients of Scopolamine:
>
>1) Belladonna
>2) Sodium Penethol
>
	No, scopolamine, also called hyoscine, is a single alkaloid not a
combination of any kind.  Belladonna, on the other hand , has scopolamine
as an ingredient and also contains atropine and hyoscyamine, two more
psychoactive drugs with similar effects.  The short acting barbiturate,
thiopental sodium is completely unrelated to scopolamine and belladonna
except insofar as it was also used to induce "twilight sleep."  BTW,
transdermal scopolamine patches with a much better delivery system have
been approved by the FDA and are once again being sold in the U.S.   

	What follows isn't aimed at you Dave, I've just got to vent on another
question.  FWIW, anyone who's diving deep on air is using the wrong mix.
Deep air shows ignorance in the same way that being incorrectly weighted or
wearing the wrong exposure suit does.  One's risking one's life on the
wrong mix when a better mix is known.  When a diver can choose between a
less dangerous gas and a more dangerous gas to go to a given depth, whether
he comes up alive or not, we should not celebrate him for picking the wrong
gas.  Stupidity and courage are not the same thing.  People who
overestimate the risks of helium and underestimate the greater risks of
oxygen toxicity and narcosis from air at high partial pressures are like
drunks saying, "I can't walk, but I can drive."     

	No matter how much contempt one may have for the way George Irvine
expresses himself, at least he has made the effort to find the optimum (or
close to optimum) mix for his dives; an effort which becomes all the more
admirable whenever deep air is promoted by advocates, who have little
regard for their own lives, to neophytes, who don't know any better.  It's
a bitter pill to swallow, but Irvine is both rude and right.  Empirically,
he has had great success, and theoretically his gas choices for his depths
are very compelling. 

	Rather than bringing the wrath of the government on the diving community,
I think it would be better if the deep air advocates would get their
wah-wahs setting records for drinking liquor.


   
	
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