I think it depends largely on the context. While the use of the word “narcotic” to refer to any controlled substance does rub me the wrong way, I have to admit it serves as a convenient shorthand way of referring to such drugs. In a legal or regulatory context it may make more sense to say “narcotics” than “drugs which are subject to the Controlled Substances Act and require special prescription blanks, or which are right out altogether.” Similarly with pharmacists and pharmacy techs. I’ve heard them refer to certain stimulants as narcotics if they come under the purview of controlled substance statutes. They have to follow similar laws and regs relating to all “narcotics”, regardless of what the drugs actually do. After all, they’re not taking them, normally, they’re just supplying them.
In stories about adolescents, again, I don’t think it matters all that much. I wasn’t an adolescent drug abuser, but by and large, from what I saw of the adolescent “drug culture”, if you will, was that the prevailing ethos was to try anything and everything. After all, it’s in this age group that you find the majority of solvent abuse (i.e. glue sniffing). Older users tend to have more definite preferences.
I agree. In my experience it’s not uncommon to hear people talking about “drugs” in a generic way. When referring to third persons, we don’t always care what kind of drugs are being implicated.
“He got fired because he was on drugs.” – 100 percent normal usage
You do have to tell from context, but it’s fairly consistent. A drugstore sells prescription and over-the-counter medicines, plus a bunch of knickknacks (and in fact the knickknacks are usually the larger part of the business), and medicines can be referred to as “drugs” with a specifier (for instance, one might refer to Nyquil as a “cold drug”). But “drug” or “drugs” used as a noun with no adjective almost always either refers to the illegal ones, or is meant to evoke the illegal ones as a joke (like a pharmacist referring to themself as a “drug dealer”).
I have to come down on the side of the op. It’s one of my pet peeves.
Just because it’s common usage doesn’t make it correct or even reasonable. To me it’s just plain sloppy and ignorant, like the long blathers with no capitalization, no definable sentences and paragraphs, rampant misspellings and damned little punctuation.
“Drugs” is plural, so the assumption is that the person in question is under the influence of more than one “substance.” “Drugs” includes aspirin, heroin, penicillin, and thousands of compounds good, bad and indifferent.
If I went into the pharmacy, walked up to the counter and said “I want drugs” a cop would probably have me doing the perp-walk in pretty short order.
That said, for the most part it’s a non-issue when the term is used outside any serious discussion. But when it’s used in any kind of a serious framework, as in DARE or in political debate, it seriously erodes the speaker’s credibility
Wait, so people understand each other perfectly when they talk about “drugs,” but it’s also just plain sloppy and ignorant. Because … ordinary conversation is somehow subject to strict rules of taxonomic nomenclature?
When I’ve interviewed for jobs, no one in HR ever said, “of course it’s just a formality but you’ll have to undergo a urine analysis to determine whether you’ve recently ingested illicit controlled substances.”
Writers are lazy when they call it drugs not because nobody ever says that, but because they call it drugs and then just give it whatever effects are necessary for the plot. Is it really so hard to look at what specific drugs actually do and write around that?
I mean, yeah, it’s implausible for someone to go to a dealer and just ask for drugs without specifying what kind. And it’s rare that offering you a drug wouldn’t tell you what kind. But I can’t remember hearing that in a long, long time.
It’s kind of like “food.” Kind of. You have things called baby food, cat food, dog food, etc. Cereal used to be called breakfast food. But there is nothing called just “food.”
Or they can save the exposition, just say drugs (which everyone in the US at least will understand to mean “dangerous controlled substance”) and move on.
Shows will occasionally invent a name if they want to run around stomping out a unique danger before people get hurt, or reference PCP if they need to have trouble subduing a suspect.
But, the generic “drugs” means they don’t have to stop and explain that “bezephenol acid/Black Wings” is illegal every time they mention it (for those folks coming in in the middle of the episode).
Yes. And if someone says “Do you like my pants,” the assumption is that they are standing in front of you wearing two or more pairs of jeans. And if they say “I can’t find the scissors,” you assume they have lost more than one cutting implement.
“Let’s just search his room. There might be some killer shit in there!”
