To escspe from pain and sorrow. To escspe from what is unbearable in their lives.
You forgot fun. Lots and lots of fun. The “to escape” has a nice Nancy Reagan ring to it, but is one of those silly little lies that tends to backfire when kids find out just how much fun drugs can be.
This. You can drink yourself to death in a single night, if you’ve a mind to. Pass out, puke, aspirate your vomit. Done. And it happens, in the real world.
Weed doesn’t do that. Oh, it may give you lung cancer, eventually, but unless you’re foolish enough to drive, you won’t kill yourself on any sort of short-to-medium time scale with the stuff.
ETA: This is why, if I had a teenager, I’d much rather he/she do pot than booze. I’d be very unhappy with either, of course - but if I had to choose, I’d rather my hypothetical kiddo take on legal risks instead of physical ones.
Are drugs fun? Ask a crack-whore. :rolleyes:
God, there aren’t enough rolleyes in the universe.
You must think pretty poorly of me.
I really don’t care.
Yes, the vast majority of crack-whores started out a plain ol’ down-on-their-luck whores who, desperate for some escape from reality, turned to crack. No, wait, they were addicted to crack then they became whores.
It’s whores all the way down!
Well, I don’t get violently ill but it does make me pretty nauseous. The same goes for pipe & cigar smoke* for that matter, which many people seem to find pleasant. People just react differently to such things, I think.
*Except for one time when I was recovering from the flu; then it was enough to make me vomit. Especially obnoxious since it was from a bunch of people smoking in the non-smoking section of a restaurant.
I get the impression that more and more research is showing that some people have certain brain “wiring” (for lack of a better and more scientific word) that clicks with drugs and/or alcohol. In a way, if you don’t have this “brain wiring,” you’ll never “get” it.
Conversely, those that do have this “brain wiring” might never understand how you could ask this question. It’s not really about “fun,” though that might be the word that comes closest to explaining it.
The brain can’t really process the risk, in light of the effect that drugs have. This is especially true for people under the age 25, which is when the frontal lobe of the brain (where risk is processed) finishes developing.
That’s not funny, that’s just perverse. And stupid.
Are the majority of drug users crack whores? Ask an hysteric.
Did it at least illustrate the, er, crack whore-sized gaping whole in the logic of your post?
Why did I, personally, take drugs?
Because they made me feel really, really good.
This pretty much summed it up:
[Trainspotting]
RENTON: People think it’s all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. After all, we’re not fucking stupid. At least, we’re not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near it. When you’re on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you’re off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can’t get pished. Got money: drinking too much. Can’t get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don’t matter when you’ve got a sincere and truthful junk habit.
[/Trainspotting]
Usually, people don’t leave the house saying “I think today I’ll try [insert drug here]”; it’s offered to them in a social context.
And IME many people seem to think they can’t have fun without chemical help, which I find completely incomprehensible - they, in turn, find my assertions that I am, indeed, having fun equally incomprehensible.
I don’t really even get where people FIND drugs. I guess I encountered pot once, but if some evil mastermind said he’d kill me in 12 hours if I didn’t get him some illegal substance I’d… I don’t know, wander around dark alleys hoping I found a dealer before I got shot? Is it just one of those things where you happen to know a guy who knows a guy? I seriously can’t fathom it.
Shrug, when I was 15 I had classmates who’d steal their mother’s medications; the only reason my friends could give me to try pot was “it’s cool!” but the dealer (of pot, pills and heroin) who lived in our same building was pretty much the epitome of uncool, so I didn’t try it due to a complete lack of motivation - if I’d wanted any, all I had to do was cross the hallway and ask the neighboor to hook me up with some.
People use drugs for the same reason people sky dive, have sex, or eat ice cream. It stimulates pleasureable feedback mechanisms in the brain. Drugs just happen to be a more direct, extreme, and potentially dangerous way to go about it.
I love that movie. It almost feels like a more stealthy version of Reefer Madness but it really does seem impartial.
I tried pot as an experiment–just to see what all the fuss was about. Made me sleepy, screwed with my vision, impaired my motors. Felt like beeing too drunk, too quickly, and made me uneasy because it’s illegal and man I’d hate to get busted doing something illegal that gets me into the same state as something that is not. Then someone told me, “Oh, some strains of pot will do that, others will have effects x and y.” Which sounds to me like the different drunks between tequila, vodka, beer, etc. It’s all alcohol, and it’s all THC. How different can they really be? Count me as one who is mystified why anyone should die for pot. Legalize it, hell don’t even tax it, and make the gangsters find something else to kill each other over.
Incidentally, I don’t like being drunk. It’s an unfortunate side effect of really liking the taste of beer & red wine (but not together!). I will use it as a tranquilizer from time to time. So…that’s me and drugs.
I’m reminded of the song *Cure For Pain *by the band (ironically) Morphine: “When they find a cure for pain, that’s the day I throw my drugs away.”
It’s not just THC that gets you high. There are other chemicals in marijuana that have an effect on what you feel. Different strains can have different amounts of these chemicals. Also, some strains have been carefully cultivated for decades to maximize THC production. Those strains are going to be much more potent than something you find growing in a ditch somewhere.