So what's YOUR problem with drugs?

The BBQ Pit
1

This thread is really getting on my nerves. Granted, much of it is perfectly rational, and many people in there have perfectly good reasons why they dont want to do drugs. I can respect that. HOWEVER, I find some statements made in there to be incensing at best.

This seem’s like circular reasoning, and not unlike the kind my father likes to use. “They’re bad because they’re illegal. They’re illegal because they’re bad.” Now, if they weren’t illegal, it would still be a bad idea to abuse them, but the world would certainly be a better place for those who don’t have this in mind.

The evangelism in this case (as long as it doesn’t take the form of pressuring people into using drugs), is quite warranted. If we were able to explain to the non-user precisely why drugs, while not entirely positive by any means, are not tools of satan, then perhaps we could do something about getting rid of this foolish negative stigma that goes along with using drugs. Guess what? Altering your internal chemistry in order to acheive happiness is not unique to drug-users. What do you think buddhist monks do when they meditate? Slow breathing, reduced heart rate, these alter the levels of various chemicals in both the mind and body, with the effect of acheiving the desired state. Somehow the self-control required to induce this effect cancels out the negative aspect of changing brain-chemistry? Or is in fact that there is nothing inherently bad about seeking pleasure through such means. If you have a problem with punk kids dropping ecstasy and fornicating on your front lawn, then its the attitudes of the kids you have an issue with, not the drugs themselves.

My response to TVeblen applies here as well, with one exception. Addiction is not intrinsic to all mind-altering substances. Yes coke and heroin are physically addictive, but LSD :eek: is less addictive than caffeine or even the internet, same goes for most of the substances I choose to enjoy.

Waste of money is quite subjective, however what I really don’t appreciate is this blatantly judgemental attitude. “Those kinds of people” who choose to enjoy drugs are somehow worse than you? By what measure? Legally, one would have to agree, but on what other grounds can you possibly make this assertion? I know plenty of good people who use drugs, and plenty who don’t. I know plenty of smart people who use drugs, and plenty who don’t. I know plenty of successful people who use drugs, and…well…you get the point. Such comments are vestiges of a productive D.A.R.E. campaign, and at least need to be examined.

The reason for this kind of response is that, more often than not, the people with this attitude have very little factual knowledge pertaining to drugs. This is quite understandable and well within the rights of any individual. However, it means that any time such a person tries to rationalize his or her views, they come off sounding entirely nonsensical and ignorant. It’s hard to tell when somebody with very little factual information has come to a decision by reason or simply by programming.

On a very different note than my other comments thusfar, I would like to point out that there is often a misconception about how many people (especially in high school) actually use drugs. The first statistics showed that only 36.5% of high school seniors report using marijuana in the past year. This page shows 7% of students ages 12-17 reporting marijuana use in the past month.

Yes, you need money to sustain an addiction… but that’s assuming that addiction is the inescapable conclusion to any and all drug use. Clearly this is not the case.

Trying to eat green vegetables makes me nauseous. (Yeah I get comments on that)…I’m willing to admit it’s psychological, are you?

Not sure how much of a rant this is… Perhaps it could go somewhere other than the Pit… I just didn’t want to put these comments in the original thread because it would be both a hijack and disrespectful to those who make such choices.

2

Honestly?

I thought some of the responses were a bit self-righteous, too. My opinion, of course.

3

I’m in South Korea right now, so I have a few:

1- They’re ridiculously expensive here.
2- They’re extremely difficult to find here.
3- People here see no difference between marijuana and heroin. They are taught that all drugs are bad, and all drugs are extremely addictive. They have no concept of a “light drug.”

Oooops… misunderstood your post. Ummmm… I love weed.

4

I bet half the people who rage on illegal drugs are whacked out on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, Prozac, or Valium. Personally, I wish they made pot legal, and registered the addicts of the hard drugs and just gave them a maintenance dose. Bam! That was the sound of the drug crime problem being solved. [sub]Oh shit, that would mean no drug possession cases to defend. Naah, that’s too practical. It’ll never happen.[/sub]

Of course, that is my opinion and I forgot where I left my keys.

5

Actually Beagle, I’m anti-drug as far as not taking them myself, but I’d agree with your solution there.

Drugs can only harm the person taking them (except for those drugs documented to cause violent behaviour, but that could be fixed somehow, I’m sure), so I see no problem with people making the decision to take them.

shrugs

I think the only thing you’re truly out of line on, Kalt, is calling out GilaB for feeling nauseated in the presence of smoke products. To some people, the smell of tobacco just isn’t pleasant, and the smell of other, sweeter burning things isn’t either.

However it is up to a person if they wish to hang out with people who have the same ideas as they do, or if they want to hang out with people of all ideas. Sometimes I wonder why drug users look down upon those of us who simply aren’t interested … :slight_smile:

6

I am know quite a bit about drugs, and I have had quite a bit of experience with them. I also support some form of legalization and control (Although I have yet to decide what kind of legalization is appropriate). At the same time, I am greatly offended by those who denigrate non-users as “programmed.” Get a grip, there is far, far more pro-drug programming in our society than anti-drug programming. I have great respect for those who say they don’t care to explore that avenue. The fact that they don’t have volumes of information about drugs is a testament to their honest lack of interest.

If a person tells me that they don’t play soccer, I don’t grill them about why they choose not to, then call them ignorant if they aren’t experts at a sport they don’t play. Similarly, if a person chooses not to use recreational drugs, I don’t demand to know why and insist that hey must make an informed decision.

Of course it’s a different story when non-users are evangelizing against use, but from what you describe here, it sounds as though you are talking about people who mind their own business until someone demands to know why they don’t use drugs.

People who abstain from drugs aren’t hurting anyone, we shouldn’t stigmatize them.

7

Erp.

Up there points to her previous post I said Kalt, I should have said Kaje.

grins Blame my distraction on my tiredness, or the beef stew in front of me, or a frontal labotomy, but it was definitely my bad :slight_smile:

8

Excellent post, Kaje, and I also agree with Creaky.

I used to party quite a bit, but don’t anymore. I still get high occasionally, when I’m with friends (and never around my children, although I did get high with my dad as a teen). My husband is against any drug use at all, and truly believes that smoking pot is just “a slippery slope to heroin addiction.” :rolleyes:

Such activities I keep to myself, to keep harmony in my marriage. He doesn’t even drink a glass of wine with dinner. I’m still amazed that someone like me ended up with someone so straight. :smiley:

But comments like “I’m better than THOSE kind of people” are just self-righteous and ignorant, not to mention ridiculous. A woman in my neighborhood treats her kids like shit. But she would be considered a better person than me because I smoke pot and she doesn’t?

Sheri

9

You agree with me?! Reconsider! The people who already do drugs would continue to do them but commit no crimes to support their habits, what is good about that? Well, there is the whole thing about it being about a million times easier to get people into treatment. Law enforcement and prisons being able to handle more violent, sexual, or property crimes, that is one minor advantage also.

I think you mean PCP. No reason to legalize that. Fixed? Hear this, I once saw a man high on PCP on Cops who broke into a pawn shop, naked, and was pounding on the door to the upstairs apartment where the owner lived. Thing is, he had already been shot once when the police arrived. That did not stop him from charging four officers, still naked, and almost getting past them to the camera man. All the while he was yelling “put it in the paper!” Next scene a guy on PCP rearends a car which had pulled up adjacent to a police car to tell the police about the bad driver. The two craziest things I ever saw on TV, both involving PCP, and both on one episode of “Cops, in Philadelphia.”

10

Actually, the reason for this kind of response is that people genuinely aren’t interested. Like me. I have zero interest in taking drugs, and I have zero interest in “experimenting”. Frankly, I never cared what it was like to get high, and I still don’t.

What you’re doing here is far closer to rationalizing than what Legomancer said.

11

Having done just about every kind of drug there is, never having been out of control with any of them, and now being pretty much clean and sober because I prefer it, I can say that my problem with drugs is…none, really.

I have friends and family who have had big problems. But for my own purposes I don’t really differentiate between drugs and alcohol, and I consider alcohol potentially the most horrendous drug of all. Any drug, even pot, can be bad news if it runs your life and interferes with your functioning.

But I just can’t work up a head of steam over people who just don’t get it.

stoid

PS: If real Quaaludes were still available (they haven’t been since the very early 80’s), I’d still be getting high with them sometimes. They were the perfect drug: all the inhibition-loosening and fun buzz of alcohol, none of the sick feeling. And yes, combined with coke they were perfect, since coke took the sleepy edge off, and the ludes took the wired edge off the coke. Sigh…those were the days!

12

I’m a bit suprised you’re incensed over this, Kaje. Not trying to bust your chops over it, please understand. The cited thread polls people about why they made the individual decision not to use illegal drugs. I understand that any point raised can be debated and fair enough. But my intent in the post wasn’t to defend whether or not drugs should be illegal. I was just registering my pragmatic acceptance that some ARE.

This is purely personal opinion, YMMV, I’m sure no fount of deathless wisdom, etc. but for me no temporary buzz could possibly outweigh the godawful hassles and humiliation of arrest and carrying a drug conviction on my permanent record. Wimpy, perhaps, but that’s me. It’s absolutely NOT intended as a slur against those who feel differently, who’ve experienced drug arrests, etc.

FTR I’m rather sympathetic to your point and in fact have long supported decrimilization of many “street” drugs, mostly on the grounds of practicality. That’s a whole debate in itself. My personal choice under current laws might be pure cowardice but there ya have it. The mere idea of being arrested and tried on drug charges scares me witless.

Veb

13

Yes, dude, you certainly have. :smiley:

Sua

14

Not THAT recently. Unfortunately, I haven’t had drugs as an excuse for about…wow…thirteen years.

15

I should clarify that the response I was referring to was on behalf of the user, rather than the non-user. Personally I would be completely satisfied with a “I just have no interest” That’s what my roommate said the first time we talked about such things and I’ve never given him an ounce of crap about it. When, on the other hand, the response is along the lines of “I don’t want to end up giving handjobs to support my crack habit”, I certainly draw the line and feel the need to set the record straight. “Why?”, you ask? It deals with how i was going to respond to the following post:

The problem here is that a “to each his own” philosophy in this case nearly maintains the status quo. That is, all the anti-drug (note: not the same as non-drug) people looking down upon drug users, and thereby perpetuating the cycle of intolerant attitudes. Whether its the perception that “one puff leads to the gutter” or “drug users are bad people”, if it were possible to convince people otherwise, or at least promote some kind of realistic evaluation of the situation, then we could remove so many of the rediculous problems that arise from “us versus them” drug policy.

So to complete the analogy… One should not feel the need to impose upon or nag somebody who just “doesn’t like soccer” However, if this person instead doesn’t like soccer, and feels that the world would be a better place without people who do, then there is merit in an attempt to show that perhaps soccer isn’t such an evil afterall.

hrm… I took a break between parts 1 and 2 of this post so I’m not sure how much consistency there is…

16

If your point is that people shouldn’t criticize drug users in gerneral without reason, I agree wholeheartedly. Legomancer’s post didn’t seem to be doing this.

17

There is no such thing as “drugs”

People have, and always will, screw around with the chemicals of thier brains. A number of my friends are drug counselors. One thing making the rounds in thier world is the “first use” idea. That is, someone who ends up a coke addict will say things like the first time they took it, it was like the thing they were missing was suddenly supplied. Same with opoiate junkies, same with boozers.

Boiled down, addicts are addicts because the drug supplies something that is missing in thier brain’s chemical stew. Coke fiends try pot, booze, smack, PCP, shrug and move on till the arrive at coke and !!! The light goes on.

I have known drug users of every stripe for…well, a long time. The drug that has buried more of my friends than any other is booze. Plain old booze. Not smack, not coke, not PCP (gag!), not methedrine (ewwww!), sure as hell not weed, the milk and cookies of drugs. (Willie Nelson: “I quit whiskey for weed in '78, may be the only smart thing I ever did”) Booze killed some of the sweetest souls I ever knew. My Dad was in AA, he used to say that if he wasn’t a drunk, he’d still go 'cause the most interesting, kindest people you’re every gonna meet are in AA.

Booze kills more American’s than everything else combined. Don’t believe me, spend a weekend in an ER. If heroin cost a dollar a hit, we wouldn’t be any worse off than we are now. As far as “pushers” go, there are hardly any as slimy and rotten as the guys who manufacture the “fortified wines”, the Thunderbirds, the Night Trains, the Mad Dog 20/20 that prey upon the bottom-feeding alkies.

I sing again the old blues line. I say God damn, GOD DAMN the pusher man!

Thus endeth the lesson.

18

There is no such thing as "drugs"

In one sense, a lot of what we routinely eat, breathe or drink alters how our bodies work. Elements in chocolate mimic natural “feel good” endorphins, carbo-packing has specific effects, etc. We’re walking sacks of complex metabolic reactions.

A number of my friends are drug counselors. One thing making the rounds in thier world is the “first use” idea…(snip)…boiled down, addicts are addicts because the drug supplies something that is missing in thier brain’s chemical stew.

I strongly suspect the sources of addiction are much more complex than this and therefore even more insidious to fight. The “something missing” could equally well be subtle, unaware psychological patterns. I’m not saying the problem isn’t hideous, just that it’s probably complex in source.
**The drug that has buried more of my friends than any other is booze. Plain old booze…(snip)…Booze killed some of the sweetest souls I ever knew.
**

Contrary to all known risk factors–I was the one with those–my ex-husband systematically destroyed himself by drinking. And it was pure, unmitigated hell. Arrests, DT’s, rehabs, relapses, violence–the ONLY thing that mattered in his universe was the next drink. A formidably bright, civilized, vital man who should be at the prime of his life is now a total wreck who can’t complete a coherent thought and shits his pants without noticing.

Total self-destruction. The thing is, nobody could have predicted it. He drank lightly, if at all, for years. Getting laid off from his job, at the top of his career, broke something inside him. Drastic internal chaos was the problem. Booze was just one panecea he resorted to, along with sleazey porn-site assignations, etc.–anything to mask the pain.

I’m a veteran of the family rehab support group scene, folks trying to cope with booze addicts, drug addicts, sex addicts, gambling addicts… Life inevitably carries too many genuinely harmless “firsts” when people break inside for some reason. There IS a real, qualitative difference between addiction and ordinary, harmless stuff other people can enjoy routinely, e.g a glass of wine with dinner, an active sex life, buying a lottery ticket now and then, eating.

All I’m saying is that, realistically, it’s impossible to remove all potential risk factors from life. It’s sensible to weigh them but I sincerely doubt many can effectively be eliminated up front. Anything can be a “first”, available to fill in the gaps when life causes ruptures.

Veb

19

Kaje, if your point is as ignatzmouse said (“people shouldn’t criticize drug users in gerneral without reason”), then I agree with it. In my post I was not critizicing other drug users, but instead saying my personal reasons for not wanting to start.

Yes, I realize not all drug use leads to addiction. Check the rest of the post, where it says all the other reasons I don’t drink booze, smoke cigarettes and/or pot. Basically, I am not interested. I don’t need them to enjoy my life, either, and smoke gives me a headache. No, its not psychological, it does give me a headache.

Correct me please if I am wrong, but my knowledge was that the “harder” the drug(i.e., something stronger than pot), the more addictive it was. So, I prefer not to try to prevent the case that I become addictive(and thus waste my non-existent money).

Beagle, I am also anti-drug and I think your idea is not too bad. At least, it seems better than what the law says now.
PD. Oh yea, I didn’t say I was better than other people. I don’t think I’m better, and certainly DarkWriter for me someone who treats their kids like shit are acting worse than someone who just smokes pot.

20

That’s certainly one way to define “harder”…however by that definition nicotine and caffeine are “harder” than any number of substances (such as LSD as I mentioned before). This could still be a suitable definition, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t fly with lawmakers or the general populace.

Damnit… I can’t even start a pit thread right. I get angry over some comments, post a pit thread, next thing I know I’m engaged in civil discussion!

Just to counteract this fiendish ascent, I’ll have to assert that I still think most non drug-users look down upon those who make other choices, and that this is behind all the negative stigma that causes so much grief.