How will making your brain work in ways ultimately help people?
…former stoner here…
I don’t see anything wrong with people who never try any drugs. They are not cheating themselves. They make a choice, just like those of us who made a different choice to try drugs.
That said, I’ll remind them that reality is just a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs 
Also, I see several references to mescaline, which back in the day was something processed, and often suspect. If you didn’t get some real peyote, you missed the experience.
And for those amongst us who did try, how comes we saw the appeal before we even tried? I mean, it could have been an awful experience, for instance. I don’t see much difference, before you try first, between finding it appealing and not finding it appealing. Both are based on assumptions about what the effect could be and whether or not we would find it pleasant.
Besides, apart from those who have tried everything, even drug users don’t see the appeal of many drugs. I can’t see the appeal of crack and heroine, for instance, and you won’t convince me that I should nevertheless try them once to see whether I’d really like them or not.
ETA : I’m very surprised to learn that **Der Trihs **is a totaler.
Where’s the option for None? A little alcohol occasionally is it for me.
Probably. I’m now 47 and I’m still sometimes offered drugs by perfect strangers in the street.
I’m 44. Other than alcohol and caffeine, I’ve never tried a drug. This includes prescription medications, pain killers, tobacco, and any illegal/illicit drug. And certainly nothing on that list.
I’m 55 and got hit up yesterday by some guy. :rolleyes:
I smoked weed in high school, but I never really liked it. I just wanted to fit in with my friends.
I don’t like the feeling I get from anything considered a drug…pain pills make me sick to my stomach and if I drink a beer or two I usually just want to go to sleep.
Help people? I don’t think I’d call it helping people per se. I would say though that if you’ve never been in such an altered state of mind, you’re missing part of the big picture. This isn’t to say one can’t lead a perfectly fulfilling life without it, and that’s a decision people are free to make. Having personally experienced it, I know that I would feel somewhat cheated if I went my entire life without at least knowing what it’s like. Some people feel otherwise.
This is only my opinion, and people are free to disagree with me.
I wouldn’t touch most of the drugs on that list with a ten foot pole, but that’s just me. While I’d hardly call drug usage a helpful or healthy activity, there are times when it’s not such a bad thing at all.
I could say the same for meditation. Or the female orgasm. Or reading a book about philosophy, or seeing Michelangelo’s David in person. Or… constantly getting sent outside by my Dad because weed was more interesting than raising his daughter. Or consoling my 13 year old cousin on the sudden death of his father, and watching my grieving grandparents adopt and raise him because his mother got high and started a kitchen fire that almost killed him. You’ve either experienced that effect, or you have not.
Lots of weed in my youth - and if it were legal, might try again, but don’t know anyone who has any/haven’t tried to find it in decades.
I tried cocaine once, by accident.
A friend had some at a party - I had never seen it and she passed it to me and went off to another part of the room. I held it and, just like you do with weed, wanted to smell it.
So I leaned down to sniff it to see what it smelled like. Didn’t have any odor whatsoever.
Think for a minute what had I just done…
Didn’t even realize I had sniffed it until I left the party, went to a bar and notice I was in a REALLY good mood! Then I burst out laughing realizing what I had done. I gave that friend a few bucks the next day and explained why.
I never tried it again. I call it my “Lobster Theory” - never try something you think you will like, especially if it is an expensive habit. I also don’t need to develop a taste for beluga caviar…I can live quite nicely with Skippy Super Crunch on some crackers, thank you.
Yes, there are a lot of things I’ll never experience in life. I’m not regretting most of those either. I have experienced drugs, but they wouldn’t be on the high end of my list of experiences either.
I’ve experienced that aspect of it too. There is a member of my immediate family who is either high on heroin, or in between highs, right this very second. It’s not very comforting to know that the next time my phone rings it may be because they’re dead.
I do not equate drugs in general with such a potentially fatal circumstance though. Many choices were made for things to arrive where they are, and it’s the totality of those that result in the current situation.
I didn’t know if it would be appealing or not until I tried it.
Well, no, I have no desire to try many drugs either. But if you’ve used anything you at least understand what it means to have an altered mental state. If you haven’t, I don’t think you can. Like I said, it would be like eating. You don’t have to try every single food, but if you’ve never eaten a thing then you really can’t imagine what it would be like and it makes no sense to say you don’t find it appealing. No one would accept that as an informed choice because it’s not.
And I’ve never needed them.
Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) did a podcast recently (Penn’s Sunday School) where he talked about the fact that he’s never taken a sip of alcohol or used a recreational drug in his life. He said he’s not opposed to the idea, but for various reasons it never interested him. He did, however, advise people when they’re young and don’t have any real responsibilities to at least try drugs so that when they are older and injure themselves and are prescribed Percodan they can recognize the feeling and not decide on stage that they are doing really, really well and can afford to deviate from the script to give a 35-minute monologue in the middle of a magic act.
I’ve done a bunch of different drugs over the years. Not many anymore, other than alcohol, but I’ll indulge in some coke if it’s around. Really tired of pot years ago.
But for those who have never tried anything, not even alcohol, you are missing out on something sublime. You’ve never had a wonderful glass of wine!? It’s hard for me to imagine a day without a glass of wine at some point. To say you’re not “interested” in wine is like saying you’re not interested in chocolate or steak or sauteed mushrooms or grilled vegetables or… Really, eschewing wine (unless there is a medical reason) or maybe beer is like religious fundamentalism.
But you don’t feel as if you are “playing chicken with a speeding freight train” when you drink socially twice a month? What is the difference?
- Caffeine (every day of my life since about age seven. 3-4 cups daily since teenage.)
Late teens through mid-thirties:
- Boo (not addicted, but strongly “habituated” for 15 years, the last 5 of them trying to quit. Eventually succeeded, haven’t so much as seen a joint for 25 years.)
- Opium (once. Three minutes of dopey bliss followed by 10 hours of sleep.)
- Coke (three times, didn’t like it much. THANK GOD.)
- Acid (three times)
- Mescaline (once)
- Mushrooms (twice)
- Speed (once or twice, hated it)
- Amyl Nitrate (“poppers”; once, hated it. Scared me.)
- Nicotine (smoked heavily for a year or two after High School, then stopped cold, for good, with no trouble at all. Go figure.)
And in the last 25 years…
- Alcohol (not too fond of hard liquor, always liked beer. Still do. My tolerance is ridiculously low, so I average about 4-5 brewskies per week.)
.
God damn it, I misspelled amyl nitrite.