You go to a party and don’t drink any alcohol. Why does practically everyone try so hard to get you to have something, anything, in a glass. Same for the designated driver at a bar. I’m perfectly comfortable with both hands empty, but that’s somehow regarded as kinda rude.
But if I step outside and fire up a joint, a much more benign drug than alcohol, I can become a pariah.
I know heavy drinkers (alcoholics) who are really down on pot smoking.
Buncha hypocrites!
Peace,
mangeorge
I don’t drink and I don’t get pressured to drink at parties. Maybe it’s your crowd that feel the need to push you.
A bar is a business. You shouldn’t just hang out without buying something like a soda or juice.
As for the difference between drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, there is the obvious distinction that marijuana is illegal, regardless of whether or not you feel it should be. Some people might object to your casually breaking the law.
The illegal thing is a big part, and so is marketing. Decades of advertising, movies, books, TV shows depicting drinking alcohol as cool and socially acceptable. If there were pot commercials featuring gorgeous people frolicking on the beach while getting high it might be different.
No one tries to push some kind of alternative to booze on you? That’s cool. So you can just stand there with nothing in your hands, eh?
And try just giving the barkeep a dollar to compensate for the lost profits, and pass on the drinks. Actually, most bars will give the DD free sodas.
I’ve asked alcoholics about the legality issue, and that isn’t it. It makes them uncomfortable that you aren’t drinking too.
You’ve asked alcoholics? That’s a different group than a bunch of social drinkers at a party. The views are bound to be different.
Cannibis in one form or another has been around for millenia, so I’m curious why it’s use didn’t become more established in Europe. Certainly Europeans started using opiates copiously as soon as they were introduced in colonial times, but “hashish” seems to have remained more a fringe drug.
I think that in both the cases you describe in the OP, it might be largely a function of the people you hang out with.
Among my friends, no-one pressures anyone else to drink if the person doesn’t want to drink.
And among my friends, lighting up a joint wouldn’t cause anyone to bat an eyelid.
Sort of related to this, but why do some people feel uncomfortable if they’re ordering a drink but you’re not? I was having dinner with a friend a few years ago and I was initially going to order a drink but didn’t feel like it, and then she was a bit annoyed because she wanted one. I told her to go ahead, but she said she didn’t feel right, and I just didn’t get it because I didn’t drink that much. But I’ve been in situations where others aren’t drinking, and I am and I don’t feel weird about it. What gives?
The primary reason why alcohol use is so common is because alcohol is and always has been universally available. Anywhere you go in the world, with any level of technology, if there’s any sort of plant material available, you can make alcohol. In fact, if you’re storing food, you have to actually go to an extra effort to not make alcohol. Pretty much every other drug, though, you need to find a specific species of plant, or have sophisticated chemistry developed, or both. So alcohol has been a much larger part of human experience than any other drug.
I am confused. Do people pressure you to drink alcohol, or to drink something? The first is asshole behavior, but the second makes sense: there is a lot of social conditioning that says you shouldn’t enjoy food/drink if someone else is not–we train kids from very young to share their food if they are eating in front of someone, and I think this is just spillover from that. Just hold a drink. It sends a signal that “I am comfortable, you don’t have to help me”.
On the other hand, people that feel guilty about drinking–be they alcoholics or not–sometimes want to see evidence that you don’t think they are bad people for drinking, and the easiest way to do this is by getting you to have one to (or in some cases, match them drink for drink). People that feel guilty about smoking pot (or skipping yoga class, or playing Wii, for that matter) will do the exact same thing.
Bars are places of business. Their function is to sell drinks. Designated drivers should stick to non-alcoholic stuff, but they should drink something. Why should the bar allow you on the premises if you are not intending to be a customer?
As for pot, it’s illegal. If you light up a joint in front of someone, you are making them an accessory to your crime. They might not want to take responsibility for your criminal actions. Personally, I think it should be legalised. If you want to use it, that’s fine by me. Until that happens, keep it private, don’t go involving other people in your actions.
Another difference: getting drunk or tipsy can be a side effect of drinking alcohol, rather than the main purpose, but nobody smokes pot except to get stoned or high or at least mellow out a little.
And another thing: some people see drinking as the main purpose and activity of going to a bar or party, so if you abstain, you look out of place–like going to a restaurant and not eating anything.
The war on drugs has bread sheep.
I’ve asked people who drink every day, including those who need a couple ( a six pack?) od beers every night, and more on non-work days. Also wine drinkers who drink pretty much all the every day. Aren’t they alcoholics? I think so.
So, it’s the same people - different locations. You go to a friend’s house to watch some football and have barbeque, decline a few brews, and you’ll be likely to get at least a small arguement.
I’m talking about peer pressure, not a gun to your head or anything like that. 
Well, Freudian Slit, that happens to be exactly what I’m talking about.
People don’t really see alcohol as a drug. You are correct that there is no logical distinction, but it is just tradition.
Because Pot is the weed with its roots in hell.
Perhaps because your simple presence allows four or five of your friends to drink themselves comatose—spending tens or hundreds of dollars in the process—without worrying about how they’re going to get home?
I’ve worked in bars on three continents, and have never known a bar owner or manager to insist that the designated driver have a (soft) drink in hand. You are correct that bars are places of business, and that their function is to sell drinks. Which is precisely why owners and managers know how to weigh up the value to their bottom line of four or five people drinking to their hearts’ content, accompanied by a single non-drinker.
Preferably booze, but at least a glass of something. And it’s happened way too often to be just me. That’s how Perrier first became so popular way back when. They were the first.
Why alcohol but not cannabis? Easy: alcohol is legal, pot is illegal. It’s perfectly legal to get hammered, but illegal to get even slightly stoned. Why one is legal while the other is not, is a good question (especially given the alcohol-related deaths and crime).
I’ve noticed people who like alcohol to get a bit annoyed if someone declines. I assume it’s because non-drinkers make the drinkers feel bad about drinking, and because drunk people communicate and act differently than sober people who therefore stand out, and not in a good light (to drunk people). I even think some alcohol-lovers are worried that sober people in the party will be too observant and remember, too, what the drinkers did/said.