I don’t hide my casual drug use from anyone (except maybe my boss, as that’s the only place in my life where it could have a negative impact). Why would anyone feel the need to hide it from complete strangers in cyberspace? It’s not like someone can arrest me for drug use in my past or my future. This is an extremely odd line of questioning. How do you think someone could be harmed by mentioning their casual use of drugs? Do you really think society gives a shit that I took Quaaludes in the early 70s? Or that I tripped or whatever?
I don’t know a single casual drug or alcohol user who defines himself, categorizes himself, or relies on substances to find enjoyment. None of them are desperate, pathetic or hypersensitive to criticism about it. Where do you find these people?
I think this is it. If I said I was a regular drug user here on this board, there’s virtually no chance that anyone would track down my real life information and pass this confession on to local police, co-workers, or family.
It is a vile concoction that is not fit for human consumption.
Who says it’s “on the internet”?
I don’t do any kind of drugs and in about half of the social gatherings I attend, I get badgered for not doing it. At the last wedding I attended (a 5-star hotel!), my mother asked the maitre to explain to his waiters that if someone has overturned their wine cups - it’s so they’ll be retired, not to be re-turned and filled! “So… uh… you don’t drink?” “Nope.” “And don’t smoke?” “Nope.” “You don’t smoke anything?” “I don’t smoke means I don’t smoke…”
You should try workahol. Crazy, man, crazy!
Sorry, while I no longer partake, I never categorized myself by my drug use. I feel that only people who look down on all drug use do that.
It may have gotten ugly because what you suggested is quite ridiculous.
You know, I discovered that not all teenage runaways turn tricks, as opposed to those After School specials where, of course, they do.
Most Anti-anything campaigns take things beyond logic into some fantasy world where good and evil and black and white are clearly defined with no shades of grey.
In all fairness, I do know people who insist that smoking (and occasionally dropping) is their primary hobby, and have the idiot marijuana plant patches, ugly hemp clothes, trustafarian dreads and endless conversations about ‘hydro’ and ‘afghani strains’ to prove it. But they’re in the minority, it’s usually just a phase, and they’re not hurting anyone.
ETA that this usually develops in college, occasionally in opposition to students who don’t smoke but binge drink regularly.
I think there’s another aspect to it. Internet message boards are not the place you go to find “cool” people, but they’re a great place to find people desperately trying to be “cool” while making fun of people who really try to be cool. I don’t mean to imply that this is contained solely to this message board, or that all people who mention their drug use are doing this, but when some mentions some “chemically altered experience” and then uses some sort of smiley face afterwards, it reeks of trying to seem a little bit more edgy or dangerous or cool or whatever than that person really is. Like when your high school teacher made some off-hand reference to getting drunk, or stoned, and you can tell he thinks he’s bonding somehow with the class, like they’d think “This guy used to be edgy! He must still be a pretty cool guy” when really everyone’s just cringing in embarrassment for the dude and wondering how he ended up such a, well, square.
Oh yeah? You got something against Rage-ahol, buddy? Huh? Huh?
(I take no responsibility for you vomiting if you actually try this stuff.)
Eh, I don’t know if it’s that so much as the fact that some people really enjoy their chemically altered experiences and want to share. At least that’s how it was for me when I went through that phase; I never thought about being “cool.” That may be the reason I started smoking cigarettes at 15, but it didn’t really factor into the equation with pot.
I do have to say, though, that if I’d ever had a high school teacher who talked about smoking weed, we would have considered him to be a pretty hip dude. Hell, we liked the teachers that we merely suspected of being former pot smokers!
C’mon, anyone who casually uses drugs immediately finds out that the only way they can ever enjoy anything is to get chemically altered beforehand. Everyone knows that. :rolleyes:
I think users seem hypersensitive about it because some pretty stupid things get said by non-users. Most people aren’t relying on drugs for enjoyment. They’re using it to enhance their experience, say, the way a couple glasses of wine may enhance a dinner party.
You find the hypersensitive ones by openly criticizing them on a public forum. I once made a similar faux pas when I called trekkies “lame” on a Star Trek forum back when the internet was new. You kind of learn what not to say in a public forum after a while. Even with all the joy of anonymity, it kills any potential discussion if you state an opposition too strongly.
So I’ve evolved to only criticize recreational drugs as medically reckless. Like cheeseburgers and malts, which are, incidentally, my anti-drug.