Drug Users vs Society

[JasonSmith]

Who's go it right on the stance of drugs? Drug users see it as it being okay, everybody does it, legalize weed, etc. Society sees it as drugs are bad and lead to addiction / your life getting fucked up, drug-users robbing others, all that.

Are drug users brainwashed into thinking drugs are okay? Or has society made drugs seem worse than they really are, making them brainwashed?

You always hear on drug supporting websites things like no one has ever died from weed, weed cannot give you cancer, weed is a miracle healing drug, "its natural", etc.

On the news, society, all that you hear that weed actually can cause cancer, X % of people have died from smoking weed, etc.

I believe there are faults and obvious biases on both sides. What do you think?

 

[its.euphoric]

well.. I've researched a lot of drugs... and I was never "brainwashed" by anyone. I thought for myself on everything. I think it depends on the drug. I don't think certain drugs are okay, or at least they should be very rarely used (drugs like coke, meth, heroin).

If anything drug users are the ones that aren't brainwashed. Well at least anyone who researches any of the drugs they do will know the truth.

Almost all people who think "all drugs are bad" have never read anything about how drugs affect you, and are just listening to all the stupid DARE shit they heard in kindergarten. Unfortunately some never thought to think for themselves and just kept listening to all the bullshit stories of how evil drugs are.

And the "weed can not give you cancer" and stuff... people just use that as an excuse to smoke. I think everyone knows it's not actually good for you. And that is just weed, there are soo many more drugs than that, that people don't hear about unless they researched for themselves.

So yeah, I think that almost all that claim drugs are bad really have no idea. They just go with what they heard and believe it to be true.

 

[pofacedhoe]

the majority of people have at one time consumed alcohol, which is an addictive drug with a rough comedown and bad profile of effects on behaviour. this i belive is why people extrapolate to "drugs are bad" , as alcohol has a huge amount of negatives and bad effect on society in general. if it is all that you know you will assume that illegal drugs are even worse (though some are, a lot are far less negative than alcohol).

different drugs have different problems associated with them, but they get clumped together by poltiticians as a single moral concept to win votes by distracting from other issues-nixon? vietnam? war on drugs? gordon brown? mp's expenses? banking crisis? redundancies? profssor nutt?

drugs are here to stay, some are bad some are more benign

 

[delta_9]

There's propaganda coming from both sides, it isn't as simple as saying one side is right and the other is wrong.

So yeah, I think that almost all that claim drugs are bad really have no idea. They just go with what they heard and believe it to be true.

One look around some of the fourms on this very site will tell you that drug users do the same thing. There are hundreds of threads with topics like "my friend told me I can smoke oxy" or something similar. It isn't drug users or non drug users who accept things without researching them, it is people.

drugs are here to stay, some are bad some are more benign

While I agree drugs are an integral part of the human experience, I do not believe a drug can be "bad". Drugs are nothing more than inanimate molecules, tools if you will. They only do what we make them do. I use the same argument for guns.

 

[pkt]

Where Im from we were raised with the notion that marijuana and mushrooms were on par with alcohol, i still believe that today.

 

[zurichsb]

I think either side is more baised too their cause, no one speaks the truth really. Example I love weed and i think it should be legal, but some smokers say weed is totally harmless which isnt true. But over all i think the media is more brainwashed than users.

Now those who addicted to drugs such as herion and meth often see their life as totally normal, dont blink twice at sticking a needle in their arm or doing some other things. While not brain washed they are under the cloud of addiction. Addiction changes your thought patterns. If you told an addict all the things he was gonna do before he started using he would say "bullshit". Here im speaking from experince.

So i think their is faults on both side but definatly a much larger part lays with the goverment and media.

 

[granddesigns]

if you're gonna legalize some drugs, you gotta legalize or at least decriminalize all drugs. and legalizing/decriminalizing all drugs makes more sense than forbidding all or just some of them. it's been beaten to death, but having regulation over coke/heroin/meth etc. would only make it safer for those who choose to use.

 

[double ewe]

the only people i trust are the people who realize they don't know the answer.

there are so many different directions you can approach the issue from:
-morality (it's immoral to be intoxicated vs. it's immoral to tell people what they can or can't do)
-health (why legalize something that causes health problems vs. illegality causes more health problems than drug use)
-religious (Jesus said "be drunk not of wine but of the fruit of the spirit" vs. God created marijuana with the intention that man would use it)
-political (the government should maintain order and safety in society vs. the government doesn't have a right to tell me i can't use a naturally-occurring substance)
-fiscal (legalizing drugs would hurt productivity vs. legalizing drugs would generate tax revenue)
-etc. etc. etc.

so, not only are there opposing viewpoints, but there are opposing viewpoints about the best position from which to view the issue. you can have a lot of conversations about a lot of reasons for various drug policies, and at the end of the day there's really no way to conclusively prove that one is better than the other.

thus, it's my opinion that drug policy should generally follow the will of the majority. no matter how smart a dictator was, i wouldn't trust a single person's viewpoint on the role of drugs in society, even if it was a dictator i agreed with. i recognize that the will of society has led to some policies that are generally regarded as pretty stupid (the war on drugs), but i'm also heartened by my sense that experience has informed and shifted society's approach to the issue as we see both research and legalization taken more seriously.

 

[granddesigns]

We have to assume that use can and is expected to be responsible. Infringements upon law are always someone's personal responsibility so if you fuck shit up while you're high it's still your fault. If you crash your car, commit an act of violence, or generally act as a menace while fucked up, it's still your fault and accountability is not with the substance. Irresponsible use of a legal substance is still illegal - look at alcohol. Public intoxication, DUIs, the same rationale could be applied for any other drug we legalize or decrim.

Sure, the gov't could (and does) illegalize things FOR OUR SAFETY, but where do you draw the line? Should big brother be tucking me in at night too? Cigarettes are the primary cause of COPD (80% of people with the condition smoke) but no one's shouting to forbid those.

 

[MyExcuse]

A relevant personal anecdote:

I've always been interested in drugs. The DARE program actually made me interested in the facts. When I was in elementary school, our school library had these picture encyclopedia books about drugs. They were on main classes of drugs, such as : stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, inhalents, etc. The irony in this is that the drug books directly contradicted what me and my peers were learning in the DARE program.

I was actually banned (along with some friends) from the DARE graduation because we had been inhaling the red helium balloons intended for the graduation ceremony. We were banned because, to quote the prinicpal at the time, "a drug is any substance that affects your body or mind, including helium which is an inhalent!" Seriously?

These books fascinated me at how certain drugs could actually be fun. I had many illnesses growing up and so medications had always been a part of my life. Many were unpleasant, so learning they could be 'recreational' was amazing.

I sought out drugs in middle school. There was no peer pressure, in fact I was the one who was most interested in drugs out of my peers (and one of the first of my friends to try a drug).

DARE is a failed program, just like abstinence only sex education. Speaking of abstinence only sex education, about 50% of the kids I know who went through this program ended up with kids at an early age. Not that correlation = causation, but come the fuck on.

 

[evilthree]

I think society and others in general should have no say in what one ingests, consumes, or puts in their own body. People fail to see politicians and anti drug crusaders have a vested economic and political interest in keeping drugs illegal; very little boils down to the actual harmfulness of the drug or its effects on the person. If this were the case, alcohol and tobacco would be schedule I drugs in the US, while there'd most likely be medical uses for some of the "hardest" street drugs(heroin as a painkiller, ecstasy as a therapeutic agent, etc)

If drugs were legal the DEA and drug warriors would have no jobs, and unfortunately society eats up lies and mistruths in order to keep these people employed by the public dime

 

[littlechino]

I live in a region where the majority of voters approved of medical marijuana, which can now be recommended by any doctor for chronic back pain or insomnia. Many people do see drugs as something harmful. There are also many people with the opinion that cannabis is relatively harmless compared to alcohol.

I do think that the way and the environment in which people are raised and taught has a significant effect on their beliefs and choices in the future regarding drugs. After all, drugs themselves aren't inherently malicious.

In my opinion, drug education should be focused on addiction or habituation and how that can affect one's life in various aspects. Without proper education, someone that has only smoked weed or beaten a cocaine addiction may use those experiences as a basis for starting habitual heroin use.

When I was in school, health class textbooks focused on the "short and long term effects of drug use." These were typically limited to listing potential physical effects, which aren't of much use in drug abuse prevention. The textbooks would also describe extreme situations of drug addiction while telling children, "it is often too late when an addict realizes their problem." Many people go on to grow up to harmlessly use a drug occasionally and it turns out they become severely affected by addiction because it's "too late" by the time they realize the severity of their situation! Education should be straight forward and honest, not a book of scare tactics.

 

[its.euphoric]

I think either side is more baised too their cause, no one speaks the truth really. Example I love weed and i think it should be legal, but some smokers say weed is totally harmless which isnt true. But over all i think the media is more brainwashed than users.

Now those who addicted to drugs such as herion and meth often see their life as totally normal, dont blink twice at sticking a needle in their arm or doing some other things. While not brain washed they are under the cloud of addiction. Addiction changes your thought patterns. If you told an addict all the things he was gonna do before he started using he would say "bullshit". Here im speaking from experince.

So i think their is faults on both side but definatly a much larger part lays with the goverment and media.

What are you talking about? I've never heard addicts who think their life is "normal". They know they're life is fucked but they are in a hopeless addiction.

 

[JasonSmith]

I don't see how the government even has the right to not let people use drugs. Alcohol was first legal, then it became illegal. Later it became legal. I think drugs are following in the same footsteps.

What is wrong with doing drugs? I'n my honest opinion, nothing at all. If you abuse drugs, then yes that's bad. Yet, none of which make you a bad person. IMHO, being a bad person would require to do any number of the following: cheating / lying / stealing / hurting other people in different various ways. The only thing that drugs are going to hurt, is me. (Of course, your drug use could hurt other people like your family, because they care for you.) Just make being high in public illegal. As well as while driving.


Both sides could go on the debate endlessly, not stepping anyway in either direction, except hopefully learning a bit more about the other side and it's beliefs.
If drugs being illegal because doing them is morally wrong, what about everything else that is morally wrong?

What are you talking about? I've never heard addicts who think their life is "normal". They know they're life is fucked but they are in a hopeless addiction.

You can be a functioning addict. It doesn't mean you are doing drugs 24/7. Mostly that drugs are always on your mind, you can't wait to get your next hit, then also add in much frequent use.

 

[Sentience]

In my experience, society is not as against drugs as the government is. I mean, in theory we are a democratic republic, by the people for the people and all that. In reality the people who pull the strings are economically more right wing and socially authoritarian than the people they govern.

Some people flip out if they know you are on drugs, but a huge segment of the population doesnt care or uses drugs themselves. Its the government that will ruin your life for deciding what to do with your own body. They dont want you to hurt yourself so they will hurt you even worse just to teach you a lesson. Then when you get out of prison and your life has gone by and your opportunities were stolen from you and your family broken up, you can know that drugs are bad.

 

[zurichsb]

What are you talking about? I've never heard addicts who think their life is "normal". They know they're life is fucked but they are in a hopeless addiction.

I meant more desensitzied. Certain things just become part of life and dont strike you as out of the ordinary. Also you are forgetting the large population of funcutioning addicts. Not everyone feels their life is hopeless.

 

[cheah]

I believe there are faults and obvious biases on both sides. What do you think?

Yep pretty much sums it up.

I personally feel that drug users are less brainwashed about drugs though. I don't know many drug users that think what they're doing is harmless. They just know that drugs aren't as bad as the government, police, teachers, etc tell us they are. I know a lot of non-drug users though who refuse to research anything about drugs because they're so stuck in their mindset that all drugs are bad and will lead to really bad things. The unwillingness to learn is the ultimate form of ignorance to me

 

[StrappingYoungLad]

Yep pretty much sums it up.

I personally feel that drug users are less brainwashed about drugs though. I don't know many drug users that think what they're doing is harmless. They just know that drugs aren't as bad as the government, police, teachers, etc tell us they are. I know a lot of non-drug users though who refuse to research anything about drugs because they're so stuck in their mindset that all drugs are bad and will lead to really bad things. The unwillingness to learn is the ultimate form of ignorance to me

yeah i think the general consensus in this thread is that ignorance is the real enemy in this debate... some people honestly can look over the fact that THC is a prescribed drug for sufferers of chronic pain who would otherwise have no relief and still brandish their 70's anti marijuana propaganda like its scientifically relevant

 

[chrisinabox]

When people say that the government made drugs illegal to save our health/keep us from doing harmful things, that is laughable. The last thing on the list of reasons why the government has drugs illegal is because they are not good for you. The government doesn't give a shit about that aspect.

 

[its.euphoric]

I meant more desensitzied. Certain things just become part of life and dont strike you as out of the ordinary. Also you are forgetting the large population of funcutioning addicts. Not everyone feels their life is hopeless.

I get what you mean. Like at first it just seems normal... But then many often get to the point where they can't go without it. I've seen people just think, "I just do it for fun". But certain drugs you can't do everyday and just use them "for fun". They always end up taking you down.