Negative cultural ideology

[mountainrange]

I'm from an old fashioned culture, something that brought me endless confusion and isolation growing up as I joined the ranks amongst the finest in smokers, pill poppers and Lucy lovin' in my local area. Now at an age where I feel I can look back and divulge what I was taught and make sense of it all...

It hits home just how powerful negative cultural values have had on drugs, particularly psychedelics. "Don't smoke it! You will become paranoid!", "Take LSD and you will never come back from it!" and my personal favourite "Drugs are for mugs".

It's all BS. A shrivelled dilapidated old fashioned belief stemming from years of political and social hardwiring. I have to say, taking LSD was by far, the most AMAZING experience I've had in my life. So was mescaline and even weed.

Funny though, how wrong most of the rhetoric our children are taught and have been taught for 100 years and what I was taught.

How has culture affected your stance on drugs? Do you fight against all political puppets and misinformed or do you still quiz their legitimacy both scientifically and physically?

I, myself welcome drugs. I feel people are sold a life they feel pressured into having without knowing where the boundaries end and what is over the other side. All in responsible doses no less.

Look forward to seeing some replies

 

[Burnt Offerings]

My parents have a pretty libertine view on drugs I suppose...they're not drug users (well, my father takes prescribed pain medication but he is someone who genuinely needs it...) except for occasional marijuana use, but they never really gave me any lectures on the topic of "drugs" while I was growing up. They partied as youngsters back in the 70's and 80's, smoking weed and doing blow every once in a while and all that, and they came out on the other side as good people, highly capable professional adults who started a very successful business & are very well respected in their industry. I admire my parents and I hope to follow their example in regards to drugs, i.e. get it out of my system while I'm young and when I get older just stick to smoking weed

As far as the overall propaganda effort against drugs, well, I always knew that was a complete load of horseshit, even before I started doing drugs

 

[SirTophamHat]

My mother is petrified of drugs due to personal tragedy in the past with close family.

My dad did a lot of drugs in the past (born 1950...) Now he only takes mirtazapine since the 90s and occasionally drinks beer--more when he is with me

My parents never demonized drugs when I was going up, I had good performance in school and was a book worm with nerdy friends for the most part. So they didn't see the potential danger.

I began experimenting right around my 17th birthday after growing curious through the previous year.

Maybe it is the region of America I grew up in, rural and homogenous, where there were no huge drug scares. At least not until I was already an adult.

So basically somehow I grew up never being told outside of dare that drugs were bad. I learned for myself that I liked them by the time I could vote.

 

[mountainrange]

You guys seem to of got the better end of the deal. Can't say so for the likes of myself. It's the invisible stigma that surrounds drugs that scared me the most and whilst smoking weed for example, I was waiting literally to develop psychosis or some other related condition. My parents were severe hypocrhrondiacs, fearful of anything that wasn't their own making. I suppose having a violent mother and a soft father didn't go well for our family.

I think then, there are two types of stigma. There is neurotic misinformed stigma based around scary myths and folklore and then there are, like demonstrated by you guys, the borderline 'safe' stigmas where the evidence is based on fact with viable evidence and viable understanding perhaps?

Do you guys know anyone who's had a similar upbringing to me from what I've said? How did they deal with the stigma and peer pressure and bullshit?

 

[Joos Voorhees]

In my life I heard many negative things about drugs. I was raised to hate drugs and be scared of them. Growing up I started being really accepting and now I'm considering supporting the legalization of weed. I have no issue with drug users and drug addicts and if people attack them I defend them saying they shouldn't judge drug users or discriminate against them. Too many times people forget that drug users are humans....and I remind them!
I had a friend who hated me and others for smoking weed. I yelled at him and had fights with him. He ended up trying it and loving it to the point of binge smoking.

 

[belligerent drunk]

My parents never demonized drugs when I was going up, I had good performance in school and was a book worm with nerdy friends for the most part. So they didn't see the potential danger.

So basically somehow I grew up never being told outside of dare that drugs were bad. I learned for myself that I liked them by the time I could vote.

Basically same story with me. Well, I didn't have nerdy friends and wasn't a book worm (quite the opposite), but I did have good performance and didn't cause much trouble, so there was no reason for them to worry. As such, I really had no understanding of what drugs are (we have no equivalent of DARE here in Estonia), and I had not tried them until I was 19 and living on my own. I guess the only "cultural influence" I had was from music - listening to Tupac Shakur and Bob Marley, so I had the desire to try cannabis in my teens because I thought it was actually good for you (well I wasn't very off to be fair).

That is not to say my family is absolutely oblivious to objective information about drugs. Yes, they do think cannabis is as bad as heroin and drugs are a complete no-no, yet alcohol is very acceptable and there's actually few occasions where we don't drink together when I visit my father with my brother. I'm pretty active in promoting knowledge and objective information about drugs, however I just don't bother with my family. When people are 40+, they have their opinions set in stone for the most part, so it becomes pointless. Just like debating religious people.

 

[Pibolar]

My parents don't, and haven't really ever, demonized drug use around me (other than meth). I didn't hear a whole lot about it from them until they realized I did drugs. My parents obviously didn't want me to do drugs, but my father thought it would be hypocritical to punish me for something that he did when he was my age too. They just taught me to be rational, they're great people.

I discuss drugs openly with anyone as often as I can, I just think the subject is really interesting, and even if I didn't do drugs I'd still talk about them. I've always been very liberal on the issue, and on most issues really. I remember when I was in the 6th grade, and was forced to write a pledge (for DARE) stating I would never do drugs. I wrote that I refused to make a pledge because I realized I couldn't see what my future would hold, maybe I would drink, maybe I would do drugs, maybe I wouldn't.

These days, I think all drugs should be decriminalized, there is no logic behind putting drug addicts in jails and prisons, it does nothing to resolve the medical issue of addiction; not to mention how overcrowded our prisons already are. Almost all mainstream information about drugs is totally wrong, and if I ever have children, I will NEVER let them be indoctrinated by that DARE bullshit. Misinformation is plague on oblivious societies, such as America.

 

[Znegative]

I think our (USA) stand on drugs is fucking twisted and ludicrous. Actually I'm glad that you made this thread because it gives me a chance to rant about something I feel very strongly about, and used to drive my ex-girlfriend crazy talking about when I was all tweaked out on crystal at 3 a.m.

First off, they tell us it's a disease, but then they throw us in jails and prisons. So what is it, a disease or a moral failure? Or did we choose to become diseased? That whole aspect is fucked and confusing. And then when you really think about it, why should any government or group tell me what I can do with my body? Why is what I'm doing so wrong? Because its funding narcoterrorism? Well if heroin was fucking legal, the US could be making money off my addiction too. Is it wrong because it hurts my family and friends? Well it wouldn't hurt them if it was, once again, legal, as I would have a much more functional life. I wouldn't be getting locked up, I wouldn't have to spend all my time hustling up money for the next fix, I could be a relatively normal member of society, who like a diabetic has to inject himself every few hours.

Instead, we legalize a substance like alcohol which causes way more fatalities than heroin, causes way more health problems, makes people completely useless, and we demonize narcotics and their users as crazed killers who'll rape your child for a fix (as if that even would make sense!?). Our families throw us out after we lose our jobs, and then we're forced to live like animals under bridges in the cuts, and our only opportunities become panhandling and crime (and methadone). I'm not trying to sound arrogant but I'm a pretty intelligent person, definitely a talented person, and my life has been WASTED because of the way our society treats drug addicts. I spent the last 2 plus years of my life living like an animal, going days without food, catching diseases from rats getting on my food, frequent hospitalizations for pneumonia and bronchitis, all because I fucked up when I was 18, got drunk and tried heroin. My world shrank to a twenty block radius, pan handle spot, drug spot, fix spot, tent. I had three job offers right before I left Oakland that I got due to my artistic abilities displayed on my panhandling signs, I'm not some disposable human being, none of my friends were disposable human beings, but that's how we were treated (by the majority, of course there are some very beautiful and understanding people out there too).

And then there's the whole fucking rehab industry that reinforces this ideology so that it can make cash off our misfortunes when they're supposed to be helping us.

 

[belligerent drunk]

I like a good rant, thanks for the good post Z-. Those are definitely valid points that I'm baffled by as well. It's like a self-feeding closed loop, which ultimately leads to the destruction of the individual. Instead of trying to help a perhaps new addict, who is new to the game and has a fairly good chance at becoming a productive member of society again, the system does the complete fucking opposite, instead making it harder than it already is for the person to resume a normal life. And then they wonder why we fuck up. Fucked up.

 

[aced126]

I'm from an old fashioned culture, something that brought me endless confusion and isolation growing up as I joined the ranks amongst the finest in smokers, pill poppers and Lucy lovin' in my local area. Now at an age where I feel I can look back and divulge what I was taught and make sense of it all...

It hits home just how powerful negative cultural values have had on drugs, particularly psychedelics. "Don't smoke it! You will become paranoid!", "Take LSD and you will never come back from it!" and my personal favourite "Drugs are for mugs".

It's all BS. A shrivelled dilapidated old fashioned belief stemming from years of political and social hardwiring. I have to say, taking LSD was by far, the most AMAZING experience I've had in my life. So was mescaline and even weed.

Funny though, how wrong most of the rhetoric our children are taught and have been taught for 100 years and what I was taught.

How has culture affected your stance on drugs? Do you fight against all political puppets and misinformed or do you still quiz their legitimacy both scientifically and physically?

I, myself welcome drugs. I feel people are sold a life they feel pressured into having without knowing where the boundaries end and what is over the other side. All in responsible doses no less.

Look forward to seeing some replies

I do not like to base my opinions on culture, or anything for that matter, apart from mainly scientific evidence and partly anecdotal first and second hand experiences. However, even so I still believe that a lot of drugs can be destructive to certain people, and although at times the opinion stemming from culture is lacking in scientific evidence, most of the ideas it gets at have some sense in them. That is not to say that some of the classic opinions due to culture are plain wrong. I am of the opinion that destructive drug users can be rehabilitated (and that there is much more improvement to be made in the rehabilitation process e.g. designing new medicines to help addicts function in society like buprenorphine) rather than being imprisoned.

 

[Pibolar]

I like a good rant, thanks for the good post Z-. Those are definitely valid points that I'm baffled by as well. It's like a self-feeding closed loop, which ultimately leads to the destruction of the individual. Instead of trying to help a perhaps new addict, who is new to the game and has a fairly good chance at becoming a productive member of society again, the system does the complete fucking opposite, instead making it harder than it already is for the person to resume a normal life. And then they wonder why we fuck up. Fucked up.

Our society operates like a factory. From our public schools, to our jobs, to our justice system; none of which function logically or beneficially, yet remain in place. It's systematic insanity.