Why Do People Think Getting High & Getting Drunk Are So Different?

[Keif' Richards]

I've seen this thread pop up a few times over the past week or so and I'm starting to think it's really more of a casual discussion regarding society's views on drug use. Not so much suited for Basic Drug Discussion so I'm gonna go ahead and move it over to Drug Culture.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Ethanol has been around with humanity for many thousands of years. In fact humanity's predecessors encountered it as an environmental toxin.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-taste-for-alcohol-goes-back-millions-of-years/

Whereas most common recreational today (heroin, cocaine, tranquilizers etc.) are a product of the industrial age. They generally aren't problem children that humans have lived with for millennia, so they're less tolerated (of course there have been some historical exceptions such as marijuana, which is mostly illicit yet has been consumed by humans for millennia)

That's how I've looked at it, anyway

 

[belligerent drunk]

^ opium and psychedelic plants have been used for millenia as well. I see where you're coming from, but I don't think it's that simple.

 

[Sublimo]

I have been baffled by this phenomenon for the past years. It is usually ignorance and lack of a certain awareness. Today I use it to test new people that I meet. At some point I will bring up drugs, there reaction says it all. Most of the time I get the same reply, drugs are bad and dangerous, why I ask, well they just are. Then I know this person didn't have a single original thought is his/hers life and it is probably not worth my time. I value the ability to talk about anything most in my friends.

Sadly, as mentioned earlier, this is just how the world is. Ignorant people cause a lot of suffering. But I guess it is all a process, some of are already there, some still have to follow. In a way it is natural.

 

[ComfortablyNumb95]

I would consider alcohol very much a "real hard drug", whatever that means.

 

[RTrain]

Well most people that drink, don't prostitute themselves, steal from family, or rob mother fucker's, ect. for a drink. Now heroin on the other hand...



- Hopeless 7nos

Well a major contributing factor as to why opiate addicts steal, prostitute and such is the illegality of it skyrockets the price. Even the biggest alcholic can get by on $20 a day or less as long as he's not buying top shelf booze or going to bars. But, most heroin/painkiller addicts are spending $100+ a day to sustain their habit.

Also, not all opiate addicts resort to illegal activity to fund their habits. That is like saying every person who gets blackout drunk on a regular occasion also - while in the condition - drives or commits violent crimes on their family, friends, sig. others and random strangers.

For the record, I think I'd rather have a junkie ransack my house to fund his habit than have an alcoholic, driving while incredibly intoxicated, run a red light and t-bone me at 50 MPH.

 

[Pill2Chill]

Illegality > Criminality > Stigma.

Those 3 are closely tied together though.. Illegality leads to criminality, and I'd say it's the criminality surrounding it that makes people look at the two very differently and causes the stigma. Everyone looks at the two differently. Some people don't consider alcohol a drug, which is just foolish of course.

Alcohol absolutely is just another drug, ergo just another 'high', but because of the stigma that comes forth from drugs' illegality & the criminality surrounding it, it's looked at very differently. It's completely normal that people look at alcohol differently than other drugs. As I said, everyone does it to some degree. But it's important to remember that alcohol, despite its legality, is just as much of a drug as heroin or cocaine.

IMO, the abnormal part is the legality of alcohol vs the illegality of other substances, but that's a topic that's been discussed at length on this forum numerous times. It makes no sense that alcohol is legal while certain other relatively safe drugs are illegal. There was an attempt to remove it from our culture with prohibition, but it is just too deeply imbedded into our culture already for it to be abolished succesfully.

I don't think there is much else to be said on the subject. But I'm really high so I might just be talking out of my ass again.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

The legality and stigma argument is correct.

This isn't even exclusive to alcohol. If you tell someone you are fucked up on speed they will think you're a junkie, but if you tell them you got prescribed Adderall it's no big deal at all. Tells you all you need to know.