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United States24513 Posts
If you've seen a few of my posts in other threads in the past, you've noticed that I'm generally an anti-smoking and anti recreational drug use advocate (including weed and excessive consumption of alcohol). More and more I've been noticing on the internet (using teamliquid as my main sample) that there is a movement towards the glamorization of recreational drug use. There is an argument that smoking/weed/alcohol are all inherently gateways into more severe self-destructive behavior (much to the dismay of occasional users) but I'm not interesting in fighting that battle (nor am I sure I believe in such a claim).
Allow me to give some examples of what I mean. The most immediate example of this is the fact that April 20th is considered National Marijuana Day. There have been multiple threads (one announcing it's coming, and another to discuss what you did, and possibly more I missed) where this has been openly discussed. I am not going to cite any specific examples or quote any specific people since my goal isn't to point a finger at anyone. But what I've noticed is, there are many people talking about what they did for the day or wanted to do from the day, and it's mostly from a perspective of drug use being cool. Someone would go smoke weed with their friends in some isolated place where they can actually get away with it. Someone else got shrooms. I stopped reading, but I'm sure there were other examples. I'm sure if someone interjected about these activities from a negative perspective, they would have been promptly told to stuff it (note how in a thread of this nature I didn't even post).
Some other examples in addition to today's obvious case could be the ever-popular 'High Thread' as well as posts in the past where people have discussed their evening including excessive alcohol consumption. I don't think anyone will disagree that there is a steady influx of threads centered around recreational substance use (once again such as weed, alcohol, or illegal drugs). I credit this to the large user base with ages at or near college age.
My reason for bringing this up (my exigency!) is because I don't like the unwritten message you can get from this. In this community, it's most definitely 'okay' to discuss smoking/weed/drugs/alcohol overconsumption. It's generally frowned upon to vocally take an opposing stance. When you are on the internet, you can feel safe to discuss pretty much any anti-authority viewpoint, and those pro-authority users are generally frowned at when they speak up (in the context of drugs*, not so much other issues necessarily).
I was annoyed when I was on irc in a channel where one guy commented:
/me is going out for a smoke :p
Perhaps if he had matter of factly said "I'm going out for a smoke, brb" I would have still been annoyed, and possibly would have suggested he simply say "brb" and let the nature of his respite remain secret until he discussed it in private with people who were okay with smoking, but I was especially frustrated that he's not only making the conscious choice to smoke, but he's also pretending it's "okay" for pretty much anyone to choose to smoke. He makes it sound as though there are not consequences, either biologically or socially. Depending on how you interpret his statement, you can even claim that he's mocking anti-smokers.
So why is this a problem? Perhaps the pro-authority users are just worrying too much about an issue that shouldn't be a problem. I've heard arguments on both sides for the detrimental effects of weed. Alcohol and smoking I think can be agreed upon by everything to be bad for your health when used repeatedly and/or frequently. So we can agree that, as a whole, you are taking your life in your hands if you maintain an "it's okay" attitude with these substances. For most people, that's simply a life (or perhaps more appropriately 'death') choice that you have to make. But I don't think it's a choice you should be allowed or perhaps encouraged to make early in your life. At the very least one should get to college age before they are prepared to make such potentially destructive decisions.
Does the internet generally segregate people by age? To some extent, yes. But generally, communities such as this one have people ranging in age from young teen to adult. If the adults want to smoke/drink/etc on their own time with their own adult friends, I don't advise it personally but I don't have a problem with their decision. If they are open to discussion about it, I might try to convince them to cut back or stop that kind of behavior, but again it's ultimately up to them. What does bother me is when people feel free to discuss it. "I'm okay with weed/drugs/alcohol, so I'm going to make a thread about weed/drugs/alcohol, because it's okay to make a thread about weed/drugs/alcohol." Perhaps that would be true if you were surrounded by adults, because the other adults could either join in or freely ignore it without being influenced. But in a place where kids and teens may be, you should be much more careful about discussing potentially negative behaviors in such a positive light (discussing it as an 'okay' thing is generally glamorizing it to the less experienced readers). If there were a private society within teamliquid where only forum veterans could go, and entrance was generally screened, you could probably discuss these questionable issues more freely 
I think the most frustrating thing is not that people are quick to discuss these sensitive issues, but rather that they are not at all amenable to your suggestions about where/how to discuss them. Even if discussion about drugs is going to happen, then it's going to need to happen in which all perspectives are welcomed to discuss their claims... not just pro-drug posters. If people want to have a one-sided discussion about what they did with their drugs, then they have every right to do it, but they should obey two simple requests: to do it in a place where there are no or very few younger neutral members, and to do it in a place where there isn't a base of people of a contrary viewpoint who are going to more than likely want to interject into your discussion.
When the guy on irc was leaving for his smoke, I asked him if he could be a bit more discreet about it, and he got pissed going off on a rampage calling me every insult a Canadian can (what exactly is a knob?), telling me how I shouldn't criticize his life choices etc. I don't think there's been quite as poor a reception on teamliquid to reasonably made pro-authority posts, but the same principle seems evident. As long as the right to post about drug use on the internet is generally unchecked by online community leaders, and posters are not amenable to suggestions to be more discreet about it unless they are in more private discussion, we are going to continue to propagate to teenagers that drug use/abuse is glamorous.
* At this point I'm assuming everyone will accept that when I say 'drugs' I mean smoking, weed, other illegal recreational drugs, and alcohol overconsumption (to the point of being noticeably drunk and/or vomiting)
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United States20661 Posts
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
but we're young, drugs are fun, and everyone'll probably grow out of it eventually 
afaik no ones doing cocaine or hard drugs O_O
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United States24513 Posts
On April 22 2008 00:47 alffla wrote:but we're young, drugs are fun, and everyone'll probably grow out of it eventually afaik no ones doing cocaine or hard drugs O_O
You have a point when discussing the health and wellbeing of those actually engaging in the drug use, but from the perspective of trying to prevent the glamorization of drug use (of all kinds) I'm not prepared to dismiss this issue. The younger or more impressionable members' future life choices (such as those about 'hard drugs') can be influenced by the general attitude seen here, even if the drug users on TL aren't necessarily discussing hard drug use.
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Belgium8305 Posts
I think people should be free to discuss these types of things on TL. Sure, it's kind of retarded to be bragging about how much weed you smoked or how many jaeger bombs you downed or whatever, but this happens everywhere, all the time, because it's deviant behavior and that makes it cool.
There's nothing wrong with a good discussion about drug use, but it should be kept out of threads like the High Thread or the various 420 threads because they're simply not about discussion. Being negative in there is only going to incite flaming.
It would be silly to censor even one sided drug discussions here if the point is to protect the youngins. You'd be shielding them from stuff they hear about all the time in real life from their friends, who have a way bigger influence on them.
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United States24513 Posts
On April 22 2008 01:02 vGl-CoW wrote:
I think people should be free to discuss these types of things on TL. Sure, it's kind of retarded to be bragging about how much weed you smoked or how many jaeger bombs you downed or whatever, but this happens everywhere, all the time, because it's deviant behavior and that makes it cool. I don't really consider 'it happens everywhere' a justification for not taking some of the responsibility as a community for glamorizing something that shouldn't be glamorized.
There's nothing wrong with a good discussion about drug use, but it should be kept out of threads like the High Thread or the various 420 threads because they're simply not about discussion. Being negative in there is only going to incite flaming. As mentioned in the OP, I agree with you that there's no point in going into one of those threads and complaining. However, I maintain my view that the threads shouldn't exist as they are.
It would be silly to censor even one sided drug discussions here if the point is to protect the youngins. You'd be shielding them from stuff they hear about all the time in real life from their friends, who have a way bigger influence on them. I don't think any of us have the right to claim what we do or don't have to shelter the 'youngins' from. I'm guilty of this in the past also, but it's nothing more than an excuse to make our own lives more convenient. Shielding them from discussion about the truths of drug use is probably a bad idea once they hit teenager years. But shielding them from discussions that serve to glamorize drug use I believe is important. This is closely related to my response to your first paragraph.
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You've got to be kidding me. You got pissed because someone said he went to go smoke in irc? Get a fucking grip on reality.
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This site is not a parent and should not be expected to behave like a parent. Who the fuck let the lovechild of Nancy Reagan and Tipper Gore in here?
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I totally agree with you micronesia. I've been a hardcore smoker, and it's bad mkay? But I think the best way is to show a counter-movement; tell stories of waht cool things you did when you werent under any influence. Give an alternative.
The progamers for instance. Pretty nice example of drug-free life. (talking about the up and coming ones, 4 sho)
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United States24513 Posts
Here come the angry people...
On April 22 2008 01:18 Hawk wrote:
You've got to be kidding me. You got pissed because someone said he went to go smoke in irc? Get a fucking grip on reality.
I didn't get pissed. I expressed my dissatisfaction. He got pissed.
On April 22 2008 01:21 Mindcrime wrote:
This site is not a parent and should not be expected to behave like a parent. Who the fuck let the lovechild of Nancy Reagan and Tipper Gore in here?
Then screen the people who can join. You could make the argument that the internet should only be accessed by those with parental approval ANYWAY... but that doesn't mean the site isn't partly responsible for the consequences on those younger users who DO get on here. It's a bit of a sacrifice, but at least it's for a good cause.
On April 22 2008 01:25 Navane wrote:
I totally agree with you micronesia. I've been a hardcore smoker, and it's bad mkay? But I think the best way is to show a counter-movement; tell stories of waht cool things you did when you werent under any influence. Give an alternative.
This is difficult to achieve because it requires the cooperation of most, and I'm not sure if we will actually be able to get it, but I appreciate your positive attitude about my claims despite your smoking habit.
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Or just post pics of cancer and other awesome stuff you get in bundle. Works great.
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Belgium8305 Posts
On April 22 2008 01:14 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2008 01:02 vGl-CoW wrote:
I think people should be free to discuss these types of things on TL. Sure, it's kind of retarded to be bragging about how much weed you smoked or how many jaeger bombs you downed or whatever, but this happens everywhere, all the time, because it's deviant behavior and that makes it cool. I don't really consider 'it happens everywhere' a justification for not taking some of the responsibility as a community for glamorizing something that shouldn't be glamorized.
Well, saying it shouldn't be glamorized is a very subjective thing to say, plus I think it's a very bad term to describe what's happening here. I'll get to that in a bit.
Show nested quote +There's nothing wrong with a good discussion about drug use, but it should be kept out of threads like the High Thread or the various 420 threads because they're simply not about discussion. Being negative in there is only going to incite flaming. As mentioned in the OP, I agree with you that there's no point in going into one of those threads and complaining. However, I maintain my view that the threads shouldn't exist as they are. Show nested quote +It would be silly to censor even one sided drug discussions here if the point is to protect the youngins. You'd be shielding them from stuff they hear about all the time in real life from their friends, who have a way bigger influence on them. I don't think any of us have the right to claim what we do or don't have to shelter the 'youngins' from. I'm guilty of this in the past also, but it's nothing more than an excuse to make our own lives more convenient. Shielding them from discussion about the truths of drug use is probably a bad idea once they hit teenager years. But shielding them from discussions that serve to glamorize drug use I believe is important. This is closely related to my response to your first paragraph.
The thing is, you're calling it glamorizing. Nobody is actually just trying to make weed look good though. None of us are lobbyists who have something to gain from more people smoking weed. We just talk about our experiences with the drug, and they happen to be mostly positive.
In fact, every now and then we have people talking about bad trips, times where smoking weed caused them anxiety and paranoia, for example.
The point here is, we're not trying to be biased, we're mostly just relaying our experiences. I think that gives any reader a pretty fair account of what smoking weed is like.
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8748 Posts
I can see how a warning would be appropriate. When you start a thread to talk about the positive side of an activity that also has a significant negative side, an ignorant and naive reader will become the victim of unintentional misinformation. Still, I think movies, television and music, as well as ignorant and naive friends, are far more influential than a discussion here and none of them come with warnings. Socially, those things are not responsible and neither are we. It's possible that we could, unobligated, take responsibility in our little sphere of influence, and that sounds well and good, but I doubt people really care.
On April 22 2008 01:21 Mindcrime wrote:
This site is not a parent and should not be expected to behave like a parent.
This is my point put into other words. Parents are the ones who are responsible for making sure their kids make informed decisions. The world is full of misinformation. It's ridiculous to expect the world, especially in casual and artistic settings, to offer a fair representation so that any random observer runs no risk of being misinformed.
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^ What Cow said. (EDIT: In his first post O_O I took a while writing this I guess...)
Another thing I want to bring up is that this post is one of the few structured counters to the topic at hand - rarely does anyone make a thought-out and intelligible statement beyond "drugs r bad lol." I'm not trying to advocate a constant argument in topics where this is held, but I'm trying to point out that people who do drugs on TL either know their stuff or keep their mouth shut when confronted by opposing opinions, as opposed to (from my experience) the vast majority of anti-drug arguments on here are simply misinformed or simply stupid, which in a sense could make the image of TL's drug/alcohol users as an acceptable and desirable status.
Being a drug/alcohol user, I know what risks I am taking and what my decisions entail. But by discussing it with others, I am not trying to create a bandwagon following or to get some young teens to smoke their first joint, and I think this could be a blanket statement for the majority of TL's drug/alcohol users. Of course, it seems "glamorized" because it's generally a fun experience, an adventure - and the negative sides of drugs and alcohol are rarely discussed, or are discussed in a relatively joking manner. But, this dualism can be applied to many things - you don't usually talk about getting raped in a USEast pub 1v1, you usually talk about epic wins on ICCup (unless it's the strategy forum).
I understand completely what you are trying to say, and I think this is one of the best ways to address your concerns, because you did not flame up the High/Drunk threads or label people as dead-end druggies or what not (a mistake I could see others with your mindset making). However, as Cow said, people should be free to discuss these things on TL. That's more or less fact. I don't think there should be disclaimers on the threads telling people to not do drugs - if they are weak enough to be influenced by aliases on the internet into drug use, then they would have probably gone down that path eventually, being herded like sheep. In my mind there are three types of drug users - weak users, strong users, and addicted users. Weak users are those who got pressured or swayed into using drugs. These are the people that would do drugs because of something they saw on the internet, or because one of their real life friends pressured them into it. These users are a group that could seriously hurt themselves because they have no backbone, and thus little to no decision in their drug use. Strong users are those that do drugs willingly and with personal standards of moderation, with full knowledge of the effects of drugs. These users are generally the ones I've seen posting on TL (with exceptions of course), and they project the image that drugs are happy and fun, because when you can CONTROL your usage, that is what it usually is. Addicted users... I don't really need to explain that one, do I?
Sorry that I am becoming a bit long-winded here, but I just want to make sure I am understood. It is weak minds swayed by the experiences of more seasoned and mature drug users that are in danger of being influenced by the "glamorization" of drugs and alcohol. This influence is minimal on people who are concrete in their beliefs about drugs, whether it be using them or not. So, you do have a point - it could be dangerous to some. But I believe, as I've mentioned earlier, to those that it is dangerous, a coffee without a "WARNING: Hot!" sign on it is equally life-threatening. These are the people that when you ask them why they do drugs, they don't have an answer, because they reasonably COULD have picked it up from the internet, which is downright stupid. Warnings or counter-arguments such as this one would, in my mind, do little to deter them.
To summarize: I agree with your mindset to a degree, but not the rigidity of some of the changes you proposed (veteran user forum only?). I believe that this community is great because there can be open discussion both pro- and anti- drugs. It just so happens that pro- drug threads, with the various experiences and stories shared, are more interesting and thus more common. Instead of trying to moderate the pro-drug discussion, maybe you could try to find a way to publicize further on the anti-drug sentiments of members on this forum, perhaps a Sober thread or something? I'd be hard-pressed to think of something like that, but that might be because of personal bias. This way, it'd be an equal playing ground with equal exposure for both, rather than limiting the abundance of one to match the other.
Just my 29387492382 cents.
EDIT: I saw you say "Here come the angry people..." and start retorting. I think that this is exactly the kind of negative discussion you described in the first post, that is really quite disgusting to me. If you believe in what you do or don't do, you should be able to defend it in a civil manner, with a logical argument. I think people should chill out, okay guys? ): <3
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For TL;DR: He said
-I don't do recreational drugs
-I don't like that people do recreational drugs, but as long as they're private about it, fine
-I don't like the threads on TL that discuss recreational drug use (in a glamorous way) because it might make people not mature enough to make decisions about drugs yet, do drugs
-Some random Canadian bashing for no apparent reason, mixed with a dumb story about how I told a smoker he shouldn't say "brb, gonna have a smoke," and he told me to fuck off, because I don't realise I'm out of line if that's a stranger
Learn to write more fucking concisely. The only reason I read the whole thing was because I wanted to see if you actually said anything.
My response:
You're not going to stop people from being influenced by talk of drugs, just by hiding some posts on TL.net. The 'problem' is way more widespread than that, and if you don't want your kid doing drugs (since it's not really your business what someone else's kids do), you have to raise him or her that way. So that when he or she is offered recreational drugs, he or she will say "no thanks." + Show Spoiler [same thing basically repeated again] +Your solution is frankly just incredibly unrealistic and ineffective. Even if we made a section of this forum called "18+" or "Mature Audiences Only," do you think that would stop minors from reading it? It'd probably glorify it even more as what "mature" people do. There's no one in North America that didn't see an R rated movie before they were 18; the fact is you need to train kids how to interpret these things if you're so scared, not go psychotic and try to hide it from them all together.
I don't smoke, and I never will. The reason isn't because I never saw movies with the protagonist taking long satisfying drags on his cigarette or cigar. I did. The reason isn't because none of my friends smoke. They almost all do. The reason isn't because I don't see people smoking everyday. I do.
What's the reason? I was raised with the ability to say "no thanks," and not feel left out. That's really all it is. I wish I could say more, but it's just a stupid argument. It starts at home, not on a fucking internet forum.
EDIT: (EDIT: In his first post O_O I took a while writing this I guess...) Ditto, holy fuck. I didn't think anyone else would actually read through this crap.
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Hey micronesia when are you gonna teach me how to bowling?
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Although it was expressed kind of matter-of-factly and somewhat offensively, I agree with the point of PsychoTemplar's post. It's about being raised the right way into making your own educated decisions. If you don't have that, then no internet moderation will save you; nor would it matter, because life will fuck them anyways.
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On April 22 2008 01:28 micronesia wrote:Here come the angry people... Show nested quote +On April 22 2008 01:25 Navane wrote:
I totally agree with you micronesia. I've been a hardcore smoker, and it's bad mkay? But I think the best way is to show a counter-movement; tell stories of waht cool things you did when you werent under any influence. Give an alternative. This is difficult to achieve because it requires the cooperation of most, and I'm not sure if we will actually be able to get it, but I appreciate your positive attitude about my claims despite your smoking habit.
Yes, it will be hard. If it was easy, we probably won't have had the problem in the first place, now would we. I lost a couple of years of my life, and i think i lost some ability to concentrate. But I'd like not to think about it that way; I have experience in life and the concentration is probably imagined and anyway not scientifically tested. And people cant relate to this kind of stories - this wont happen to them. They can relate to the having-fun-stories, cause thats what they want.
If you want to have a positive influence, i think one of the few options is what i said before.
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discussion about drugs most often is glamorized in anonymous places like the internet. it is frowned upon or even illegal by law and thus can not be glamorized or even talked about (as in I did pot/cocaine/x) in public/officially. It is nothing new that if the government forbids things which are in high demand by many people, a blackmarket for these things will establish itself. And goods purchased on a blackmarket are obviously bought by people who value the positive effects of the goods so high they are willing to take the negative effects to the extent of illegality.
I mean a frequent drug user is basically deemed a criminal by law, do you think he would care about a higher chance of lung cancer in a cpl years or smth??
As you can see, people who purchase things on a blackmarket are in such high demand of the goods they purchase, that when these people discuss on an anonymous forum, the discussion will generally be almost exclusively about the positive sides of the goods.
Imho the problem is the criminalization of drug users and the catastrophic drug policies of most western countries. The economic and social damage is huge. Most economical and political experts nowadays are for a liberation of drug use to some extent.
Yes I am a user of recreational drugs.
PS: Getting pissed over someone writing "Brb, smoke" is REALLY intolerant and complete bs. It merely contains the information hes gone smoking, its less of an "advertisement" for smoking than if a kid saw someone smoking out in the street.
It seems you kind of forget that most of life should take place out of the internet and that the things you worry about here are NOTHING compared to the things a teen/kid gets confronted with in the real world. Im willing to bet that any discussion on TL about drugs is not nearly as glamorizing as when little kids smoke their first cigs and talk about it in school.
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I mean a frequent drug user is basically deemed a criminal by law, do you think he would care about a higher chance of lung cancer in a cpl years or smth??
That's a weird set of a priorities you've got there. Personally, I would break the law over risking my health (thankfully in Canada I never have to, with things like Duress and Self-Defence). And really, if you've doing coke you've got a lot more to worry about than 'a higher chance of lung cancer,' buddy.
Yes I am a user of recreational drugs.
Let's just say this would have been evident even if your post wasn't about drugs
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EPT
