Prejudice Against Drug Use? - Page 15

Well I'll say what people do to their own bodies is up to them. But there are certain drugs, some call them "Hard Drugs' which under the influence of people can harm others.( I am tempted to include alcohol with the hard drugs sometimes when i walk past the local college campus) Hard drugs which cause people to have "out of body/mind" experiences are very dangerous and I would never encourage or understand the use of them, so I won't try too. But there is a huge difference between someone who has smoked pot, and someone who has a 100$ a day habit and habitually abuses any drug, designer prescription drugs included. I can see why someone would want to have a couple drinks of alcohol or puffs of a cigarette, but I don't see ANY positive rational behind, oh i'm gonna try some heroin or Meth, there is no road that dangerous drugs will lead you down that will have a positive affect on your life.

However I feel there is a very dangerous trend in today's society(and this thread) of, grouping drugs into certain groups. ie: Soft drugs,(marijuana, alcohol, caffeine, tobaaco), Party Drugs(ecstasy, mushrooms etc) and the "Hard Drugs"(cocaine heroin lsd meth etc.) I feel this is a very dangerous way of classifying things and is very hard for younger minds to comprehend fully. Say a 16 year old, who has parents who smoke cigarettes, and he/she happens to try a cigarette and learns how the tobacco affects him/her. That same kid while obviously understanding that Alcohol is not the same thing as tobacco, has been "programmed" for lack of a better word, to associate tobacco in a similar drug tier as alcohol, marijuana, or other over-the-counter drugs. If this kid's experience with the cigarette was "oh, hey that's not so bad" imo, its logical that they would also think "Oh tobacco is not as bad as I've been told, Maybe (insert other drugs in the same tier here) isn't so bad either." Which can end up being a never ending cycle for certain people until they reach who knows what levels of drug. This classification system while it might work for adults and the Judicial system, I feel it is a dangerous way to approach the subject with kids, and something that should be phased out in of modern psyche, knowledge about each individual drug/substance needs to grow instead of being hidden or taboo in society.

One thing that really disappoints me with all of our modern technology and medicine, There are still no clear warnings to the public about what the serious possible affects of ALL THINGS people consume can be. As the post above me stated, everything is just a Chemical or a combination of chemicals, these chemicals are taken into our bodies and produce a reaction from our brain. Personally I see no difference in a person who drinks 3-4 cups of coffee a day to keep going, and someone who has 3-4 drinks of alcohol or smokes some marijuana everyday. They all negatively affect your health and an addiction is an addiction. Even things that don't negatively affect your physical health can be addictive just the same and affect you negatively in other ways. Yes there is a sticker on packs of cigarettes that tells me I am about to die of cancer, but there is no label on the wrapper of a Mcdonald's Big mac that I am x% more likely to become obese, or die of a heart attack by consuming this product. Hell I know people(a person to be exact) who works out at the gym 7 days a week twice a day and have completely lost all premise of what it is to be human. If your going to coddle the public and tell them whats bad and whats good, it's better to warn of other serious harmful substances/products. I'm sick of seeing all these television Lawyers telling me to "Call Now!!" if you took this pill and now are dying of some strange disease, it's absolutely ridiculous.(The people who take all these crazy diet pills or get botox etc is an addiction all it's own, some more dangerous than any drug that can be bought on the black market, but that's for another thread)

On another note, I'd like to put a persistent myth to bed, as I feel it's very unfair to generalize so wildly on a very deep subject matter. Just because someone smoked some weed doesn't mean, OMG you will never reach your full potential or you will be a stoner for life and people who drink a lot will get fat and eat mcdonalds forever and have a shitty job for the rest of their life. To me it sounds like a weak minds reaction to a specific case. Do some people smoke weed and become lazy stereotypical stoners? yes, Do ALL of them? no, Do some people smoke weed and become superstar musicians or artists? yes, Is it solely because they smoked some weed? no, Do some people drink too much and get liver cancer? Yes, do some people get liver cancer without ever drinking alcohol? yes! The subject of drug use even today in 2011 is not one of absolutes and every individuals experiences with them will differ. I would be willing to bet any amount of money or whatever property you find valuable, that 99.9% of these cases you see of a depressed person abusing a drug to cover up an emotion, is not due to their use of a drug, but because of other factors in their life that a Mental Health Professional could help them through. the problem is the stigma in today's society not just the drugs. For every known case of someone going down the wrong path with a drug, there is an unknown case of someone you don't know who has used a drug but not abused it and lived a perfectly happy and fulfilled life.

The ideal of, oh you should get 4.0 gpa in high school and, go to an ivy league university, marry your beautiful High School sweetheart at 25 and have kids at 30, become rich and successful, is a modern mystique and a side effect of the Middle Class. In the end you have to figure out what makes you happy, and what do you enjoy in life. I know plenty of people who work "shitty" jobs and don't have any money and never went to college that are perfectly happy. And I know plenty of "successful" graduate students who are out of their mind with stress and have lost all knowledge of what it feels like to be genuinely "happy". Who are you as a human being to say what someone else's potential is, and what it is not. Your made up ideal of what other people should do with their lives is a dangerous way to look at society and is why we don't live in Monarchies/Dictatorships anymore(for the most part lol) Shame on you.

So to op's question, and to end my ramblings, I choose other. I'm no saint, I judge people incorrectly all the time, but I'm always willing to look at someone by their actions or words, rather than by something they choose to do in their free time, or something they choose to put into their body. "People are strange, when your a stranger."