I was never heavy into drugs but I smoked weed a fair bit in my 20s, knew a lot of other daily users of weed as well as some harder drugs. I don’t think I ever came across a person that randomly decided to do drugs for no reason one day and got hooked. They were all people who had pretty messed up problems in their life that were too complex for them to fix on their own.
So it confuses me when people instantly assume that someone is in a bad situation due to drugs rather than them using drugs to deal with a bad situation. And yes I know drug abuse makes problems worse the vast majority of the time but it’s not what I see as the root issue in a lot of cases, the drug use is a symptom/coping mechanism for people that society have let fall through the cracks.
A popular theory among self-proclaimed paychonauts, or people that like to experiment with drugs, but mostly psychedelics, is that using mind-altering substances could lead to ideas or insights that could be (considered) a threat to the status-quo. This is why the powers that be often demonize all drugs equally.
As others have pointed out, many people don’t really like to think about the systemic issues in society that drive people into poverty, homelessness or other problems that often go hand on hand with drug addiction.
It should be pointed out, though, that some drugs can and most likely will ruin your life. The first rule of experimenting with drugs is never, ever try heroin (or other opiates).
Can confirm. Tried it once and now I have incurable anhedonia and disthymia (basically depression).
But I’m still able to work and capitalism can exploit me so, all’s fine, I guess.
It is also extremely addictive.
Yeah thankfully I’m not addicted, but then again, I understand people getting addicted because it’s the best feeling I ever had in my life (and will ever have, because I can’t feel this happiness anymore).
I concur. From a historical-perspective, rooted in colonialism, drug use was prohibited due to the effect it had on labour’s compliance, even if the use was an indigenous cultural phenomenon. Rather, it made life more difficult for those charged with its administration.
I think the OP is mistaking the propaganda for reality. People generally aren’t thinking about others in any significant way. They just don’t want to deal with an inconvenience so brush it aside by falling back on the propagandized version of reality that is given by the government and corporations. It’s the safe answer and the institutionally accepted answer. Anything else requires conflict and Deborah just wanted to buy coffee and get to her appointment on time, not debate with unhearing television screens, radios, strangers, law-enforcement-drones or a consortium of suited executives. The homeless man was begging on the street due to drugs and a lack of will-power. More importantly to Deborah, he was in her way and was assaulting her senses and cognition. Let the police lock him away.
Homelessness has been increasing here in Australia due to well-understood mechanisms. Those mechanisms have been operating for decades and intellectuals and observers have made critique before. They continue to do so. The issue only gets worse, because it’s by design. It’s the political class’ blueprint and things are working as they should be.
The council would rather pay to have infrastructure torn up, such as the removal of public benches from public property, because the homeless sleep on them and that is unsightly. The fact that the cost would have tripled to have it installed, removed and (presumably) re-installed once the homeless issue was resolved isn’t true, because there is no resolutions to hinder the advance of homelessness.
Drugs are a class issue. The labourer is not to indulge in them. The other classes are free to do so within a limit. The demands of industrial society have influenced what that limit is, but there is a clear distinction between the classes. When a lawyer indulges in cocaine and it’s made into a public-spectacle the media report about the immense stress placed on lawyers. When the labourer makes a drug-induced public-spectacle the media report on the moral failings of the labouring class and how they must be better controlled.
None of it is coherent and the ruling class don’t care. If you’re interested in the intersection of drugs and morality, especially if your background is from a Catholic or Christian cult, I’d snarkily implore you to read their histories and the documented drug use of these cults that underpin Western-democratic morality codes. There’s a reason the Bible is like a fever-dream of a druggie, because it is one. The needs of capitalism, of regimented time-controlled labour, now prohibits such use and the priest class pivot to create a narrative of why it is so, even if their documented legacy shows them to be lieing dogs.
Drugs are an inseparable part of the human experience. Have fun; look after each other and listen to your elders’ advice. I’d caution that the cultural ceremonies that had implemented recreational drug use have been obliterated from living memory for some social groups and we now find ourselves in societies that mass-produce novel drugs. It’s uncharted territory in one sense.