37 replies to this topic

[FurdTurgason]

Which of the following statements do you agree with most and why?

1. People's inner demons exist before they take drugs, and that is why drugs take hold of them the way they do and therein lies the problem. Drugs aren't the problem and should be legalized.

2. People's inner demons are brought out by drugs and wouldn't surface otherwise. Drugs contort people's judgment and should not be legalized. They are the problem.

[Panthro]

3. Drugs is too broad a term. marijuana =/= oxycotin =/= heroin =/= shrooms

[Bronn]

What you call inner demons I call lack of responsibility and personal accountability...

Some people are predisposed to making poor decisions because of the environment in which they live and have been brought up in. Some people feel they have no better choice than to become a user.

[g5jamz]

Are you asking because of studies like this coming out?


http://psychcentral....-brain-changes/

[Inimicus]

People who struggle with addiction will have problems with or without drugs.

The drugs are not the problem.

[Panthro]

I have a highly addictive personality so I have steered way clear of the harder drugs....thanks dad

nicotine and alcohol have been my vices which are worse then things like weed in my opinion

Heck I was addicted to chapstick in HS.

[bredy087]

People use drugs to cope or hide from their problems and feelings. Drugs are not the problem, people not addressing their issues or receiving the proper help led them to be users.

[The Original SCP]

Depends on the person and depends on the drug.

[FurdTurgason]

I am on the fence on this one just as I am on the gun debate. I find the two debates very similar.

I am all for Joe Schmoe being able to smoke or snort after a long day at work. But I also understand that drugs, like guns, are destroying our society because people are abusing them.

I once helped a buddy out who was a recovering addict. He had just been kicked out of the house by his wife. I gave him food, blankets, a key to my place while I was away at training camp. One day he wouldn't answer my calls so on a hunch I drove home and sure enough he had barricaded himself in my place to smoke crack in my bathroom. All my stuff had been gone through (looking for something he could sell, probably). Ruined our friendship which sucks because he's really a great guy. Just can't trust him because of his demons.

[Porn Shop Clerk]

television and religion do more damage to our society than all the guns and dope in the world

[mmmbeans]

it's just another coping mechanism... people use it to relieve themeselves of their problems... you do it too much... you ignore real life... shiat comes crashing down.

it can happen with anything... but it's much more likely to happen with heroin or alcohol than exercise or yoga.

[Inimicus]

Anything taken to its extreme can and will become a destructive force in peoples lives. Even otherwise healthy activities like exercise and yoga can be used to escape peoples problems and become coping mechanisms. I posted not too long ago about my grandfather who played golf to that point. He was on the links so much that my grandmother had to threaten to leave over it. It was an addiction for him to the point that he would sneak off to the driving range after dinner some nights. Once he retired and didn't have sales numbers as the metric of success in his live he turned to his golf handicap.

And that's just one example of something other than psychoactive compounds sold on street corners becoming an addiction. I know (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) people right now that video games are having no less of a negative impact on their lives than if they were full bore raging alcoholics. I know a programmer who is so addicted to writing this one piece of software that he makes meth addicts look dependable. Beyond that a quick Google search will generate days worth of case study reading on non drug addictions that had devastating effects on the lives of the addicts and those who cared about them.

Drugs get a really bad rap in this because of the physical damage they can do to the user and the social stigma of being out of your right mind, but the psychological mechanisms of addiction are basically the same. Of course there are some compounds that create an actual physical need for them once the user has habituated their use and I'm not trying to deny that; the physical component to opiate addiction is very real. But that said I think to get to the root of addiction and what drives people to it you have to go deeper than the compounds people are ingesting.

[arc]

At a broad level, I think the drug war is asinine

At one level as many have pointed out, one's drug of choice is a coping medicine

And at another level who have people who want it gone by the problems that seem to spring from it

Problem is how we've come to generalize "types" of drugs in this country. I think in order to gain perspective, we can't lump all of these drugs together and furthermore need to understand you can't just equate prohibition as the same as if drug addiction doesn't exist. Because this leads to the idiotic criminalization problems and societal fractures that create an even worse issue in the prison system of our country at a large scale and honestly damage a culture.

[venom]

Which of the following statements do you agree with most and why?

1. People's inner demons exist before they take drugs, and that is why drugs take hold of them the way they do and therein lies the problem. Drugs aren't the problem and should be legalized.

2. People's inner demons are brought out by drugs and wouldn't surface otherwise. Drugs contort people's judgment and should not be legalized. They are the problem.

What drugs are we talking about exactly? Alcohol? Marijuana? Cocaine? Psilocybin? Heroine? Pharmies? The worst drugs out there are Alcohol, Coke, Heroine, Crystal Meth and Pharmies. If you're not a strong person it seems rather easy to let one of those substances take you for a dark ride.

[rippadonn]

Which of the following statements do you agree with most and why?

1. People's inner demons exist before they take drugs, and that is why drugs take hold of them the way they do and therein lies the problem. Drugs aren't the problem and should be legalized.

2. People's inner demons are brought out by drugs and wouldn't surface otherwise. Drugs contort people's judgment and should not be legalized. They are the problem.

First, enjoy the pie. My fat fingers must have thought you needed it.

Second, the demons are there before the drugs.

Being that most people don't know what these "demons" are and where they actually reside contributes to the blaming of substances.