[PUG] The Drug Culture

[J. Cardigan]

Honestly give me ONE GOOD THING to come out of the drug culture?

The Beatles (although I'm not really a big fan of theirs)

And E has taken plenty of children...

What? Pure MDMA is one of the safest drugs around. I didn't realize people were handing speedy rolls out to kids.

And people abuse prescriptions as much as the illegal substances...in fact in some areas its the worst form of drug abuse!

Definitely true. I took oxycodone for the first time in months last night.

I've seen drugs take a few people down, but it ultimately comes down to the choices those people make. Automobile accidents account for roughly 115 deaths a day, and that's just in the US. Should we ban cars? No, because that would be heavy-handed and moronic.

This is coming from someone whose best friend died from a drug overdose. I don't think drugs are to be blamed for the general idiocy of the population, and I know my friend would agree. I kept thinking the whole time he was in the hospital, "If he comes out of this, he's going to realize what an idiot he was." People do dumb things, and because many drugs are illegal, it makes it easy to point the finger at them.

 

[Entyqua]

My wife lost her only daughter , last year, to a heroin overdose.
The stupid, stupid girl had been using since she was 15.
Heroin took 20 years to finally kill her, but in her wake lies a truly awful trail of debris:
Four messed-up and maladjusted no-hope kids.
The waste of hundreds of thousands of hard-earned dollars.
An aching wound that will never go away...

Ugh.

this is my point exactly!

 

[Entyqua]

The Beatles (although I'm not really a big fan of theirs)


What? Pure MDMA is one of the safest drugs around. I didn't realize people were handing speedy rolls out to kids.


Definitely true. I took oxycodone for the first time in months last night.

I've seen drugs take a few people down, but it ultimately comes down to the choices those people make. Automobile accidents account for roughly 115 deaths a day, and that's just in the US. Should we ban cars? No, because that would be heavy-handed and moronic.

This is coming from someone whose best friend died from a drug overdose. I don't think drugs are to be blamed for the general idiocy of the population, and I know my friend would agree. I kept thinking the whole time he was in the hospital, "If he comes out of this, he's going to realize what an idiot he was." People do dumb things, and because many drugs are illegal, it makes it easy to point the finger at them.

I am not pointing a finger at anyone...I am seeking acknowledgment for something most of the world wishes to not...

the legality is not the issue...it is as I have said the culture

LIke some one just said about prohibition...I agree with all that...but obviously legalizing it doesnt change ones ability to kill themselves with it...I have lost just as many to alcohol related deaths...

 

[DefectiveCreative]

The solution to the drug problems is not within the people who get addicted, or who become dealers. There are gonna be such people, as long as there's such industry. There's gonna be such industry, as long as there's poverty. There's gonna be poverty, as long as there are stuck up people in effective control.

There're far more reasons why people get addicted to drugs than poverty, and there are always going to be drugs and people who take them (whether addicts or not) because for one people like to enjoy themselves and recreational drugs are one way of doing that.

So the question isn't and has never really been "How do we get rid of drugs?", it's "Seeing as drugs are a reality, what do we do about them to minimise the harm that can result from their use and abuse?".

less people would die if all drugs were legalized as you say...but it wont happen so more people will die...

Who said anything about legalising all drugs? Like I said The powerful physically addictive drugs would remain restricted, but made available on prescription, something that's been proven to lower drug addiction and drug-related crime rates.

.movements are a positive thing, and as i said before I AM SPEAKING ABOUT THE ADDICTIVE DEADLY ONES...

National Socialism was a movement, didn't work out too well for the Germans, the Jews and practically every other nation on the planet now did it?

Oh, and I just had a quick skim of your previous posts and I can't see where you said about that you were only talking about the physically addictive drugs deadly drugs, so if you could point that part out I'd appreciate it.

 

[BenW]

the legality is not the issue...it is as I have said the culture

LIke some one just said about prohibition...I agree with all that...but obviously legalizing it doesnt change ones ability to kill themselves with it...I have lost just as many to alcohol related deaths...

Of course the legality is the issue.

Drug addicted individuals are sick, they aren't criminals.
Sending them to jail either A: kills them, or B: turns them into violent criminals.

If drugs were all legal, rehab would be cheap, fast, and trivial.

And as far as alcohol...
The drinking age in the US is one of the major contributing factors as to why Americans use alcohol like complete fucking morons (compared to say, Western Europe).
American children are too sheltered from alcohol.

 

[bamf]

It has to do with addictions. With or without drugs, people will have some sort of addiction to feed. Some drugs are more addictive than others, some aren't addictive at all. One of the problems is we treat them all the same. Another problem is people who come into the hard addictive drugs as 'weekend warriors'. Yeah, that lasts for a while, but you'd be hard pressed to find any weekend warrior of heroin, crack, meth, and the sort. Any habit of those, even if it starts off as just once a month, will almost always turn into full blown addiction, amusing the person doesn't stop them all together. Am I saying that's the drugs fault? No. To say it's the drugs fault is ignoring the problem.

The problem stems from why people try such things in the first place, and that there will always (in my opinion) be addictions. The question is, how do we treat drugs after knowing such things? Is prison the answer...I think not. Is 'responsible' education the answer? I think it's only a small part of it.

This definitely isn't a cut-and-dry solution to drug addiction (which is what I think the root of the problem in this thread is)

 

[DefectiveCreative]

I am not pointing a finger at anyone...I am seeking acknowledgment for something most of the world wishes to not...

the legality is not the issue...it is as I have said the culture

LIke some one just said about prohibition...I agree with all that...but obviously legalizing it doesnt change ones ability to kill themselves with it...I have lost just as many to alcohol related deaths...

So you mean the reasons why people take drugs in the first place? And why they get addicted to them?

People take drugs to escape, same reason as they do most anything considered recreational. The reasons they get addicted usually boil down to ignorance of the potential addictiveness of various substances, a lack of willpower and a lack of hope.

To restate again there is no such thing as a drugs culture, it's just a bunch of people who want to experience a particular feeling and the industry that supplies them.

Saying there's a drugs culture would be like saying there's a chocolate culture, or a chess culture, or an MBTI culture.

 

[BenW]

With the exception of the Eskimos, because they couldn't grow anything...
Every society on Earth has used mind altering substances.

 

[testing]

Of course the legality is the issue.

Drug addicted individuals are sick, they aren't criminals.
Sending them to jail either A: kills them, or B: turns them into violent criminals.

If drugs were all legal, rehab would be cheap, fast, and trivial.

And as far as alcohol...
The drinking age in the US is one of the major contributing factors as to why Americans use alcohol like complete fucking morons (compared to say, Western Europe).
American children are too sheltered from alcohol.

LOL. Don't know which America you grew up in. You obviously didn't have an uncle who let you drink his whiskey sours and then composed an Ode to The Moon (and I don't mean the one in the sky) while skinny-dipping at your parent's lakehouse, where you were routinely used as the fetching-girl for more adult beverages.

(I loved Uncle George. He was fun!)

Oh, but the dying from cirhossis of the liver is not fun. Nor are the alcohol-driven rages or the deaths from drunk driving...

But exposed to it at an early age? Um. Yeah. I was not sheltered from alcohol, neither were my parents or their parents before them.

 

[Entyqua]

Who said anything about legalising all drugs? Like I said The powerful physically addictive drugs would remain restricted, but made available on prescription, something that's been proven to lower drug addiction and drug-related crime rates.

I say again prescription drugs are too easy to get...see the addictions to lortabs ect...

National Socialism was a movement, didn't work out too well for the Germans, the Jews and practically every other nation on the planet now did it?

wow...you want to relate DRUGS to the HOLOCAUST....seriously...that's a stretch! A BIG ONE!! and in my opinion a very single minded one.

Oh, and I just had a quick skim of your previous posts and I can't see where you said about that you were only talking about the physically addictive drugs deadly drugs, so if you could point that part out I'd appreciate it.

Im not about to get nit picky here on this...but I have said it several times. Obviously our opinions differ drastically.

I am not setting out to condemn ANYONE for drug use...that is not at all what this thread is about.

This thread is about understanding, support, and debate on the issue...not the wording.

 

[BenW]

wow...you want to relate DRUGS to the HOLOCAUST....seriously...that's a stretch! A BIG ONE!! and in my opinion a very single minded one.

Is it, now?
50%+ of the US prison system is comprised entirely of drug offenders, a huge amount of them non-violent offenders.

 

[Entyqua]

So you mean the reasons why people take drugs in the first place? And why they get addicted to them?

People take drugs to escape, same reason as they do most anything considered recreational. The reasons they get addicted usually boil down to ignorance of the potential addictiveness of various substances, a lack of willpower and a lack of hope.

To restate again there is no such thing as a drugs culture, it's just a bunch of people who want to experience a particular feeling and the industry that supplies them.

Saying there's a drugs culture would be like saying there's a chocolate culture, or a chess culture, or an MBTI culture.

Your still stuck on a wording issue...its mundane and pointless its a word...not a condemnation

 

[Entyqua]

Of course the legality is the issue.

Drug addicted individuals are sick, they aren't criminals.
Sending them to jail either A: kills them, or B: turns them into violent criminals.

If drugs were all legal, rehab would be cheap, fast, and trivial.

And as far as alcohol...
The drinking age in the US is one of the major contributing factors as to why Americans use alcohol like complete fucking morons (compared to say, Western Europe).
American children are too sheltered from alcohol.

I agree...but the fact still remains that legalizing wont help the ACTUAL issue...they will still find ways to get more of it!

 

[Entyqua]

Is it, now?
50%+ of the US prison system is comprised entirely of drug offenders, a huge amount of them non-violent offenders.

its actually 80 percent here Ben...and I do not agree with the users being punished like the distributors..however...some form of punishment should be handed out for doing something illegal.

That does not equate to genocide my friend!

 

[AUM]

Is there really a right or wrong answer to this issue? As a matter of fact, is there a right or wrong answer to any issue?

I could come up with hundreds of good reasons of why drugs are bad but then somone comes up with another hundreds of reasons of why drugs are not that bad. Even if you can come up with far more better reasons to your argument, people who abuse drugs or sell them are not going to change their ways. If you're expecting the government to do something about it, I'm afraid you're going to be deeply disappointed because they won't do anything.

So what can we do to mitigate the problem of drugs? Don't do drugs and if people as a whole will undestand this, the demand of drugs will go down, thus the business will go bankrupt.

Is this solution reasonable or realistic? No

Would it be an ideal solution? yes

 

[BenW]

I agree...but the fact still remains that legalizing wont help the ACTUAL issue...they will still find ways to get more of it!

The point of legalization is not to reduce peoples ability to get a hold of things, it is harm reduction, pure and simple.

If the only solution you're looking for is one where all drugs magically vanish, and/or people suddenly want to stop using them forever, then you're in for some mighty heavy disappointment.
Come back to reality.

 

[Entyqua]

Is there really a right or wrong answer to this issue? As a matter of fact, is there a right or wrong answer to any issue?

I could come up with hundreds of good reasons of why drugs are bad but then somone comes up with another hundreds of reasons of why drugs are not that bad. Even if you can come up with far more better reasons to your argument, people who abuse drugs or sell them are not going to change their ways. If you're expecting the government to do something about it, I'm afraid you're going to be deeply disappointed because they won't do anything.

So what can we do to mitigate the problem of drugs? Don't do drugs and if people as a whole will undestand this, the demand of drugs will go down, thus the business will go bankrupt.

Is this solution reasonable or realistic? No

Would it be an ideal solution? yes

very well said...

No I do not think the government will do anything either...

unfortunately there is no solution...

Back to the op for a minuite because I have a question...

The man with THREE felony charges of Trafficking drugs...do you think perhaps he should have been handled more...effectively in the system? had he been would he have been there to kill the cop?

The above reason is why I see the system as flawed...

 

[enfp can be shy]

There're far more reasons why people get addicted to drugs than poverty, and there are always going to be drugs and people who take them (whether addicts or not) because for one people like to enjoy themselves and recreational drugs are one way of doing that.

So the question isn't and has never really been "How do we get rid of drugs?", it's "Seeing as drugs are a reality, what do we do about them to minimise the harm that can result from their use and abuse?".

Or they teach you this, in a culture which is still pretty much driven by the drug industry itself.

Or as I like to say, please legalize my right to NOT use drugs. Now, there may be plenty of evidence of how depraved and wasted is the human life WITHOUT drugs, but I'm willing to take my chances.

 

[Entyqua]

The point of legalization is not to reduce peoples ability to get a hold of things, it is harm reduction, pure and simple.

If the only solution you're looking for is one where all drugs magically vanish, and/or people suddenly want to stop using them forever, then you're in for some mighty heavy disappointment.
Come back to reality.

no...this argument is purely circular because there is no REALISTIC solution...while controlling the substances will help, it wont stop...people will still die...There is no solution to this...

 

[DefectiveCreative]

And as far as alcohol...
The drinking age in the US is one of the major contributing factors as to why Americans use alcohol like complete fucking morons (compared to say, Western Europe).
American children are too sheltered from alcohol.

In regards to the Western Europe bit of your comment, the UK has one of the worst records in the world for using, as you put it, "alcohol like complete fucking morons".

But then culturally we tend to have more in common with the US than with mainland Europe these days.

I say again prescription drugs are too easy to get...see the addictions to lortabs ect...

It's been proven that issuing these drugs on prescription lowers drug addiction and drug related crime rates, what's so hard to understand about that?

wow...you want to relate DRUGS to the HOLOCAUST....seriously...that's a stretch! A BIG ONE!! and in my opinion a very single minded one

I didn't do anything of the sort, I simply pointed out the glaring error in your statement that all movements are positive.

Im not about to get nit picky here on this...but I have said it several times. Obviously our opinions differ drastically.

I am not setting out to condemn ANYONE for drug use...that is not at all what this thread is about.

This thread is about understanding, support, and debate on the issue...not the wording.

If you've said it several times either you must have worded it pretty cryptically or I'm as blind as a bat, because like I said I wasn't able to make out where you said it.

I haven't said once that I thought you were condemning people for using drugs, not sure where you got that from.

Actually it is about the wording because unless you make yourself clear you end up with misunderstandings like we're obviously experiencing.