SuZir
Well-Known Member
Not trying to be controversial, nor am I in any way denying substance abuse has destroyed many lives, but I'm becoming rather jaded with drug policies and what we are told about drugs.
Where I live drug use is less common than in most western world and it was even less common when I was young. My mom however was a regular pot smoker so I was more aware than most of my peers. In their infinite wisdom our school officials decided to launch anti-drug-campain that was based mostly on lies and exaggerations. I can still vividly remember sitting in the gym with whole school when some guest speaker, who told us he was a recovering druggie, was giving us his drugologue, or very edited version of it, and told us, how he was extremely physically hooked, and absolutely needed his second shot from the moment he tried pot first time. And he actually even uttered a line that has become a classic of bad drug education in my country: "The first injection of cannabis can kill you!" By the way, at the same time our schools were very good at sex ed; made us so bored with the subject, and sure we knew all the facts, that we were not at all inclined to try ourselves before we were much older, but for some reason decided to go to exact opposite direction with drug education. Okay, schools have learnt from their mistakes and drug education for example for my kids has been much better already.
But we are still told it is the drugs. Or mostly the illegal drugs or at the most legal drugs taken without prescription. That drugs do this or that. That everything changes when you take this illegal drug, you change, no going back. Drugs are the great evil.
In my country heroin was over the counter medicine, and widely used for many small ailments, before WW2. For pain, for cough etc. Tylenol of it's time. Stable of every family drug cabinets. Most people used it at times, extremely few got hooked. My grandpa, and many people he knew, used amphetamine during the WW2 often, at times daily. He or none of his friends got hooked. Statistics show the same, some got hooked, but vast majority had absolutely no problem dropping the drug.
Currently, aside of pot, the most abused drugs around here are prescription drugs, benzoes being the biggest group and cause of almost all drug abuse related deaths. Also drugs like Lyrica are very popular among druggies if benzoes are not available. Actual illegal drugs, aside of pot, make a very small percent of our drug abuse scene. No one has for example died to heroin overdose in years and heroin all together is almost extinct from our markets. Addicts inject other opioids exclusively. Opioids that are manufactured by big pharma. Amphetamines are still here, because doctors are very reluctant to give out ADHD medications to anyone. If they would, druggies would most likely move to those drugs instead of street amphetamine.
Lots of people, who have legitimate reason to use those same medications that are abused, have to take them so much and so long that they too do get physically dependant and often also psychologically. Somehow, when their condition allows them to, doctors are able to wean them out of those same drugs. Most of the time successfully and with little fuss. How come those same methods could not work for those people, who are taking them illegally but want to quit? Why does it need to be a big difference between two people who are using same amount of Lyrica for example?
Portugal decriminalised use of all drugs 15 years ago, even the hard ones. The drug related harm went significantly down, use of them didn't go up at all. There are much less drug abusers nowadays there than in other European countries.
It just feels we are told something that may not be even totally true and that certainly isn't practical or cost effective.
Where I live drug use is less common than in most western world and it was even less common when I was young. My mom however was a regular pot smoker so I was more aware than most of my peers. In their infinite wisdom our school officials decided to launch anti-drug-campain that was based mostly on lies and exaggerations. I can still vividly remember sitting in the gym with whole school when some guest speaker, who told us he was a recovering druggie, was giving us his drugologue, or very edited version of it, and told us, how he was extremely physically hooked, and absolutely needed his second shot from the moment he tried pot first time. And he actually even uttered a line that has become a classic of bad drug education in my country: "The first injection of cannabis can kill you!" By the way, at the same time our schools were very good at sex ed; made us so bored with the subject, and sure we knew all the facts, that we were not at all inclined to try ourselves before we were much older, but for some reason decided to go to exact opposite direction with drug education. Okay, schools have learnt from their mistakes and drug education for example for my kids has been much better already.
But we are still told it is the drugs. Or mostly the illegal drugs or at the most legal drugs taken without prescription. That drugs do this or that. That everything changes when you take this illegal drug, you change, no going back. Drugs are the great evil.
In my country heroin was over the counter medicine, and widely used for many small ailments, before WW2. For pain, for cough etc. Tylenol of it's time. Stable of every family drug cabinets. Most people used it at times, extremely few got hooked. My grandpa, and many people he knew, used amphetamine during the WW2 often, at times daily. He or none of his friends got hooked. Statistics show the same, some got hooked, but vast majority had absolutely no problem dropping the drug.
Currently, aside of pot, the most abused drugs around here are prescription drugs, benzoes being the biggest group and cause of almost all drug abuse related deaths. Also drugs like Lyrica are very popular among druggies if benzoes are not available. Actual illegal drugs, aside of pot, make a very small percent of our drug abuse scene. No one has for example died to heroin overdose in years and heroin all together is almost extinct from our markets. Addicts inject other opioids exclusively. Opioids that are manufactured by big pharma. Amphetamines are still here, because doctors are very reluctant to give out ADHD medications to anyone. If they would, druggies would most likely move to those drugs instead of street amphetamine.
Lots of people, who have legitimate reason to use those same medications that are abused, have to take them so much and so long that they too do get physically dependant and often also psychologically. Somehow, when their condition allows them to, doctors are able to wean them out of those same drugs. Most of the time successfully and with little fuss. How come those same methods could not work for those people, who are taking them illegally but want to quit? Why does it need to be a big difference between two people who are using same amount of Lyrica for example?
Portugal decriminalised use of all drugs 15 years ago, even the hard ones. The drug related harm went significantly down, use of them didn't go up at all. There are much less drug abusers nowadays there than in other European countries.
It just feels we are told something that may not be even totally true and that certainly isn't practical or cost effective.
