How do you feel about drug users

[Provost Harrison]

You don't need to have ripped off a dealer in Liverpool to get kidnapped or beaten to a pulp. All the locals are paranoid and violent. I'm with Boris on this one

[reds4ever]

Cockney, you could see it coming a mile off mate. He was giving the pills away like crazy while he was off his t1ts, "lets all be fooked together" type thing.

The first his Mum knew was a phone call saying that she needed to bring £400 to Merseyside ASAP. Didn't see much of him in Cream after that.....

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Flubber
Meanwhile our city has a job vacancy rate that is now in the double-digits for almost everything (heck fast food joints are reducing hours due to lack of staff!!) so there are jobs available

People from other provinces (probably the maritime ones) aren't moving in?

[Sava]

I pity people that use drugs.

What is so bad about their lives that they need to use a substance to feel better?

That's really the question that is at the heart of the matter. Instead of addressing that, people what to stigmatize users and make them out to be criminals and junkies.

It starts out as self-medication... call it "recreational" if you want, but if you need a substance to make you feel good, it's because you are feeling bad. There's really no other way to say it.

Drugs should be legal because locking people up doesn't make the situation any better. I don't see how using a substance is somehow morally wrong and deserving of prison or jail... especially when most of the drugs laws are tainted in racism... at least in the US anyways. One needs only to study the history of the drug laws in America to really understand how morally repugnant the "War on Drugs" is.

[Dis]

don't you use a prescription SRDI drug?

but seriously. Aren't those also a drug to make you feel better. Don't worry, I'm not going Tom Cruise on you all.

But we do live in a socity where pills are expected to be cure alls. Is there that much difference between prescription drugs and illegal drugs?

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Cockney, you could see it coming a mile off mate. He was giving the pills away like crazy while he was off his t1ts, "lets all be fooked together" type thing.

The first his Mum knew was a phone call saying that she needed to bring £400 to Merseyside ASAP. Didn't see much of him in Cream after that.....

kidnapped over £400

though he must have been out of control to get in a lot of debt, especially considering how profitable that business can be.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Flubber
I have a very limited amount of sympathy for anyone that is hooked on a drug. Anyone that recreationally uses anything from alcohol on up and hurts no one else? ... I consider that none of my business.

The addicts ? Sometimes I pity them but generally I look at them as weak. I know that may not be fair but I am sick of the Heroin bums downtown that are just out begging for cash to get their next fix. Meanwhile our city has a job vacancy rate that is now in the double-digits for almost everything (heck fast food joints are reducing hours due to lack of staff!!) so there are jobs available

Hmmm... summer job in Alberta with no (correct me if I'm wrong) provincial taxes to pay?

[Solver]

I am very, very strongly against drugs. I sure don't like it when people use drugs. A big factor in this is that drug addicts are dangerous. I'm a big believer in personal freedoms, but personal freedom doesn't mean you can hurt others. If someone decided to always sit at home and smoke pot, I would pity the person, maybe be disgusted, but that would be his choice. The sad reality, though, is that drug users can become drug addicts very quickly (after all many substances are highly addictive, physically and mentally), and drug addicts are a danger. They murder people so they can get enough money for a dose.

I know I could never trust a person who I knew to be using drugs. Just as with most things, this isn't black-and-white, though. There are situations when drug abuse is understandable, at least. If someone uses coke or heroin because he feels depressed over something silly, or caves in to peer pressure, I have no respect for that. In my eyes, the person is either very weak or very unlucky. But in the case of life conditions that are really very harsh, in one of the many ways, I can understand why a person might start to use drugs. I still think it can never be the right solution, but if a person is being neglected and abused, it is at least understandable why such habits may form.

I respect the people who used drugs and threw the addiction away a lot. That clearly shows that these people have strength of character. In most cases, such people also had used drugs not because they had been morons who couldn't say no to a bunch of peers, but because they were really through something very hard. While the original drug use is still not to be viewed as a good action, if they got over the addiction, it means they understood, at some level, that it was bad, had a desire for something better, and had the strength of character to pull it off. That's worthy of respect.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Solver


I know I could never trust a person who I knew to be using drugs. Just as with most things, this isn't black-and-white, though. There are situations when drug abuse is understandable, at least. If someone uses coke or heroin because he feels depressed over something silly, or caves in to peer pressure, I have no respect for that. In my eyes, the person is either very weak or very unlucky. But in the case of life conditions that are really very harsh, in one of the many ways, I can understand why a person might start to use drugs. I still think it can never be the right solution, but if a person is being neglected and abused, it is at least understandable why such habits may form.

I concur, much like those who went to war and have never really gotten over it, it may be hard to understand from those who have never been subjected to this level of emotional or physical stress. Not everyone reacts he same way.

I respect the people who used drugs and threw the addiction away a lot. That clearly shows that these people have strength of character. In most cases, such people also had used drugs not because they had been morons who couldn't say no to a bunch of peers, but because they were really through something very hard. While the original drug use is still not to be viewed as a good action, if they got over the addiction, it means they understood, at some level, that it was bad, had a desire for something better, and had the strength of character to pull it off. That's worthy of respect.

It is like a deep dark cavern that you crawl and gnaw your way out of. Physical addiction the body goes through ripping apart your soul and trying to keep a deathgrrip on you. Shame and dissapointment along with those that would kick you when you most need a lending hand. Once you get away, even though you get approached, if you have really bottomed out, you dont want to subject those that mean so much around you, to the Hell and Horrors that surround the life of a drug addict. I mean no judgementalism just sharing having been there, a difference between someone who is under the grips of addiction and what society calls a recreational abuser, must have it within themselves to stop. No one can do it for you. You the abuser must want to turn from the path your on.

I glory not in the experience but the knowledge to share with others.

Gramps

[DanS]

I've not seen the good in drug use, but have sure seen the bad. Without the harder drugs, this city would be a lot nicer. You don't have to go too far to see somebody high and/or desparate for the next high. Certainly, you would have a lot fewer murders and property crimes.

I used to work for a bona-fide narcissist who had used a lot of drugs recreationally as a young man but who hadn't used for at least a decade. He was smart and dedicated, but there was something that wasn't quite right with him, such that all of his very hard work (about 20 hours/day) was for naught. I don't know for sure that it was the drugs, but I suspect it was. Some effects are permanent.

Most of my uncles on my dad's side of the family are alcoholics. While I view alcohol as less bad than most drugs, in part because society has a lot of experience dealing with it, I note that their bodies are wasting away young. They are dying off at age 65. It seems particularly disrespectful to treat your God-given body so poorly.

[chequita guevara]

There are casual users, abusers, and then there are addicts.

I've been a casual user. In fact, I haven't had anything illegal in nearly two years. Not cuz I'm afraid, but just because, meh. If I was hanging out with my friends from Jax or Chicago and we decided to get high, okay. I was never hooked. I never had to have pot, lsd, or liquor (okay, maybe the occassional jones for ONE beer). That goes for all but one of my friends, who is hooked (but who also has BPD).

Then there are abusers, those who binge hard for a few years, but then come out of it and go on to lead perfectly normal lives. They ewren' so much addicted as they were just dumbasses who party too hard. Your typical frat boy doing a beer shotgun falls into this catagory. These people can easily become addicted, however.

Then there are those whom should never touch the stuff, do, and are hooked from minute one. These are the addicts. It doesn't matter to what they ae addicted, they will find something that gives them that rush and they can't get through life without it. When they quite, they generally subsitute one for another, so God, coffee, and cigarettes replace heron, crack, gambling, whatever.

Part of the problem is the lies about drugs. Because anti-drug types lie about drugs, people who try them and have no problems then assume that everything that's been said bad about drugs is also a lie. The truth is, drugs are fun, lots of fun, and if you use them, probably nothing bad will happen to you, unless you're caught. Probably.

Using occassionally helped me work through some problems with myself I had, helped me see things in interesting new ways, contibuted to my enjoyment of life, friends, food, art, culture, music, and helped me be creative. I'm glad I did drugs. But I don't need them, and it's possible I might not ever use them again.

[Lancer]

I agree with you on everything you wrote in this thread Dis. Also, I have a solution for society.

Open a free drug camp where people can go and get the stuff free of charge as long as they live there. Feed them, rehab them if they ask for it.

What does this accomplish?

1) Makes us safe. No more drug related crime.

2) Pushers go out of business. Can't sell something if it's free. With no pushers the chain of addiction is therefore broken and the children are safe. In a few years the addicts die out at the camp or are rehabilitated. Though the camp would have to remain open it would be small at this point.

3) Tax savings, less police.

[Grandpa Troll]

What about health issues for the users?

[Lancer]

Better than they have now. Free needles, basic health care. A hospital at the camp. No life extending stuff though. No veggie drug users hooked up to life support.

[Lancer]

Two different tiers. First gets health care the second get nothing, a soft bed...

1) People who are in rehab when they fall ill.

2) People are are killing themselves with drugs.