[joeclarke3]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
I just think drugs are silly, I don't understand why a person would take them when they know the risks (I've had so many lessons in secondary school, at least two a year, about it).
I understand that people would take them because of the obvious benefits of being relaxing, but what most people don't think about is afterwards you get the most horrible withdrawal and you're cranky for so long afterwards until you get your next fix. My boyfriend used to do cocaine and he's described to me many times how it feels awesome when you're high, but as soon as you're back to normal you're craving more

The only drugs that give people those cravings are things like cocaine, meth and heroin. All of which every poster in this thread, be they for or against drugs, agree are not drugs that should be promoted. Whether or not they should be legalised is another debate that Suetonius touched upon excellently, partway through page 4.

When people get told information about a drug being bad, they often attach that same message to every other drug they have no experiences of. This is why education about drugs is so important - and that education must be unbiased.

[DaveSmith99]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
I just think drugs are silly, I don't understand why a person would take them when they know the risks (I've had so many lessons in secondary school, at least two a year, about it).
I understand that people would take them because of the obvious benefits of being relaxing, but what most people don't think about is afterwards you get the most horrible withdrawal and you're cranky for so long afterwards until you get your next fix. My boyfriend used to do cocaine and he's described to me many times how it feels awesome when you're high, but as soon as you're back to normal you're craving more

Drug education in school is hilariously bad, they spread misinformation to try and scare kids into not taking drugs. Cocaine doesn't relax you either, it does quite the opposite, and you only really get the withdrawals that you mentioned when you are an addict. The drug that relaxes you is cannabis, and that has no withdrawals.

[maskofsanity]

(Original post by rmpr97)
Well what happens when you take to many 'drugs' and you go into cardiac arrest or need to be taken to hospital?

Everyone else has to foot the bill for your irresponsibility. Fair enough if you're paying for your own medical bills, but you're not.

So the government do the responsibility for you.

Don't try and compare this to obesity please, one needs food to live hence why it is not banned, but yes people can eat to much of it. Last time I checked we do not need some cannabis or ecstasy. Although I do think there should be a limit as to when obesity is treating without the patient doing some exercise/changing their diet.

Quite right. But one thing you'll learn about TSR is that it's impossible to win this argument on drugs - there are a lot of people who do not know what freedom means. For them, being punished for taking illegal drugs means they are not free: which is absurd. Maybe they need to read some Plato...

[DaveSmith99]

(Original post by maskofsanity)
Quite right. But one thing you'll learn about TSR is that it's impossible to win this argument on drugs - there are a lot of people who do not know what freedom means. For them, being punished for taking illegal drugs means they are not free: which is absurd. Maybe they need to read some Plato...

Legalise and tax them then, make drug users pay for their healthcare, like drinkers and smokers do. Tax payers already foot the bill for the hugely expensive and un-winnable war on drugs.

[Redheaded_Dancer]

(Original post by DaveSmith99)
Drug education in school is hilariously bad, they spread misinformation to try and scare kids into not taking drugs. Cocaine doesn't relax you either, it does quite the opposite, and you only really get the withdrawals that you mentioned when you are an addict. The drug that relaxes you is cannabis, and that has no withdrawals.

No I know, I didn't say that cocaine was the drug that makes you relaxed.
I'd rather misinformation spread about it and deter kids from doing drugs (although, it doesn't work all the time) than kids not understand the dangers and go and do it anyway and face the consequences.

[SnoochToTheBooch]

we should take the right drugs (aka psychedelics) because:-

- They offer mindblowing experiences so far removed from the normal sober state of consciousness and mundane everyday bull****. It's a tragedy that most of the world has been brainwashed and poisoned against something so profound, something that has been practiced for thousands and thousands of years.
- They can change your values and perspectives on things for the better, as they can be very introspective & therapeutic and are an indispensible tool for personal growth as far as I'm concerned. They could possibly cure the ****ed up things about our society if enough people were in on it.
- They can offer a more spiritual experience than you will get in any church.
- Who the **** is any government or person to tell anyone else not to explore their own mind anyway?

true, they can go wrong if used improperly, but so can anything else if approached naively/ carelessly.

[jam277]

(Original post by DaveSmith99)
Most of the studies that show links between mental health disorders and cannabis are carried out by groups with a vested intrest in finding a link anyway. Cannabis use has exploded over the past half decade, and mental illness has not. That's about all the proof I need.

Yup, pretty much this, my mates been on the weed almost every day since he was 16, he's 21 now and he's fine, I doubt it's that much of a problem like people say it is. Just everyone being misinformed and brainwashed. I think it's so much fun, it's so good using different drugs and getting different feelings, as long as it's not super strong like heroin/crack cocaine I'll be fine.

I doubt I'd even get addicted to the stuff since I'll probably take a safe amount of it anyway. I'm not even addicted to smoking, yet some of the weed I've had has a **** load of tobacco in it.

[DaveSmith99]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
No I know, I didn't say that cocaine was the drug that makes you relaxed.
I'd rather misinformation spread about it and deter kids from doing drugs (although, it doesn't work all the time) than kids not understand the dangers and go and do it anyway and face the consequences.

Except when schools scare kids into thinking if they take a few e's they will dehydrate and die, so they go and drink so much water that they kill themselves.

[joeclarke3]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
No I know, I didn't say that cocaine was the drug that makes you relaxed.
I'd rather misinformation spread about it and deter kids from doing drugs (although, it doesn't work all the time) than kids not understand the dangers and go and do it anyway and face the consequences.

Why does it have to be that it can only be misinformation and fear-mongering or nothing at all? Why can't we teach kids properly and fairly about drug use?

[DudeRugs]

(Original post by maskofsanity)
Quite right. But one thing you'll learn about TSR is that it's impossible to win this argument on drugs - there are a lot of people who do not know what freedom means. For them, being punished for taking illegal drugs means they are not free: which is absurd. Maybe they need to read some Plato...

Are you saying people don't have the right to alter their state of consciousness?

[DaveSmith99]

(Original post by jam277)
I doubt I'd even get addicted to the stuff since I'll probably take a safe amount of it anyway. I'm not even addicted to smoking, yet some of the weed I've had has a **** load of tobacco in it.

Yeah, I was smoking 4 or 5 joints a day for about six months and then one day just stopped and didn't smoke for a month. It's really not an addictive drug.

[Redheaded_Dancer]

(Original post by joeclarke3)
Why does it have to be that it can only be misinformation and fear-mongering or nothing at all? Why can't we teach kids properly and fairly about drug use?

Okay, well define what is a fair teaching policy about drug use. Because honestly I don't see another way.
Drugs are dangerous, and they are illegal. Schools can't say "hey kids, it's okay to go and do drugs even though it's illegal" so what can they do?

[Redheaded_Dancer]

(Original post by DaveSmith99)
Except when schools scare kids into thinking if they take a few e's they will dehydrate and die, so they go and drink so much water that they kill themselves.

This is what I'm talking about though, kids being told of the risks (even if they are exaggerated) and they do it anyway.
To be honest, it's their own fault if that happens. They knew the risks, but they did it anyway. That probably sounds harsh, but really, that's the way it is.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

[joeclarke3]

Well, not physically at least. It can be a mentally addictive drug - i.e. that you want to continue, rather than your body requiring it. Different people react differently to different amounts. You could have somebody smoking twice a day who can get off it with the click of their fingers, whilst somebody doing it once a week might find it really hard to kick the habit.

[Suetonius]

Even the word "drug" should be abandoned in my opinion. It's become a term that governments use to suggest equivalence between many very different substances. For example, if someone directs a question/comment to a politician in a Question Time debate about cannabis, or asks David Cameron whether he'd consider legalizing it, the pejorative term "drug" can be pulled out of the bag to try and mislead the public/evade the obvious shortfalls of the present policy. I point people to this poor attempt by Margaret Hodge on QT who compares the average weed user with some junkie hookers who were murdered in Ipswich. Scaremongering BS, basically. It's an obvious Orwellian tactic. An attempt to force close-mindedness and to stop people from discriminating. Needless to say, this is counterproductive, and I'm sure has led to some young kids tragically considering the idea that "well, if the government's lying about weed then they're probably lying about everything else too".

[DaveSmith99]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
This is what I'm talking about though, kids being told of the risks (even if they are exaggerated) and they do it anyway.
To be honest, it's their own fault if that happens. They knew the risks, but they did it anyway. That probably sounds harsh, but really, that's the way it is.

No, you don't get it. Ecstasy as a drug is just about as safe as they come, its safer than aspirin. The danger comes when kids are scared into thinking they are going to die through dehydration, so they drink massive amounts of water because of what they have been told in school, and the water makes their brains swell and they die. In reality if you just sip a bottle of water throughout the night you will be fine.

[joeclarke3]

(Original post by Redheaded_Dancer)
Okay, well define what is a fair teaching policy about drug use. Because honestly I don't see another way.
Drugs are dangerous, and they are illegal. Schools can't say "hey kids, it's okay to go and do drugs even though it's illegal" so what can they do?

Not all drugs are dangerous. That's the biggest thing, and because so many of us have been brought up with this attitude it's hard to argue against it. I don't hold it because I've experimented with drugs and, from personal experience, understand that they are all safe if used correctly.

I'm not saying schools should advocate drug use, no way, but I'm saying that fear-mongering is just as dangerous as telling kids to go and snort their noses off, because it teaches them all the wrong things, so that when it may come to them experiencing any kind of altered state of consciousness, they are too paranoid or afraid to either embrace it or go through it safely.

There's a difference between promoting usage and promoting safe usage, and I feel that a lot of users forget that.

[JBLongmore]

(Original post by rmpr97)
Well what happens when you take to many 'drugs' and you go into cardiac arrest or need to be taken to hospital?

Everyone else has to foot the bill for your irresponsibility. Fair enough if you're paying for your own medical bills, but you're not.

So the government do the responsibility for you.

Don't try and compare this to obesity please, one needs food to live hence why it is not banned, but yes people can eat to much of it. Last time I checked we do not need some cannabis or ecstasy. Although I do think there should be a limit as to when obesity is treating without the patient doing some exercise/changing their diet.

It is widely accepted that alcohol related hospital admissions well exceed that of drug related hospital admissions. If you have such a problem with 'footing the bill' for drug users, please tell me you don't touch alcohol with a barge-pole?

[Aaron_xyz]

(Original post by exlunu)
I myself dont experiment with drugs. However, when it come to drugs, I find our society absolutely crazy. They have lots of benefits and give people exciting states of mind, even improve creativity. Compared to alcohol, i think drugs are more interesting if its popular. Why UK do not legalise all drugs and let people use them instead of alcohol.
Drugs world are new to me,even I know its interesting. Some of my friends at University talk about drugs all the time while the others are like " Nah, ill never try it".
So, yeah, what do you think ab it?

One can argue, that creativity as a result of an altered mental state, is not truly your own creation, as your consciousness is temporarily mutated and you aren't your true self.

That being said, I hope it gets legalised, regulated and taxed, although I wouldn't use it.

Edit: Marijuana that is.

[Redheaded_Dancer]

(Original post by DaveSmith99)
No, you don't get it. Ecstasy as a drug is just about as safe as they come, its safer than aspirin. The danger comes when kids are scared into thinking they are going to die through dehydration, so they drink massive amounts of water because of what they have been told in school. In reality if you just sip a bottle of water throughout the night you will be fine.

That may be so, but like I said if they've been given the facts but decide "Hey I'm going to take drugs even though I've been told it's bad" then on their own heads be it.

Also, it is not a safe drug, no drug that has been made illegal is "safe". For one thing, it's possible to OD on Ecstasy and even if you don't do that, it takes away most of your fear, meaning you're more likely to get yourself into stupid situations because you're not thinking and maybe even hurt yourself or worse.

I'll admit, the teaching is often over exaggerated, but if you say "kids it's safe" they're just going to go and run in head first and ignore everything else that is being said.