Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

They teach you in school, drugs are bad. Don't do drugs. Just say no. At least where and when I went to school, they went out of their way, above and beyond to ensure this simple message was hammered into every single child.

The image of a drug addict in pop culture -- it's never a pleasant one. They lie, cheat, steal. They're a burden and a trial to their families.

People are warned about what happens when you get addicted to drugs. I simply fail to understand why so many people do drugs in the first place, and I have little sympathy for addicts.

The world is a dangerous place. If you drive your car off the side of a bridge, or you mix the wrong household chemicals, or you stay in a running vehicle in an enclosed garage, or you grab on to a downed powerline, you'll probably die. It's simple cause and effect, and for the most part people understand it and aren't stupid enough to do these things unless they're suicidal.

If you do drugs, you'll probably ruin your life. It's simple cause and effect. For the most part people understand it, but it seems that enormous hordes of people do them anyway. I don't get it, what's the difference?

> I simply fail to understand why so many people do drugs in the first place, and I have little sympathy for addicts.

Do you know one? If not, don't judge. Try to have sympathy. Try to be a decent empathetic human being and understand that people have different life circumstances than you, and the fact that they are addicts does not make them undeserving of sympathy.

> If you do drugs, you'll probably ruin your life. It's simple cause and effect.

Nope. Because you have the cause and effect backwards. More often than not, people doing these sorts of drugs already are in a tough spot in life. They do drugs BECAUSE their life is already in shambles or because they're already suffering from a mental illness. This is not to say that the drugs won't continue to cause people to spiral downwards (because they often will), but it is to say that the kind of person who chooses to inject a substance of unknown purity directly into their bloodstream is most likely NOT the kind of person who has their life together to begin with.

And I know plenty of people who do drugs and their lives are just fine. Because they're normal, well adjusted people who choose to do them because it's fun and _not_ to escape their problems, which is unfortunately the case for a lot of people who become addicts.

So is it really so simple?

Do consider that, in many places in the U.S., anti-drug programs deliver the same ruinous message about all drugs, regardless of their actual dangerousness or potential to harm. When the children exposed to this rhetoric discover that drugs are not uniformly lethal - oftentimes through experimentation - this has the effect of undermining fundamentally the messaging they've heard (while also serving to discredit the person who warned them in the first place - often a police officer or other authority figure).

Have you considered the possibility that what they taught you in school isn't true?

Many people choose to do opiates on the advice of their doctor, to relieve pain from surgery and the like. Most do not ruin their lives.

Many people choose to become addicted to caffeine. Most do not ruin their lives.

Many people choose to use "soft" recreational drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. Most do not ruin their lives.

Many people choose to use "hard" recreational drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, etc. I believe most, but definitely many, including many I personally know, do not ruin their lives.

It's not simple cause and effect. Many causes have to conspire to ruin someone's life. Drugs can contribute, but people can and do use them safely. Conversely, many people being abusing drugs because they're already at a low place in life, as other comments have pointed out.

Addressing those other problems and minimizing the harm contributed by drugs are how we solve the drug abuse problem. More of those school programs to convince people of something untrue won't.

We have an epidemic because people were told by pharmaceuticals and doctors that they were taking medicine, and that it was safe and unlikely to be habit forming. This wasn't true.

As to recreational drug use, I'll leave it to others to comment.

Enormous hordes of people do them and don't get addicted. The addicts are just a tiny fraction of people who do drugs.

Just curious, but what are your thoughts on alcohol?

I was in severe depression, for more than 1 year, had a good job, a good relationship and threw it all.

Simply could not understand what was wrong with me.

I did never had any contact with drugs before. After a while , and some not necessarily-recreational-experiences, I could understand better a whole new spectrum of ideas.

It's not so black and white.

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