Obviously this is highly anecdotal, but for the 5 years that I lived in Spain, I was a regular drug user.

With the exception made of MDMA & speed (That I'll consume both on occasions) I was consuming weed, hash and mushrooms on a weekly basis.

And everybody on a certain group of friends was doing the same. We had a surplus of mushrooms, as we had somebody in our group (A neurobiologist) growing them.

13 years ago I came back to Argentina, and then stopped consuming cold turkey.

How about the 150 million people every day that drink a cup of coffee and head to work?

The article mentions ~70% of users of any drug are not addicts, and surely you know somebody who is both responsible and drinks alcohol.

I am one. I have used a lot of stuff, anything I could get my hands on (not "just 'cause", I'm trying to find something to fix specific problems).

And in the end, it's only alcohol and nicotine that have me firmly in their grasp. Perhaps it's just the ease of access.

I believe I could quit nicotine, but not alcohol. I don't even drink a lot. But I do, regularly. I've used way more addictive stuff, and I could go out and buy it tomorrow, but I don't. Kind of funny how it works.

> Responsible drug users sounds like an oxymoron. Is there any data that shows those people even exist?

I mean, there's the billions of people who manage to consume alcohol without it interfering with the rest of their lives and the lives of others. Don't pretend that one substance that alters perception and behavior somehow isn't a "drug" in the same way that many others are just because of its legal status.

But if you mean drugs that are illegal, yes, there are also plenty of responsible users of those too. My wife and I have taken MDMA together a few times and it has been transformative for our relationship. As well as sharing our love for each other it also helped us talk about difficult subjects, something which I found hard for a long time, and as a result I am now better at talking about hard things when sober too. I think most people would say that going on a date night is a "responsible" act of relationship maintenance and I don't see what we did as any different, except much, much more enjoyable than a cocktail and meal. Every time we were careful with dosing, made sure we had no other responsibilities, and so on. It's as responsible as quality time with each other at a cafe.

I recognise that the production of illegal drugs is damaging and awful, but that's the fault of our legal framework. In the same way that producing soft drinks or beer isn't necessarily damaging nor should be producing drugs that are currently illegal.