I never touched it, am very happy about it, and hope my kids stay far away from it.
I know people who did all kinds of drugs, and nothing positive ever came out of that. Sorry that's just my opinion.
The fact that you don't distinguish between categories of drugs is, no offence, a major indicator of ignorance in the subject matter. Hallucinogens are not stimulants are not depressants are not dissociatives are not alcohol.
If you mean "illegal drugs", do you really think that the objective, scientific threshold between harmful and harmless is legality?
You are free to do whatever you want, it's your body. But perhaps learn more about something you don't know anything about before passing judgement.
I'm not discussing that when you have an illness or mental problem that drugs might help (or which drugs). But just take it because somehow it would "enhance" your life... still need to see proof of that. Most of the "enhancement" that I saw went to other direction.
It’s highly unlikely that you’ve never taken psychoactive substances—caffeine, for example, is found naturally in enough foods that it’s hard to avoid. Many spices produce psychoactive effects—e.g. vanilla, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, saffron, etc. I suspect it’s not your opinion that these are all bad as well.
Your kids at some point will be exposed to some of these things, and if “drugs are bad” is what you’re teaching them then they will understand, as we do, that your opinion on this subject really isn’t helpful.
That's great news for you, because now you don't have to take any of the other drugs if you think these things are the same :P.
> if “drugs are bad” is what you’re teaching them
No, I just show them the people who smoke, and ask them if they want to be like them.
What happens when they see all the rich and famous people on TV who also smoke and sing/rap about smoking? What makes you so sure they won't want to be like them?
Smoking is mainly about trying to look cool, which in the end makes you look stupid. And once you see that, you cannot unsee it. My kids already see it.
And looking at the people that smoke, just confirms the theory.
I thought you were talking about weed. Smoking cigarettes is a whole other story.
Regardless, the "people smoke to look cool" perspective is very limited. There are multitude of reasons why people do anything, including smoke, and simplifying them to a single reason that's the easiest to attack might work on small children, but will wear out as they get older.
But I'm not here to give you parenting advice. You seem to be very strong in your beliefs, while having a condescending attitude towards the people who use drugs. I don't appreciate the condescending attitude, but I doubt I can do anything about that just by writing words on the internet.
So farewell, enjoy your sobriety.
So people that have been smoking for years, i.e. addicts (I am an ex nicotine addict), only do it because it looks cool? Geez, alright.
Must be nice up on that ivory tower of ignorance, and again, I mean it with no disrespect but in the purest sense of the word: you don't know what you're talking about, yet you think you're smarter than anybody else in the room because you had the fortune to live a sheltered life of strong preconceptions about the world.
Hope you enjoy the vista from up there.
And in some cases that boost to creativity might've earned them a lot of money.
But yeah, I'd wager in vast majority of cases the outcome is neutral at best
It’s not something I take often, but I can’t imagine living anywhere as close to as fulfilling a life without psychedelics.
I know plenty of people who take/took them very seriously. None of them are particularly wise, although quite a few believe they are and will try to convince you of their profundity. But it usually boils down to banal platitudes and "psychedelic gibberish".
I know old people who have run businesses, fought fires and been through wars and poverty. They possess wisdom that is meaningful and actionable.
None of these drug-taking people have gone on to really make a meaningful impact in the human realm compared to the people I know who were focused on diligent hard work. Those people became doctors, engineers, musicians or artists. The psychedelic takers often partake in art, but it's always the same derivative alex grey type stuff.
DNA was discovered on LSD, among countless other major works in math, science, literature, CS, and other fields.
Just Google "things discovered on drugs" or "famous/accomplished people that took drugs", the list is loooong.
Countless artists, writers and musicians were influenced by psychedelics. It's not hard to make an argument that the music most people listen to and love today would not exist without the influence of psychedelics.
The Beatles are just one super famous example, where the influence of psychedelics on their music is super obvious and the tremendous influence of The Beatles is undeniable, but the same could be said of many if not most 60's/70's musicians, which in turn had huge influence on what followed, not to mention the obvious influence of psychedelics on psytrance and dance/club music in general.
Something else to consider is that from the time psychedelics were outlawed until very recently admitting psychedelic use was taboo, and so many psychedelic users were in the closet.
These are more open times, so some people are admitting it now, but many are still in the closet because coming out as a psychedelic user could still negatively impact your job prospects, the way society in general views you, and perhaps your relationships with people you care about.
So there are probably way more psychedelic users out there than most people realize, and their accomplishments when taken as a whole are very significant.
How much of such accomplishments were due to the influence of psychedelics? We don't have enough information to say for certain, but there have been studies on the effects of psychedelics on creativity[1][2][3] which show a positive effect. That's not to mention the well demonstrated potential of psychedelics to help with depression, the alleviation of which could also help users to create and contribute to society.
[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35105186/
[2] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2723891/
[3] - https://www.amazon.com/LSD-Spirituality-Creative-Process-Gro...
When I was a teenager, I heard the claim and believed it. All these musicians and artists I looked up to did psychedelics! So I took psychedelics! What I came to find, however, was that all of those artists had some sort of classical training early in life and a decade of working hard touring/painting and building their professional practice. The drugs came after, not before.
I'll grant that stimulants may have made positive contributions. Oh how I love/hate stimulants.
The Beatles were highly skilled musicians before taking drugs, but it seems reasonable that attempting to recreate the psychedelic experience on tape pushed them towards new sounds and techniques that they wouldn’t have otherwise tried.
There is also no control, can't exactly tell if that was LSD that made someone discover something or that they just thought that it did. Hell, for all we know drug usage might've delayed the discovery.
Or it might've been as simple as "getting high together brought right people together at right time".
On a more serious note, some drugs do much more good than harm. Some psychedelics have extremely good results when treating hard psychiatric patients with conditions our modern medicine has absolutely 0 cure for. I mean way beyond anything current pharma industry can produce, much less side effects. Its abhorrent and primitive medieval mindset to ban such treatments to those whose lives are completely destroyed by their conditions, just because you were brought up in some primitive society that scaremongered you/your parents into clear falsehoods and lies (ie nixon ban on drugs when demonizing hippies and Mexican immigrants in 60s, which through mandatory UN charts was pushed to the rest of the world even to places like India, where cannabis is a sacred plant of god Shiva).
I'm 43 and never had a cigarette in my mouth, and very happy that I don't have to sit in that disgusting smell in cafes anymore. Do I drink alcohol? Yes. Would I mind if my kids don't drink alcohol? No. I saw alcohol destroy families.
And your statement that somehow I and my kids would be curiosities in society just because we stay away from that shit makes you look really stupid.
Check out "Jack Herer's First Time High"[1]. (If you're curious, there are more details in the first 12 minutes of this bio on him:[2])
Also see what MDMA did for a man with Aspergers: [3]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYwedCQtW7s
Sorry to disappoint, but I also don't have Aspergers.
And the person with Aspergers is again just simply describing experiences which are open to anyone... you don't have to have Apergers to benefit from such experiences, though of course they're not guaranteed to anyone.. nothing in life is, and different people experience these substances differently. Still, I found it interesting. Sorry you did not.
How do you define drug? You admit drinking alcohol which as you said destroys families, and a direct correlation has been shown between alcohol consumption and cancer. You cannot use a blanket statement "I don't use drug" without defining what a drug is. If your definition is what's legal, remember that alcohol was illegal in the US at some point and that both tobacco and weed are legal today.
When you say "I don't need them", do you drink coffee daily?? Do you eat pastries? If yes, why, given that they have mostly negative effect on health (very high calories, low fiber, low nutritient content) and that we don't need them?
It's great to establish hygiene rules based on fact, but reconsider judging others' rules without analysing them properly (hallucinogen are typically not addictive and don't have negative health effects when used in moderate quantities) and your own choices of rules which are somewhat arbitrary (you drink alcohol which is addictive and has negative effect even in small quatities).