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Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

You also don't need a beer to celebrate with friends.

You also don't need a nice winter walk to find a deepened sense of feeling alive.

You don't need a nice house and car to feel like you are worth something.

The truth is, external things impact our lives. The substances consume, food we eat, landscapes we move through, people we talk to, objects we use, architecture we work and live in influences us more than we would like.

Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends." Because strictly speaking you don't really need it — it is just nicer that way. (Edit: unless of course you are an alcoholic, which is a real thing)

This is the way that kind of party drug can work as well. You don't need it to be happy, but it is nicer that way.

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"Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends." Because strictly speaking you don't really need it "

Of course, some people feel that they do actually need it and that is the rub with expressing positives about drugs or other externalities. Some people become addicted and those addictions can have incredibly negative effects on the people around them.

That goes without speaking. Drugs are not without risk and they are tricky because even smart people might fall into the trap of tricking themselves till it is too late.

That being said the same is true of a lot of things as well. People can become addicted to social media, expressions of material wealth, porn, food, ... Literally everything that provides a dopamine boost in some way.

The question depending on the specific object of desire is always how much of the addiction is in the "substance" and how much in the mind of the addicted person.

“Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends."”

There are actually quite a large number of people who would say exactly that. It’s a minority position, but there are still quite a few people in the US who are opposed to alcohol consumption and have exactly the same concerns about it as other drugs. (Often, but not always, based in religious convictions.)

I simplified reality for the sake of argument. It goes without saying that there are people who have religious or moralic concerns, there also people who have actual good reasons to avoid alcoholic drinks (e.g. if you or someone in your family had problems with alcohol in the past).

I think a realistic stance towards drugs like alcohol or MDMA demands that we do not ignore the problems these drugs cause, but also see with how many users they don't cause any problem at all.

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