this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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This is really hard for me to get behind. On the one hand I can get behind the compassion and safety aspect. Addicts have a sickness and shouldn’t be treated as criminals who have no value and are disposable. On the other hand, I have personal experience with just how much damage an addict does to those around them. Enabling them to do that damage and victimize the very people who love and once trusted them with everything feels wrong.
Part of the reason drug abuse is so all consuming is because 80% of an addict’s time is spent finding it while avoiding the law. I know this from experience as a recovering opiate/heroin addict. If you had let me go down to the corner store to buy clean dope legally, not only would I have about $20,000 more to my name (from scams/thieves/short bags), I legitimately believe I would have gotten clean much sooner.
If you’re just sitting in a room with your thoughts as opposed to constantly occupied with the chase, you’re more likely to have moments of lucidity to confront how stupid and useless your life has become. I never had those thoughts when I was distracted chasing it around 24/7, only once I figured out the DNM’s
I think a lot of focus goes to the addict’s experience and how that experience impacts their life. If you limit the impact scope to the user and the consequences they face, it seems reasonable to suggest that easier access to safer substances can improve their circumstances.
What I experienced was a prolonged period of time where my wife lied, cheated, stole and shirked all responsibility for herself and our live’s together. Most critically, her substance abuse led to her neglecting and putting our young children at risk.
For my part, I did everything I could to help her recover. I encouraged her to get help without judgement. I found ways to balance taking care of the kids, taking care of her and myself, maintaining our home all while struggling to meet work expectations and fulfill my sole provider role.
Ultimately meth use led to paranoid delusions, intense fear and anger outbursts, belief in fantastical persecution conspiracy and finally distrust in me and her family. Still, I was trying to balance it all and encourage her to seek help. Instead of doing so she became violent threatened to put a knife in my throat and kill me while our children played in the other room.
We can argue about the war on drugs, the systemic failures to address mental illness and the lack of easily accessible care for people suffering addiction. But a person is still accountable for their behavior and when a substance causes them to completely lose themselves to the degree my wife did, I can’t help but feel frustration of anything that enables access to it.
When pot shops opened up near me it was so much easier to go without it.
I don't use hard drugs, but I am addicted to weed.
During the times when it is easy to access, I simply do it more.
It was the opposite for me.
Does it negatively impact your life? Your job? Your relationships? Or is it simply something you do frequently?
Pot addiction is a very real thing, and people downplay it a ton. Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% for the complete freedom to access and use pot for whatever reason you wish, just as I am for other drugs like heroine, alcohol, and cocaine. But there are unhealthy habits you can develop that do negatively impact your life if you use it unrelentingly.
Pot addiction isn't typically as directly harmful as other drugs. Pot itself isn't toxic, which helps, and most of its impacts on mood, for those who enjoy it, are relaxing effects, but many people develop unhealthy dependency on pot, and even can have withdrawal symptoms from going without.
I downvoted your comment simply because it feels like you're downplaying what this person feels their relationship with pot is like. I agree with the sentiment across this thread. It's fine to smoke pot, and to do so freely, but I think we also need to acknowledge that there is irresponsible, dependant, and dangerous habits we can experience with any addictive substance, be it pot, alcohol, caffeine, food.
It's not a problematic addiction. At least at the moment. But it is an addiction nonetheless.
I'm not convinced that safe and legal drug taking will enable addicts any more than they're already so.
Also there are many recreational drug takers who don't harm society.
Sure, I don’t think this will enable them more than any other source. I guess in my case with the difficulties I’ve experienced, the pain my kids and I are still experiencing, any source of the substance at the root of it is hard to accept.
Would you rather that source be providing clean drugs and the money going towards drug education and addiction prevention programs, or filled with God knows what and the money going towards guns for a gang or cartel.
The demand is and will always be there. Better the supply come from an organ we can regulate then a crime syndicate.
Oh but I'm a precious American and that stuff doesn't happen even though murder is on the news everyday and the gang do bNes from the neighboring states. /S
I'm about gang up just to slaughter a trap. Those clowns deserve death. I grew up around losers like that. They do kill and get away with it. Cops don't even listen. America is dead as fuck. I'd rather so some other country bulldoze this place.
It's not the substance though, it's the structures around them. I suppose when you have personal experice with the harms of drugs, as directly as you are describing, it would become difficult to care about that distinction though.
You can't remove the substance from the equation entirely like that. Yes there are a lot of other problems too, but pretending meth or fentanyl or whatever isn't harmful on its own is not helping.
Remember the drugs are usually the catalyst that get people on the street. People can hold it together right up until they become addicted, then the substance makes everything worse.
I'm not an addict yet. But I'm addicted to the street. I can't say your statement is a constant truth. My addiction to the street is based off adrenaline, not trap sold drugs. I've never done more than weed and mushrooms - a long time ago.
The streets about freedom, people aren't necessarily there for drugs. But drugs play a huge role in how people into the freedom of street life survive. If you're selling drugs you can be free. The fiends are pawns and used like cattle for cash. It's really twisted and fucked up and I often wonder why people push so hard for trendy political change but aren't willing to bring it to street thugs. Some people even make their money killing. The amount of shit I've gathered from having one foot in the street... I guarantee there is no such thing as law an order in America. Unless maybe you have money your might see some of that traditional American image.
Understandable.