I know it's a very polarising subject, drugs taken for pleasure or experiences, and I've often thought about starting a thread on drug experiences. I know some may shy away because of the legal status or the fact they have children etc and there can be other reasons why people do not wish to public admit to current or past drug use.
There has been a couple of threads over the years in which people have posted various aspects of their use, or their feelings against taking drugs for pleasure and like I said above about it not being cool to dose people unknowingly, I also in retrospect dislike any peer pressure on anyone to persuade them even to toke a joint. Back as a teenager I can probably regrettably admit to having introduced several people to drugs - seemed like there was no forcing, no persuading etc at the time but when you look back later, I think, 'well what if this person looked up to me, thought I was a cool friend and that was why they joined in?'
So long before I grew out of drugs I decided I would never be part of anyone taking drugs for the first time, or even trying a new one for the first time, having already tried others.
I didn't want any shadow of responsibility in case I had a hand in any downward spiral for anyone. I don't think drugs cause people to get fucked up in isolation but a person who may be struggling in the water is liable to grab onto anything that keeps them afloat - even if they know only for a limited time.
Some of my old pals died from various drug deaths, mostly heroin overdoses in the 90's and I wonder what they would make of the current drug scene in the UK. It's crazy in that anyone who looks 18 or over can buy 'research chemicals' in various places in town, totally legally. These are serious drugs, in no-way are they 'herbal highs' or other type of watered-down wishy-washy rip-offs. We are talking things analogous to amphetamines, LSD, Ketamine, Valium, PCP. Problem is these exact chemicals where hardly known about when drug legislation named the main drugs of abuse.
There are literally hundreds of them and you can buy them online, next day delivery in huge quantities. I wonder what some of my old pals would think if they were alive today and I took them into town to buy some speed that was pure, cheap and over the bloody counter! They would turn over in their graves!
I'm not saying I'm against any legalisation or decriminalisation etc but what is really worrying is that there actually exists lots and lots of research data on the 'known' drugs of abuse, the likely dose-effect range and side effects etc. Many of the powers and pills masquerading as 'research chemicals' have little to none pharmacological research done on them and zero data on long-term use.
So I try to put myself in the mind of an 18 year old these days and wonder what I might be doing? Price or street quality, two factors that tended to ameliorate our use back in the day, no longer figure and of course availability - we had to wait, sometimes for days, when we were young, to get what we were after. Now anyone can score literally a few meters off the main high street - no pun intended. A senior scientist who works for the government department that tracks illegal/legal drugs in terms of quality, strength and appearance - recently said that it is almost better for kids now to take the illegal drugs rather than the legal ones because they are a known quantity!
The Republic of Ireland introduced a law similar to a U.S one in which any new chemical with effects similar to already illegal drugs, is automatically scheduled. They thought this would sort the legal high problem. They wrote the legislation in terms of 'new psychoactive substances,' except they shot themselves in the foot. Successful legal challenges correctly pointed out that because there had been no scientific studies of the new chemicals, no-one could properly call them 'psychoactive' because no research had been carried out which proves they were indeed 'psychoactive'!
I think many people would admit part of the allure of illegal drugs when young, is the very fact they were illegal. Now in the UK, many drugs are and I wonder what the figures are for use amongst various age groups? I've always said if any 'glamour' was removed, quite a large impetus to rebel against parents' warnings might disappear. The bottom line for me is that especially now in the digital age with the dark web and Silk-Road type ventures, along with legal highs, it all pretty much makes a mockery of attempts to stop illegal use. Despite decades of trying, more and more enormous quantities of drugs make it through the borders and onto the streets for sale. There is absolutely nothing the authorities can do to stem the availability of drugs to those bent on consuming them.
I think this has to be one problem taken out of the hands of politicians and the police. The politicians never wish to appear 'soft on drugs' even when their own drug misuse advisors have called for a complete overhaul of the approach to the problem.
Like many other things that have ran away from attempts at control in the internet age, once again the worldwide inter-connected network of online users have streaked light years ahead of what government planners are even aware of as facts on the ground. I think the internet, like with porn, is finding its own balance, its own rules and ways of doing things - directly related to what people actually want, not what our politicians want us to want. It's a mess and 14 year old kids are so far ahead of the leaders who were 'adults before email' [I just made that one, I like it.] the leaders hardly realise the game of catch-up they are playing.
I'm really glad I am not a teenager now - the pressures due to social media, video cameras everywhere and everything uploaded and existing in perpetuity - it's actually amazing anyone these days can grown into a normal adult. Without details, I know for a fact that stuff we got up to in and out of school would have gotten us into serious trouble now if it had been filmed and uploaded to Youtube. Not evil stuff but stuff bad enough to probably cause serious problems for getting jobs etc. I'm sure we were not the only ones breathing a retroactive sigh of relief that we escaped the age of every teenager being a possible hidden cameraman in every single situation.
