Subheading: be less of an asshole!
If you need coffee to feel normal, if you require red bull to make it through another shitty shift, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is: you’re addicted to caffeine. The good news is: that’s morally neutral, because drugs and addiction are older than writing!
The issue, as I see it, with a moralistic or value judgement placed on drugs is that we are creating a two tier system, instead of admitting a fundamental truth: drugs are awesome and they help people deal with sentience. Even other animals get high, for fuck’s sake!
Choosing to view some addictive substances (caffeine, alcohol) as culturally acceptable – well, not in all cultures, shout out to the temperance religions – is that by creating this dichotomy we have created yet another avenue for punishment (and in the US, this almost always leads to / ends with incarceration).
People who smoke crack and functional alcoholics and people who take medicine to inhibit serotonin uptake are all participating in a fundamental part of being alive: to be in control of your experiences and interactions with the world. Drugs are the spice of life! Some people need them to not want to die (please take your meds) and some people just want to use them to lower their inhibitions. Others use drugs to make an intolerable life pleasurable for fleeting moments – and, as long as you realize that even when you consume drugs, you are still responsible for your actions insofar as not hurting others, there is nothing wrong with that.
In addition to the unnecessary judgement and punishment, we also make recovery so much harder for people who want to get sober. Now, again, there’s nothing wrong with not choosing sobriety. But if and when people choose to change a habit, by creating a tier of unacceptable drugs, we impose so much stigma and shame that prevents people from being successful at sobriety. It’s okay to talk about being in a twelve step program (which some employers pay for!!) but it’s not OK to admit it’s been a decade since you’ve shot heroin. And I think that’s bullshit!
Criminalizing drugs also necessitates the relationship between user and dealer, and drug dealers do not fuck around. A better world is possible, and it could start with free drugs on demand. All of them!! Abortion pills. Birth control. Ibuprofen. Opioids. Amphetamines. Alcohol. Caffeine. Allergy medicine. Insulin. Cancer drugs. Think of the hospital bill reductions. Think of the administration costs saved for insurance pReApPrOvAl.
This would end the power imbalanced dealer-user relationship, and WAY LESS people (goal: no one ever) would die from unsafe drugs, because we can make and test them before we give them away to ensure safety!! Oh my god!! DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A BETTER FUCKING WORLD??
In sum: drugs are good, it’s ok if you do them, don’t be an asshole to other drug users (aka all sentient life), if you want sobriety I want you to succeed, if you don’t want sobriety I fuckin get it – we all deserve free drugs because labor is entitled to all it creates.
Lani.Tech 