Might also be worth noting how DARE made every drug into the Drug That Kills You Instantly. Cocaine instantly causes your heart to explode. Heroin immediately turns your into a vegetable. Weed is a “gateway drug” that’s laced with every other drug at once. Bath Salts are causing people to eat each other’s faces off.
How many interactions with actual drug users does it take to disabuse you of these notions? The high performing athlete who smokes weed. The kids doing whip its at the concert who look like their having a great time. Fucking gym rats doing steroids and getting swole as hell. The older folks doing oxy and heroin so they can bust through pain and pull an insane shift. The college kids using amphetamines to study through the day and party through the night.
It’s not as though drugs don’t have very immediate and obvious benefits. People aren’t doing them because they want to become washed up stereotypes.
Exactly. DARE and related programs aren’t doing anyone any favors because once you try one of those drugs, you’ll realize they’re really overselling how dangerous they are.
Don’t get me wrong, drugs are dangerous and many people get sucked into career-ending addiction. But anti-drug advocacy should be very honest about both the benefits and the negatives, as well as alternatives if you’re looking for some benefits (e.g. regular exercise can increase energy levels a lot).
I’m in favor of legalizing most recreational drugs, which should make dosage way more predictable (no more ODs) and detect warning signs before things spiral. I’d like to legalize and tax drugs, and use the tax proceeds to fund rehab programs. Start with weed and shrooms, and expand to whatever is most popular.
Bath Salts are causing people to eat each other’s faces off.
What? Is it something I don’t understand?
An oblique reference to the Miami Cannibal Attack which police claimed was the result of the assailant being “high on bath salts” at the time of the incident. Toxicology failed to corroborate the claim, but it stuck in the anti-drug media and became a recurring urban legend of sorts that DARE officers would repeat to credulous kids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack
Edit: I think the bath salts as a cause has been disproven but the story remains.
PCP, so not exactly the same as bath salts but similar.
can make you go cray cray