Drug abuse

[Mr Nice]

Originally Posted By: cjcride
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Drugs and alcohol are poison to your body, no need for either.
Alcohol is the most widely abused drug in the world.
Read this in a medical book.


No need to read, both are poisonous.

 

[53' Stude]

Gang: the drug users are being weeded out now at a alarming rate. Few more guys that were "involved with the incident" got the razors sharp edge today. Or FIRED! I am glad. Not to go off topic but my aunt stopped smoking and is doing well after she had 3 stents put in.


Good evening folks

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
People are simply the results of the choices they made and to a lesser extant the environment they grew up in.


Bold statement. Take 100 would-be criminals and place them in good homes with great opportunities from the age of infancy and how many do you think would make the same wrong decisions?

You'll notice examples of people who make it out of the ghetto and become successful and those who have everything [censored] it all away and ruin their lives and the lives of their parents; however, I believe that environmental influences can greatly impact decisions made early on, before one has the wherewithal and wisdom to choose correctly. After a while, bad decisions are forced by habit.

 

[hattaresguy]

How do you know an infant is a would be criminal?

I have seen a number of people come form countries that actually are poor, lift themselves up by their bootstraps and become something.

We forget sometimes that the US is still an amazing country, you can still come here with nothing and get a chance at a good life. Also I don't consider a US ghetto to be really poor. Not 3rd world poor, you don't see fat people in poor countries. We have created such a system of excess that even our "poor" people have cars, cell phones, can be fat, etc, etc.

My buddies uncle for example can over here from post war Italy with no family, nothing but a suite case holding some cloths. Now he is recently retired from his very successful metal working company, has a house in a prime area worth deep seven figures and has to chose between his Ferrari or Mercedes to drive every day. How did he do this? Years of hard work and intelligence, and spending less than he made.

What advantages did he have that a poor kid in Detroit today doesn't? If anything the kid today in Detroit has FAR more advantages, threw free educations and job training programs.

Now if he chooses to take advantage of those that's on the kid in Detroit. If he does not have the intelligence and drive to reach out and take it, nothing can help him. Someone else who is more hungry will.

 

[cjcride]

Mr Nice I agree with your statement.
I meant to say "I had read this in a medical book"

 

[rshaw125]

Don't forget prescription drug abuse. A very large number of people on pills prescribed by their Doc.

 

[aquariuscsm]

And there are also these drs who get busted for abusing/being addicted to the very drugs they're prescribing.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy


What advantages did he have that a poor kid in Detroit today doesn't? If anything the kid today in Detroit has FAR more advantages, threw free educations and job training programs.



Supportive parent(s) who drive children well are a key contributor success of a child.

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
And there are also these drs who get busted for abusing/being addicted to the very drugs they're prescribing.


Or the ones who set up "pain clinics" in strip malls with addicts lined up to get a quick prescription. I don't know if that's an issue around the country, but it has been an issue in the Southeast, especially TN and FL.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: Donald
That seems unfortunate. Whether its alcohol or drugs its an addiction that some often need help with. It would have been better to say "either a drug treatment program or your fired". At least the first instance.



Really? Let's say that it was your surgeon who got caught doing drugs and he was going to give you major surgery that same day. Would you give him another chance?
These guys are doing drugs and working on a vehicle that carries human life. They knew they were doing illegal drugs, yet chose to use them. You still want to give them another chance?

 

[Joel_MD]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Joel_MD,

Is your stepson living with you or has his own place ?

He is attending law school and living with his girlfriend.

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: Joel_MD
The current crop of young adults do seem to abuse drugs more than my generation. I attended high school in the mid-80s in a suburb of Minneapolis. While growing up nobody ever asked me if I wanted to try drugs, and none of my friends on the track team or in band did drugs. Some of my peers definitely used drugs in high school, but they were generally considered outcasts.

My stepson is in his mid-20s and has been taking prescription medication to treat Attention Deficit Disorder since he was in elementary school. He and most of his buddies smoke pot like it's no big thing. They've been doing it since their early teens, and many of them were high school athletes so I imagine that illicit drugs are more accepted than they were when I was that age. I think my stepson has trouble sleeping because of the ADD meds so he self-medicates with pot and Lord knows what else. I pity these young people who are always zonked-out on some sort of drugs.


I think pot is definitely less taboo for many current 20somethings, myself included, than it used to be. Even among young people who don't use it, there is often little or no objection to other people using it as long as they are respectful and not hot boxing everyone else. The smell is often the most bothersome thing to non-users.

But I know a LOT of older people who still smoke it, and have been doing it for a long time. I think the social climate of decades ago simply made them good at hiding it. Ironically, I think it was around the beginning of the War on Drugs that it went from being some exotic thing only beatniks and hippies used, to something working class people (many of them Vietnam vets) would use regularly. A lot of the older current smokers I know are Vietnam vets. When they came back from war there was no PTSD support, or even acknowledgement or understanding of PTSD and other combat stress issues, not to mention issues from things like Agent Orange. They were just supposed to be a man and suck it up. A lot of them self-medicated in various ways. One guy I know told me in 2009, "I've been smoking pot every day for 39 years." During the 1970s and 80s he was doing a lot more than just smoking pot. He and the others I know were not reluctant draftees who didn't have the means to dodge either...they were Southern country boys who grew up on farms.

I know a lot of gen-x'ers who smoke too...though there does seem to be a socio-economic aspect to that and it probably varied widely from community to community. A lot of them grew up in lower middle class or poor neighborhoods where it was just around and available all the time. It's very common among the working class gen-x people I know from my neighborhood in Birmingham and surrounding areas. They were smoking joints of dirt weed every single day back in the 1980s.

In the mid 1990s, people began growing pot indoors, and the potency and quality went through the roof compared to the stuff people were smoking in the 1980s and earlier. That's when it evolved into something more than just wacky tobaccy, and what has ultimately led to where it's at today. I think there is definitely a higher overall percentage of people who use it today, but it's probably not as big of a difference as it seems, it's just more out in the open now.

Being zonked out all the time is no good, but frankly it may be better for your stepson to use pot than mixing a sleeping pill with an ADD pill.

 

[dishdude]

I'd agree, I think pot is quickly gaining mainstream acceptance and younger people don't find anything taboo about it, It's just a matter of time before it is legal across the country.

 

[GiveMeAVowel]

The problem is that we are now on a slippery slope, when you legalize pot, what will be next, crack, heroin?

Don't get me wrong I am NO fan of alcohol either....
the only reason it was consumed in earlier times was because often the water was not potable and it was substituted...

People relying on a chemical crutch has become an epidemic in the USA and is only getting worse, it reminds me of what happened in I think Peru with some leaf all the locals chew that gives the effect of a intoxicating drug, most of them are now a bunch of lazy, worthless bums.

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: GiveMeAVowel
The problem is that we are now on a slippery slope, when you legalize pot, what will be next, crack, heroin?

Don't get me wrong I am NO fan of alcohol either....
the only reason it was consumed in earlier times was because often the water was not potable and it was substituted...

People relying on a chemical crutch has become an epidemic in the USA and is only getting worse, it reminds me of what happened in I think Peru with some leaf all the locals chew that gives the effect of a intoxicating drug, most of them are now a bunch of lazy, worthless bums.


Many relatives of heroin are already legal, but controlled, in the form of prescription or hospital administered pain killers. The proliferation of those is why heroin is back and growing in popularity again. Many people who become addicted to opiate pain killers eventually move on to heroin. It is far more damaging than pot, and really the opiate situation in the US is what's already out of control, not pot.

And even if you were to just ban all drugs, people would still make them. That Pandora's box was opened a long time ago. The problem is when you ban known, somewhat controllable substances, people will go out and create new things that are far more dangerous (bat [censored] crazy dangerous), such as bath salts, spice, flakka, etc. A lot of that stuff is coming from China too...even with legitimate goods, their health and safety track record isn't exactly spotless. I can't imagine the standards for a recreational, synthetic drug that is illegal in most of the US, but winds up here in mass quantities.

And even with every drug known to man still available all over the US regardless of the law, there are apparently people who huff Brakleen.

 

[Mr Nice]

Quote:
Many relatives of heroin are already legal, but controlled, in the form of prescription or hospital administered pain killers. The proliferation of those is why heroin is back and growing in popularity again. Many people who become addicted to opiate pain killers eventually move on to heroin. It is far more damaging than pot, and really the opiate situation in the US is what's already out of control, not pot.

And even if you were to just ban all drugs, people would still make them. That Pandora's box was opened a long time ago. The problem is when you ban known, somewhat controllable substances, people will go out and create new things that are far more dangerous (bat [censored] crazy dangerous), such as bath salts, spice, flakka, etc. A lot of that stuff is coming from China too...even with legitimate goods, their health and safety track record isn't exactly spotless. I can't imagine the standards for a recreational, synthetic drug that is illegal in most of the US, but winds up here in mass quantities.


Yep. First its pot, then pills, then crack, then Meth, heroin , etc....

Look whats happening in Kentucky with the outbreak of HIV.

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl


Being zonked out all the time is no good, but frankly it may be better for your stepson to use pot than mixing a sleeping pill with an ADD pill.


You've got that right, being zonked out all the time isn't good, but if/when you do get zonked, smoking pot is the only way to go...it's far less harmful (if it's harmful at all) than any other stimulant out there, including tobacco and alcohol products...it should be legal nationwide based on this alone...

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Quote:
Many relatives of heroin are already legal, but controlled, in the form of prescription or hospital administered pain killers. The proliferation of those is why heroin is back and growing in popularity again. Many people who become addicted to opiate pain killers eventually move on to heroin. It is far more damaging than pot, and really the opiate situation in the US is what's already out of control, not pot.

And even if you were to just ban all drugs, people would still make them. That Pandora's box was opened a long time ago. The problem is when you ban known, somewhat controllable substances, people will go out and create new things that are far more dangerous (bat [censored] crazy dangerous), such as bath salts, spice, flakka, etc. A lot of that stuff is coming from China too...even with legitimate goods, their health and safety track record isn't exactly spotless. I can't imagine the standards for a recreational, synthetic drug that is illegal in most of the US, but winds up here in mass quantities.


Yep. First its pot, then pills, then crack, then Meth, heroin , etc....

Look whats happening in Kentucky with the outbreak of HIV.



Sorry, but pot is not a gateway drug...unless you're just commenting on the legalization process..

 

[surfstar]

Legalize it all, then tax it. Use funds for drug rehab programs.
We'd be in a similar state as now, except with more funding for rehab and less for cartels.

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: surfstar
Legalize it all, then tax it. Use funds for drug rehab programs.
We'd be in a similar state as now, except with more funding for rehab and less for cartels.


We'd actually be better off if it was legalized...at least its sale would be controlled...