Do you do any drugs?

On 12/3/2019 at 1:43 PM, Mr. Freeze said:

Coming from someone who is Straight Edge, it's two different things. The argument against drugs is that drugs alter the mind, so some people (like me) would rather not engage in that. Fast food and shitty sugary drinks are easily-accessible and -most importantly- thought of as "cheap". Granted eating Micky D's really isn't cheap compared to actual meals, but that's a result of America's gutting of education. 

 

Potato chips are vegan too. You still have to exercise common sense and make good food choices! 

This all makes sense to me for the most part. I like the way you sum it up - veganism (for example) means nothing without common sense and good dietary choices alongside it. There's an argument to be made that fast food and junk food alters the mind in more severe ways than some of the 'low level' drugs out there, and that fast food's overall prevalence may be down to unknown/unspoken addiction as much as convenience and cheapness. People don't usually think of the choice to eat fast/junk food the same way they think about the choice to take drugs, though perhaps they should.

At the end of it all, it's down to personal choice. I don't like when people are shamed for their bad habits and I find it appalling when people are put in jail for what they choose to consume, but I also don't like when people deny the obvious - that their bad habits are bad habits. I'm never gonna lie to myself and say it's good that I smoke the devil's lettuce and I find it kinda bizarre when people do that. It's just a thing that I do. It may have the good side effect of bringing down my stress levels, but it's probably not the optimal method. Additionally I have to acknowledge that, while high, my thinking is altered dependent on the amount of weed smoked.

Risperidona 1mg

Clinical studies have proven that micro-doses of psilocybin below the threshold required for intoxication increase the efficacy of nerve transmission across the central and sympathetic systems and can even increase high level cognitive function in mammals. It is similar in structure to the neurotransmitter serotonin which is the chemical that individuals with depression characteristically lack, this explains its function in terms of elevating mood and alleviating symptoms of anxiety, depression and ptsd. Mice overcome conditioned fear responses at a much faster rate when they are given relatively small quantities of psilocybin in a laboratory setting, and it's not like they were 'trippin balls'. If you were on the same relative dose for body mass there would be no measurable psychoactive effects. 

KMFDM is a drug against war

Just what the doctor ordered.

Never drank, never smoked or did drugs. Part of it is money, most of it is a fear of addiction. I don't need that particular monkey on my back. I don't drink coffee because it tastes terrible to me and I don't like the idea of building up a tolerance to caffeine to get through the day. I used to drink a lot of soda back then, but now I prefer to save it for special occasions or maybe takeout.

DARE really did a number on me as a kid, and it didn't help that PSAs like this would pop up every so often during commercial breaks.

However, I'm not necessarily saying drugs are bad, mmmkay? I don't mind people using drugs so long as it is in a safe manner and not making a nuisance of themselves or operating vehicles/heavy machinery. People gotta work within their limits. I do think the War on Drugs is an abject failure much like Prohibition before it.

Caffeine, via coffee, black tea and some soda. Occasionally beer or cigarettes.

2 hours ago, Chow Yun Thin said:

I do think the War on Drugs is an abject failure much like Prohibition before it.

yeah. let's suppress the symptoms instead of curing the disease. people doing drugs because they are unhappy (in one way or another). of course, adding more stress, prohibitions and punishments is the best way to make people happier!

I'm so cool, I do drugs, I listen to Death Metal, and I hate Anime.

/s

On 12/1/2019 at 5:39 AM, MassiveEdgelord said:

ok boomer

Its dead, let it rest

12 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Sorry for being ignorance. Alcohol counts as drugs?

 

Right now I only take some pills for my liver. That's it.

Yes, alcohol is a drug and it far more dangerous that some social unacceptable drugs.

Thankfully, I don't do any drugs. Not even cigarettes or alcohol.

Infact, I have I only smoked once may years ago and never had alcohol in my entire life.

22 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

Infact, I have I only smoked once may years ago and never had alcohol in my entire life.

it is never too late to start it!

LOTS of coffe every day (actually is deteriorating my health, the fluids inside my ears to be precise), but without it I turn into a zombie.

Alcohol only in parties, nowadays. Rarely at home.

Weekend: Monster Absolutely Zero or Sugar Free Red Bull, and coffe. I might just be a caffeine addict.

6 hours ago, ketmar said:

people doing drugs because they are unhappy (in one way or another).

Hard disagree. Drugs are used for a variety of reasons, numbing the pain is certainly one of them but not the only one. Even if you're doing it just because it feels good, that doesn't mean you were "unhappy" before. That's like saying you only play games because you're bored.

 

11 hours ago, Doomkid said:

There's an argument to be made that fast food and junk food alters the mind

True, as well as pretty much anything else you consume or do. Walking in a forest alters the mind. Exercising for a while alters the mind. Meditation, dancing, gaming, mapping, working, loving, hating.... your mind is built to respond to the environment, not to remain static.

52 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

Even if you're doing it just because it feels good, that doesn't mean you were "unhappy" before.

if you are happy, why do you need to feel even better? ;-) you are *already* happy. if you dive deep enough, you will *always* find something which makes people unhappy, something they have no other way to fix. it may be unclear, and sometimes people even don't want to admit it, but it is always there. it doesn't have to be some physical pain -- "social pain" works good too. being it physical pain, or creative block, or just to "feel better" -- it is still about being unhappy with something, and trying to find a way to become happier.

note that i am not trying to say that it is a wrong way, no. what i mean is that there is always some kind of unhappines there, and trying to "fix" it with prohibitive actions won't work at all. govt should just GTFO, and let each intelligent being decide what is better for them. give people trustworthy medical information about consequences, and GTFO.

4 hours ago, Matthias said:

Yes, alcohol is a drug and it far more dangerous that some social unacceptable drugs.

OK. I thought drug is weed or those kind of things.

Then, I used to drink a bit. The most I drank is 14 oz 52% alc/vol, but I didn't get drunk. After that, I know it's not good for my liver, so I reduce it a lot. I basically don't drink now, and I have to have a correct partner to drink (eg: don't take a shot) just for a little bit.

@Doomkid is right about fast food versus drugs. There was a thread on Reddit a few months back that really bothered me where people were high-roading about coffee which is absurd to me since it’s not linked with any negative health effects, many people enjoy it, it may even have beneficial health effects, and it’s not a tool of escapism. Basically all it is is a “drug” in the literal sense so if you went through DARE and see not using drugs as a point of pride rather than a personal choice, you might start to get hung up on the definition that slowly expands to cover so many different things outside the scope of what DARE was discussing with regards to one’s wellbeing.

To go back on track though, garbage food is absolutely a drug. In the “old days” junk food was consumed minimally and as a treat. Now it is packaged and sold in bulk as a meal replacement with heavy marketing to kids. This is comparable to tobacco, a native sacrament turned vice consumed without surrounding branding and marketing. Then along came big tobacco and turned it into a habit on a huge scale intended to maximize tobacco use and tobacco addiction. This isn’t to say tobacco was ever healthy, but it also wasn’t always an industry hell-bent on making sure every teenager and adult consumed X grams of tobacco a day.

That was ripped wide open a few decades ago and a push against irresponsible tobacco marketing ensued. Now I’m sure many of you, me included, only tobacco as an evil wicked vice that kills you. But that isn’t something everyone knew by default. People thought smoking was bad for you like eating candy every day is bad for you. Deep down, you know that society doesn’t bristle at someone’s bad habit of junk food consumption the way they do at someone’s smoking habit. But look at the stats on why people die these days, luckily smoking related illnesses have gone down, but in the wake is illnesses tied to unhealthy eating and exercising habits. There hasn’t yet been a reckoning as to why big soda normalized soda with every meal, or why candy companies can market to children, or why a whole holiday exists about getting kids excited for sugar. I know that the initial feeling is revulsion that I would say “kids shouldn’t have candy” because we all remember loving candy as kids, but is that a good enough reason to allow what’s been going on to keep happening? Realistically, we’re at the point now where tobacco and the general public were 50-60 years ago regarding the junk food industry and it’s only luck of when you were born that makes smoking “obviously” horrible for you and today’s junk food habits “obviously” just a silly innocent quirky bad habit.

Another thing is that defending junk food because it’s food isn’t meaningful either. So you derive nutrition from processed sugar, so what? You derive nutrition (calories) from ethanol (drinking alcohol) as well. In the old days, people drank small beer because it was safer than water (low ABV and I believe it was only safer due to boiling during beer production, not the minimal alcohol content). The point is though that alcohol the abused drug versus diluted alcohol the water alternative versus alcohol the macronutrient is also something where you can point to one of its many faces. That’s not to encourage unhealthy drinking habits but instead to just put a spotlight on how unhealthy sugar consuming habits is not really much different because you can always say “well some sugar is okay”.

Finally, addiction. Addiction can be defined in many ways but consuming something terrible for you in large amounts due to cravings is probably a fair enough definition and let’s be honest, junk food consumption is really almost always done that way. It’s not healthy people occasionally having junk food as a treat, it’s people drinking tons of soda and eating tons of candy and consuming tons of processed foods.

All this being said, I’m not trying to high ground. I drink and eat junk food. Sometimes smoke weed. Have had nicotine dependence in the past but it was with cigars so easy to stop the pattern of consumption behavior relative to cigarettes. And I love coffee.

But there really isn’t a good reason to high road about drugs and it’s not because I think “drugs are cool man” or whatever but because literally this country (US) is being destroyed by junk food and it operates the same way as illicit psychoactive drugs with regards to addiction, huge marketing budgets, the way it destroys quality of life, etc. Its not a footnote or whataboutism, it’s the new big tobacco.

Adding to the junkfood talk. The bacteria in your gut transmit chemicals that alter your thought patterns. Eating (lots of) junkfood changes the makeup of bacteria in your gut. So putting 1+1 together, if you eat lots of junkfood, bacteria that feed off fibers, healthy shit idunno go extinct and are replaced with bacteria that thrive on sugar and fat, the bacteria in your gut command your brain to eat more junkfood. This has all been proven by scientists, to the point where people with extreme obesity can get "poop grafts" from people with a healthy lifestyle - changing the gut bacteria overnight and thus altering behavior and assisting in changing diets.

This is an off-beat but compelling argument to calling junkfood, sugar or red meat a drug. Through the proxy of gut bacteria, they do in fact influence your thinking.

It's also really fucked up that a bunch of singlecelled organisms in your gut can actually influence your day-to-day decision making. So much for free will.

There have been countless studies on rats in regards to the behaviors involved with nutrition and feeding. Mice and rats are used so often because they are a mammalian analogue with similar body chemistry to humans, and mice also have large litters and short gestation periods, allowing for scientists to see the effect that physical or environmental changes can have more quickly over time. This is also the reason scientists use fruitflies to study mutations in DNA, the lifespan of a fruitfly is so short it allows for many generations to pass by and be observed for any changes. The following is an excerpt from an experiment done by S.A Barnett, Department of Zoology at Glasgow University, in 1955. Wild rats were studied vs. albino lab rats for differences in bahavior while feeding:

We as human beings have no need to explore for food most of the time, and the chances of our food being stolen by a nestmate is also very low, unless you have piece of candy and your older sibling doesn't. The ritual of 'sitting down for mealtime' is an institutionalized pattern to establish a sense of togetherness when it comes to food. We can go to the grocery store/order online, or the more industrious can make a garden and grow their own food. It could be argued that in a roundabout way, marketing plays on our instinctual desire to explore and sample new sources of nutrition.

The definition of a drug is "a chemical which has a physiological effect on the body" and this is so broad of a meaning that Radiohead's website used to say "oxygen should be regarded as a drug". Drugs don't necessarily need to have a psychoactive effect. I find it useful to break it into stimulants and depressants, but again there are some substances that display qualities of both, so further definition is required when one is getting into specifics. It has indeed been widely proven that 'junk food' is highly addictive. Any substance or stimulus that one enjoys can become habit forming and in some cases lead to physical dependency. Processed sugar is pretty much trailing just behind nicotine, cocaine and heroin in terms of amount of times that one needs to ingest it for it to become potentially habit-forming. As others have said it alters the gut flora and rewires the brain. It is very difficult at times to see 'the forest for the trees' unless you are in contact with a doctor. 

When did this become a thread about albino rats?

December 5th according to my phone

I've drunken alcohol since I tried it in my mid 20's but I've never done any other kinds of drugs, also my alcohol drinking is very rare as I like to buy a 10 pack of rum and coke at least once a year, and I will buy a glass of wine or two when out with friends or at various meet ups at bars.

I grew up in the poor areas of 90's/early 2000's England so I've been around drugs my whole life, I have seen the effects of drugs on people, sometimes even close friends or family, having seen first hand the effects of meth, heroin and crack and even the overuse of weed, I would say I am completely against drugs, had to tiptoe around them, watch people basically kill themselves and deal with the degenerates who use them and resort to a life of violence and crime to fund it.

Having seen it and had to fight against the consequences of abuse (not abuse itself mind you, did well not to touch that shit) my whole life I can say with 100% certainty that I am zealously against recreational drugs and believe that my country will never be a safe place to live until the threat of drugs and the gangs that peddle them are cleaned from our streets.

I support the war on drugs but disagree with the methods, they should be targeting the source not the end user, whilst I have no sympathy for those who willingly took drugs and became addicted I understand that in the end they are still victims and should not be targeted.

I only drink some beer in social situations so that means very rarely. To be honest I don't even like the taste of it unless it's a wussy one (low alcohol, flavored). I often wonder how many people who drink beer actually enjoy the taste of it or just like getting drunk.

Never tried tobacco or weed.

currently prozac since I got diagnosed having bipolar 2 electric bogaloo. used to take resperidone but I stopped because it messes up my sleep cycle.

other than that.

Hooked on Tek.

Apparently, caffeine counts, so coffee. I've never touched anything else in my life and don't plan on it, even alcohol. I don't like the idea of taking anything that fucks with my head...

*looks over at username*

I started drinking caffeine regularly when I was 20, haven't stopped since then. For me, it can be anything from coffee or tea to energy drinks (only sugar free stuff---except for alcohol, I cut all sugar out of my beverages over a decade ago). Started drinking Diet Coke regularly early on, then moved mainly to energy drinks for a number of years. Lately, I've shifted back to Diet Coke again. But I'm not strict with my preferences: I'll drink whatever sugar free caffeinated beverage is available.

I'm a casual alcohol drinker. On a day where I drink, it'll be something like 1-3 beers on a given evening, or something heavier if it strikes my fancy. As far as liquor goes, it's usually whiskey, though I'm not averse to other types. I wouldn't call myself a heavy drinker though; I'll go days or sometimes weeks without a drink. I've never blacked out, and seldom get drunk.

I quit smoking years ago. Recently I've taken to vaping. Probably won't keep it up long term.

As for other stuff... I've tried weed maybe 10 or 12 times. Rarely had a generally favorable experience with it. It tends to either make me paranoid, or have almost no discernible effect at all.

And I'll never touch hallucinogens.

Drugs, hmm? ... I eat a dark chocolate that is for sure!

On 11/30/2019 at 8:43 AM, MassiveEdgelord said:

Title. It can be any kind. I currently do Zoloft that prescribed to me by my psychiatrist and it's great. I also did weed a couple of times which was good the first time but bad the second.

 

 

EDIT: I've also vaped and drunk beer on occasion. Beer tastes awful btw and smoking does nothing for me.

Not trying to be disrespectful, but I find it very funny that someone with your username and profile pic dislikes weed, vaping and beer.

I dont do drugs, I just smoke weed. I do however have to take sleeping pills alot because I got a deadly combo of anxiety, autism, and low pain tolorance.

Way too much coffee, IPAs every other weekend, and that's it i think