I’m not the kind who give a fuck about what other people usually do unless it directly affect me but I’m wondering what’s the opinion about this on Lemmy.
Prohibition is control.
I have yet to find a drug addict who stuck with their drug if choice due to anything other than mental problems
Neither. I don’t consider drugs being the reason someone is cool nor is it an indicator of mental issues.
I used to consume drugs, and I’m cool and have mental health problems, so, both!
Drugs are the opposite of cool. The more into it you are the more cringe it is. Yes, even caffeine, alcohol, and sugar. Moderation is a virtue.
I think drugs are mutually exclusive from coolness or mental issues. Heck, animals sometimes consume drugs for recreation.
I suspect we all have mental problems. Most people are not assessed and are high-functioning, yet we’re not meant to work forty hours a week and live in nuclear families, let alone struggle in precarity. Mental illness is and family dysfunction are intergenerational and have been through the twentieth century, if not through the common era.
While there are recreational uses for drugs, I suspect most drug users self medicate, which is to say the drugs they take unpresribed are used to cope with symptoms of stress and existential horror, the same way we take drugs to cope with migraines or allergies, or chronic symptoms.
Does that mean they’re uncool? Not at all. Self aware people, deep thinkers, philosophers, artists, scientists and engineers all often drink, smoke, binge on edibles or engage in street chemistries in order to cope, and the ones who are self-aware are able to recognize it’s a thing they need right now, and that others who are addicted are not to be blamed or judged by whatever gets them by, night after night.
I know my drug smoking ass is cool. 😎
As others have said, it’s too varied.
In no small part because alcohol is a drug.
It’s not cool neither good for mental health IMO. I don’t do drugs and never will.
Cool people can have mental problems.
Cool people can have mental problems rather or not they like drugs.
One of the uncoolest things I think people do is ask black and white questions like this while acting like alcohol isn’t a drug.
I think it’s a normal thing that people do sometimes
Yes
The thing a lot of people get backwards (fuck the war on drugs actually) is that hardcore addiction is virtually always predated by some type of undiagnosed and untreated mental health issue. To say that another way, mental health issues are not caused by taking drugs. When someone is very unwell and often poor (i.e. low or no access to medical and mental health professionals) they often find a way to self-treat the affliction(s) with street drugs. Those same underlying causes for a more affluent person will be dealt with alongside medical supervision (and often with the same class of drugs) without falling into the trap of addiction (because supervised, and supported).
Nothing cool about being a drug user by choice, nor an addict trying to cope. It’s just reality.
Counterpoint: there are plenty of well off folks taking classified drugs recreationally out of boredom that become addicted. I came from a high cost of living suburbia and there really wasn’t a lot to do as a teenager due to high property values and taxes. Refractional spaces, especially aimed at teens, were basically non-existent. I imagine the same is also true in rural areas, but for different reasons.
I’m not speaking in absolutes here obviously. But it’s pretty well established that a very small fraction of people who take drugs (prescription or otherwise) become what we term addicts. There are lots of affluent addicts and alcoholics (I know plenty personally) but just because they have access to medical and mental health care doesn’t mean every one of them will go there.
You don’t see a lot of upper middle class people end up on the streets with heavy addictions because they can usually get into rehab, get help processing whatever it is keeping them down, and move on with their lives. Lots of poorer people can do so as well (the poverty and “success” porn content out there is easy to find) but for every one of those success stories there are thousands who never make it. I don’t think it’s hard to parse that poorer people have less culturally acceptable means of getting help (if they don’t outright end up in prison for simple possession to begin with, which I’m guessing those peers you’re referring to seldom have to worry about).
Neither, and also all of the above, plus the list isn’t long enough.
Seriously, it’s not the only two options.
Sometimes cool people do drugs. So do people with mental problems. So do all kinds of other people. But, doing drugs can’t make you cool if you aren’t already. And you don’t necessarily have to have mental problems to use/enjoy any given drug, though some drugs may change that for you eventually.
