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 soma_victim
Random
Registered: 06/16/05
Posts: 116
Loc: Lost
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
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 Drugs == Immoral ? 
#4513125 - 08/09/05 01:10 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hey folks! I have been thinking on something for a while now, and am writing this down hopefully just to clear my head and try to determine what I think on the topic, and also to get some input and advice from anyone who takes the time to read this. It may tend to come across as pointless rambling, because thats really what it is.
Basically, I am deciding what I think on drugs. I am nearly 20 years old, have drank alcohol and smoked pot on and off, at appropriate times throughout the last few years, tried MDMA/Ecstacy three times, Nitrous once, Adderall once and Mushrooms once. Of all these things, I seriously enjoy some of them, and consider them a great recreational pursuit in my spare time, but I find it hard to justify this to myself.
I work hard enough, I have stable relationships with all my friends and family, pretty much my life is normal. But most my friends and definitely all my family would just flip out and go insane if they knew I had tried shrooms or E, or if they knew how often I smoke weed. This pisses me off so much, because I have researched these drugs and I know the risks I am taking and am willing to accept these. I keep feeling like their dissaproval is born out of ignorance, and that if I want to take these things, its my own body and mind, and my choice. I feel like keeping them in the dark about my drug "habit" is worse than actually doing the drugs, but know if I tell them, it will only make things far worse. Ignorance is Bliss, right?
But despite that, I cant shake this feeling like what I am doing is wrong. I can go out and get pissed, come home and smoke a joint or two with my mates without ever feeling slightly guilty, but just the fact that I think about it so casually, it well... I dont know, its like my moral compass just gets fucked up when the topic is drugs. I cant decide whether going out and dropping some pills is irresponsible, or whether it is a safer, more loving and caring alternative to getting drunk.
Oh, and you know what pisses me off? People who want to live soooo healthily that they can die at like age 90, without ever having any fun. I dont know why they piss me off but they do. is that wrong? fucking feminists, too. And people who bitch about passive smoke. I dont smoke ciggarettes, but at least I have the decency not to bitch and whinge that I might die just from being near someone who is smoking.
OK, got sidetracked there.
Anyway, anyone know of any good reading on the topic of Drugs and Morality? I don't know what to think.
Cheers,
clam
Edited by clam (08/09/05 01:13 AM)
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Bobo
Tongue
Registered: 07/04/05
Posts: 3,437
Loc: Next to Kitty (Yahweh)
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
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Immoral? What's your value system?
Coffee should be immoral, just after nicotine.
Fluoxetine, Viagra, ALL the benzos.
While we're at it, strike antihypertensives, antibiotics, and mouthwash (antibacterial action).
Your concern isn't about the drugs you ingest...your concern is how you feel about certain drugs you ingest.
Fuck. You'd have to feel guilty about all manner of herbal supplements, etc. to make this line of thinking extend logically.
You're not guilty about the drugs you take. You're guilty about your own perceived behavior while on whatever drug you choose.
Morality has nothing to do with it. I can waste my time drinking booze or I can waste my time watching Survivor. Which is more immoral?
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OneMoreRobot3021 said:
the pub mods are a cancer on our society as a whole.
pantsboy said:
Do kittens contain mescaline? Because they should.
My GF & ME  
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stefan
work in progress
Registered: 04/11/01
Posts: 8,932
Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
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I know what you mean man, I'm happy my friends don't freak out when they know I do other drugs than weed and alcohol once in a while. As long as they know that I'm careful and use in moderation it's ok. I don't tell just any of my friends that I use shrooms a few times a year or have tried E a very few times etc. Only my closest friends know about everything that I tried.
Ignorance is bliss? maybe... sometimes it's just better not to tell, but I can imagine/know it sucks having to hide things to your friends. In a culture like the one we live in it sometimes is better not to talk about certain things you do.
The interesting thing is that you know what you're doing, at least to a certain extent, and that you know your shit about drugs so with that in mind you could open discussions about drugs with your friends and find out why they think it's so damn immoral and maybe clear some things up for them (hoaxes, misinformation etc).
You thought it trough and made rational decisions for yourself, you're not going to harm anyone with it, you use with moderation and it doesn't interfere with your daily life. Nothing immoral about that if you ask me 
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 Dark_Star
train driver pervading a desktop
Registered: 08/20/04
Posts: 31,859
Loc: Uranus
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It all varies from drug to drug. Psychedelics are good, they are medicine, they are gifts from God to bring us back into the light. Hard drugs such as heroin and coke are evil, I won't say that using them is immoral, as people have many reasons for such decisions (I'm a former addict), but they will destroy your life, they will lead you into darkness.....and there is a lot of bad karma involved; they are "gifts" (traps is more like it) of the devil. Ecstasy is a difficult one, it's in between...it's a drug, but it's also a medicine; it's all in how you use it.
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barfightlard
tales of theinexpressible
Registered: 01/29/03
Posts: 8,670
Loc: Canoodia
Last seen: 14 years, 3 months
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: Dark_Star]
#4514234 - 08/09/05 12:02 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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it's all subjective and personal. mushrooms made my life into what you said heroin use would, so thats just bullshit
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"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks
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MOTH
Wild Woman
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 23,431
Loc: In the jungle
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Quote:
clam said:
But despite that, I cant shake this feeling like what I am doing is wrong.
Don't worry. In the modern age, this is a common feeling to have. I experience it too, and I guarantee most drug users in the US have a flash of it on occasion. This is because for the most part, drug users are villianized just like the drugs we do.
Sometimes, I agonize whether I should "come clean" and tell my family that I am a drug user and that my experiences have had a positive influence on me. It would feel GREAT to get that 'load of deceit' off my chest. But in the end, YES, it would cause a great deal more problems. I would worry them. They would automatically think that because drug = bad, daughter = bad if she does them. Since my parents are fanatics, it's possible they would forcibly try to get me into drug rehab.
So yeah, I'd rather not tell them right now. One day, when I'm a little older maybe and even more secure in my life, I'll break the dam.
I don't know your family, so I can't decide the best course of action for you. But telling them you do drugs is sure to have lasting consequences that could color your entire relationship with them. Be careful.
As for that 'icky little feeling' that has been hammered into us by the government that what we are doing is "WRONG," well, it can't win out against what YOU KNOW is true. Your reason and experiences tell you that what you do with drugs is pleasurable, you enjoy it. If you've noticed a trend like I have, you'll see that there are forces in the world who try and convince us that everything we enjoy is wrong, evil or IMMORAL.
How can this be? How can something that has no inherant 'badness' in itself be immoral? The drugs don't care if you do them. They just are what they are.
Society has trained us to believe that if we enjoy something, it must be bad. Look at our relationship with money for example. We love having it, love spending it, but money is supposed to be the root of all evil. Hmm. So we love it, but it's evil. Same with sex. We love it, oh, how we love it, but...in CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES it's immoral. Hm...so we love sex, but it's immoral half the time. Okay. Then there's drugs. Who can deny how something like mushrooms makes you feel? Well, because it's an EVIL DRUG those experiences you've gotten from those mushrooms are invalid.
See the trend? It's all bullshit. It's just society feeling guilty (because of their religious roots most likely) and they're trying to make the entire population feel guilty about pleasurable things too. Now THAT is what I call wrong. How fucked up is that. Society is shoving their religious shadow onto you and expecting you to wallow in that shadow unflinchingly, with total obediance.
Now really, who's the crazy one? Some stoner who takes a few tokes peacefully to get through their day and occasionally experiences God while shrooming with friends, or some brainless social fanatic who fears and abhors inanimate objects yet secretly loves them, needs to get shit-faced and slobbering drunk to feel non-guilty about sex and reassures his sorry existence by having "bad things" to protest and rail against.
All your doing is enjoying the pleasures of substances available to your disposal and there is nothing fucking wrong with that.
Go with what your intuition tells you, your heart. See, I used to have this problem where I questioned my drug use too. But to question MY drug use was to question my own experiences with them. And with the proof right before me (my life having been improved by drug use) then I can only go with the inter-personal evidence.
It all boils down to this...other people don't know you. They never will, not really. Only you know you. If drug use has been a positive influence in your life, that's really the only evidence you need to go by.
Stop caring about what those "others" think. They have nothing to do with you. enjoy yourself for petes sake while you still can. 
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Dark_Star
train driver pervading a desktop
Registered: 08/20/04
Posts: 31,859
Loc: Uranus
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Then you either abused them, or don't have the right personality for them....psychedelics are not for everybody. The fact is that the majority of those who use psychedelics experience extremely positive changes in their state of being and help, therefore they are medicines, whereas the majority of heroin users get really fucked up. There are exceptions to every rule, just because you happen to be an exception doesn't make psychedelics being a medicine/key from God bullshit.
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dblaney
Human Being
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Man, when it's time for you to die, YOU'RE the one that's going to have to die, so live your life the way you want to!
Think of this story: There are two guys. Jim went jogging for miles and miles every day...ate right, wrote books about nutrition and living well. Bob smoked cigarettes, had sex, drank, did drugs, and took risks. One day around the age of 75, Bob passed away. Coincidentally, Jim also died at age 75...of a heart attack...WHILE jogging. No one could figure out why.
But up in heaven (or the equivalent for your religious beliefs...), Jim and Bob started chatting about their lives, Jim told Bob about how well he ate and in what good shape he was in. Bob told Jim about how he had had lots of sex, done drugs, and lived a happy life. Jim was shocked and didn't know what to do!
What I'm getting at is that you should live your life exactly the way you want. If you want to do drugs, then go for it man, that's your right as a human being. No one even needs to know about it except for you.
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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"
"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer
Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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MOTH
Wild Woman
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 23,431
Loc: In the jungle
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: dblaney]
#4514812 - 08/09/05 03:04 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
dblaney18 said:
Man, when it's time for you to die, YOU'RE the one that's going to have to die, so live your life the way you want to!
Excellant point.
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dblaney
Human Being
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: MOTH]
#4515133 - 08/09/05 04:37 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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--------------------
"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"
"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer
Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Tien
人民英雄
Registered: 03/30/05
Posts: 2,382
Loc: Canoodia 
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: dblaney]
#4515154 - 08/09/05 04:45 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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A drug cannot be moral or immoral...the person who ingests the drug reserves the choice of acting morally or imorally while under the influence of that drug.
Pluto
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FreedomFight
Strange
Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 427
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: Tien]
#4515874 - 08/09/05 08:47 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Plutonium said:
A drug cannot be moral or immoral...the person who ingests the drug reserves the choice of acting morally or imorally while under the influence of that drug.
Pluto
Damn, I was just about to say that Pluto!
The anxiety you feel is in your head. It is good that you question your actions. It is your right to live your life the way you choose. When you think about your drug use you should ask yourself if the things you do on drugs or the path they are leading you through should be considered immoral. The act of doing drugs CANNOT be immoral, however if you needed to steal or take days off work to keep yourself on drugs then THAT may be considered immoral.
Often it is hard to evaluate your actions while you are still on drugs because your love for these drugs may mislead your conclusions. Try taking a few months off to evaluate if you are truely concerned. To me, it sounds like you are just feeling guilty for the "forbidden fun" that you are experiencing.
Consider this: At one time it legal to beat your wife if you used a stick that was thinner than your thumb (rule of thumb). Now, its damn illegal to beat your wife regardless. In most cases I consider it to be immoral to beat anyone. Many people think that a good beating is a great way to teach a lesson. Immorality is subjective and has nothing to do with the law or your parents views--it is something you must contemplate for yourself.
Hope this helps a in any way. Another thing, don't tell your parents if they will flip (unless you don't care about their opinion and are completely independant of them).
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I do not grow anything illegal.
I do not sell anything.
I am, however, a very curious individual.
I also try to be helpful.
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soma_victim
Random
Registered: 06/16/05
Posts: 116
Loc: Lost
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
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thanks heaps for the advice, everyone. It gave me a lot to think on. I ecspecially like that Pluto quote. =)
I think for now I won't mention it to my parents, even though I am independant of them, I do care what they think.
And thinking on these posts also made me feel much better about giving shrooms another try. 
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Luke
thought
Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 168
Loc: the Well
Last seen: 18 years, 6 months
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Quote:
clam said:
Hey folks! I have been thinking on something for a while now, and am writing this down hopefully just to clear my head and try to determine what I think on the topic, and also to get some input and advice from anyone who takes the time to read this. It may tend to come across as pointless rambling, because thats really what it is.
Basically, I am deciding what I think on drugs. I am nearly 20 years old, have drank alcohol and smoked pot on and off, at appropriate times throughout the last few years, tried MDMA/Ecstacy three times, Nitrous once, Adderall once and Mushrooms once. Of all these things, I seriously enjoy some of them, and consider them a great recreational pursuit in my spare time, but I find it hard to justify this to myself.
I work hard enough, I have stable relationships with all my friends and family, pretty much my life is normal. But most my friends and definitely all my family would just flip out and go insane if they knew I had tried shrooms or E, or if they knew how often I smoke weed. This pisses me off so much, because I have researched these drugs and I know the risks I am taking and am willing to accept these. I keep feeling like their dissaproval is born out of ignorance, and that if I want to take these things, its my own body and mind, and my choice. I feel like keeping them in the dark about my drug "habit" is worse than actually doing the drugs, but know if I tell them, it will only make things far worse. Ignorance is Bliss, right?
But despite that, I cant shake this feeling like what I am doing is wrong. I can go out and get pissed, come home and smoke a joint or two with my mates without ever feeling slightly guilty, but just the fact that I think about it so casually, it well... I dont know, its like my moral compass just gets fucked up when the topic is drugs. I cant decide whether going out and dropping some pills is irresponsible, or whether it is a safer, more loving and caring alternative to getting drunk.
Oh, and you know what pisses me off? People who want to live soooo healthily that they can die at like age 90, without ever having any fun. I dont know why they piss me off but they do. is that wrong? fucking feminists, too. And people who bitch about passive smoke. I dont smoke ciggarettes, but at least I have the decency not to bitch and whinge that I might die just from being near someone who is smoking.
OK, got sidetracked there.
Anyway, anyone know of any good reading on the topic of Drugs and Morality? I don't know what to think.
Cheers,
clam
Drugs are perfectly moral. In fact they improve our lives.
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leery11
I Tell You What!
Registered: 06/24/05
Posts: 5,998
Last seen: 9 years, 14 days
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Re: Drugs == Immoral ? [Re: Luke]
#4518660 - 08/10/05 03:07 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Morals are entirely and wholey subjective. From a societal perpsective drug use isn't even particularly immoral if we look at how often people casusally knock back a beer or two in almost every TV show.
I can think of a hell of a lot of things more universally immomral than drug use, they include murder, theft, rape, slander, lying, cheating and just HARMING others.
But grow one pot plant and you get more jail time than almost all of the above crimes and frowned upon behaviors.
The only thing immoral here is telling people that they can't live their lives the way they want. The only thing immoral here is completely eradicating the very notions of freedom this country was founded upon with happy smiles in face and Bibles in hand.
You can argue morals are founded on a social level rather than individual, but then you only need to look at mankind's long history of laws and behavior to see that drug use is as natural as eating and making love, and has never been particularly harmful until laws were put into place.
The only argument that I really agree with from the anti-drug groups is that it's better to obtain "highs" naturally and that you shouldn't be hedonistic or addictive in your use.
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I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo! ....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human...... Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!
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