To ask: if you are an occasional cocaine user, are you aware how you appear to others?

I have a couple of family members (a couple) who use cocaine recreationally and they are deeply twattish about it. They also drink a lot and validate their choices by suggesting anyone who doesn’t indulge like they do/think it’s really cool is in fact just boring and stuck up. For context, they are in their 60s now, and believe me when I say it is only them who consider their behaviour ‘cool’ in any way.

I mean there are all kinds of people I find boring. Drug users don’t stand out especially.

I find drunks (when I am sober) far more annoying than drug users.

Well said.

Having spent my teens and 20s deeply into the free party scenes in the regions I lived in, I can't countenance drug use now, for the reasons cited by @ExtraOnions . I roll my eyes so hard at people who think of occasional dabbling in recreational drugs as harmless. Sure, it might not impact the individual beyond the usual grim expected outcomes, but drugs leave a trail of violence, loss, displacement, coercion, threat, poverty, abuse and disease, and casual drug users make themselves complicit in this harm which touches the lives of men, women and children whom they've never met. So that's what I see when I become aware of acquaintances using recreational drugs; a massive empathy-fail. How can it be enjoyable when you know the use underpins so much human misery?

Couldn't agree more. We can all argue about whether the various mind-altering substances humanity has discovered should be available legally or not, but putting that to one side for now, cocaine, heroin, weed etc are not currently available legally, and tobacco and alcohol smuggled in to avoid tax are also illegal. Anybody buying them is putting money into the hands of violent amoral criminals who have ruined millions of lives because their lust for money is more important to them than anybody else's happiness and safety. God only knows what else it's funding. Join the dots!

Totally agree it is very hard to hang out with people on coke when sober! Its also pretty much always heavily cut with benzocaine in the uk…shoving loads of industrial strength anesthetic in your face adds to the weird effect it has on people. It is really moreish though.

Snap it’s just gross.🤢🤮😂

In my experience people who are already dickheads are more dickish on coke. Lots of people are fine, but on the whole people who use coke do it with other people using coke, so if they’re boring then they can bore each other. Mind you, being around people drink a lot when you’re sober can sometimes be tedious as is being around someone stoned when you’re not.

Yes, dancing on coke is a weird one. Surprised so many people say it makes them want to dance. The few times I’ve tried it, it hasn’t had that effect at all.

You also make a good point about how there’s etiquette around drugs, as much as people like to think it’s all about reckless abandon. In my social circle, anyone who over-does it, on any drug (incl. alcohol) and makes people feel uncomfortable would be called out / faded out of future gatherings.

😂😂😂😂😂

I've done very little coke in my time, though everyone around me did. I don't get on well with 'fast' drugs, and can talk endless bollocks without chemical assistance: even more so with a drink! I love booze.

It seems to me there are people who hate and/or are terrified of 'losing control', and people who really enjoy it. I'm in the latter group. All of human history has been characterised by wild, raucous gatherings where people could surrender to crowd euphoria, letting go of individual responsibility and propriety for a few joyous hours or days. They may have framed it with different trappings and rituals, but we now know they consumed a range of drugs and alcohol with their feasts and music.

For professionals, cocaine has the advantages of a stimulant - particularly attractive if you need to perform at work after an intense night. It speeds up your thought processes; your thoughts may be strangely random and unfocussed, but at least they're quick! It's not too hard to give up when you have to, according to my previously snow-nosed friends, so doesn't feel like too much of a risk.

My millennial/Z pals tell me they're doing more ketamine than coke these days. I have no idea how this works - the only time I tried it I got raped, which naturally put me off. I enjoy consciously losing control, not being zombified! Today's Young People may have some methods for using ket more safely, I dunno.

Yes @Dappy777; it's well known that no one right of centre takes any illegal drugs.

Me too.

@Snowmaidenly are you unbothered by the trade behind cocaine? You make it sound so civilised and exclusive.

Same. I also think it's funny that OP thinks that coke users are 'rude and self absorbed' yet expects others to change their habits to accommodate her. To me, that's the definition of 'rude and self absorbed'!

Yes but you're odd man out in that group because you don't take it! Why should they change to accommodate you?

The deaths in Venezuela tonight had zero to do with drugs and everything to do with US colonialism and quest for cheap oil.

I am only around other coke users so this is not a concern. And even when not doing coke but around other coke users I never found them especially boring - no.

I despise people who use drugs. They fund/encourage a hideous, violent industry, and they reward vicious scumbags. I’m also sick of the trendy-left view of ‘gangsta’ drug dealers as freedom fighters opposing ‘da system’. No, they’re not heroes, and being on their side doesn’t make you cool. All they have ever done in their filthy, worthless lives is hurt people, while those who slog away as teachers or nurses or postmen or lorry drivers (and keep society functioning) remain ignored and unrewarded.

If everyone behaved like drug-dealing vermin, we’d have no civilisation at all. Human beings aren’t naturally civilised. We have to work hard to build and maintain civilisation, and it can collapse in a moment. Peel away the surface and you have violent, tribal apes. People who deal, and take, drugs threaten our fragile peace and order. I know those prats who call themselves ‘anarcho-socialists’ think that would be a good thing, but though such gibberish sounds good in the university bar, I doubt they’d like the reality.

Agree, jabbering relentlessly with flat, dead, shark eyes. Impossible to interact with because they’re on transmit only. Been around it a lot (it was endemic in the industry I worked in) but only partaken a few times, and yes, I was aware of the disparity between how I felt and how I might be coming across.

I’ll admit it does make you feel like some sparkling social butterfly, full of easy, flowing conversation and great confidence that you’re being witty and charming. Also sobers you up almost instantaneously so you’re then into an endless cycle of top up booze and lines. Probably fun for those doing it, but so fucking tedious for everyone else.

Sadly it gets even worse as people get older still clinging on to that lifestyle, and there are occasions and individuals I definitely swerve now. Nothing as unedifying as raddled old 60-somethings, trying to be too cool for school and gurning away, talking at you a million miles an hour without blinking. No thanks.

i've always thought that this would make a great drugs education campaign.Something along the lines (ha) of "Do you know how that snow white powder going up your nose arrived in this country" while cutting to a film of someone swallowing or inserting condoms stuffed with coke so that it can be smuggled into the country. Of course this is not the only way ti arrives here but it might be a revelation to some

i've always thought that this would make a great drugs education campaign.Something along the lines (ha) of "Do you know how that snow white powder going up your nose arrived in this country" while cutting to a film of someone swallowing or inserting condoms stuffed with coke so that it can be smuggled into the country. Of course this is not the only way ti arrives here but it might be a revelation to some

I did used to go out with a lad who smoked dope. I did have a couple of drags but didn’t like it so never tried it again. The Leah Betts case was enough to put me off trying any other drugs for life.

Nobody in my circle of friends have taken it that I know of. A friend of mine has raised her grandson whose mother was using during pregnancy. He was born 3 months premature social services were pushing for adoption. But as soon as they knew he had brain damage they were literally begging her to be his guardian.

I don't like being around drunk people,I find them absolutely annoying and they can actually more obnoxious than some who do drugs.