I’m a recreational drug user AMA

[alltheleavesarebrwn]

As the title says

I presume all cocaine comes from the same place as the leaves are only grown in certain countries. I don't think it's like opioids, but maybe I'm wrong.
I'd say there's a difference between medicinal and recreational use of drugs e.g. morphine for pain versus heroin.

Most people who are judgemental have seen the affects of drugs and the human cost of the supply chain. People like OP should be judged.

It comes from the same countries but there are different supply routes because pharmacutical countries are bound by more regulations and scrutiny; but it costs a lot. So even if it was legalised here it would be wildly expensive (so an illegal market would still exist) and setting up an ethical supply chain for recreational use rather than medicinal would be a lot more complex.

I doubt most MNers are that familiar with people in the supply chain even if you are. I think it's a bit of a kneejerk reaction.
One person has said she would equally judge someone who uses Temu or Shein, but I think most here would not.

We all have different opinions which is fine, like OP who knows but it doesnt bother them and can see why people who think its judgemental to judge. The human cost isnt just overseas (their lives are equally important but understand how people find it easier to detach) but here as well in our own communities.

But you see that is my argument. Addicts get addicted. Be it alcohol or class As. Some break that addiction some kill themselves with it but it being legal or illegal has absolutely no impact on that outcome. The issue of criminal/legal status of the substance acts neither as a preventative or an encouragement. . Making booze illegal will have absolutely no impact on an alcoholic. Anymore than coke or MDMA from Waitrose would encourage people who do not partake now to suddenly decide that they fancy doing it.
Cigarettes are legal. I’m not going to start smoking.
People are always going to do things that are bad choices. Throwing a (conservative estimate ) 10 Billion at trying to save idiots from themselves (I include myself and DH in that ) is a criminal waste of money. Especially when we have more pressing requirements like defence, social care and a public sector on its knees.

As for my own recreational use. I work on a multi agency team made up of various public sector investigators/intel. The police are one part of the team. I am on another. Which doesn’t (currently) have drug testing. If it is bought in then I will cease to indulge. I’m far to an infrequent user to get anywhere near the level the OP admits to. Sadly I think the OP is kidding themselves with a weekly habit.
I prefer my job than the kick from coke. So if I had to choose, it would be the former. This year I’ve done it twice: NYE and June birthday. Will almost certainly do it again at an upcoming 60th and a neighbours Christmas party, where most of our little cul de sac attend and the vast majority, men and women will have a line or two.

It would make not an iota of difference except that ‘skag head’ may not die from poor quality street drugs. Which you may or may not be pleased about. I can honestly say that there has never been a single ‘perspective skag head’ who is currently prevented from running amok outside your house because skag is illegal. !! Would you not prefer that law enforcement £’s were targeted at crimes against the person, burglary and anti social behaviour. ? plus money to get the skag heads off your street and into rehab . Not to mention some decently funded public health education explaining why drugs are a bad lifestyle choice.

As for international supply chain issues ? How do you work that out. We simply have an import agreement with South America/Central America for their raw products, just as we do with cocoa beans. No smugglers required, no coerced woman used as mules. It would wreck OCG activities into the UK in a heartbeat. OCGs make huge amounts of money BECAUSE of illegal activity. Think outside the box and remove their USP and make it legal.
Of course - once neighbouring countries see the success in the UK others will have the courage to follow suit. Thereby completely dismantling the drugs arm of Organised Criminal Gangs.. if only the solution to sex trafficking had such a simple solution.

Such minimising. Your using is just as bad as the ops whether you think because it's allegedly done at 60th parties in cul de sacs and not grubby bed sits that it isn't. It is.

You're a user and perpetuating the problem.

Of course drugs should never become legal making it easier for users.

If i also had my head in the clouds I would agree with you. The emotional you may or may not be pleased about wont work here- no death is to be celebrated; including the many stemming from drugs (which would not be solved by legalising it by the way). Police don't spend time chasing users, they rightly do dealers (not enough though), and if you think legalising it wouldnt lead to more overt use also crazy and ironically would like some of what you are on!

Will almost certainly do it again at an upcoming 60th and a neighbours Christmas party, where most of our little cul de sac attend and the vast majority, men and women will have a line or two.

I cannot tell you how much this has made me laugh @beenanddonethat .

My first experience of seeing people doing lines so publicly was at a similar Christmas party in a very naice city in Herts - there too, the house was in a cul de sac and all adults were 40+.

I genuinely don't see why this is funny.

I was a teenager in the 80s. I grew up with the stereotype of cocaine being something that City types and celebrities did.

I've been around plenty of people who smoke weed or do mushrooms but have never seen people publicly doing cocaine. I think it's depressing that it has become normalised in some circles and that a lot of people who consider themselves "naice" and respectable don't give a shit about the misery caused by their partying.

Ditto to all of this, except I was a child of the 90s. Cocaine was always presented as something that prickish, narcissistic people did, to turn themselves into even bigger pricks, and the industry is inhumane. It's shocking the way it's been normalised – and it goes to show that being illegal doesn't prevent something from being normalised, or heavily used.

The similarity in the detail @cariadlet Most amusing.

I'm still a little confused. Do you mean that you think it's funny that you and another poster both do cocaine with other middle aged people in respectable neighbourhoods? Something that has apparently become quite normalised in certain circles.

I don't understand why that's amusing. I honestly don't get the humour in 2 people doing the same shitty thing in similar circumstances.

If 2 people in completely different parts of the country found that they had both done something unusual, outside the norm but essential harmless (eg had both been dared to run down the high street wearing nothing but a pair of union jack briefs and a pirate hat, shouting "Boris Johnson is a pillock") then the coincidence might be considered very amusing.

This - not so much.

I used to clean for a famous "Housewife ". She portrays herself as living a virtuous, healthy lifestyle...but that's just a facade. She very often hosted "white parties ".

It’s pathetic.

I have worked with care leavers who were exploited, beaten up, and even stabbed so that middle-aged, middle class people could have their “line or two”.

Using Temu or Shein isn't illegal and isn't fuelling money laundering and organised crime here in the UK nor causing the demise of High Streets due to the money laundering shops, barbers, nail bars, etc.

When you say 'of course I feel bad for contributing' to the exploitation that comes from the drug industry, do you mean, 'I don't really give a shit about that people are murdered, children's lives are ruined by county lines, drug mules are tricked, or die in agony. Because I like my cheeky little bump.' If you can't admit that you really don't give a shit, please would you say a bit more about the way in which you feel bad about it? What thoughts go through your head that make you feel bad about it? Are they in any way an incentive to stop?

One thing I have noticed about every single habitual coke user I have ever met, is that coke makes them supremely selfish and cocky and think they are exceptional - that they alone are the life and soul of the party, superior in intellect, wit and creative energy to those around them, and everyone else is turgid and banal. Has this cognitive distortion happened to you?

But the 'what about alcohol?' argument is pretty weak anyway. Alcohol and drugs are not really analogous.

It is possible to drink a glass of wine or beer with a meal and enjoy it, without getting drunk. The sole purpose of taking drugs is to get off your head in some way.

People argue that weed is no different to booze, but in UK there is evidence it is grown by slaves, imprisoned trafficked humans often in situatons which mean they see no other humans for months on end. This is not true of the wine and beer industries. Anyone who smokes weed they do not grow themselves should read this Enslaved on a British cannabis farm

Alcohol's strength is regulated. There is no way of knowing whether weed will make you pleasantly relaxed or contribute towards psychosis.

Where did i say i use coke?

I think the cul de sac detail is very funny. Different sense of humour to yours obvs.

50% of the 30 year old coke heads I know died by the time they were 50! Leaving their kids without their fathers or mothers.

Have you introduced any of your partners or friends to it? If yes, how many are hooked on it?

I know a bastard of a man who got his 11 year old son hooked on it.

Alcohol is a drug.

That aside, for many drugs, yes, the point is to get off your head. One can't just 'have a bit' of coke, meth, or heroin for instance, although people do microdose mushrooms and MDMA. Additionally, many people, especially where it's legal, do treat weed like a glass of wine and just have a small amount to 'relax', with much the same mental effect as a glass or two of wine, and it's less addictive than alcohol iirc. Alcohol is also responsible for more (family) violence than weed alone, as drunk people are more aggressive than stoned people.

Although I take your point that the weed industry in the UK is currently horrendous and unethical.

You are very naive.

You have very obviously not witnessed an addicted stoner not being able to access more weed. The violence can be off the scale.

Likewise you obviously haven’t witnessed a stoner with psychosis wanting to kill someone who is supposedly (in their reality) persecuting them.

Cannabis can also lead to schizophrenia not only psychosis.

You really do need to educate yourself.