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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that most on here have tried class B or A drugs at some point in their lives?

477 replies

apologies · 10/02/2012 23:59

I'm increasingly struggling with the wisdom of prohibiting drugs and this is increased by a suspicion that far more people have taken or take drugs than are ever willing to admit it. I am thus curious as to MNetters experiences.

OP posts:
Catstwattypoosituation · 11/02/2012 00:26

You can't have had enough if you can still use mumsnet, dodie!

Best of times, worst of times - exactly!

rhondajean · 11/02/2012 00:26

Worra we need a wicker basket, I'll bring the vodka, we will have a right laugh!!

AgentZigzag · 11/02/2012 00:26

We used to go a-shrooming worra, got the tetris effect after a bit and kept looking for them even when we'd left the common Grin

Fucking weirdy shit though

FreudianSlipper · 11/02/2012 00:28

yes i have

had a great time too. no do not think they should be made legal but we do need to change our attitude towards drugs and face up to the fact that most of our children will at least try drugs and encourage them to try them safely than bury our heads in the sand believing that they will not because we have taught them well

sunshineandbooks · 11/02/2012 00:30

I still can't make up my mind on this.

One of the main problems with drugs is that a lot of end users are just normal people with normal crime-free lives. They harm no one and tend to be more passive than someone who's drunk a lot of alcohol for example. However, the simple act of buying those drugs means that you have contributed - however indirectly - to an illegal trade that quite often involves less palatable sidelines such as human trafficking, prostitution and gun-running.

I once read a really good book about how it's a fundamental human need to get 'out of it' and shows how this has been the case throughout history and prehistory, and I have quite a lot of sympathy with this view. But the related crime that is associated with drugs is, IMO, a good reason to stay off drugs even if you think the effects of taking them are negligible and people should be free to do what they want. It is an argument for legalising them though. The arguments for legalising, regulating and taxing drugs are compelling. Where trials have taken place (thinking of a fairly recent one in Barcelona I think), results have been impressive - crime down, people successfully quitting in greater numbers.

However, I worry that by legalising it it makes it more acceptable. If alcohol was released today, it would be banned. Its effects are far more damaging than most illegal drugs. Yet the vast majority of adults drink - due in part to it being so widely available and socially acceptable.

McHappyPants2012 · 11/02/2012 00:31

Does anybody know if less people are taking meow meow since the ban

Original poster
apologies · 11/02/2012 00:32

Freudian- but did it ever do you any harm? And assuming not, why would you stop your children trying it in a responsible atmosphere?
I should make it clear right now that I am playing devils advocate and I am far from certain what my answer would be.

OP posts:
jajoly · 11/02/2012 00:32

Sorry about ""over use of brackets (very aware of etiquette of punctuation on mumsnet as have been serial lurker a LONG time)- or is it worse to mention it?

FoofFighter · 11/02/2012 00:33

I've had two puffs off a spliff and that is it.

rhondajean · 11/02/2012 00:33

Until I types that I haven't thought about the impact drugs has had on my own friend circles. Those are just the big scary ones. Not the friends too paranoid to work erc.

Now I have, it's actually shocked me.

bejeezus · 11/02/2012 00:34

It wasn't at all glamerous dodie

Catstwattypoosituation · 11/02/2012 00:34

rhonda, honestly it can't be explained. The best I can do is that it's dream thoughts. You know when you wake up and you can't even relate the concept of what happened in your dream to your life, but for a few seconds you're completely there? It's that but for about half an hour. It generally doesn't tend to be horrible, because it's much more abstract that bad/good.

thenightsky · 11/02/2012 00:36

Back in the day... speed, LSD, heroin, cannabis and coke.

no compulsion to ever use them again. It was worth a try at the time, that's all.

Iteotwawki · 11/02/2012 00:36

I haven't - never felt the need or desire.

I also don't get the argument that if "soft" drugs were legalised then it would stop criminal behaviour - people will still steal to pay for a high if they are addicted, just they'd be paying a clinic (and probably tax) instead of a dealer.

One of the only decent reasons I've come across for the supply being legitimised and under govt control is that you would then at least know what you were getting and what strength.

There was something sold here until recently at local corner stores called Kronic - marketed as a legal high, dried leaves you smoked like cannabis. Got taken off the shelf when it was found to contain all manner of prescription drugs in addition to synthetic cannabinoids. That would be far less likely to happen if the manufacture and supply was regulated.

McHappyPants2012 · 11/02/2012 00:36

The come down are worst than hang over, which is why I wanted out of that life

rhondajean · 11/02/2012 00:37

I think I am too much of a control freak for that.

I love the two glasses of wine buzz. An ideal drug for me would sustain that all night, there are ways to try to mix to get that but it's a delicate chemical balance isn't it.

And in my experience a trail of broken minds and dead bodies.

The funny thighs, the circles I live in view heroin addicts as the lowest of the,low.

TerraNotSoFirma · 11/02/2012 00:38

I started smoking at 11, Hash at 14/15, Speed at 17, Spent 18-22 mostly off my face on E's and coke. Moved away at 22 to get out of that group but still took coke maybe once or twice a year whenever went home for a night out.

When I was 28, Friday night was very drunk and had a few lines, We had planned to take pills on the Saturday and go to some club in London but.........My friend took a pregnancy test, It was negative. It was a twin pack of tests so I took the other one and discovered I was pregnant. I went straight home.
Have never touched drugs since that Friday, No problem playing russian roulette with my life when I didn't have children but I wouldn't even consider it now.

FreudianSlipper · 11/02/2012 00:38

i am just not sure going to the sweet shop and being able to by e's, coke is a good idea we tend to have a binge culture in this country for some reason so would drugs be binged on too, i just not sure it is the right way to go. maybe hash cafes but not opium dens

did it do me any harm well yes i suffered from paranoia terribly when using coke and e's often, using jsut one or the other and less so i was fine with and smoking weed (not skunk)

rhondajean · 11/02/2012 00:38

Funny thing, my thighs may be funny but that's a different thread anda. Bit personal, sorry.

DodieSmith · 11/02/2012 00:39

Oh dear. I can't imagine where you'd get offered opium.

AgentZigzag · 11/02/2012 00:41

Maybe it's not the drugs that are a problem, it's the people who take them who have a problem to start with.

If you're a well balanced happy person you're not going to try them to make things better because you don't have to.

Either that or you've never had the opportunity to try them?

Someone struggling with life is going to try to feel better with whatever their environment has on offer aren't they?

Sixer · 11/02/2012 00:43

Why would anyone want to take something that has been developed for a horse???

Original poster
apologies · 11/02/2012 00:44

A very good point Freudian re.the binge culture in the UK. Although then again - if you're going to binge I'd far rather you could do it legallly.

OP posts:
McHappyPants2012 · 11/02/2012 00:45

Sixer for the buzz of it

QuietOhSoQuiet · 11/02/2012 00:45

op it did me no harm in the 80s but, and this is the killer

one of my ds took cannabis and it fucked with his head big time,I have seen 1st hand not just from him but from his friends what it does to young minds,well brought up children from a very good school and this is the point,with drugs there is no differentation

I do not give a rats arse to those that care to preach about how it's ok to smoke it,it's not end of,I will fight till I hit my grave the damage these drugs do