at risk of sounding like your mum and pulling a cats bum face 
im a bit shocked. Ive seen reference to drugs and recreational drug use on here before, and while i love the diversity of mn, im always quite shocked at what seems to be a majority? view that recreational drugs are just part of life, that its ok because 'professionals' do it too, that its not the same to be seen to use cocaine at the weekend as it is to be a shoplifter or prostitute with an addiction to herioin....
is it just that no one sees the murkier side of drug use?
i suppose i see the darker side because of what i do for a living, but even before that, i would never have been tempted to try. There are the wider issues with production, trafficking, crime, gangs, and the environmental issues in production
just one such story here
my brother was a heroin addict, and i lost my sister to drugs, one way or another, i believe drug use contributed to her death. Seriously, most the crime i deal with is in some way drug related. Two weeks ago i was involved in an attempted murder over cocaine and cannabis supply.
i am not some rabid campaigner, but this is mumsnet - are most of us parents? i find it odd that people can froth about the small stuff, that people get pilloried for some really bizarre stuff on here while threads about drug use get a fairly "meh" response. (yes its a thread inspired by the coke using teachers assistant....)
why is that? genuinely interested to explore why coke use is seen as ok, and wonder what is not ok?
if its ok for the TA to use coke at the weekend, is it ok for them to smoke crack? or use heroin? doctors were mentioned on the last thread....would you undergo an operation knowing your doctor or surgeon had used coke? or smoked cannabis?
if its just part of life, where would you draw the line?
do people not realise what it takes to get that gram of coke at the pub at the weekend?
AIBU?
to be a little shocked at the laissez faire attitude to drugs on here?
ThatVikRinA22 · 03/10/2012 13:13
I do see what you mean on that thread, Vicar. I have heard that a lot of people in high-pressure jobs do take cocaine, speed etc. (not so much heroin, different effect) but that doesn't make it right and certainly not ok!
Not something I've ever been tempted to do, really - and I'm not too old to have missed it - but I've known about the dangers from early on and have no desire to bother with it.
Reading H for Heroin (the life of Christiane F) as a young teen really helped put me off to start with; and then an acquaintance was at a party of a school friend, who was a known drug user (as were most of her friends) - still don't know the absolute rights of the situation but it appears he tried some drug, became extremely ill the next day and developed paranoid schizophrenia with devil delusions - was put into a mental institution on 24h watch, and still managed to escape during lunch hour to the roof, where he threw himself off and died. He was 21.
It's all very well saying "what they do in their private life is their own business" but if it's regular and continued use, it spills over into everything - someone my ex worked with was a daily cannabis user and highly volatile/paranoid; the son of a colleague was a regular and fairly heavy cannabis user who developed bipolar disease - there are too many instances of people (and these are just the ones I personally know of!) suffering long term effects from continued drug use to assume that it's going to be ok and "their business". 
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