To think there's an unfair stigma around recreational drug use?

[janef001]

I have a female friend who recreationally uses weed, ecstasy and xanax from time to time. They live in a houseshare with two other women.

Last week one roommate couldn't find an Apple Watch and asked my friend if they've seen it. They said no. My friend went to sleep later during the day and overheard the other two downstairs saying "I think x must have taken it for cash, you know she does drugs all the time."

My friend was upset to say the least and especially when the roommate later found it in the next day at the bottom of her clothes hamper near the washing machine.

I know these attitudes aren't uncommon and I've heard my own family who are quite educated express them. I understand the devastation addiction causes but many people take drugs apart from weed and alcohol and don't end up stealing from friends/family/roommates.

I wonder why there's still such a strong stigma

If we actually treated CSA is important and a serious, common crisis, you could halve the number of people needed treatment overnight. Then domestic violence.

When children have safe, happy homes, free from violence, they don't use as much.

Because the people I know are not addicted to drugs. Their drug use hasn't increased. They take less now, less often than than they used to. Their drug use is recreational. Has been for decades, with no detriment to their social or professional lives. They are high functioning people who have other things in their lives that are their main foci.

Not everyone is prone to addiction. Some people have the mental strength to control themselves.

I think cannabis use is pretty normalised - most people I know seem surprised I've never smoked it. Can't stand the smell and never seen the attraction.

Can't comment on other drugs, having never taken them and not really knowing anyone who has, other than in their distant youth, but I do know the county lines issue is a big problem in our area. Kids as young as 12 are getting involved and it's just wrong all round.

I think those justifying drug use are mainly trying to convince themselves their own use is okay, despite knowing they are contributing to issues such as county line drug dealing.

Can't comment on other drugs, having never taken them and not really knowing anyone who has, other than in their distant youth, but I do know the county lines issue is a big problem in our area. Kids as young as 12 are getting involved and it's just wrong all round.

County lines, you say? Sound like a great argument for legalisation and regulation.

"Recreationally uses Xanax"

That's a contradiction so on that basis I say YABU.
I can't get too worked up about weed.

I’d be bothered by weed too as the people involved in its production and distribution are grooming children to be the go betweens so they themselves evade the law. Some of the children involved are primary school age.

"The mental strength to control themselves" are you fucking kidding me?

I wonder why there's still such a strong stigma

Because its illegal, if you think you can break the law because it does not apply to you but 100% to the rest of the population its most likely your at fault and if you recreationally uses weed, ecstasy and xana. Just be glad you do not know me, I would shop you in a heart beat if you used it around me or in my property.

You don't live with her so you don't know how she is.
Weed is probably the mildest and safer than alcohol by far especially if it isn't smoked.
It is very very easy to become addicted to Xanax. It's abuse by people who think it's fun to use, makes it very hard for people who truly need it, panic disorder, to get it from their doctor.

I suppose the stigma is still there because of addiction and the lives it ruins.
Other things are so much more satisfying if people only did them instead of drugs.

I think some people might be surprised just how widespread recreational illegal drug use is in the U.K.

Approx 30% of adults have taken illegal drugs at some point in their lives
20% of 16-25 yr olds have taken drugs in the past year
10% of adults have taken drugs in the last year.

now the fact that 30% of adults have taken drugs but only 10% of adults have taken them in the past year, suggests that the vast majority of people who take drugs recreationally can stop quite easily when their lifestyle changes to make it necessary or just preferable to stop taking drugs.

Further more, of these 10% of adults who’ve taken drugs in the last year, the majority (over 70%) state that they use drugs at most once a month. And these people will include doctors, nurses, and teachers. All people that you would trust implicitly. As well as the more usual culprits, eg bankers.

Thats not to say addiction isn’t a problem, it’s a huge problem for those who are addicted and their families. In exactly the same way that alcohol can cause horrendous addiction issues. But the vast majority of people who do drugs won’t become addicted to them. Especially with things like weed and ecstasy. So if your beef with drugs is drug addiction, then I hope you stigmatise anyone who drinks alcohol in the same way as you do drug users. Because some of that money you spend on wine or beer at the supermarket goes into manufacturing and promoting alcohol to addicts.

The supply chain issue is one where there is more legitimacy in the argument that drug use should be more stigmatised. The vast majority of drug users can’t hide away from the fact that their demand for drugs drives all sorts of horrendous practices throughout the supply chain in the U.K. and abroad. But let’s not kid ourselves that if you don’t take drugs you can sleep easy. It was only a few years ago that we found out boo hoo was using slave labour here in the U.K.. And how many people pay £5 for a hand car wash without thinking about how it can be that cheap.

In fact I’d argue (and this will be controversial, in case nothing else I said was) that there is an argument to be made that it is those who insist on drugs being illegal who are as much to blame for the evils of the drug trade as it is the drug users themselves.

Dope fiends are breaking the law and should be arrested.

Pretty sure most of us are glad we don’t know you, you sound a delight.

Dope fiends!!😆

Drugs need to be legalised and regulated. Until they are, each drug you purchase probably contains a hint of child abuse.

I can't believe what I'm reading on here.

For one thing, weed is so incredibly stinky! Ecstasy can kill you and you never know how you're actually going to react to drugs.

Not kidding. I think some people are mentally strong. They have will power, are able to focus and delay gratification to achieve their goals. These sorts of people don't become addicts.

So people who suffer trauma, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, and children of generational drug users born into homes they have no control over are just mentally week, that's why they're addicts. They just need to gather a bit of mental strength. You've solved the problem, well done!

The stigma around drug use should be stronger and harder for drug users to shrug off.
In a similar way the social acceptance of drunkenness and loud bad behaviour should be reduced and the criminality of behaviour currently excused should also condemned.

Stigma - yes. Unfair - no.

Apart from the possible damage to themselves, users of some recreational drugs are participating in a horrible underworld which involves some very nasty people and brutal behaviour. Drugs trafficking can amount to modern slavery and causes appalling misery for those at the rough end (never mind the addicts) who do the smuggling. It's ironic that some people who shout piously about the horrors of the slave trade in the past will happily snort cocaine and not make any connection (just like the tea and sugar consumers of the past).

And apart from cocaine and heroin, things like skunk are incredibly harmful, and bear no comparison to the cannabis smoked in the 60s/70s. Really dangerous stuff.

I do judge recreational drug users as (at best) culpably naive and (at worst) callous and irresponsible.

As this friend is fucking about with Xanax, she soon will be.
It's a fast path to dependency, insomnia, paranoia & psychosis.

OP - you need to warn your pal off it. It's not available in the UK for good reasons.

There will always be a stigma.

Vile

And it clings to peoples clothes. Everyone 'knows' despite people thinking they can get away with it

I'm not aware of having solved any problem.
I didn't say that people who suffer trauma, childhood abuse, sexual abuse are mentally weak. Don't twist my words. It's sophistry for you to be fudging together different groups: drug addicts (a subset of drug users), and people who have survived abused. Draw a Venn diagram that illustrates the application of Bayes' theorem.
Also I don't know if mental strength is innate or if people can develop it, the old nature/nurture debate. So I don't know if people can gather a bit of mental strength.
I grew up in a single parent family on benefits, and was raped when I was eleven. I'm now a self-made millionaire. I use drugs recreationally because they are great fun. The people I know are not addicts because they have will power. I'm not saying that addicts can develop will power to stop taking drugs, because I don't know where will power comes from. I'm just saying some people have will power and don't become addicts.

Bathsh3ba, I am not a drug user and think drugs should be legalised

How would that work then? Happy for people to get in their car after taking said drugs? Happy to be served by drug users in stores? Your kids to be taught by teachers who are high?