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Why does it seem like the majority of people think problems are caused by drugs rather than problems causing people to turn to drugs? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I was never heavy into drugs but I smoked weed a fair bit in my 20s, knew a lot of other daily users of weed as well as some harder drugs. I don't think I ever came across a person that randomly decided to do drugs for no reason one day and got hooked. They were all people who had pretty messed up problems in their life that were too complex for them to fix on their own.

So it confuses me when people instantly assume that someone is in a bad situation due to drugs rather than them using drugs to deal with a bad situation. And yes I know drug abuse makes problems worse the vast majority of the time but it's not what I see as the root issue in a lot of cases, the drug use is a symptom/coping mechanism for people that society have let fall through the cracks.

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[–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago

It also depends what drugs we're talking about.

There are definitely drugs much more likely to cause problems, even if you didn't have any in the first place. And not everybody who runs into problems with drugs used them to cope with problems they had. Careless recreational use can lead to addiction all the same. Especially when the drug can create a physical dependecy, like alcohol or heroin do.

But it's also a lot easier to blame drugs than to pin down societal problems that might lead people to problematic drug use.