Drugs feel amazing. Getting high is like the fucking grand canyon, one of the things in life that lives up to the hype. Doing drugs makes you happier than you thought you could be, and there are a lot of people who don't have a lot of reasons to be happy.

We shouldn't pretend that drugs are bad, mm-kay. Drugs are awesome. That's the problem. They're too awesome. It's an awesome overload, and you end up not wanting to do anything except for drugs.

People who do drugs are not evil. They're having fun, experiencing new things, making friends and bonding over shared experiences. You tell a bunch of kids that drugs will ruin their lives, and then somebody at a party passes them a joint or offers them a bump of coke, they're going to realize you were full of shit.

Like, let's say that there was some weird flesh-eating bacteria that was specifically found only on water slides, but only on a few water slides. Now it's your job to convince all the children of the world to avoid water slides, because of the small possibility of bacteria. It's a serious problem, and it would be correct to tell everyone to avoid all waterslides everywhere, even if only a small percentage of waterslide riders died horrible deaths. So you tell people waterslides might kill you or maim you in excruciating ways. But if you act like waterslides aren't fun, you lose all credibility. Most people who ride the waterslides don't die, and they go on to tell everyone how much fun they had on waterslides, and that doesn't make them bad people.

No-one wakes up and decides that they're going to get addicted to drugs today. Your life has typically been in a real shit place for a long time and it's a "fuck it" type situation.

You don't usually see happy and wealthy people getting addicted to crack.

Why are people like this? Shit life syndrome. What do we do with them? Offer them compassion and support.

I smoked some opium once when I was travelling and it was possibly the most pleasant experience of my entire life. Shortly after that I was left alone in a hostel room with someone who was dying from an overdose on it, which was possibly the most unpleasant.

Privileged, ignorant take by this anon. If you get REALLY down bad sometimes relief in any form is enough. Anybody's who's been there knows what I mean, anybody who hasn't should count their lucky stars and try to.

I've known people who have been addicted to some kind of street narcotic. They stopped when they got away from their bad relationship and improved their life.

It's not about what will happen later, it's about dealing with what is here and now, it's a form of escapism. Not every case, mind you, but many.

Life sucks, and if you have/know/love people, and get the same in return, it sucks less. There's a reason to keep going. People who end up addicted to harmful, hard, narcotics and other street drugs are generally in situations that they don't know how to handle and just want to not feel the way they do now. Sometimes what they're feeling is depression and hopelessness, or something similar. Imagine going from worried about everything, stressed out of your mind, depressed and suicidal, to complete careless bliss in minutes because you took a drug.

I'm not endorsing drug use, at all. Drugs (specifically street drugs) are not the answer. You'll feel better while your life implodes and you won't care that your spouse left or that you just lost your house, job and friends, because you're so high that you can't feel the sadness from these things happening. They'll make you feel like a winner while you lose everything, and you'll be blissfully ignorant of the truth. The drugs just fucked your life right up.

Bluntly, people are suffering through so much by the time they turn to drugs that they are looking for any relief for the constant pain and suffering they go through every moment of every day. They need help. They either get it from society/friends/family, or they get it from whatever drug they can score to help them get through it.

They then end up addicted and it begins a cycle of violence that is difficult to stop. They need help, friends, family, understanding, patience and time to get better, and often what they get is demeaned, kicked aside, thrown in jail, abandoned and disowned; all of which makes them go deeper into the gaping black hole of drug use.

I don't have the answer to fix this situation. I never claimed I did, but I hope that someone reading this understands the psychology of addiction a little better after reading it. I am, by no means, a doctor or specialist. I've just observed the recovery first hand, and spoken to people who have gone through it. What I've said here is the culmination of the discussions I have had with people who have lived it. I'm certain there are other versions of this kind of story, leading to addiction (and hopefully out of it). My take away is that drugs are not a cause, they're an effect. The cause is sometimes mental health related, or it could just be shit luck. Either way, you don't choose to get addicted to drugs, you feel like you need to take drugs to deal with life, and addiction just happens as a consequence of that. I firmly believe in social programs for welfare/income assistance (including UBI), and social programs for drug rehab. All of which should be provided as a societal benefit. If people can get the mental and financial help they need, when they need it, I believe we can prevent a lot of people from turning to drugs to deal with their problems. We can avoid people becoming homeless and incapable of benefiting society. Reducing crime, and reducing suffering universally throughout our society.

I also believe that there's always going to be "junkie scum" that would rather take UBI to cover the bills while they rot away at home, in what quickly becomes a drug den. I believe the people who are actual junkie scum that would do that while having free access to resources to turn their life around, is pretty small. I think that the vast majority of people want to live a life they can be proud of, and will do so if given the chance.

The core problem is that they're not given that chance. They go right from being under their parents wing to being thrown face first in the dirt and told to pick themselves up "by their bootstraps" and figure it out, by people who hold more money than they'll ever earn. We should be ashamed that drug use is as high as it is. To me, it indicates a massive gap in how much we actually care about our fellow humans. That somehow, if they can't do anything that we find useful, when we find it useful for someone to do that, then they're not worthy of living. That's why it's called "earning" a living, because if you don't earn it, then you don't deserve to live. IMO, that's callous and cruel.

I was tossed to the rigors of society in my late teens, I won't get into the circumstances, but I narrowly avoided getting into a situation where I would become an addict. I never realized, when I was in that situation, that I was literally a bad payday away from being homeless, jobless, junkie scum. Only for the love and support of a few, did I manage to get through the hardest of times and earn a living. Not everyone is so lucky.

(in China) "yo, check this out, and if you get caught with some, it's straight to jail, too. Or even better, death penalty if you're carrying enough!"

Says something about your daily life when this isn't enough of a deterrent :/

These kind of MFs usually be like "Don't do the illegal drug that will destroy your life, do the legal one! Ethanol comes under many street names, like beer, whiskey, wine, etc."

(I'm against prohibition, I just like to point out these MFs hypocrisy, especially when the booze is kind of subsidized by the state due to it being a "national treasure".)

This is the kind of thing said by someone who has never spent any amount of mental energy trying to understand drugs and drug use in any way. This is not a thought someone develops organically through experimentation and reasoning. This is a line parroted by idiots and it’s the kind of thinking that criminalizes and stigmatizes drug use and gets millions of people killed.

So this machine is driving at high speeds and is incredibly dangerous and if it crashes while you are in it or riding it you'll probably die.

Why are people using cars and motorcycles? I don't get it!

Op has never felt so desperate to feel anything else

Hey now, some of us can handle our drugs just fine. Don't judge the entire world because a fraction can't tell themselves no.

“Don’t do drugs” Hot take.

I'm overweight.. I guess that means sugar destroys people's lives. Why haven't they banned sugar?

Arrogance, social pressure, and sometimes just plain low IQ.