Re: OFFTOPIC (edited) Jack LaLanne/Sex/Drugs

[Guest guest]

I forgot to avoid double-spacing. This is the edited version. Sorry.

In a message dated 2/6/04 6:42:56 PM Eastern Standard Time,

christiekeith@... writes:

> Oh for god's sake, Chris. You've gone over the edge here for me. This is a

> list that scorns common foods that most people eat every day of their lives,

> and you say " drugs are fun and that's all there is to it " ? That is a load of

> absolute crap. Just as I choose not to put transfats or other harmful " foods "

> or enfoods into my body, I also choose not to use drugs. To suggest

> they are nothing more than FUN is either disingenuous or ignorant. I honestly

> don't know which it is.

I'm very worried this is going to be taken the wrong way, but I don't mean it

to be offensive: given that you've admittedly never *done* drugs, I don't see

how you're in a position to judge.

Granted, you may have had bad experience with family or friends, or seen

people in bad situations in some sort of counseling capacity, etc, and so I

don't

mean to suggest that because you don't do drugs you have no experience.

However, just because some drugs in some abuse circumstances are harmful,

doesn't mean drugs are inherently harmful-- only their reckless use. All sorts

of

things that are fun, such as, say, snowboarding, can be very dangerous as

well, if not done with care.

> I think that people should do what they want to do. I'm not one for

> legislating " shoulds, " be they about food or drugs or sex or booze or

whatever. This

> is NOT about laws or the war on drugs, which I'm completely against. But

> drugs have harmed and killed many people, including many that I loved.

I'm sorry to hear that, but at the same time, there are many things people

die from, and Wanita and I were discussing specifically pot and LSD, neither of

which, to my knowledge, have every killed anyone.

I suspect some drugs are much more harmful than they are beneficial, but

there are a pretty wide variety of drugs, which, when used responsibly are

relatively harmless.

> I've seen drugs destroy creativity, initiative, enthusiasm, and peace of

mind.

That would include alcohol as well, yet most people realize that alcohol is a

drug that is relatively harmless when used reponsible, and can even be

beneficial.

In 

> particular, most people I know who frequently smoke pot spend much more

> time rambling on and on in what I presume they think is a profound manner

about

> all the wonderful ideas they have, than spending the time or energy to

> actually follow through on these thoughts or ideas.

What do you consider " frequent " ? This is a massive distortion of what smoking

pot does. My uncle smokes pot every day, and has successively raised a

family, sustained a marriage, risen himself to the number-one salesman of a very

large company, and has a yearly income exceeding $200,000. Every single person I

work with, with the possible exception of some 2% of them smoke pot on a

regular or semi-regular basis, some of whom are in college (and doing well),

some

of whom responsibly are raising families. Many of my teachers in college smoked

pot, and were obviously successful, sometimes having families, and in any

case being good teachers. It's just categorically false that regular pot use

leads to apathy or inability.

For that matter, I've smoked pot hundreds of times and seem to be doing

reasonably well.

Oh, and one of my friends, who is a cook at the restaurant at which I work,

smokes pot on a regular basis, yet has two, count 'em, two, masters degrees,

and has almost completed his PhD.

All you have to do to get a nice healthy aversion to pot, is NOT smoke it and

spend

> the evening with a bunch of folks who are.

Aside from being entirely subjective, I don't think this means much. If I'm

sober, I find drunk people annoying. If I'm drunk, drunk people are fun. You

could say this about virtually any state-of-consciousness-altering activity. 

Again, they have a perfect right in my mind to smoke pot. But to suggest it's

" fun "

> and nothing more demonstrates a pretty peculiar idea of " fun. "

Which is why you don't smoke, I guess. But I'm pretty sure that people say,

ages 16-40 are more likely to smoke pot than not, so it's a pretty widely held

idea of fun.

And that's POT, the most harmless of all illegal drugs! You think COCAINE is

> nothing but fun? Heroin? If you really believe that, you're so steeped in

> ignorance you really have no business even having an opinion on this issue. If

> you're just trolling for a discussion, this one just cuts way too close to

> home for me.

We were talking about pot and LSD. I think cocaine can be used safely

recreationally, but I think it's enormously dangerous compared to pot. Regular

use is

bound to cause major problems. I've never known anyone to do heroin and not

get themselves into trouble, so I think I'd rule it out.

> I guess I just don't see what's so " fun " about, oh, I don't know, a man in

> the hospital dying of AIDS who has his dealer bring him coke. A girl dying of

> an OD in a sleeping bag on the floor at a party after a Dead Kennedy's

> concert in San Francisco - my girlfriend and I were the last people who ever

spoke

> to her, and let me tell you, when her mom called to find out what her little

> girl's last minutes were like, that was SUCH a fun phone call! Wish I could

> deal with those every day!

Yes, and what of people who ski face-first into trees? Look, I'm not saying

drugs can't be harmful. But tragedies can occur in almost any exciting

activity. If you want to have fun, you take certain risks. Some of them aren't

worth

it. Dabbling in cocaine probably isn't worth the risk, especially if you don't

know yourself to be stable and responsible. Trying to be Evil Canneival (sp?)

probably isn't worth it to most people either. But modifying either field--

pulling trix on a BMX, snowboarding, smoking pot, etc can result in a happy

medium between fun and risk.

Not to mention seeing so many truly awe-inspiring bands implode from the drug

> use of the band members - I used to LOVE having to babysit the band's

> drummer for a day before each gig, in the hope she wouldn't be sitting in the

> corner of her room with a needle hanging out of her arm when she was supposed

to

> be playing the drums. And one of my favorite humorous memories is a nineteen

> year old guy I knew who started having paranoid delusions from too much coke,

> who killed himself. At nineteen, isn't that hysterically funny? And how

> about those babies born to drug addicted mothers - such a hoot, ya know? A

real

> laugh riot, the way they scream and scream and just don't stop.

> Yeah, just like a video game.

Christie, all of these things are horrible. But people can drive

irresponsible, drink alcohol irresponsibly, pull stunts irresponsibly, play

sports

irresponsibly, and hurt themselves in so many ways. That doesn't make any of

those

activities inherently harmful.

And the average person's use of pot is so far off on the other side of the

spectrum from these tragedies that this is essentially a caricature of drug use.

My cousin nearly killed himself drinking alcohol and had his stomach pumped

in time. That doesn't negate the fact that most people use alcohol, most people

do it responsibly, and most people benefit much more from alcohol than they

are harmed by it.

Just the same with drugs, many people abuse drugs, and some drugs are

particularly nasty and tend to lend themselves to abuse. This results in many

tragedies, like the ones you told of, and I don't want to see this happen, and I

empathize with anyone who has to live with it. But these cases hardly represent

the majority of drug use.  Some 70% of Americans have used illegal drugs, and I

think this number is growing with my generation, and most of these people

aren't dead, nor living in a hellacious tragedy.

Chris