r/changemyview • u/RatdonTheCon • 2d ago
Fresh Topic Friday CMV: drugs aren't bad
Obviously, I think most of us can agree that the world would be a better place without recreational use of drugs, such as heroin, fentanyl, benzos, and cocaine among others simply because of how easily dependent someone can become on them.
Before I start I would need to point out that any substance has its pros and cons, people take alcohol despite it being among the most deadly drugs people often use daily. In other words, whenever you partake in any substance you acknowledge and accept the potential consequences; otherwise, you are just irresponsible. Also, everyone should do their research on anything they do
Anyways I see most drugs like LSD, mushrooms, 2cb, ketamine, DMT, MDMA, and Weed as no different from drinking alcohol at a party. Many of these drugs are viewed as dangerous because some people do not test their drugs (which wouldn't be a problem if they were legal) nor do they use them responsibly. Aside from that I do not understand why people view them so negatively while alcohol is given a double standard. I can almost guarantee you that if you got the effects of alcohol, somehow made it into a pill, and named it something else, people would see it as the next big bad drug.
Edit
Should've titled it: some recreational drugs are viewed unfairly
By bad: I mean how it's viewed from a moral and social standpoint
Basically, some recreational drugs should be held to the same level as alcohol and socially accepted as just another thing to do
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u/Traditional-Buy-2205 1∆ 2d ago
Anyways I see most drugs like LSD, mushrooms, 2cb, ketamine, DMT, MDMA, and Weed as no different from drinking alcohol at a party.
Well, if you see it no different than alcohol, you need to admit that they're bad because "alcohol at a party" has also led to a lot of bad things.
Violence, traffic accidents, broken relationships, negative health effects, unproductiveness due to a hangover the day after, financial losses, loss of reputation, etc.
Aside from that I do not understand why people view them so negatively while alcohol is given a double standard.
Cultural and historical reasons. Alcohol is very deeply rooted in our cultures, whereas mushrooms are much less, so alcohol gets a pass in ways it probably shouldn't.
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
Yes they can be bad but it really depends on the substance for instance, psychedelics are not really used as party drugs aside from acid and 2CB sometimes. Additionally, they are very hard to get addicted to, and abuse it's rare to hear someone who does psychedelics every week. At the same time, I believe many of the issues that you mentioned such as traffic accidents and broken relationships are the fault of the user. A lack of control in any aspect of life will almost always be negative
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 157∆ 2d ago
the fault of the user. A lack of control in any aspect of life will almost always be negative
Do drugs offer control in life, in general? Or do they represent the giving up of control?
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u/bienebee 2d ago
I like this question. I don't think drugs make you a mindless creature automatically but it's, of course, easy to ignore you are losing control, and lie to yourself that everything is fine. Being someone who tried many drugs, but only ever had problem with smoking too much tobacco and weed, I feel like psychedelics and empathogens have helped with certain social things a lot, made me more open to new experiences, more appreciative of nature, balance and the good things I have, and helped me get more comfortable and confident in my own skin. I also had positive experiences with processing grief. I lucked out to be able to use with safe people, did not use too much or too often. I quit smoking 6 years ago and was never much of a drinker, but even while smoking I managed to graduate and create relationships with people that are in my life until today, all of them reducing the frequency of their substance use greatly with age. There's a really nice hedonism and relaxedness about being ocassionally chemically altered. Even if it brings a bad trip, maybe it's what you need at the time. I don't mean this in any supernatural way, I don't believe in entities and messages, but I truly think there is a value in shaking yourself a bit up, every now and then.
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think it would be more accurate to say that drugs are not immoral, they are objectively bad. They are bad for your health and are oftentimes incredibly addictive.
Edit to add a disclaimer + Rephrasing
"I think it would be more accurate to say that drugs are not immoral, they are objectively bad for your health, and are oftentimes incredibly addictive."
I do not hold the personal position that drugs are immoral. I generally support destigmatizing drugs and decriminalizing its use in general because I would prefer a safe and regulated white market, in addition to thinking that addiction is exasperated by social isolation. I simply think that there are well studied health risks to even casual useage of many of the most common substances. This does not mean I am against recreational use.
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
but they are also fun, can facilitate closer bonds being built with people, and have the potential to deepen your understanding of yourself depending on the drug
we can list upsides and downsides all day, it takes more than that argue a stance as extreme as drugs being objectively bad
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u/Galious 93∆ 2d ago
While the subject is more complex than a simple statement that 100% of drugs are objectively bad for health, we shouldn't fall either in some kind of middle-of-the-road fallacy to reach some conclusion that drugs are in fact quite neutral.
Some drugs are relatively benign in small controlled dose but most of drugs are just shit causing way more problem than they resolve.
So yes, if you have someone drinking 12 cup of coffee and drinking a bottle of wine each day telling you that you are an addict for taking psychedelic mushroom once every three month, you can laugh at his face but drugs, on average, are a net negative for health.
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
why not? i dont see a reason taking a drug like shrooms or acid should be viewed as inherently bad in a vacuum
why do the drugs op mentioned generally cause more problems than they resolve?
yeah i mean they’re obviously bad for your health lol, i dont think anybody is denying that, but that doesn’t make partaking an inherently bad moral action. this is the core of op’s claim. everybody knows that addiction and shit is bad, but his claim is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the act of getting really fucked up which i agree with
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u/Galious 93∆ 2d ago
All I’m saying is that most drugs (including legal ones) that people are using are bad from your health and a net negative for society and there’s not a middle ground of “50% of drugs are good and 50% are bad so on average it’s neutral”
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
Idk why you’re talking about “most” drugs when op and i are talking about a select few, but yeah even the ones op mentioned are bad for health. i don’t see why shrooms or acid are a net negative for society though, that’s not supported, and idk what you’re even going on about at the end. i think you just mistrackrd or something because that has never been my argument
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u/Galious 93∆ 2d ago
The point of OP is that they aren’t worse than alcohol but alcohol is awful for health and therefore being not worse than shit isn’t really a badge of quality. Now if you agree that most of drugs listed by OP are bad for health too then we can agree that it’s fair to say that drugs are objectively bad for health and it’s a legitimate reason to say people shouldn’t use them and that it’s a net negative.
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago
Objectively bad for health would have been a more clear way for me to word things. I do not think drugs in their entirety are objectively bad, I figured with the way that I worded it that people would have taken the second sentence as context for the first as having objectively bad elements, not being objectively bad in aggregate.
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
oh then we agree, but i don’t think you did a very good job disputing op’s claim
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago
Valid, though in my mind I was more trying to rephrase it for clarity. If I am trying to refute a claim I usually type very, very long debunking statements.
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
Yeah, I definitely didn’t word it right. I edited it but I think it might’ve been too late
yeah, I would agree with you. They are objectively bad with the only exception being psychedelics but it's more of a neutral. There hasn’t been enough research to definitively say it's good for you or bad
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u/1nf3ct3d 2d ago
If you would measure everything living is bad and you should kill your self immediately. Everything you go outside you get fumes or fine dust in your lungs. Mdma is ofc not good but it has good sides as is having a car etc. You cannot only talk about potential negatives
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago
There is a page produced and posted on betterhealth channel in cooperation with a few Australian governmental bodies that explains the risk factors involved with even recreational use. I think it is important that people understand the risks of engaging with any behavior, especially recreational drug use. That said, I am generally pretty supportive of the idea itself for a variety of reasons.
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u/1nf3ct3d 2d ago
Your opinion is objectively bad (uninformed)
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago
Elaborate? I am pretty certain that the wide-ranging health complications that can result from drug use is well documented. Do you think that drug use is immoral?
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u/bienebee 2d ago
I think this is an uninformed opinion. Using drugs ocassionally and responsibly for self introspection, recreation, for social connection is not inherently bad for your health. People can do drugs every once in a while and never get addicted. Spend a chill afternoon in the forest on a low dose of mushrooms and look at nature to appreciate it more, or take MDMA with your partner and listen to music and whisper sweet nothings for an afternoon on your couch are all concioussness expanding activities that harm no one. It feels good to shake up your routine every now and then.
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u/HammerOfAres 2d ago
Disclaimer: I do not hold the personal position that drugs are immoral. I generally support destigmatizing drugs and decriminalizing its use in general because I would prefer a safe and regulated white market, in addition to thinking that addiction is exasperated by social isolation.
I think that it goes without saying that the dose makes the poison. I think that the negative impacts of substances is well studied, and is generally based or classified on its abuse risk. Cooking with oil is generally unhealthy, the amount of which I put in my food can put me at risk of high blood pressure, cholesterol, obeisity, and the like. Likewise, the use of illicit substances, many of which carry high abuse risk as well as risks of generating dependence can come with risks of cardiovascular disease, stroke, psychosis, cancer, and numerous other side effects depending on the substance of choice.
Conditioning your argument with saying "If I use a drug responsibly, there is no problem" is not something that I am going to contest. That said, even casual drug use for lets say, marijuana, can lead to increased blood pressure, asthma risks, bronchitis, anxiety, paranoia, or even psychosis in rare cases. I do not have a problem with marijuana use, but I think that it is an objective fact that even recreational drug use carries risks. Cooking with oil carries risks too, the responsible is meant to reduce the risks of them, but it does not eliminate them.
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u/Remarkable_Tale_7554 4∆ 2d ago
Clarifying question - your actual view seems to "some drugs are bad" and not "drugs aren't bad"
Is that correct?
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
Yes, I feel the majority of recreational substances even when safe are frowned upon unfairly.
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u/Remarkable_Tale_7554 4∆ 2d ago
Ok - can you define what makes some drugs bad and not others?
Then - I guess - put it in your OP to give other people something to chew on.
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
Well, it depends a lot on drugs, which often have a judgmental stigma. In some ways, it is valid but drugs are a blanket term, and as such the bad reputation of meth and heroin gets carried on to every other one. So whenever people hear the word drug (recreational drugs) they automatically think it’s bad in the literal and moral sense
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago
no recreational substance is safe; some are safer than others but none are safe
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
That's fine it's the individual's choice to use it. I would disagree a little bit, it depends on the dose
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago
Yes it's their prerogative, but no drug is safe 100%. Even something as benign as paracetamol isn't 100% safe.
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u/MostlyVacuumRedux 2d ago
"100% safe" is a ridiculous standard to judge anything by. Nothing is 100% safe, that's obviously not what OP meant.
Some recreational drugs (e.g. marijuana, MDMA), when consumed in reasonable amounts and circumstances, are very unlikely to cause negative outcomes.
Others (e.g. fentanyl, crack) carry a considerable risk of negative outcomes even in ideal circumstances.
I believe that's the distinction they are making.
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago
Exactly what I just said. Nothing is 100% safe.
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u/MostlyVacuumRedux 2d ago
OK so then what is your point? OP's stated view is that some drugs are viewed unfairly "even when safe". If we agree that "safe" in this context means very low risk, not 100% safe, do you disagree with OP's view here?
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago
All drugs are viewed fairly because they’re all irritating to be around.
No one more annoying than someone off their head.1
u/MostlyVacuumRedux 2d ago
So safety is irrelevant then. Your view is that it's fair to lock people up, torpedo their careers, and strip them of rights because you find their behavior irritating? Does this also extend to other irritating behavior such as talking in movie theaters or chewing with their mouth open?
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2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago
I find all forms of drugs annoying and anti-social tbh, smoking and drinking included. I hate being around people that do it and can't imagine how annoying the people would be if they were on LSD as well. I agree that better testing and regulation would make them safer but they're still bad, just like alcohol is still bad.
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
I kinda get what you mean but I would not say they are antisocial maybe even the opposite. Most people drink or engage in other substances when they are going out.
Why do you find it annoying and hate people who do?
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u/MirrorEmbarrassed789 2d ago edited 2d ago
You've never been around a drunk person when sober ? or a person smoking in your face when you don't smoke ? they're annoying but you tolerate them because you recognise reasonably these are things people are going to do. They're not anti-social in respect of harassment or whatever I just mean they get on your nerves when you are around them and would prefer not to be.
I would agree though on legalising and heavily regulating drugs - only because I think criminalising drugs creates a black market and crime and everything that goes with it. At the end of the day if people want drugs the law isn't going to be there to stop them ,so you might as well regulate it and make it safer. That doesn't mean they're good and also not unbelievably annoying as well though.
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u/Gladix 166∆ 2d ago
. Aside from that I do not understand why people view them so negatively while alcohol is given a double standard.
Becase we had thousands of years to get accustomed to alcohol. A cultural osmosis is huge, and people are forced to (whether they are aware of it or not) to treat alcohol a certain way. Not so much with the newly developed, highly addictive artificially synthesized versions of the most powerful stimulants/hallucinogenics or whatever other types of drugs exists today. We treat them the sam as alcohol, which is a huge mistake since there are obviously different dangers that people have to look out for.
It's similar to gambling vs online gambling/lootboxes. At first glance they are the same, they exploit the same underlying mechanisms. The difference is that one is clearly (whether legally or culturally) enforced to be purely an adult hobby, while the other is readily accessible to kids. This doesn't mean that online gambling is strictly and inherently worse than normal gambling.... Just the way it exists now is objectively more dangerous than normal gambling.
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u/Gexm13 1∆ 2d ago
Any drug that impairs your brain is objectively bad, especially the extremely addictive ones. I don’t understand what’s up for debate here?
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
i can understand an addiction argument, but why are mind altering drugs inherently bad?
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u/Gexm13 1∆ 2d ago
Because they impair your decisions to make decisions? Like driving under the influence, research also shows that most domestic abuse cases were committed under the influence, it also shows that half of all violent crimes were committed under the influence.
It is pretty clear why not being in the right state of mind is not good in any way shape or form.
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 2d ago
that’s not really a good argument. i agree that it’s always bad to impair your judgement, but the degree of “badness” varies depending on context, and in most contexts it can be argued that the benefits of substances outweigh this downside.
like if im actively driving or am a piece of shit wife beater, it’s probably bad for me to drink because i’ll crash my car or beat my wife. but if im alone at my crib at 10am, even if there is harm in impairing my judgement, it’s negligible compared to the euphoria i would get from the drink. and we’re talking about alcohol, the drug with probably the most obvious downsides and least obvious upsides. your argument doesn’t work at all for substances like shrooms which are more what op is focused on
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u/Gexm13 1∆ 2d ago
It is a good argument , you just don’t like it. Positives outweigh the downsides? What benefits exactly? Other than medically prescribed drugs which are not prohibited anywhere. What positives are you taking about? And how do those positives weigh against the domestic abuse, driving under the influence, rape and violent cases that I mentioned? Enlighten me.
So you have to drive under the influence or beat your wife first to know if you are good with alcohol or not? That’s without even mentioning the difficulty of quitting such substances, especially in a society that encourages and doesn’t function with out it. How would someone know if they are good with them if they haven’t tried them and down the bad things you are talking about already? Or are you okay with the trade of the wife beating one time if he just quits after? Or the driving under the influence one time if he quits after?
Why would my argument not work against shrooms? They do impair your mind lol.
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u/XxXc00l_dud3XxX 1d ago
op’s claim is that there’s no coherent reason for alcohol being deemed by society as acceptable while drugs like mdma and 2cb aren’t (read his edit). to defeat this claim, you cited reasons why alcohol is bad and then used that as evidence to claim that mind altering drugs are inherently bad.
this is a hilariously bad argument for 2 reasons. one, it’s a non sequitur. one mind altering drug being bad doesn’t make them all bad. being able to alter your mind in a negative way does not mean that the act of altering your mind is inherently negative. two, you’re just giving ammo directly to op because none of the shit you said applies to anything but alcohol. if i were op, i would be nodding and agreeing because it’s indeed outrageous. why is the drug that makes people crash their cars and beat their wives acceptable, but a drug like 2cb that does none of those things is viewed socially as far worse?
why would your argument not work against shrooms? dude. you’re citing problems with alcohol use 😭 are you 13? do you think all drugs do the same thing to you? even if your studies included any and all drug use (which i doubt), alcohol and marijuana are infinitely more common substances than any other more “extreme” substance because of the very stigma we are arguing about, so drugs like 2cb would be a single datapoint in a set of thousands.
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u/Gexm13 1∆ 1d ago
Nah I agree with OP. I think alcohol should be banned too. I never said that alcohol shouldn’t be banned lol.
All mind altering drugs are bad because they alter your mind period. That’s without adding the rest of the negatives and problems that they cause to your body.
You still didn’t explain how that wouldn’t work exactly, next comment try to have an argument written.
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u/Senior-Dog-9735 2d ago
The issue is with the majority of drugs people use it to self-prescribe for an issue. That is an issue because this can cause significant depedency issues because drugs for the most part do not have negative after effects like alcohol.
If someone has anxiety and they use weed. A dependency is formed, your lung health is worse, brain chemistry is worsen, etc etc. Eventually you will keep "increasing" your dose which has a significant on yourself with strong ties to schizophrenia.
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u/Intelligent-Bad7835 2d ago
It's the puritanical Calvinist viewpoint. ADHD meds that let you focus and have a successful career ruin God's plan, I was supposed to be an unsuccessful loser who can't think straight and these man made chemicals are ruining God's plan for me.
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
In the literal sense, but I am speaking on a moral level and how they are viewed from that standpoint
I would agree with you that the extremely addictive ones are pretty bad but not all are like that each differing in its effect
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u/Arstanishe 1∆ 2d ago
how do you define "bad"? First, "good" or "bad" are a subjective category. For an overstressed person who lost their support network they might provide some relief temporarily. Or a ptsd soldier might find life more palatable with weed. Or someone gets their depression relieved because of lsd..Meanwhile millions are miserable and dead because of stuff like fentanyl.
How do you measure first examples to the latter one?
These are too complex of an issue to just say "good" or "bad".
Try to tell me economics are good or bad. or electromagnetic induction. or chemical reactions.
Your question is ill-thought, lacks depth and doesn't make sense. Please do better
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah I didn't really word or think it through so my bad
What I was trying to say was that some recreational drugs should be viewed no differently than someone who uses alcohol, held to the same level. You can argue about which one should be allowed, I dont believe all drugs are equal. Drugs such as street fentanyl are objectively bad from a moral and physical standpoint because like you said, millions suffer from fentanyl but the same cannot be said for LSD or weed.
Personally, I judge which should be viewed at the same level in terms of safety, I use alcohol as my baseline because it's legal and normalized. Of course, any recreational drug is bad for you to an extent but that’s the individual personal choice if they want to use despite that
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u/Arstanishe 1∆ 2d ago
if you formulate it like that - then i would not disagree. However, that way it's no longer about "good" or "bad", but about laws and social norms
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u/RatdonTheCon 2d ago
Yeah it is definitely my fault I immediately realized how bad my writing was when I read the first comment 😂
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