nice view :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Howie
but i wrote - drugs -> addiction -> big addiction that makes you poor, and then you must go steal or kill someone to get money..
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nice view :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Howie
but i wrote - drugs -> addiction -> big addiction that makes you poor, and then you must go steal or kill someone to get money..
nobody kills someone to get a joint or a hit of acid, we clearly established that in first few pages of this thread.Quote:
drugs are illegal because then people need money to buy them !!
and people dont have money, they already spent all freakin money to buy drugs!
and then they start stealing, burning killing others!
It does show the kind of misinformation spread about drugs though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrofan1
Only legalise drugs if they do not effect those other than users, is my belief.
Universal mind is using a "no progress" mindset: "Hey, if he's jumping of a bridge I might as well do it". I acknowledge Howie for saying this like 10 times.
We have many problems in society, legalising drugs would just add another to the list. Notwithstanding, if I were in charge, i would make tariffs and limits on unhealthy food, to dissuade it. Nonetheless food and sleep do not compare to drugs as universal mind implies, as they are both necessities and people should recieve them in any package possible. Drugs are an extra.
Exercising is an omission not an act, therefore it made illegal could not be enforced. Refer to a legal dictionary to understand an "Omission" if anyone doesn't.
To the creation of drugs and alcohol debate with universal mind, if you were caught with drug making ingridients or alcohol making ingredients, the drug making ingridients guy would be the one more likely to be prosecuted in any logical legal system. Please!
To SKA who believes that weed can be fulfilling to a productive life. Everybody I know who smokes this drug isn't the hardest working type, infact they probably are, most of them the "indecisive slacker" type. Whereas the opposite of this, hardworking, stable people, in my experience do not smoke drugs of any sort. But this is just my experience and carries no real population validity.
In a truly free society you would be allowed to put anything into your body you wish. I hate drugs. I've never used them. I wish they didn't exist. But the fact is they do exist and making some illegal has not worked. It only causes more problems. I've yet to see a logical argument for keeping alcohol legal and marijuana illegal.
Regardless, I see no reason a lucid dreamer needs to use drugs when you can experience anything inside a dream
Agreed with the above. And the last line: I agree that a True Lucid Dream tops any wakefull experience I've had sofar. And I can speak from experience with some Psychedelics.Quote:
Originally Posted by 27
But still it is something entirely different. Allthough it has many similairities to Dreaming, The Psychedelic Experience is something quite unique and Lucid Dreaming could not take it's place.
If pot were legal then still, obviously, only pot smokers would have and smoke it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
And putting it in such a context you made it sound like Marijuana smokers are Outlaws. And outlaw is a rather big word for someone who merely smokes a relaxing, inspiring herb.
A question: What do you think of Native indian americans' right to do Illegal drugs in Religious ceremonys as in their culture and beliefs Mushrooms, Peyote/Sanpedro and/or Ayahuasca is a Sacrement crucial to their spiritual beliefs?
Should they be illegal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
When was the last time you were checked for sleep deprivation before you started your car? What about before you started work or babysat somebody's kid? So should we just ban sleep deprivation across the board to increase the likelihood that people will have plenty of sleep before they do such things? The thing about psychedelic drugs is that people on them know when they are too messed up to drive cars and cranes. Alcohol, on the other hand, is a drug that makes people crazy enough to think they can do just fine with those things when they can't. Should alcohol be illegal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
The analogy helps people understand the drug legalization view. If you think alcohol and tobacco should be legal, then we don't have far to go in getting you to understand why the other drugs should be legal. That is why we use the analogy. Plus, the inconsistency of our drug laws proves the insincerity behind them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
That would mean psychedelic drugs should be legal while alcohol should not.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Could you please explain what in the world you mean by that and quote where I ever said anything like that?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Food in general is a necessity, but overconsumption of food is not. Doughnuts and birthday cakes are not necessities either. For some people, such as cancer patients and people with high blood pressure, drugs are a necessity. So what do you think of making the specific types of food I mentioned illegal? I never suggested anything about food in general being illegal. Should we ban high fat foods and foods with too much refined sugar? Heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. And why would it not be possible to ban an omission? There are ways to prove you have exercised. Maybe people should be required to mail in three videos of twenty minute treadmill or other workouts every week, and if they don't do it they should get jail time? Or should we just let them get really fat and deteriorate?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
You have already said that, but you have not explained yourself. I explained how easy it is to get a hold of various types of psychedelic drug seeds and ingredients and how they are less conspicuous than alcohol ingredients, and SKA has explained it also. So please address our specific points on that. And again... Alcohol is a drug. It makes no sense to distinguish alcohol from drugs. It is like distinguishing trees from plants.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
no, it would attract a larger audience, than the audience it would have were it illegal
That does not clarify your perspective on the specific points I brought up. I still think your view on drug illegality has a lot of inconsistencies, as I specifically illustrated. Please explain otherwise if you still believe otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
i wasn't talking to you in the previous post i think, the messages are one minute apart, i didn't see yours when i began to write. Anyway...
About my jumping of a bridge argument. You were saying that we shouldn't keep drugs illegal because sleep, eating problems aren't illegal. If we can ban one problem or ban none isn't banning one (i.e drugs) the best option. You implied that we shouldn't ban drugs as other unhealthy things exist with no proposition to ban them, this is undoubtedly a view that would lead to the stagnation of society.
As to your debate about food and sleep, i see the point your attempting to make, but come on. Overeating and sleep deprivation are part of the human condition, they are inherent. Drug taking is not. Now, your argument about banning them if you ban drugs is completely radical ......why?...... because both, especially overeating are often caused by psychological problems not criminal acts. Essentially your verging on saying if we keep drugs illegal we might as well punish those with mental ilnesses, if their bad actions effect others. Notwithstanding eating, sleeping and exercise cannot be practically banned, thus this is not a option and should not really be debated. You gave me an example of people sending in "three videos a week of exercise". What world are you living in, maybe your still lucid dreaming?:) In America alone thats 900, 000, 000 (nine hundred million :shock:) videos a week. Now, lets point out the problems:
-massive strain on the post
-who is going to check them over? who will check them for authenticity?
-theres so many, people can never be caught. (you'll probably say, that they'll check a random sample, which is probably a million max a week, giving an 899 out of 900 chance of getting away with it every time)
- you mentioned jail time? in Britain, 90,000 prisoners would mean that prisons are full, surplus. I wonder how many criminals would potentially exist in this plan. Moreover, doing such a thing would undermine the point of banning drugs and unhealthy things in the first place: prison for so many people would detract from the economy.
- what if the checkers don't do their job, will there be people checking on them? What if the checker checkers don't do their job will there be people checking on them. Will they also go to jail.
The list is endless, it is unpoliceable. The governments know all of this, they know that such things are bad, but also that banning them is practically impossible. The way they deal with it is by education, scientific research and templates for ideal lifestyles. So all the conspiracy theorists that "the government ban drugs for sinister secret reasons, other things are as bad, the government is evil". No, the government is thinking beyond this argument and finding the best compromise that can be achieved. Between drugs and unhealthy lifestyles pertaining to food, sleep and exercise.
I distinguish alcohol from drugs on the basis of vastly different production materials.
Everybody on this thread, please answer this: :):):)
Which of the below would you rather be caught with if you didn't want to be convicted of conspiracy to create drugs (if all drugs and alcohol were illegal)???????
-Fruit, vegtables and yeast
or.......
-weed seeds,
magic mushrooms, freshly picked
ayahuasca vine and chacruna (ingredients well known by police to combine into a drug).
i'll assume you mean spores, because in the US you can't be charged with anything if you're caught with spores.Quote:
magic mushrooms, freshly picked
We can ban all of them. The government could outlaw high fat foods and refined sugar just like they have outlawed the nonlethal recreational drugs that don't have rich ass lobbies backing them. It can happen. If you don't think high fat foods and refined sugar should be illegal even though obesity and heart disease are killing people like flies, then why do you think nonlethal substances that are not addictive should be illegal? If it was logical to ban mushrooms and DMT, then wouldn't it be even more logical to ban high fat foods and refined sugar? I am looking for rhyme and reason to the distinctions, and saying that it's better to have some of them banned than none of them does not clear up that issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Again... I am not talking about banning eating. I am NOT talking about banning eating. I am talking about banning high fat foods and refined sugar. It can be done. I want you to tell me why it shouldn't be while keeping in mind what you have said about the bans on certain psychedelic drugs that are not lethal, much less the top killer substances in the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
The same is not true of drug abuse? Remember that we are talking mosty about drugs that people practically never abuse.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
The last time I checked, which was 1997, the government was spending $639 per second on the war on drugs. So why not go to outrageous measures to fight a war on obesity and heart disease? We could start by banning the foods that are the biggest causes of it. People can send in their exercise videos by way of computer. Even if the government can't get to all of them, they can do random checks to create incentive. There is a way to do it. Obesity and heart disease are a humongous problem. They are killing people by the bus loads as I type this. Should we declare war on them?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
I was also not talking about banning sleeping. I was talking about banning not getting enough sleep. The government could create monitors to check on people's biological situations during exercise and sleep. The checks would have to be random, but they would provide incentive to the extent that people avoid doing mushrooms because they might get caught with them.
That is a great argument against the war on drugs. ;) Such stuff is very absurd, isn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
As I have illustrated, it is not impossible to ban them. However, as you have illustrated, it would create a huge clusterfuck that does not come even close to getting the results it was originally designed to get. That is exactly the case with the war on drugs. A war on high fat foods, refined sugar, sleep deprivation, and lack of exercise would be the same kind of preposterous situation the war on drugs is.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
They are the same, aside from the fact that high fat foods and refined sugar kill people like flies while psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, marijuana, salvia divinorum (which is legal in most states but the second strongest hallucinogen), morning glory seeds (as legal as bread), and LSD DO NOT KILL PEOPLE. That is a very important point. Those are nonlethal substances. The same is far from true in regard to high fat foods and refined sugar. Those are the biggest killers out there, along with alcohol and tobacco. That alone makes the difference astronomical.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Well, you need to stop distinguishing alcohol from drugs because alcohol is a drug, and it is in the top few most dangerous of all recreational drugs. Keep that in mind. It is a scientific fact. Alcohol is a lethal, deranging, very addictive drug.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Magic mushrooms because that would have nothing to do with a conspiracy to create drugs. They are already drugs. Weed seeds are not drugs, but they are illegal. The rest would not be enough for a conspiracy conviction, but if there were other evidence, they would all be equal. But I would choose ayahuasca and chacruna because most cops don't know jack about them.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
I have a big question for you too. Right now, salvia divinorum is legal in most states, and morning glory seeds are completely legal for all ages in every state. Should all states ban salvia divinorum and morning glory seeds? Both are nonlethal and nonaddictive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I am tired of your ignorant analogies.
Are you one of the citizens who stand for something and fall for everything?
Well that changes everything!Quote:
The thing about psychedelic drugs is that people on them know when they are too messed up to drive cars and cranes.
Thanks, it all seems proportionate now.Quote:
The analogy helps people understand the drug legalization view. If you think alcohol and tobacco should be legal, then we don't have far to go in getting you to understand why the other drugs should be legal. That is why we use the analogy. Plus, the inconsistency of our drug laws proves the insincerity behind them.
I think your battling yourself. Who else in this thread is fighting to keep alcohol alive and well? I brought this up from the beginning because straight out of the gates the drug advocates run with this.
Is it inconsistent - YES That has no relevance to make another drug LEGAL. It only shows why another drug should be ILLEGAL.
you are not helping your cause IMHO
And if it were legal? Then what. Would there not be MORE pot smokers?Quote:
Originally Posted by SKA
Or would there only be the well educated few that decide to use another legal drug, like alcohol.
No Howie actually a reallife example shows the opposite. My next post was innitially directed at Psychology student, but it aplies to your last question too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Well we have a good Practical example of how EXACTLY the opposite turned out to be True, Right here in the Netherlands.
Weed was legalised(note: NOT legalised, but an allowance policy instead, but anyhow...) and it is known that out of all western nations, Holland has the lowest Percentage of Marijuana Smokers amongst it's population.
It appears that Illegal drugs seem to appear as Forbidden fruits and only make people more Curious as to what the Government fearfully tries to hide from them.
Exactly. If someone is interested in drugs they are going to try them, regardless of their legal status. I'm sure in many cases the fact that they are banned makes them more appealing. I have a lot of reasons for staying away from drugs but "getting caught" is not high among them.
You are going to have to clarify yourself because I have no idea what you are trying to say there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
This has suddenly turned into one of the strangest conversations I have had in a long time. Are you sure you're in the right thread?Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
Uh, yes. That is correct. A drug that greatly inhibits a person's abilities while blocking the person from perceiving that he is too messed up to drive a car or a crane is far more dangerous than a drug that does not block that perception.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
It is a very simple concept. If alcohol should be legal, then the psychedelic drugs should be legal. If you do not think alcohol should be legal, then you are not somebody my alcohol analogies are meant for. I am going to type them any way because too many people out there, including some of the people in this thread (such as psychology student), support the simultaneous legality of alcohol and illegality of psychedelics. If you do not have that view, I don't really know what your beef is. My analogies point out the faultiness of such a view. If a person can understand why alcohol should be legal, he or she can understand why psychedelic drugs should be legal, so the alcohol analogy is a good starting point in addressing those people. If you disagree with that point, explain why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
It seems that marijuana is less popular in places where it is legal. When it does not have forbidden fruit appeal to people in their teens, it does not infiltrate the society as much as it does where teenagers think they are cool just for smoking pot. But even if there are more pot smokers, that is their business, not ours. And it's not like they are going to be dying of overdoses or suddenly wanting to go out and get into fights because they are stoned. What would be the big crisis? An increase in sales of pizza and Grateful Dead albums?Quote:
Originally Posted by Howie
This is what SKA said:
"Well we have a good Practical example of how EXACTLY the opposite turned out to be True, Right here in the Netherlands.
Weed was legalised(note: NOT legalised, but an allowance policy instead, but anyhow...) and it is known that out of all western nations, Holland has the lowest Percentage of Marijuana Smokers amongst it's population.
It appears that Illegal drugs seem to appear as Forbidden fruits and only make people more Curious as to what the Government fearfully tries to hide from them".
Think SKA? you can easily measure the number of drug takers when a drug is illegal by convictions by police. When drugs are legal, this concept does not exist and thus there is no reliable way to find the actual number of people who take such drugs; even though they are still legal there still may be an social censure on them and it is very likely that people will not be very forthcoming about their habit. Thats why I believe that such evidence is inconclusive and unreliable
Universal mind the rest is for you:
Universal Mind your mind is truly universal: you show traits of liberalism when talking about the legalisation of supposedly non-harmful drugs, yet, this trait vanishes when it comes to unhealthy food where draconian, utter left-wing communism takes the helm with the belief that everyone "should be required to mail in three videos of twenty minute ... workouts every week, and if they don't do it they should get jail time", and "the government could create monitors to check on people's biological situations during exercise and sleep".
In your last post you spoke as if such things were possible in a "war on obesity and heart disease", well they are self-defeating proposals because even contemplating such gut-wrechingly folly ideals is causing me to have heart palpatations and to swiftly and repeatedly dunk my hand into a 12 pack of doughnuts in sheer comfort eating fuelled by shock that such stupid ideas exist. Now please somebody else help me in saying that monitoring 900,000,000 videos a week, along with the biological data of 300,000,000 people round the clock is inherently impossible and is also largely unable to function as a deterrent due to such large numbers and a high chance of evading suspicion and criminalisation.
Now I am for banning excessively unhealthy foods, but the concept of "jail time" for unhealthy eating is absurd. Banning, outright is also not feasible as people are used to such things, i.e. it will just lead to a prohibition like situation. The key way to deal with it is by educating the next generation into healthy eating, controlling school meals and educating parents, not just snatching away all unhealthy food all at once.
Moreover, I am for banning alcohol, but it cannot be feasibly done by immediate illegality but gradually, like the same process as the latter. As I have argued, immediate withdrawal will lead to unpoliceability to the extent that no other ban can match, as we saw with prohibition.
As drugs are already illegal, there is no sense in legalising them; they have no real benefit. As I have previously stressed, it is the psychological elements of your supposed physically non-harmful hallucinogenic drugs that are a main problem. Are people's lives so bad that they need to escape reality in such a perverted way. Such drugs draw people away from reality, mask other psychological problems such as depression and social inabilities. They create dependence where people depend on the for happiness instead of the highs of regular life. And people that have taken them hence are no good judges of whether they are good or not!
And, if the war on drugs was so preposterous and unpoliceable as you say in your last post (to the parallel of banning certain foods or alcohol) why are you pining for their legalisation?:boogie: AMEN
yesQuote:
Are people's lives so bad that they need to escape reality in such a perverted way.
that makes no senseQuote:
And, if the war on drugs was so preposterous and unpoliceable as you say in your last post (to the parallel of banning certain foods or alcohol) why are you pining for their legalisation?
can you give me an example of such a high in real life? and it has to affect everyone in similar waysQuote:
They create dependence where people depend on the for happiness instead of the highs of regular life
i have a question for you, are people who've never seen a certain movie better judges of how good the movie is than people who've seen the movie?Quote:
And people that have taken them hence are no good judges of whether they are good or not!
pyro, the thing that you said makes no sense, was meant for universal mind in something he said, so you replying to it makes no sense.
Whats so bad about peoples lives, please tell me?
the highs of real life like, promotion, employment, relationships, marriage, children, general life experiences you know. They are highs but do not compare to drugs in that sense and are completely different; they need not have a universal happiness but are subjectively plesurable to those experiencing them.
Drugs are the easy way out, if life is hard, avoiding it will make it worse, drugs will make it worse. If life is hard, get counselling, find a psychiatrist, get support from friends and family if possible and fight to make it better.
Drugs don't compare to a movie, because a movie can be bad to large proportions of its viewers. With drugs, the physiological high and hallucinogenic properties are bound to be good to the vast majority of users. Therefore a preferable movie comparison is:
if a movie hypnotises people into liking it, and does not do so out of its own merit, are those who have seen it good judges of how good a movie it was?
this is essentially what drugs do?
You did catch where I said such a thing would be absurd, didn't you? I am just using that to illustrate how insane the war on drugs is. If the government monitored the videos or biological data of a small fraction of the population, it would be as good of a deterrent to not exercising and not sleeping enough as the war on drugs is to potential mushroom and marijuana users. The war on drugs is an outrageous example of way too much government, and it is ridiculous.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
The idea of such government gone mad stuff makes you want to eat a 12 pack of doughnuts? Then you can see what the war on drugs does to how bad people want to do drugs.
Oh, you want to fight on the demand side and not the supply side? That is how I feel about fighting drugs. But first you said you are for banning unhealthy foods? Your 12 pack of doughnuts would be one of the first items in line. But it's for your own good! ;) And yes, jail time would be absurd. I am totally with you on that. In being consistent, I feel the same way about drugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Oh, you want to ban alcohol? You did not say that until now. You spent so much time taking up for its legality as if it is somehow different and not even a drug. So you think alcohol prohibition could be a success on the second attempt if the government is gradual with it?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Wrong. People enjoy them, and a lot of people claim they enhance their creativity and perspectives. Also, the government could stop blowing its $639 per second or whatever it is up to now, and a lot fewer good people would be in prison. That would benefit them and their families greatly. There is a lot of sense in legalizing drugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
I am not sure how closely you are reading my posts. Most psychedelic drugs only work well if you do them once in a while, and cases of psychedelic drug addiction are practically unheard of. Psychedelic drugs usually throw people face first into dealing with reality and are most often not an escape from reality. But even if people do abuse them just to stay escaped from reality, why is that any of your business?Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
:hrm: Partly because the war on drugs is so preposterous and unpoliceable. But more importantly because I believe in the freedom of a person to make his own choices about his own life and because I don't think people deserve prison for doing drugs, just like they don't deserve prison for eating a 12 pack of doughnuts. I am a big believer in freedom.Quote:
Originally Posted by psychology student
Do you remember the boldface question you posed to me the other day? I answered it, right? Well, you did not answer my boldface question. Here it is again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Where the hell has this conversation gone? It's turned into people's subjective fears and propagandized bias' towards drugs being used as logic to ban them outright? Give me a break... Stop watching movies like Traffic, and Requiem for a Dream and start thinking for yourself.
Would you avoid eating a certain food just because it tasted so good all other foods paled in comparison? Umm... No.
Would you never have sex just because when you're not having sex it doesn't feel as good? Umm... No.
That's basically your rational... to be willfully ignorant out of the fear of losing control over being able to restrain yourself from continually pushing the envelope of experiencing something pleasurable and new. How about allowing an individual to make their own choices and control them with their own willpower?
I can tell you from experience I function completely fine in society, and can probably attribute a lot of my realizations and personal goals and accomplishments (music being one of them) largely in part to drug use. How can you sit there and tell me that because you are personally afraid of what control might be lost, we should avoid the experience all together.
If that's not being willfully ignorant and naive, I don't know what is...
poverty, death and abuse are 3 i can think of the top of my head.Quote:
Whats so bad about peoples lives, please tell me?
i wasn't comparing drugs to movies in that sense, you said that people who have used drugs can't decide if they're good or not, but while we're on the topic of metaphors comparing hallucinogenic drugs and movies hallucinogenic drugs can and will induce bad trips which nobody will enjoy and like we've said before hallucinogenic drugs are not powerfully addictive (if at all), nobody is going to kill for them.Quote:
Drugs don't compare to a movie, because a movie can be bad to large proportions of its viewers. With drugs, the physiological high and hallucinogenic properties are bound to be good to the vast majority of users.
and you said that if people have problems they should go to a psychologist. well what if they can't afford one? drugs can be cheap as hell considering that mushroom and marijuana are living things.
Can anyone tell me where the drug laws were before the 19th century?
You can't tell me that everyone was just overdosing in the streets and pillaging their neighbors for their next fix... They were truly masters of their own domain. What's so wrong about going back to that? We obviously aren't doing something right with all these minor drug offenders in jail for possession with these ridiculous bloated sentences. Let's not forget, America has more people in jail than any other country combined... Think about it.
Drugs have been used on a widespread basis since the beginning of the modern period. In the 19th century, opium, morphine, cocaine and cannabis were all used by millions of people in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. None of these drugs were illegal at that time. In most countries, including the UK, opium could be purchased from the local apothecary or chemist, or even by the penny-worth in the local grocer's shop.
In the second half of the 19th century, the forces that would eventually lead to the establishment of drug prohibition began to appear and to lobby governments to enact laws against drug use.
Universal Mind could you explain both drugs in your question, as i don't know them?
I am not refferring to addiction as you understand it but a partial withdrawal from society, with the drugs you advocate.
To solskye, I have not watched such movies as you suggest, i don't have time because i am busy organizing meetings and sit-ins in my capacity as chairman of the SFPBTD ("Subjective Fears and Propagandized Bias' Towards Drugs").
Seriously, though, the only thing that drugs bring is "pleasure", oh well, lets legalise them then!. They bring nothing useful to society otherwise and arguably bring a whole league of problems. Lets not complicate society which is already a pit of festering desires and fancies with drugs galore outside of your proposals. Don't you feel inadequate that you need drugs to help you with your music, doesn;t that make you seem inhibited. Moreover, its only your subjective experience that claims that drugs have helped, I see no empirical evidence! Furthermore, you have been exposed to the drugs that you advocate, ofcourse you will vouch for them!
Pyrofan: are you poor? do you have no food on the table? what about all the really desperate people in Africa, how comes they aren't all on drugs? Death is part of life, deal with it, get counselling, drugs aren't the only option to resolve hardship. Perhaps we are all spoilt in this western world.
go to a psychologist: here we have the NHS so we can get one for free. But you have private healthcare, which is just stupid, not your fault, so don't vote for giuliani! vote for the candidate who proposes a public health system.
in the 19th century drugs were used in a very different context: a famous cocaine user, Sigmund Freud said that cocaine was "not addictive". Clearly his subjective experience was wrong, and/or drugs altered his perception as cocaine is clearly addictive.
In 19th century England, cocaine was used to escape hunger and squalid lifestyles in the large poor population, not for pleasure; the escapist benefit outweighed the harm. Life spans were significantly shorter then, although not necessarily the drugs fault.
Today they are prohibited as their harm outweighs their benefit. There is nothing substantially bad to escape from, and drugs are harmful. Each and every one but to different extents and in different aspects.