There seems to be some sort of taboo on getting high for whatever reason. I have asked a few people opposed to drugs why they were opposed to drugs and their answers were mostly health related i.e. Cannabis gives you psychosis so you shouldn’t smoke it. I then ask if, hypothetically, there was a drug developed which produces intense happiness for one hour but had no side effects, caused no long term damage and was totally benign, would it be morally acceptable for a person to take that substance, the answer is usually a firm no. We seem to have some vestigial opposition to joy and happiness left over from Catholicism.
>I then ask if, hypothetically, there was a drug developed which produces intense happiness for one hour but had no side effects, caused no long term damage and was totally benign, would it be morally acceptable for a person to take that substance
Being morally acceptable is just a tip of the iceberg.
Consider this: playing video games is perfectly legal, morally allowed, and the escapism and progress usually triggers some form of comfort and happiness. Still, there is a lot of people who try hard to limit their gameplay, to focus on their work, school and other activities. Procrastination (like reading Reddit/HN/Facebook several times a day) is quite similar.
My understanding is that to increase focus to the comparably unexciting work, you have to limit the activities that are easy, exciting and rewarding.
For some it is easy because they love their work so much, the work is not mentally draining, or they never tasted these easy and rewarding distractions. For others, it is a conscious effort and a life-long struggle to be productive and not spend your day on Facebook with maybe 3 hours of real work.
I believe that as drugs become easier to obtain, side-effect-free and happiness-inducing, the struggle with procrastination and escapism will be that much harder.
I once had a conversation about cannabis with my mother that went along these lines. I told her I'd smoked it a few times, she was shocked, I asked what her concerns were.
Over the next half an hour or so I patiently and factually answered all of them. She had clearly been sold fully on the propaganda and had thought, amongst other things, that one puff of weed smoke could potentially kill you if you were unlucky.
Anyway, at the end of this I said "so what do you think about the law now, seems pretty stupid huh?" and she said that no, she still thought it should be illegal because it was just bad, regardless. Facts just don't work on some people.
> Anyway, at the end of this I said "so what do you think about the law now, seems pretty stupid huh?" and she said that no, she still thought it should be illegal because it was just bad, regardless. Facts just don't work on some people.
I understand your point here but I don't think that's the case. I think what we're seeing here is someone who has legitimately been brainwashed. To be clear as I do not intend to offend, I'm coming to this conclusion from personal experience with myself.
All throughout gradeschool (I grew up in southern America) I was told all the lies about drugs and I swallowed them whole. It took me years to break past this. Similar to your mom, I knew many drugs were essentially harmless but still had this resistance to try them - even just once - for whatever reason I would come up with. At this point, I was all for legalization and decriminalization but I still had this mental block that kept me from trying it even just once. I'm talking a puff of a joint here.
Well a few years ago, I eventually decided to try a few things just to see what it was all about and it was only after these personal experiences that I realized how deep those lies were internalized years ago. I knew some substances were much less harmful to my body than alcohol yet I would drink after work and continue to avoid anything else that was "one of those other drugs". I knew all the facts but still resisted. I think facts do work on people. You just have to be patient and give them time to break past that level of brainwashing. Again, I'm just talking from personal experience here because I've been there before. So I can empathize with her even if it is frustrating from my POV today.
Facts don't work on some people because their ego doesn't let them to admit they were wrong.
It shakes your belief systems, specially if you built your character around some facts like these and they stuck with you for the better part of your life. You have to consider that core beliefs like this influenced many decisions in life.
People actually thinking about that they were perhaps wrong is more painful that blindly refusing to accept the fact.
*disclaimer : I'm not a professional, but am interested in human psychology from a self growth perspective.
>>Facts don't work on some people because their ego doesn't let them to admit they were wrong.
It's not about ego. It's about emotions. In this case, she is fearful of something that she doesn't understand, and has made a decision ("marijuana is bad!") based on that fear. Logic is not going to overcome that fear. She has to start associating marijuana with positive feelings first before she opens up to changing her mind.
This isn't gender-specific either. Most people, whether they are men or women, operate like this: they feel an emotion, associate it with the thing/person that caused that emotion, and then make decisions based on that emotion. They use logic only for post-hoc justification.
You're quite right, and I know it's hard for me, in the depths of an argument, to admit the other person has the right of things when they have presented a piece of data that should change my opinion. Ego gets wound up in there, amongst other things.
One should be genuinely delighted when new information comes along and changes your understanding of the world. It rarely works out that easily though.
The lies perpetrated by the state and media are so shameless that normal people don't suspect they are lies at all. After they find out, they feel ashamed for being duped. Nobody likes feeling stupid, so they pretend or prefer to believe that the government is still right.
I would argue it's more a vestige from Protestantism. The Catholic Church has always been fine with alcohol. There's been a lot of theological debate among Catholics about marijuana recently and and least some have concluded that as long as it's legal and done in moderation there's nothing morally objectionable. In the words of Hilaire Belloc:
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
> There seems to be some sort of taboo on getting high for whatever reason.
My two problems with this is - 1) A number of people who recreationally use the substances keep telling me "You've gotta try this" - Its none of your business what I decide I want to take or not take. (Note this also applies to alcohol)
The second issue is the real reason - There's not a problem with the majority of these drugs in their pure forms, but you don't have any guarantee what you're taking is what you think it is. At least when I walk into a pharmacy for X or Y, there is some accountability - the pharmacy doesn't want to stock bad batches of the drugs as they'll get closed down/imprisoned; The drug companies don't want to ship bad batches - it's a legal nightmare for them if someone experiences bad side effects from the drugs. If I buy from guy X on the street, and it's 50% cocaine and 50% rat poison - what recourse do I (or someone who is dependent on me being financially/personally) have against them?
The second issue you bring up is %100 due to the legal status of the substances - in a world where they were legal, there'd be regulations on purity and safety and established/trusted brands. Note, though, there are a number of drugs that are fairly easy to safely cultivate indoors (mj, psylocibin) where it's pretty easy to know the person who grew/produced the product. At that point, any concern about the safety is a bit like worrying about the food safety of drinking your friend's homebrewed beer.
Also, the organization DanceSafe is doing some great work offering resources to test the purity of MDMA.
>My two problems with this is - 1) A number of people who recreationally use the substances keep telling me "You've gotta try this" - Its none of your business what I decide I want to take or not take. (Note this also applies to alcohol)
Does it also apply to board games, computer languages and wood varnish? Why not?
