"Dude, that's far out", or the drug cliche of your choice...

Drugs.

Are they bad? And if they are, why does that not stop the thousands of people who take them in this country?

As i have mentioned in previous blog entries, there is almost a set standard of 'bad' elements to a behaviour that we have to wheel out each time - is it bad for your health? Is it bad for the health of other people? Does if affect other peoples lives in other negative ways? Could you be spending the money on more worthy things, such as helping the needy, you horrible and selfish people (difficult to get sarcasm across in print isn't it?)?

The other big issue is whether there is a moral implication on getting wasted in any shape or form, but I'm going to talk about that in it's own blog, so more on that later.

I'm reluctant to tackle 'drugs' as a single topic, as if we look at the main aspect that ties them together under this category (with the exception of legality) then you have to include drinking, and also smoking, which has been given completely separate billing on the Being Bad course.

The problem you have is that each drug, both legal and illegal needs to be judged separately. Drinking in moderation, for instance, has been vindicated as being for all intents and purposes harmless, and in fact it has been suggested that drinking a moderate amount of some drinks, like red wine, can be good for you. Binge drinking can be bad (health wise) for you, but assuming that you don't puke on the pavements on the way home and don't get into any fights - is it harming other people? Maybe not in the short term. But then it might put a strain on, say, any relationship you might be in - whether because they can see the damage that it might be doing to you physically and find that difficult to cope with, or whether because you are doing it so much that it starts to appear that it means more to you than they do. Or not. And this is the real problem. You can't generalise. Is any activity that can do you damage, whether physically or psychologically, bad because those around you who care for you know the damage it might do, even if directly it does harm to only you?

Cannabis, as another example, if taken to excess is known to do serious long term damage. But taken moderately it is not known whether it will cause any long term damage at all. But it might. Again we have the same problem.

It has to be said that going through the list of drugs, things become a little more clear cut. Drugs that are massively addictive, both physically and emotionally, and expensive, have a much clearer path to what it is difficult to argue isn't a 'bad' position. In the majority of cases we see addicts of drugs like heroin turning to crime, such as robbery or prostitution. Clearly this isn't affecting just you, and while there is always the possibility of an exception (maybe the person who takes heroin once every couple of months at parties and is in total control) to this rule, you don't really hear about them, and I've never met any either.

I could, in theory, go through every illegal and legal drug that is designed to intoxicate and analyse them one by one, but i, and to be honest anyone who reads this, have other things to do.

To finish then, let's just say that individually drugs may or may not be bad, but it depends strongly on your definition. And as to my first question, why, if they are bad, do people take them? Well, I have, and probably will again, and objectively I'm probably not doing myself any good.

Things are never simple are they?

If you want to see how the governments are seeking to tackle drugs, or if you just want to know a few hard facts, then this is useful: http://www.talktofrank.com/