pros:

-you momentarily feel good, happy, strange, and otherworldly
-you fit in better for high school (4 years about 5% of your life)

cons:

-it will literally make you ugly with yellowed teeth, weight gain, blood shot eyes, bad breath, etc
-you will have everlasting side effects
-you might become seriously addicted and live on the streets
-it will decrease brain function making you stupid
-you will lose connections with friends and family
-it is very expensive
-it is illegal, you could spend time in jail or a "kid's camp"
- oh, and you could die too.

Your right drugs arent just bad, look at all that good stuff.

Jesus Christ kiddo. Stop talking about kids until you have some fucking crasp on reality.

"Everlasting side effects"? Like what? "WILL decrease brain functions"? "It will literally make you ugly with yellowed teeth..."(what, if you're injecting smack or snorting coke your teeth go yellow? Fucking hell, can't make this shit up)"...Weight gain..." (ah yes, all those notorious smackheid fatties. Jaysus.) "...blood shot eyes, bad breath, etc" (again, how is a tab of ecstasy going to make your breath smell bad, and even if it does that's pretty easy to cover up with some minty fresh chewing gum) "You fit in better for high school" lol, yeah, most people who use drugs did in High School pal...Bollocks.

If you have to make outrageous bullshit claims, back them up with some sort of semi-credible source, yeah? Lewis claimed the other guy was making an umbrella statement with extreme holes in it. You replied with a bunch more holes.

This is why I have such a major fucking complaint with governmental drug policy, it is based on the knee-jerk reaction of reactionary idiots who think that "facts" are the reserve of the evil liberal elite. Rather than listen to the opinion of experts, government will ignore scientific evidence. It's ridiculous and offensive and fucking stupid. I encourage you to educate yourself about the risks of drug use. I do not encourage you to use drugs. Hell, I've never used an illicit substance (well, methadrone is now illegal, but was a legal high the one time I took it. And wasn't all that exciting either, helped keep me awake a bit tho) myself. But that's not an excuse for wilful ignorance.

Some drugs MAY HAVE A RISK of decreasing brain functions. Many have a risk of long-term addiction. Most have a chance of overdosing on if you aren't careful. Some could be cut with harmful substances. And actually that last one is part of why drugs should be legalised and sold by government run shops, so that all profits go directly into the taxmans pockets, not just the taxation. You will have a safer product (not a safe product though, there is a difference), less deaths, and you spend considerably less money locking up someone who is ultimately harming nobody but themselves. It's like that ridiculous law we have here in Scotland, where the act of suicide is not a crime, but attempted suicide is officially Breach of the Peace (which for those nor familiar with Scots law is thus: "A crime at common law and is constituted by one or more persons, conducting himself or themselves, in a riotous or disorderly manner to the fear, alarm or annoyance of the lieges.").

And incidentally, the majority of drug addicts tend to be capable of functioning perfectly normally so long as they can get their fix when they need it. The problems occur when that person is in poverty and so needs to steal to get their fill. That's a social problem, that there's still so much poverty in ostensably rich countries in the 21st century.

I think some escapism is pretty healthy to be honest, or at least natural. And what is wrong with replacing the experience of watching a movie with dropping some acid? So long as you can confine those moments to an appropriate time (I'm not advocating smoking a joint at work) I don't see the problem. Modern life is, to a certain extent, monotony. So many of us sit on our arses all day in tedious office jobs. It was working in an office for the first time that certainly made me understand slightly more why certain people "live for the weekend". And while some people are incapable of acting responsibly while on alcohol or other drugs, that really isn't a big enough case for me to restrict the act for everyone else.

So it's him AND you who are totally ignorant then? I mean all due respect and everything but I tend to take the opinion of scientists over junkies and scientific evidence over anecdotes. I guess I'm just a sucker for the scientific method of inquiry.

Here in the UK there is an advisory board called the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs who provide advice on drug policy to the British government. In 2009 its then chairman, a man called David Nutt, was relieved of his post after criticising the government for the way they ignore scientific fact when it comes to drug policy, unless the findings match the outcome they want. He was also bullied by the then Home Secretary into apologising for a remark that more people in the UK die from falling off a horse than because of ecstasy, and the drug should be downgraded from Class A to Class B. He also criticised the Home Office for taking Cannabis from a Class C up to a Class B despite no scientific justification for it (having only been downgraded to Class C 5 years previously). He had an article published in the medical journal Lancet in 2007 which included the below graph, and mentioned that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is "not fit for purpose" and "the exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary"

Edited by user 12 October 2010 11:40:43(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I want to meet a drug attic. They sound nice.

Drugs have it's pros and cons just like everything in this world, but anything that's addictive that can harm you seriously is bad in my book.

I don't give a crap if this is an umbrella statement.

Personally, my opinion of drugs is that I would rather know that I am in full control of my actions, and functions without anything being able to cloud my judgment.

I just completely succeded in inadvertantly rendering my iPod useless. Great night.

Having to work in a fucking office, stuck in a cubicle behind a desk staring at a computer screen would be enough to drive me to go nuts with drugs. What a hideous way to earn a living IMO.

It's the great outdoors for me...suck shit office flunkies!

I just think anything that will seriously harm you or effect you in a negative way is bad. I can't really say it should be illegal, because I personally don't care anymore. I don't do drugs, unless they are prescribed by my doctor. Even with that, I hate taking drugs. Ex: When I had my temporary acute insomnia back in March/April. The drug I was taking made me moody and I lost my appetite, causing me to lose a lot of my weight. Even lost hair (which was unusual).

Edited by user 13 October 2010 09:22:33(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified