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Keeping the 5 precepts is not 'cool'?
jll
Veteran
I read this on CNN.com recently.
JOSEPH CALIFANO, CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CENTER ON ADDICTION AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE: We Americans are 4 percent of the world's population. We consume two-thirds of the world's illegal drugs. Drug abuse in this country, and substance abuse in this country, is unquestionably our biggest health problem. Addiction and substance abuse are our number-one disease.
I am just wondering whether this is unique to USA
or youths these days, all over the world thinks taking
drugs is cool.
JOSEPH CALIFANO, CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CENTER ON ADDICTION AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE: We Americans are 4 percent of the world's population. We consume two-thirds of the world's illegal drugs. Drug abuse in this country, and substance abuse in this country, is unquestionably our biggest health problem. Addiction and substance abuse are our number-one disease.
I am just wondering whether this is unique to USA
or youths these days, all over the world thinks taking
drugs is cool.
0
Comments
If you consider it, your entire exprience of reality is due to the chemicals that move around your body - it makes little sense to ban external chemicals that mimic or stimulate chemicals that are already present in your body.
The history of humanity walks hand in hand with the history of 'drug' taking... the legal ones are alright as they're controlled and taxed - the illegal ones promote a black market economy which is economically undesirable - they also undermine the absolute authority of the state and create an autonimous sub-culture... both economically undesirable.
But I do agree that here in the US it is a huge problem.
And, having spent time in Malaysia, as well, I think there are countries where it is not anywhere near as common ("Da da means death").
A press release from the head of a American organization invested in fighting drug abuse says America consumes almost all of the world's supply of illegal drugs, that it's our "number one health problem" (funny, I read just yesterday that obesity was our number one health problem. So which one is it?) and it's our number one disease. Yet the ACA claims cancer is our number one disease, while the AHA claims it's heart disease and high blood pressure. That's a lot of number one diseases and problems.
I'm certainly not saying drug abuse is not a problem. But this pushing and shoving at the trough of funding and donations just makes me tired.
It boils down to, a person is incapable of understanding that a hot dish will burn their fingers. There is no way in the world for someone to tell you it will hurt and make you understand. Just plain none. Every person will have to taste the consequences either himself or by something happening to a friend to understand. As long as disability is something to hide in our society, there is no way people will stop using drugs.
Considering the vast amounts of alcohol that people around me drink; its actually surprising that apart from three smoke-related deaths among smokers the worst long term / chronic damage was actually contributed by caffeine (osteoporosis, insomnia)...
And really, as long as we don't exercise and eat healthy ourselves (which is pretty rare nowadays), we have no right to whine about the drugs... :sawed:
No, of course its not unique to the US.
2/3 of the world's illegal drugs? What about Europe? What about Thailand, etc., like Tom says? Those only add up to 1/3?
I don't think it is often the case kids think it is col, it really is not so black and white.
Thailand has quite a drug problem, mainly with a drug called yaabaa, which translates as 'crazy drug'. It is a kind of anphetamine. Even though the laws are extreme here, it goes on.
Humans using drugs has been something going on for thousands of years, way back people eating mushrooms and brews made by shamen.
Bruno Mars ....
So what we get drunk
So what we don't sleep (smoke weed)
We're just having fun
We don't care who sees
So what we go out
That's how its supposed to be
Living young and wild and free.
She is 15 and says it doesn't really sound like freedom to her.
Another thing is that I thought 'everybody' in college was drinking and thus I thought it was just what you did. Then in my public health course later they pointed out that only like 35% of the student body was really into drinking.
The judgment bundles people who have a cup of coffee a day with the habitual crack smoker - just because something doesnt fit into one's model of reality does not make it any less significant - what could be more wholesome than the slow degeneration of daily life?
Boredom or otherwise, what drives people to do anything they do?
Its ok not to get it - but that doesnt mean there isnt a valid reason for it and it also doesnt mean that it is wrong.
Trying to understand the issue by considering it from a biased perspective is futile - to progress understanding it is necessary to accept the illusionary nature of associations... for example, you readily accept that despair and drugs go hand in hand - is this really true?
I don't understand the "what could be more wholesome than the slow degeneration of daily life" comment. What degeneration of daily life?
Maybe Cinorjer had it right when he said this: Maybe the stats are skewed in order to justify an agenda.
To understand it, it may assist to suspend understanding of drugs and try to look at it from the other side - so rather than asking 'why do people do drugs?', maybe asking 'why dont all people do drugs?'... by examining the issue from both sides, we may better understand a position that we dont personally live.
The mentality is the same mentality that drives every desire whether 'wholesome' or not - if we take the very simple premise that 'we are all going to die'... how many people habitually consider this in their moment by moment risk analysis (if even one is consciously undertaken)?
its not limited to Americans - just that America is sufficiently affluent to both undertake the study of the issue and also for its indulgence.
drugs and prohibition aren't the real issue - lack of educations is, but that is ultimately too costly to address by a society driven by economic morality.
Why do you think the government spends the majority of its funding on the war on drugs to prevent marijuana and psychedelic usage, which cause NO physical harm, and actually have many benefits? Because they know it helps people to become self-empowered individuals, who are able to think intelligently for themselves. This is NOT what the government wants. The only "intelligence" they want us to have is the ability to memorize what we are told by the authorities, and then be obedient to those authorities. In the 60's, when psychedelics were legal, mass amounts of people were using them, and weed. Suddenly, the majority of the youth basically said fuck this. We're not gonna just listen to everything the government says, and follow societal standards. They just dropped out of mainstream society, stopped caring. The government, through that observation as well as research they and others were doing, realized they couldn't have people be doing these drugs, if they wanted to maintain their control over the minds of the people. Thus, psychedelics were made illegal, and the War on Drugs began, with the emphasis being on Marijuana and Psychedelics.
immersedone nicely highlights that social control and individual autonomy have a precarious relationship.
Perhaps the new information revolution can be utilised to create a more stable uniform cultural thinking so we can together as a society express spontaneous change? Maybe thats the only way that social control can rest comfortably with personal freedom.
Oh, and de-institutionalization of the mentally ill during the Reagan era has resulted in the severely mentally ill ending up in jails.
Making people afraid of freedom is an intentional effort of the elite. Of that I am sure. When you think of drugs, they want you to think of deadbeat dads who abandon their families and then die of an overdose. Then they can continue the mass-arrest of non-violent individuals,. When you think of Islam and the Middle-East, they want you to think of terrorism. That way they can keep fighting wars over there. They want us to think about racism. They want us to maintain traditional socio-sexual roles, in the context of monogomous child-rearing
John Belushi
Marilyn Monroe
Billie Holiday
River Phoenix
Jim Morrison
Elvis Presley
Lennie Bruce
Len Bias
Truman Capote
Kurt Cobain
Brian Epstein
Sigmund Freud
Judy Garland
Andy Gibb
Jimi Hendrix
Abbie Hoffman
Howard Hughes
Janis Joplin
Alan Ladd
John Phillips
Freddie Prinze
Dinah Washington
etc.
:bowdown:
Where's the code for deciphering this thread? :scratch:
When the issue of 'wholesome activities' (for this purpose not drug use) was raised, I considered one facet of that position as a possible valid counter to a pro-drug position - i.e. instead of doing drugs (not wholesome) why not do something wholesome? so I took 'wholesome' in this context as being something that contributes positively to life experience.
Legislation doesnt dictate precisely what morals you should have (it just prohibits certain activity) - the moral argument for anti-drug policy is hopelessly favoured towards a pro-drug position so there's only the health and prosperity angle - another words, the only real strong counter that an anti-drug policy has is the protection of actual physical health.
So as we know we are to die one unknown day, each day, each moment, each breath draws us closer to that death - physical health degenerates come what may - given that it does and each of us has one life, we should be free to live that life for as long and in such a way as we personally choose - so there is no 'wholesome' or 'non-wholesome' activity - there is just personal choice and activities associated with that.
Isn't the Buddhist argument that we may die at any moment, so we should make the most of each precious moment, devoting ourselves to the quest for Enlightenment? Interesting how death can be viewed either way: as a justification for self-indulgence, or justification for leading the best life we can (from a Buddhist perspective), an enlightened life.
@shanyin You could be right, except that the OP was specific in asking if this attitude were unique to the US or to youth. Thanks, though.
We all die and noone knows what happened before or after - it is all speculation - we should be free to live our life as we choose and it's probably possible without unacceptable levels of chaos (to some extent, variety is the expression of chaos so its not all 'bad').
Yes - its the categorisation of what is and is not 'wholesome' that is difficult to reconcile - the categories are taken for granted and the debate rages at a higher level once activities have labels already - its tough as the issue of looking at the labels is pushed aside in favour of arguing about whether something that is already 'bad' should be allowed - the question that arises in my mind is 'what is this thing categorised as bad?', 'why bad?'... this examination of labels for me also extends to 'what is cool?' on the OP - for me, much more interesting considering why people pursue 'cool' than what they do in pursuing it - I wonder if by dealing with the root of the issue, it is possible to undertake many activities that may otherwise be considered 'bad' or unwholesome - the only way I can think of to achieve this is for us to consider the labels themselves.
Who is to say what is and what is not the 'quest'? I am all for freedom of the precious moments and in that I share but I dont want to dictate.
I think the view is that 100% believe they ruin lives, 100% believe illegal drugs are better than alchohol and tobacco (even for your body) and like 70% of kids are using them.
I think illegal or mind-altering drug use is considered "bad" because it tends to destroy people's bodies and lives. We'll all die sometime, but drug use hastens the day, and wrecks quality of life. So much lost productivity, too, from a government-interest perspective.
@shanyin Really?? 100% of Canadians believe illegal drugs are better than alcohol and tobacco? Better how? 70% of Canadian kids are using drugs? Are the drugs coming in mainly from the US, then?
I think the school drug education was bassically like watching episodes of intervention and then police officers showing us drugs and telling us we'll go to jail if we take them.