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Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: Roger49er on April 17, 2013, 04:24 am

Title: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Roger49er on April 17, 2013, 04:24 am
In the interest of crowdsourcing some personal research.  Would love to hear from the community how people think about substance use of all kinds.  All opinions welcome, and explanations are especially welcome.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Spitknuckle on April 17, 2013, 04:34 am
LSD is my drug of choice, and it's mostly the only one I do (besides alcohol every couple of weeks at parties and the like). I don't like too many drugs (can't stand pot), but there is something special about hallucinogens that I enjoy. I don't just feel good and happy, but I feel completely different, like I'm a character in a play or something.

Additionally, every time I do LSD, I feel like I come away from the experience with a new lesson learned. I love walking around and exploring the beautiful world while very high, and chatting about life and its ridiculousness while coming down.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: nitpi950 on April 17, 2013, 04:51 am
On one trip I formulated my approach to drugs which has guided me since. I see drugs as tools to be used when I stand to benefit from their effects in an appropriate way. I use ethanol and other GABAergics to help with sleep, relaxation, or anxiety; I use stimulants for confidence in social situations or mental performance enhancement; I use psychedelics for particularly intractable headaches in the literal and figurative sense, for example when I have some mental obstacle that won't respond to normal attention and need to "break through," or am in need of inspiration; I use cannabis daily because I feel that regular use helps with a variety of day to day ailments such as sleeplessness, low appetite, muscle and headaches, and also for ad hoc purposes of pain relief or aesthetic enjoyment or creativity. If I need something the drug will provide, I take the drug.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Roger49er on April 18, 2013, 01:59 am
Figured I should add my own thoughts --

My use definitely has a psychedelic bent.  I primarily use LSD, NBOMe series, DMT, and occasionally MDMA and cannabis.  For me, it's all about facilitating new and different ways of seeing the world.  Whether roaming the beaches of Spain or exploring the contours of my own mindspace, I always enjoy getting the see the world in a new way.  It's especially amazing when you can share that novel experience with someone else.  Traveling to hell and back helped cement my relationships with some of my closest friends. 

Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: polyphemusperception on April 18, 2013, 01:11 pm
introspection
to break through to the other
to feel human
to get lost
to be and feel
relaxation
closeness
ecstasy
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Sensei on April 18, 2013, 01:33 pm
So far every reply mirrors the same things I'm about to write. The very first time I considered using any substance it was marijuana and I remember primarily having thoughts about not being happy with life and couldn't understand why fate had dealt me such an ugly hand. After I actually tried it for the first time though it allowed me to think and analyze things on a much deeper scale than before and then some.

 I didn't even expect to feel as alive as I did or to discover a new found feeling of euphoria that more or less at the time felt like true happiness and every since then you couldn't tell me anything about the things that Earth has put here for us about it being wrong or bad for us.

I truly do believe the herbs and psychedelics were put here as a stepping stone for people who's hit a roadblock in life for what ever the situation or scenario may be and truly cannot see any other way to progress. Basically I would say I use for self healing and self exploration in hopes to create a better me, more control over my thoughts and life and hopefully turn my dreams into reality, the pursuit of happiness.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: ThisSHITScrazyman on April 18, 2013, 02:24 pm
When you say drugs for me there are 2 different parts to it.  Firstly marijuana which I smoke every day probably 2 or 3 times maybe a day or 2 out of the month I dont smoke just because I would run out anyway to me weed is the most mentally addicting drug, in the sense that literally i want to blaze every day, but this doesnt prevent me from doing my day to day activities.  So i mean to me honestly weed isnt a serious drug and that might sound weird but I really feel like it helps more than hurts idk my opinion. anyway

My 2nd part to the drugs is the actual drugs and why  I take them drugs i have taken  LSD, 25i 25c nbome, 2c-b, 2c-i, DMT, MDA, MDMA, tons of painkillers, and benzo's but never the big 3 METH HEROIN COKE  anyway I would say when it comes to psychedelic drugs i do them to expand my thinking of the world and life around me, Its crazy kind of when you are in a trip you just honestly are brought back to basic human nature and realize what really matters to you in life.  I honestly believe if everyone would just take a 2 hits of LSD on a sunny day this world would solve major issues.  LSD is my shit all those other chems after it not a huge fan of just good for trippin real hard with buddies witch is real fun.  I took probably .35 or MDA last weekend .25 parachute .1 bump later and HOLY fuck was it a great experience loved the shit outta everything MDA and MDMA are two amazing drugs just to bring some feelings out honestly like the love feeling with your 2 best friends and being on MDA its almost like a candi-flip but yeah best feeling in the world,  benzo's are nice for comedowns off drugs or to just get really fucked up and geek out, and painkillers are just painkilllers i mean i can see why people get addicted but you gotta take an offset of psychedelic drugs to know whats really important :)
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Chaosforpeace on April 18, 2013, 02:41 pm
Because this world is shitty and they make everything better.

Chaos
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: KintaroBC on April 19, 2013, 12:54 am
I do drugs because I'm sick of metaphysical and epistemological determinism. I am sick of the notion that I can damage my mind, or that I am controlled by reality and not a controller of reality. Not only can't the system not control me, but not even drugs can control me. I am my own master.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: kittenfluff on April 19, 2013, 10:32 am
Cause it's fun, and it's better and safer than drinking  ;D
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: BreakingBad123 on April 19, 2013, 02:46 pm
Most of those reasons tbh. But for the most-part because I'm constantly bored.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: kyotosong on April 19, 2013, 03:03 pm
feels good, and somewhat self-medicating.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: skeezoo8586 on April 20, 2013, 07:58 am
SR is actually a reason, for me. After a long downhill struggle to stop drinking alcohol I quit everything for awhile, at least the lifestyle of getting fucked up and partying all the time. I was still tempted to explore psychadelics and had some great experiences and also some difficult experiences. The grey market seems like there's a lot of BS, and I was paranoid about what I was doing over the clearnet. I'm pretty sure I was shipped some kind of poison from a supposedly reputable vendor. I didn't even know about deepweb until a few months ago.
I think having small, personal-usage quantities I acquire from this anonymous market actually brings the fun back to getting high that I'd lost. Plus I can try out what I want instead of being dependent on a particular substance or dealer.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: mrguymann on April 20, 2013, 11:25 pm
I guess because, I have nothing better to do.
Because I can.

I also choose not to take drugs. Just Because I want to.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: tango on April 21, 2013, 03:52 am
I don't do cocaine, I just like the way it smells.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Chaosforpeace on April 21, 2013, 04:35 am
I don't do cocaine, I just like the way it smells.
Damn straight.

Chaos
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: The Scientist on April 21, 2013, 09:52 am
Shit poll options. I take drugs for the following reasons:

Self-medication (weed, ketamine, Adderall)
Recreation (weed, MDMA)
Spirituality (LSD, mushrooms, DMT, peyote)
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: grdr on April 21, 2013, 05:47 pm
feel normal (self medicate) - feel  good.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: SirBaxter on April 21, 2013, 11:09 pm
It is funny being here since I've been clean from drugs for almost a year and sober for over 4 months now. I actually attend AA meetings. I have done a variety of drugs. I was mainly a drinker and stoner that was an opportunistic consumer of hallucinogens. I use drugs to feel good and cope with what doctors have suspected to be PTSD. I have made some orders. I have some DMT and LSD on the way. All I can really do now.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Roger49er on April 22, 2013, 04:02 am
Wow -- brilliant responses all around.  From thoughtful to funny to incredibly raw, I'm totally floored.

Thanks to everyone for sharing.

I wanted to echo sentiments from @Kittenfluff and @Skeezoo -- I feel there's a lot of hypocrisy in the different attitudes people (generally speaking) hold towards alcohol vs other drugs, and I think that becomes especially clear in the let's-get-black-out-drunk-every-weekend party attitude.  David Nutt has some really interesting and evidence-based thoughts on the relative dangers of different kinds of drugs.  You can check out some of his work here (http://drugscience.org.uk -- CLEARNET). 

Also -- major lolz @tango.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: AllDayLong on April 23, 2013, 08:42 pm
I take drugs because it's another arena to be explored, inside my mind. I do different things on drugs than sober. It's fun. Makes me forget. Makes me remember. Because I would need a good reason to NOT do drugs. Don't have any... Because most my time is spent sober, and sometimes I need a reminder that Sober is a hell of a drug.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: curiositymatrix on April 24, 2013, 02:24 pm
Either I'm treating undiagnosed depression, or using it as an escape in an otherwise bleak segment of my life. Maybe some of both.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: fatoldsun on April 25, 2013, 07:20 am
I have a desperate urge to explore the unknown. Seeing as I was born a few centuries late and there aren't too many empty spaces left on the map, I had to find other means of adventure...

The new "New World" lies Within!
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: bull3gern on April 26, 2013, 01:59 am
To relax & chill out (pot, valium & sometimes Xanax), and in the case of hallucinogens, to experiment with the wiring of my brain, i.e., how does this compound, wich affects X part of the brain change my perceptions (2C family), which I hope can help me program / construct vision & perception systems in robots. Then there's S. divinorum, wtih the most wild and bizarre  (and fortunately short-lived) journeys into completely different realities (or behind the realities) - it's so different.

And with any of the above, to just do what I want without the govt. telling me or making me think or act in a certain way (fuck 'em!).
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Chaosforpeace on April 26, 2013, 02:05 am
I take what the institution gives me. It makes the vampires go away

Chaos
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: abby on April 26, 2013, 02:39 am
because I can.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: serotonin on April 26, 2013, 09:01 pm
Deep self-analysis, self-medication, to make new friends, to bring me and my current friends closer, to have transcendental experiences, to see what reality is really made of, to see how far down the rabbit hole I can go, chronic boredom, impulse-control problems, to forget about my problems, to experience all life has to offer, it's exciting, it's actually really fun to respond with a grocery list of drugs when newbz ask, "What drugs have you done?" and watch their faces contort with confusion and judgment, and because I LOVE psychopharmacology.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: cerealbox on April 26, 2013, 09:22 pm
What other life altering experiences cost 20 bucks and a free Saturday?
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Naloxone on April 27, 2013, 09:42 pm
1,2,5,6,7

Some interesting answers guys. Self medicating is a good answer. Similar to mine. I guess I'm maybe unusual (or not) in that none of my friends do and none of my friends know I do.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: curiositymatrix on April 28, 2013, 12:12 am
Deep self-analysis, self-medication, to make new friends, to bring me and my current friends closer, to have transcendental experiences, to see what reality is really made of, to see how far down the rabbit hole I can go, chronic boredom, impulse-control problems, to forget about my problems, to experience all life has to offer, it's exciting, it's actually really fun to respond with a grocery list of drugs when newbz ask, "What drugs have you done?" and watch their faces contort with confusion and judgment, and because I LOVE psychopharmacology.

"confusion and judgement" argh I know, right? its both rewarding and depressing to realize how much the general populace has just turned drugs into a marginalized category of "bad things"
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: NorthWoods on April 29, 2013, 09:04 am
Pure boredom....
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: southwestrunner79 on April 30, 2013, 02:47 am
haha, reading the one liners seems to make a case for a lot of the reasons i could list.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: caleb on April 30, 2013, 05:15 am
I do opiates and stims for the feeling
I do psychedelics for insight, and because I like watching the pretty visuals :D
Also, not much is mentally stimulating for me, but drugs can either make stuff stimulating, or actually just give me something interesting to focus on.
And for antidepressant/mood stabilizing effects, but that's really only weed.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: dreadpirateuser on April 30, 2013, 11:12 pm
I enjoy the different sensations that I choose to let come over me. I'm not becoming someone else when I do drugs, rather they make me feel more of myself. (well depends but for the most part)
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: greenhaus on May 03, 2013, 07:36 pm
I'm naturally a curious person. Obviously I'm also educated enough to draw a line but i just wanna see what its all about an I'm always looking to grow personally and self improve
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: narcocapitalist9 on May 05, 2013, 05:54 am
I just refer to the "Action Axiom":

All human action is motivated by the desire to eliminate discomfort by use of reason to find the most efficient means.

Drug use, no matter whether it's an actual analgesic, or if it is the opposite, a psychedelic, or a stimulant, or narcotic, is all about eliminating a discomfort. With psychedelics, that discomfort is usually curiosity, and I am of the opinion that curiosity is one of the most painful discomforts that exists - knowing that there must be something else going on but not knowing what it is. With stimulants the discomfort is in feeling foggy and unfocused. With sleeping drugs it's feeling to wide awake and unable to sleep. All drugs have some effect at eliminating something or other.

That's why I use drugs. It's also why I am so excited about the existence of SR and a LE resistant drug distribution network. It's not just the cops, it's also all those doctors dishing out garbage drugs that don't solve problems (eliminate discomforts) adequately, or almost are worse than the disease (discomfort) they are aiming to treat. Citalopram and other SSRI's spring to mind for me with this. Ritalin is a really crappy stimulant too, so many more side effects. Though it seems a lot of people, especially europeans, like dextroamphetamine (and racemic as well, of course), i personally can't stand the sympathetic nervous system effects, vasoconstriction, blood pressure elevation, anxiety. give me meth anyday. or better still, let me make methyl-propyl amphetamine or even better than that, that rare and obscure russian stimulant called 'bromantan' (though i'd like to try a methoxy-, thio- or iodo- derivative.

Even though it has some unpleasant effects relating to vasoconstriction and inducing mild spasmodic effects, Bromo DragonFLY (i has it for sale) is a really good psychedelic, the thing I like about it is it doesn't scramble my ability to think like LSD and DMT do, though I don't mind either other of those. I would love to see what other non-halide substituted *FLY drugs are like someday. And I still haven't had that 25i-nbome or whatever it's called either, I see so much of it around I figure it must be good.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: JakiStirner on May 05, 2013, 07:18 am
Psychedelics & dissociatives: To live for a few hours without cultural norms, suppositions, and systems of thought controlling my thoughts and behavior.

Opiates: Feels good, man.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: fullmetal on May 05, 2013, 07:37 am
I absolutely agree with you on the dissociative tip, @JakiStirner. Doing relatively mild doses of Ketamine and going about my day, soaking in the sun and listening to music, doing inane tasks just becomes so intrinsically fulfilling to be doing anything at all. So that is a huge motivating factor in my drug use.

On the other hand, sometimes I want to drop out and touch death in a way that is like ingesting small bits of poison to steel yourself to it. For me, that poison is existential dread, and all of the doom and gloom that accompany it. This thought heavily echoes the thoughts of @narcocapitalist9. So well put!
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: kluptidal on May 07, 2013, 12:19 am
The value of drugs so clearly outweighs the negatives in some cases. It will be a welcome change to society when people can openly recognize this.
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Chaosforpeace on May 08, 2013, 03:00 am
I see drugs as a tool. They make life better/help you understand yourself and grow. The second you start living for the tool, you become the tool and the tool becomes the user. You are no longer human. This is how I felt back when I was addicted to H.

Chaos
Title: Re: Quick Poll: Why do you do drugs?
Post by: Toska on May 08, 2013, 05:06 am
You needed an extra option in the poll for 'All of the above'