Letters to the Editor
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what would handling drugs "properly" look like?
For pity's sake, how ridiculous. It IS possible to drink alcohol in quantities low enough (1 glass of wine, say) that you just enjoy the flavor and don't really see much of the drug effect. I don't think this is the point with cocaine, which is not better with some foods than others. The entire point is the intoxicating effect. I have never seen a person who can maintain normal behavior under the effects of these substances.
So why does this guy have to LIKE this woman's drug use? Whether or not it is or is not "bad", we all have dealbreakers, right? Maybe what he's losing sleep over is the prospect of breaking it off with her over a dealbreaker. It's hard to end something that looks like it's going well, even if you have that little feeling that "this is not the person that I thought". So lay off, druggies. Not everybody has to think what you do is the cat's meow, and maybe he's upset at what looks like the end of this relationship, trying to rationalize away one of his deeply held values in order to hold on to this woman.
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The alcohol users outnumber everyone else, so of course they always win
I've had family members who were alcoholics and roommates who were cocaine addicts and I really honestly do not see the difference.
An alcoholic can be as pathetic and dangerous as any other drug addict. Families are ruined by alcohol, childhoods destroyed.
I don't think any social drinker has any kind of moral superiority to anyone else who does any other kind of drugs.
I thnk alcohol is a vile, disgusting, harmful drug but the users of this vile drug are so great in numbers that the entire political system of the country has been bent and deformed to become like another form of alcohol-related violence.
That's how I see the half a million other drug users we have locked up like animals in steel pens -- a giant episode of alcohol-related violence.
The children whose homes are ruined by alcohol are invisible in our system. We can't see them. They don't count.
Now a crack baby -- that's not boring, that's alarming. A crack baby can't be ignored. A crack baby counts.
Because it's the alcohol users who do the counting.
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Re: What would handling drugs "properly" look like?
I believe I already explained. Not showing absolutely no sign of being affected, but not being sloppy either. Of course, if you're absolutely sober, then even people who have had three glasses of wine are likely to be harder to relate to because they have a warm, buzzy feeling that you don't. But if you're intent on being absolutely sober, best not be around people consuming any mood-affecting substance.
The point was that doing so does not have to turn a person into a sniffy/wobbly/woozy mess, and the author of that post likely knows it, so the descriptor "disgusting" in this sense is most likely more of a moral judgment than an aesthetic one.
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How to provide equal protecton under the law to people dealing with alcoholics?
One thing I've learned is that it's really hard to force an alcoholic out of your house legally once you let one live with you.
I can see why people like the War on Drugs because you can always narc an illegal drug addict and have the person removed from your house and your life by the police.
I think we should be able to take any kind of addict to court for "skeezy addict behavior that harms other people" and that's how the legal system should enter the equation.
You should be able to take the addict to an Addiction Court and get some kind of legal intervention from the system when needed.
Right now we're burning up a lot of taxpayer money and not getting much of a reward for it.
The money is being spent in a very inefficient manner, and the people spending it are getting more out of touch with science and common sense every day.
Watch the news from northern Mexico -- it's not good. Drug cartels are arming themselves like they're in Afghanistan! They've got helicopters and artillery now. What's next?
Do we want northern Mexico to turn into southern Afghanistan?
There really has to be a better way -- and the better way, IMO, needs to include better ways for people to deal with alcoholics too.
It's wrong to empower people who suffer from the behavior of drug addicts without equally empowering people who suffer from the behavior of alcoholics.
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Cary, you missed the issue
Yeah, the LW has control issues. Looking down on people who have ever done drugs in the past is a real problem. The LW recognizes this.
But if college was "more than a decade ago" for the LW's girlfriend, that would make her at least 32. That's a little bit old to be experimenting with cocaine at a party "because of peer pressure." It's especially old to be stupid enough to mix it with alcohol. And for her to treat that casually--well, I'd be concerned too.
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I wish I'd "judged" a bit more the druggies & abusers in my past
Judgement often = common sense.
And, yeah, the LW's fearful. So? Fear is often a very good thing.
The worst rock climbers to be with are those who aren't afraid of heights.
Dear LW, despite what you might think from the high concentration of stoner apologists ganging up on you on this post, most people in "real" life would share your disgust and alarm at your significant other's behavior.
Very few people in "real" life think that snorting cocaine is a minor thing...
...or (most amusing) that the snortee by their hoovering action thereby inexplicably (and contradictorily?) becomes a Brave and praise-worthy Voyager Courageously launching into Life, armed with oodles of drug-induced Flowing Creative Juices!!!!
Yeah, right.
If you believe that, I'd be happy to put you touch with my friend in Nigeria who's trying to get millions of dollars out of the country and who is willing to share it with YOU, yes YOU, Sir or Madam!
LW, believe your fear, and own up to your good judgement--it's based on common sense. You're much better off without Little Miss "I'll-try anything-to-get-high", whether she's off doing coke or just the plain ol' boring and legal alcohol that she also seems to have so much trouble with.
But you already knew that, didn't you? Damn, you're smart.