2 posts tagged “drugs”
Oh, how times have changed.
I've been meaning to write about marijuana use for a while now, because I feel that the perspective I offer on the matter is one lacking from the public eye. Teenagers who use marijuana are generally portrayed in one of two different ways: the enviably cool stoners of Dazed and Confused or the drug-addicted "bad girls" of Thirteen (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't seen the latter film and am basing this dichotomy on a superficial knowledge of the film's plot). The only time that I have seen anything comparable to my experiences with the drugs was in the "Chokin' & Tokin'" episode of Freaks and Geeks in which the main character, Lindsey, after getting stoned for the first time, proceeds to read the entry on "marijuana" in the encyclopedia. Let's just say that I read no less than twenty articles and research papers on the subject before finally conceding to myself that I was not going to get schizophrenia or kill all of my brain cells, never to see the light of conscious thinking ever again.
What I said in the old entry I linked to above is still my opinion on the use of narcotics and other "hard drugs," and while I do believe that some people may use marijuana as a "gateway drug," that number is small and depends largely on outside factors affecting the person (socioeconomic background, personal life, genetic predisposition to addiction, etc.). I have never made attempts to hide the fact that I occasionally use marijuana (occasionally meaning once every few months to twice a month), because I am neither ashamed of it nor displeased at the choices I have made. It was a wholly personal choice, uninfluenced by "peer pressure," and a well-informed one at that. Reading articles like Stephen J. Dunber's collection of opinions on the legalization of marijuana and watching documentaries on the war against drugs made me realize that many of the government's efforts to stem marijuana use in the teenage demographic are based on propaganda and, simply, a waste of money. In 1993 alone, the government spent $19 billion dollars on the "war on drugs." This money was reported as being largely spent on locking up people for marijuana possession-- people who were engaging in personal use of the drug, not even selling it to others. In a country in which healthcare and public education seem to be at a loss for money, why is this astronomical sum being spent on "crimes" that are, in many other countries, decriminalized, instead of spending it on the bettering of the public being? Has there been a drop in drug usage, particularly marijuana, in the last forty years that we have been fighting this war?
I'm not saying that the country should stop educating children about drug usage, it's just that, in my experience, all of the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) classes that I was made to take in elementary school and throughout middle school didn't prevent me from doing anything. Whether or not I do certain drugs, and this seems to be a running theme amongst the teenagers that I know, is a personal choice. I have friends that do drugs because their home life is difficult, I have friends who do drugs simply because they would like to expand their consciousness, I have friends that don't do drugs because of bad personal connotations with it, and I have friends who don't do drugs simply because they just don't. I don't even hide my marijuana use from my parents, because I think that as the people who raised me, they deserve to know what I'm doing and to understand my reasoning for it.
When I first told my mother that I had tried marijuana, she was visibly somewhat upset. I think that she was accepting of my choice, and understood that it was almost inevitable for me to try it, but did not entirely see the reasons for a straight-A student to want to try drugs (although she herself had tried it a few times when she was younger). I explained my reasons to her, and we agreed that I was mature enough to make intelligent decisions.
I simply wish more people would talk to their parents about it. If they are resorting to drug use because of personal issues, this is of the utmost importance. Some parents will likely not be as accepting and understanding as mine have been, but some might-- and that makes a difference.
As for me, I'm going to a party. Time to be a teenager.
A kid that I was with today, who was high on marijuana, had been drinking, and was hopped up on Xanax and Adderall, told me that he hated drugs. "I had aspirations," he told me, "I wanted to be the best at everything I did. I'm just like that." He said that he was so fucked up, so fucked up, and worse off now than he had ever been. He said that he was sad, and wished that he had never started doing drugs. "I don't like being sober, though," he said, "It's too hard."
It makes me sad, this disgusting, cataclysmic cyclone of self-destructive behavior that teenagers seem to have flung themselves into. I guess it's just heightened by how naive I used to be (and still am, to a certain degree). I mean, every one of my female friends (the ones my age, at least) are getting wasted and high every weekend and hooking up with the most random, disgusting guys. There are girls crying in the bathroom, others throwing up in the bushes, still more giving blowjobs behind the bookshelf. Not to be a killjoy, but what the hell ever happened to morals? As much as I would like to have a boyfriend, I'm not so eager to do it that i'll fling myself at the nearest drunkard. Shoot me for wanting something genuine and not based on substance dependence, I guess.
It's weird; these kids were blossoming Mother Teresas Freshman year, they swore on their eight years of D.A.R.E. classes that they would never do so much as look at a cigarette, let alone drink or get high. I'm not saying that people shouldn't drink if they want to, but there's a difference between experimenting and the level that these kids are at (Popping E at skeevy clubs, at sixteen? Shrooms, pot laced with formaldehyde, these kids have encountered everything). Some of them are wasting such intellect on this crap, and all they do is deal with drama that erupts from it, week after week. Nothing is keeping these kids from ruining their lives; one day one of them is going to die, and they're going to get a huge fucking wakeup call.
Just thinking about all of this gives me such heavy boots. I wouldn't have believed anyone if they had predicted all of this two years ago.
