I had to bring this from GS since they locked this topic and suspended me for 5 days there. This is serious, no harm intended and hopefully, no harm done.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I am a drug user. I make no excuses, I am what I am. I used to be ashamed to admit it, even guilty that I did it, but now I am unashamed, unembarrassed, and completely fine with it. It's my vice, just as sex is someone else's vice, and alcohol is yet another person's vice.

We all have our habits, but why is it that my "habit" is to be looked down upon, while other people's habits (such as playing video games or going to the bar to drink on the weekends) are seen as socially acceptable? I'm sure many of you will say "Drugs are detrimental to your health" or "Drug users are idiots", but why? Do you know every last detail about the effects of every single drug? Do you know just who each drug user really is as a person? Probably a "no" to both of those.

Now I've studied up extensively on all these chemicals. It's not as though I'm popping pills and snorting powders at whim, I look up their effects. And not from government sites, but rather from first-hand knowledge, people's stories, accounts, records, and journals (which provide all the right information in my opinion).

We've all been raised to believe that psychoactive substances are evil. We are told that smoking marijuana will cause us to start using every other drug, that drinking alcohol will lead us to hurt the ones we love, that snorting cocaine will make us immediate addicts. None of those statements are true. Yet that's why our parents, teachers, and government tells us. The funny thing about every single psychoactive substance (even hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and mescaline) is that they all have medical applications.

I have tried numerous substances, ranging from the soft drugs like marijuana and alcohol, to the hard and "dangerous" drugs like heroin and cocaine. I have never been addicted to anything. I have never committed any violent crime or act of vandalism. I haven't hurt anyone around me. I've done nothing but be careful, both for myself and for others, yet the federal government will be more than happy to put me in jail if I were to just be carrying any amount of these substances. Why?

Why is my vice punishable, while other vices like sex and alcohol use go uncared about? I consider my use of psychoactive chemicals no worse than someone going out and having sex, or going home and playing a PS3 game. There are health risks in all of these things (yes, video games do affect your health, albeit in minor ways), yet they merely put out warnings on these supposed "acceptable" acts, and go straight to punishment for my "unacceptable" acts.

I don't see this as right. Nor do I find it right that people go around calling drug users "idiots", or any other derogatory term. As far as I'm concerned, everyone has at least one thing that they get pleasure out of. Mine is drugs. What's wrong with that?