Drug Policy

is it really that surprising when they turn to something like meth to keep themselves going? And they're not doing it for the "buzz", they're doing it to function, however briefly that's going to work for them.

Yeah, that's the whole meth mythology: It really does make you super productive when you first do it. All of the sudden the American Dream in these poor areas makes sense, its just smoke meth and work, work, work. Then slowly, you decay as your hyperactive mind starts to read between the lines in the world, and you end up trying to pick the government nanobot insects out of your skin to get ahead of the pack.

Meth is a really tough one. Its cooked up in bathtubs in the middle of nowhere, there often is no big organisation behind it. Its comparatively easy to make, so it crops up anywhere. Back woods conservatives are vulnerable, precisely because it makes a super hard worker when you first take it, it exploits their ideals about work ethic.

I think the solution here has to come from the realisation that some drug use can be a natural balanced part of the human experience, something we can create safe venues for. Cats have catnip, man has his herbs. The problem comes when things get thrown out of balance, with the weird synthetics. So our society has to come up with ways for people who want these experiences to have them in a safe way. Speed experiences are the hardest to deliver safely. But I am struck by something about the psycho-pharmocology of drugs like LSD. I remember you could take 2 hits on friday night, and blow your mind. Then take 2 hits again sunday morning, there would be no effect... The effect of the drug was blocked for about a week or two, so it was physically impossible to get addicted. Maybe there's some kind of stimulant that could be found with a similar action. People could get geebed out on Saturday, sleep it off on Sunday (even if they took more, no effect) and be normal at work on monday.

Maybe that's too far out, designing drugs to push out meth...But I do think it would be productive for society to establish some safe norms for drug use, so people have have their wacky experiences without the funding of crime, and the dangers the exist today.

PEace