So , more people than ever are using drugs ?

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   ahorsebackposted 9 years ago

   More and more  it seems to me that people, especially the young , are using  drugs !   Not only is the media reporting more use but  social behavior seems to be justified  by general acceptance .   The local court news ,   entertainment media  ,   and for the most part  experiences "on the street " indicate that there is more abuse of  illegal drugs.  All one has to do is look at the expanding drug counseling  centers , meth clinics , police  and EMT .preparing themselves for overdoses !    Is this not one of the greatest failures of our media and education system ?   What percentage of  education ,or lack there of at home  is  to  blame  ?
   
   What's going on ? Why does our youth culture  never learn from the expanded  reporting of the negative  aspects ?Any ideas ?

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      Live to Learnposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I'm surprised this surprised you. We are a completely medicated nation. We take a pill for everything that even momentarily ails us. A large percentage of advertising on tv is dedicated to pushing more and more drugs.You certainly can't labor under this philosophy without seeing non prescription drug use rise.
      
      Expanded reporting of the negative effects of prescription drugs doesn't slow the demand or use of them. Why would other drugs garner a different reaction?

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         ahorsebackposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         If course prescription drugs are just as bad,  I'm talking about the hyper-education of non-drug use and the increase in usage at the same time . What's up with that ? , One would have to be a complete moron  to fall into the trap  AS we are  even further educated to  the negative effects  of usage, than ever before  !

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            Live to Learnposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Honestly, I think we send some pretty mixed signals about illegal drugs. The entertainment industry romanticizes the whole thing. Look at the people our kids look up to. On the one hand we attempt to educate about the dangers and on the other we celebrate the culture it is a part of.

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               Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               "We" don't have to celebrate that culture.  But it is both the general celebration and tolerance of it which allows it to exist.  It is each person's responsibility to stand up against it and for better solutions, as one person says here, one person at a time.  It's not a popular or ann easy stand, though. and few people are truly dedicated to it.  To do so, one must live it oneself.  There's the rub.

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                  Live to Learnposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  I was speaking of us as a nation, not we, as in individuals. I don't think it is so much standing against it as it is raising children who aren't mesmerized by it and can stand by their values, not be led by the crowd.

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                     Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Excellent points and I wholeheartedly agree that raising children to be able to think and see-through the ploys is a major thing.  They will be, as we are now, 'the nation'. The nation is the individuals and as an individual, one's only contribution is as one.  It's where the power is, unless we give it away.

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               ahorsebackposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               livetolearn , You are so right about that ! And there is still a personal accounting and responsibility  for the cost's of  demise, and the impulse controls  that are lacking  !

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      Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      … looking for bliss in all the wrong places.

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   Nellieannaposted 9 years ago

   My personal life includes no regular prescription drugs and my immediate surroundings have no reminders of drugs or drug use other than the TV campaigns to get people to 'ask your doctor if (such & such a prescription drug)' is right for you', while displaying people supposedly made joyous from using it, with joyous images continuing while lists of very harmful side effects are read in the same syrupy tones.  If one questions the warnings on a prescription (which I did on the last one I was given), the pharmacist shrugs it off saying that those warnings are required but that the effects are rare and one needn't worry about them, even if they are dire warnings which no sensible person wants to risk even a possibility of experiencing.  I refused that prescription I had been taking regularly and it ended my trips to the pharmacist.     
   
   The mentality of getting a pill (drug) as fast as possible if one has any real or suspected upsets, which are often prompted and intensified by people's horrible disregard for healthy choices in diet and lifestyle which cause their symptoms in the first place.  Many prescriptions do no more than 'make one comfortable' (i.e.: mask the normal discomfort resulting from poor choices & drug the senses.  Obvious life-choice improvements are played down in favor of instant relief of results by taking a pill or getting a shot of drugs and many are pooh-poohed to the point that young folks must feel it's uncool to take sensible care of their health. 
   
   It's a short jump from there to self-medicating in hopes of preventing facing, experiencing any discomfort at all. Of course this mentality eventually replaces people's natural quest for pinpointing causes and correcting problems by their own thinking actions and self-discipline. Once the escape-mentality is hammered into people, especially those with no other teaching with which to challenge it or to know to challenge it, it has become the new status quo.  It's becoming or has become the general response if/when anything doesn't please a person.  Life is not always smooth, so displeasures happen regularly, which people for generations have generally learned to handle, but now taking stuff seems to be a first and natural choice, while it often accelerates the need for it, both addictively and by direct negative effects in the bod, so producing other 'need' for other drugs.
   
   The step from prescription and/or OTC drugs to even more addictive dangerous hard drugs is a short step.  Add to it that it is deliberately becoming a 'taught' and acceptable response to people who are not being taught to question its effects or to know other alternatives.  Solution?  Re-education, perhaps, which should start in the home with parents introducing common sense when those TV ads come on so kids learn to think rationally for themselves. But how to educate the parents who may have missed those lessons themselves.  Laws to limit big corporations beating their unhealthy choices into naive people? Doubtful they would help much until people consciously think rationally for themselves.  It must feel like going against the tide to young folks, if they ever even consider resisting it.
   
   There may be education against  in progress, but its impact is slight against the education for.  Until there is a genuine understanding instilled in the prospective users, those warnings are just so much 'old-fogey' stuff.  They're untrained to think more deeply.

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      ahorsebackposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Nellieanna , I believe we have softened our approach today towards self responsibility ,  impulse control is almost unheard of !  Parenting now days is to befriend and hope for the best .  Where once  listening to our elders  was the way ......Today even the idea is un-cool !

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         Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That's so.  But, just as it was changed to become lax on self-responsibility, it can change to recover it - unless people give up and give in.  While there are still some who remember taking  control of oneself, it can still happen.  If everyone left has been conditioned to believe in being helpless, - it wouldn't look too hopeful.  Fortunately, there are young parents who understand, but they're in the minority and their kids are peer-pressured to resist those 'un-cool' ideas.  Parents have to be so strong and not risk going to an extreme that boomerangs.

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   tirelesstravelerposted 9 years ago

   Drugs? For most people there is nothing else. You tell people everything it their fault,-You haven't reduced their carbon foot print enough, but it is perfectly acceptable for celebrities to jet around. People hurt animals and that is horrific. Animals lives matter people's don't.  Who matters depends on how much power they have. It's OK to destroy someone's property, but you sue if they destroy yours.
   Law makers make laws so fast and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.  No one enforces laws unless there is money involved.  People don't matter to government, but people keep running to it and giving it more power.
   What if you value life, all life, regardless of color, economic class, education, religion, age, health, height, or thoughts.
   What is your god?
   People who do drugs probably know the laws better than anyone, but they self medicate just to make it another day. Sometimes that doesn't work.  Quite blaming.  Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda doesn't do any good.  Look for answers. Instead of psychoanalyzing the past to make it fit our culture look at what worked in the past.  Look for threads that presented a commonality that helped people to cope and survive.  Those commonalities are there and they are not politically correct, but they work.  Another law or class won't help anyone. The solution is out there for us to find.  The solution comes one person at a time.  Drugs are a hella nasty god, but to many the only one they know.

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      ahorsebackposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Tirelesstraveler , Yes , Impulse control at a youthful age is the key  ! ,  I remember the cause and affect of drug education even in the sixties in our school .  I was  12  at the time and the simple black and white  slides of  black lungs from an autopsy showing simply , the effects of tobacco on the human lung .   That stuck in my mind and still I can recall - 50 years later , so what is wrong with self  control today ?    I'm a little tired of blame it all on the "outside influences" of society .  Maybe parents have become far too detached from  the guidance , trying to be Too good a friend with their kids instead ?

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Tirelesstravler - you're so right that finding answers is the need and that  trying to fit the past into today's situations is absurd.  But. as you also point out, the past held some 'proven' truths (life never allows proofs to hold up indefinitely, so must continue to hold water in order to be applied) which need to be fitted into today's solutions, especially if throwing old ideas out the window has contributed to today's problems, which in many respects it has done.   Ahorseback - yes, parenting could definitely be the key factor.  Outside influences have moved in to take over the prize left by careless parents - young people, and it generates enormous profits for those influences.  Reversing it is not easy since those youngsters will become the next generation of parents and many have no idea what it means.  In fact, that has already happened with their parents.  The decline in home life to train children began with WWII.

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   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   I use caffeine, alcohol and a prescription medication related to a medical condition, and people who think that makes me a less moral or worthy person need to get a clue.

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      ahorsebackposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      And yet it doesn't bother you that there are abuses of each ?   No one is singling out  those in need of medication phych , , yet the abuses seem to  be epidemic in proportion  to what they  should be . ! Surely you understand that .

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Psycheskinner, I wish you well with overcoming your medical condition,  I certainly don't think you are less moral or worthy.   I drink coffee and have an occasional glass of wine, all in moderation.  But I abhor TV ads urging people to get prescriptions like shopping for drapes and to run to the  doctor with every little ache, fearing dire consequences if they don't.   I personally refuse prescription medication to mask discomfort or to just make me feel better.
      I deliberately try to make choices for health and to prevent illness, even those that are 'supposed' to happen to old folks.  But I am 83 and if I had a condition requiring  specific medication, I would accept it if I were sure I needed it. The idea is to think for oneself and take active responsibility for one's choices.  It's not to be a more moral or worthy person, but to be as whole a person as one can be.

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   peeplesposted 9 years ago

   I'm of mixed feelings on the issue. As for prescription medications, as long as they are being used as prescribed I do not see an issue. I hate big Pharm, BUT we live in an educated world where illnesses are no longer dismissed, kids with problems are no longer ignored, adults with weird illnesses are no longer seen as crazy, and in exchange more prescription drugs have began being used. This is kind of a good thing. Better to treat the child with autism instead of do what they use to, ignore it, hide it, and assume the kid is just "slow in the head".
   As for marijuana, well this is good because it can be the way to get people ff of much more harmful prescription medications. Edible marijuana has no known bad side effects long term. Using for recreation is certainly better than being a meth addict or heroine user.
   Do I think everyone should run out and do drugs? Of course not, but I am not sure if there really is as much of a "problem" or a disagreement of likes. Everyone has an addiction. Many claim there's is harmless, but every addiction can be harmful.

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      No question but that it is personal choice, bearing in mind that the impartial, inevitable consequences of personal choices 'go-with' those choices.  Those consequences may not be apparent at the time but when they come, they are  very apparent to the person and are either pleasantly so or painfully so. It's one's responsibility to learn and make wiser choices as evidence appears.  If it can be done at the onset, it can save a person much anguish and give much reward.

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         peeplesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Prescription drugs = Proven health benefits, Marijuana = Proven health benefits. The rest in my opinion are more of personal choices. People don't really choose to be ill and need prescription drugs.

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            Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            All prescription drugs are HARMFUL to the liver and kidneys. Marijuana contains THC, a drug. Maybe someday they will put the potent ingredients of pot into pill form, but even then, as is true for all drugs, there are side effects, risks and detrimental effects on the organs, including the brain …
            
            The body on the other hand is a self-healing force.
            Health comes from ease of inner-workings and fine tune-ment of the body. Dis-ease is the opposite, which we contribute to. Stop contributing to a disease condition of the body and you don't need DRUGS of any sort. Consciously work with the body, Yin/ Yang, acid/ alkaline balance and you will have natural health ...
            - and happiness which you will never, NEVER, get from any sort of pharmaceutical or recreational substance.
            If the benefits are short term, why BOTHER?
            
            ALSO: Addiction is the PITS!

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               peeplesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               All prescription medicines are HELPFUL also. Marijuana has yet to show any negative physical side effects, and there is already a thc pill.
               For the rest of your comment, BS! Tell the millions of kids dying from illnesses to just fine tune their inner workings. People with your mind set are a big part of the problem. Kids die all over the world in different living conditions, many with no access to and drugs. Also I didn't cause my lupus, and there is no cure, meds are the only thing keeping my kidneys and heart from not being attacked from my own. But I guess all the people who think like you are smarter than all the scientists and doctors who know what they are doing.

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   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   Society is not providing bliss. Society as a whole is not dedicated to the mission of bringing heaven to earth. Religion is not dedicated to bringing heaven to earth.
   What would that look like to you, ahorseback:
   Heaven on Earth?
   I go to churches where afterwards people gorge themselves on cookies.
   I go to health clubs where people are looking at themselves in the mirrors.
   I go to schools where teachers care more about snack, lunch and the teachers lounge than they do about their students.
   I go to political meetings where people just want to argue.
   I go on-line where people just want to spout their own agenda and not listen to others.
   
   I go to the moon and realize there is a whole other side which is completely dark.
   In the ocean I am introduced to dolphins, but then they turn into sharks. uh oh a poem is bursting  forth like a wave ... here I go soul surfing>>>
   
   
   The youth are blindly obedient,
   we keep them in the dark.
   Then we release them
   into a world so stark.
   When will we provide them
   A world of love and light?
   A world where we agree
   On what is wrong and right?
   But now confusion reigns
   No one knows the score
   Or how to play the game
   Or open up the door …
   To happiness.
   
     and I actually post it.

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that, Kathryn Hill. Good points.  Have you seen the movie, "The Giver"? It's about a society 'after the ruins' in which everything is strictly regulated and the populace is regularly 'medicated' to remove memory of anything before the new agenda and to keep them in line. 
      
      But in our reality, it seems that confusion, hypocrisy and dire possibilities as choices are necessary for freedom.  Seems that too few are willing to spend their freedom wisely.   But some do.  It's much more dangerous, and also much more rewarding.

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   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   Now eating cookies is a moral failing too?  Harsh!

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      Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      gorging, yes. even says it in the Bible! Everyone knows that white sugar is practically a poison ( like a drug). This particular meeting also had every imaginable chocolatey, gooey dessert possible. Binge fest at church. Why?

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         Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Maybe drug addiction is caused by the consumption of white sugar, which is in practically everything!
         I raised my kids on a NO (white) sugar diet. I don't touch the stuff myself. EVER!
         White sugar is addicting.
         It causes the depletion of B vitamins
         It is hard on the adrenalin system.
         It affects mood: sugar blues.
         Linked to diabetes.
         It is causing de-evolution, according to Macrobiotic understanding.
         
         Macrobiotic
         constituting, relating to, or following a diet of whole pure prepared foods that is based on Taoist principles of the balance of yin and yang.

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            Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You're right about the addictiveess and  damaging effects of white sugar (and cornstarch)!  Add to that the fact, as you mention, that it's so pervasive and in everything, whether or not one chooses it.  The only escape is firm decision to reject it and persistence in doing so.  But when it's become accepted, it's easy to get, it's legal and terribly available!
            
            This is not a moral matter.  It's a personal choice of how one wishes to live a personal life.  There are no moral implications if one chooses to flaunt the impartial consequences of ignoring what promotes or destroys living it as healthily as possible.
            
            I'm not into macrobiotics, but, at 83, I'm very into healthy choices in food as well as other areas, and live by those principles.  Happily, sugar was not a major food group among  my family growing up, though its  dangers were not so well known,  My parents were born in the early 1890s, though, and were more health conscious than most of their  generation.

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               Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Health choices are not moral questions.  They are personal choices regarding how one spends one's personal life, for its present and into its future.  If one makes poor choices whose impartial damaging consequences are most likely, so be it.  If one makes healthier choices whose impartial healthy consequences are most likely, so be it.  To each his/her own choice.
               
               The morality of big business getting sugar into most everything available to people for its own profit and benefit is quite another matter.  When one knowingly chooses to accept that, it becomes a matter of one's own consequences for his/her own body and possibly for one's children who are one's responsibility.  How that figures into one's morality is one's personal view, but the consequences are unrelenting.

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               Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Dear Nellieanna,
               You are sometimes referred to as the "silent generation" and not many from your generation enter here. I am very honored by your visit and by your input. Thanks Much!

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                  Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you, Kathryn.  I tend to not adhere to general categorization.  Many of my generation do, though.  I really appreciate your kind acceptance of my input. I totally dislike contention and honestly feel that we're all here looking for ideas we can accept and to share those we have to share, and to respect the differences we bring with who we are and where we are in our own lives.  I call it subjective reality, which we all dwell in.  ;-)

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   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   Sugar is just sugar. As a moral and rational person I eat it all the time and am in perfect health.
   
   I think you are projecting other issues into perfectly innocent baked goods.

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's your choice psyceskinner!  However, you mentioned having a 'medical condition' earlier, so 'perfect' is not quite an accurate adjective.  Few people do have 'perfect' anything, if they're fully alive.  But if your over-all health is optimal for you, good for you.   Hope it is and will be for the long run.

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   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   Yeah, my prescription is totally "harmful", with the side effect that it prevents me from dying from a congenital genetic condition.
   
   Obviously I should stop taking it immediately so I can die healthy.

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      Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      To quote an interesting, moral and rational contributor: "I think you are projecting other issues into". . .  what has actually been said in the discussion about overuse of drugs, underuse of healthy choices and that these are personal choices that depend on personal factors.

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    Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

    The typical healthy person doesn't even need aspirin. He/she can address the underlying cause of the condition/symptom. I am not talking to people with serous problems. I am talking to people who do not know that the body is a self-healing force. Some bodies are apparently, (according to medical practitioners,) past the point of self-correcting for whatever reason and cause. But even in these cases, the underlying cause is there. To discover the cause of the dis-ease is one step toward curing the condition.
    
    
    Cancer is another condition which is very hard to cure. Prevention is the best course. Cancer is caused by an overly acidic bloodstream, according to macrobiotic wisdom.
    Pharmaceuticals/pot/alcohol are generally way acidic and best avoided if possible.
    
    The Way I see it based on reading George Ohsawa and Noburo Muramoto, experimenting with my own body and observing others.
    Take it or Leave It.
    
    
    http://www.ohsawamacrobiotics.com/macro … crobiotics
    
    http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Ourselves … 0380498669

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       Nellieannaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, it is a matter of Take It or Leave It.  It's not compulsory, other than accepting results of what one chooses to take or leave.  Those go-with the choices one is free to make.
       
       I agree that staying healthy allows one to avoid even OTC pain meds.  I rarely take them, and when I do, it's in preference to more addictive prescription ones which the doctor is eager to prescribe.  I definitely agree that working on reversing the causes of pain and illness is a primary objective if they happen.  When anything is working at less than optimum, my first thought is to trace it back to what I'm doing to bring it on or exacerbate the condition and to change whatever that is.
       
       On such occasions as three years ago when I had shingles at age 80, I had theories about what I was doing to bring it on, but once it happened, it still had to run its course.   Four months ago, when I fell down a hill and sprained both wrists catching my fall before my head would have hit the brick wall at the bottom, yes, I knew immediately what I'd done to cause it.  I was snipping off dandelion blossoms to keep them from proliferating,  - totally unnecessary and unwise, especially in that setting. Again, though, once done,  it just had to run its course.  I used OTC meds but didn't make those a habit either time.
       
       Much earlier in my life, in my 30s, I had colitis and the doctor gave me a prescription which he said I'd have to take the rest of my life.  Uh-huh, I decided.  I'd fix what I was doing or allowing which was causing the colitis, and I did.  Had nothing to do with being a moral person or not.  It did involve being rational and self-honest, though.
       
       Ordinarily, I am super fit and healthy, especially for my age. Attitude and confidence play major roles in making healthy choices, as well as in allowing the wisdom of the body to go to work.   I don't accept the inevitability or the invariability of having to succumb to give up experiencing living a long life, though if conditions do arise, they are to be accepted sensibly and not allowed to stop one in one's living.

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