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Why does it seem like the majority of people think problems are caused by drugs rather than problems causing people to turn to drugs? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago* by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I was never heavy into drugs but I smoked weed a fair bit in my 20s, knew a lot of other daily users of weed as well as some harder drugs. I don't think I ever came across a person that randomly decided to do drugs for no reason one day and got hooked. They were all people who had pretty messed up problems in their life that were too complex for them to fix on their own.

So it confuses me when people instantly assume that someone is in a bad situation due to drugs rather than them using drugs to deal with a bad situation. And yes I know drug abuse makes problems worse the vast majority of the time but it's not what I see as the root issue in a lot of cases, the drug use is a symptom/coping mechanism for people that society have let fall through the cracks.

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[โ€“] [S] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Yes but how many meth heads do you know that randomly decided to do it one day for the hell of it? I'm sure there's some out there but 99.9% of the time it's going to be someone in such a bad situation that they don't care about the long term consequences, they just want to not suffer.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 3 months ago

    I know a lot of 'meth heads'. Most of them were prescribed Adderall as kids but as adults it became harder and harder to obtain prescriptions and they eventually turned to alternative solutions to get their medication.

    Correction, "knew", I knew a lot of meth heads. Most of them died from opiates added to their medication they didn't know about. Fun fact: no one has ever died from a meth overdose. It's always meth in combination with something else, usually opiates.

    I mention this because there's a stigma with meth prevalent in society and it is very unfair in my opinion. There are meth users and meth heads. A meth user is capable of living a very normal life. A meth head is created by society, mental illness, malnutrition and poverty. Just my opinion.

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