Back in May 2008 Owen, a guy who had been my best friend, committed suicide. A few months back Nick, somebody I had been friendly with also, took his own life. In less than two years I’ve lost two acquaintances, one of whom I was very close to. On both occasions, substance abuse was a contributing factor to them taking their own lives. However, I still oppose drug prohibition and the war on drugs. Oh, I’m sure the anti-drug zealots will snipe how it is I can take the stance I do when I know the damage drugs can do. It’s because there’s plenty of other stuff in this world of ours that can do damage and kill which isn’t prohibited. The bottom line is that my friends were adults and made their own choices.
I remember a decade ago watching Owen sink to the bottom of a bottle and begging him to get help. He refused and though I still cared about him, I realised he had to make his own choices. All I could do was stand back and help when I could, but as it goes for the last five years of his life I hardly had a conversation.
Owen’s poison was alcohol and I bet there’s a few anti drug zealots who whilst spouting that marijuana or any other prohibited drug is evil will more often the not be partial to a large gin & tonic. If people are going to bang on about how drugs are evil, they need to be a bit more consistent and cut out caffeine, alcohol, aspirin and anything the doctor prescribes. But being the hypocrites they are they won’t. Rather, they’ll sip a glass of wine whilst slamming me for smoking a spliff.
It does get me pissed when those who like a glass of wine and cigarette will say people who enjoy a spliff or two should be thrown in prison or forced into drug treatment. I’m not saying that alcohol should be prohibited, even though it’s not my drug of choice and I know from personal experience how much harm it can do.
Why has nobody sued any distillery for all the wife beatings, deaths caused by drunk driving, and the diseased livers that the whiskey they’ve produced has caused? I could quite easily make the case that of all drugs, alcohol is the most damaging and should therefore be banned. However, I know that majority of people like the odd drink, and do so in moderation. Why is it, then, that though I respect the majority people who drink alcohol, the majority of drinkers wish to deny me the right to use marijuana or any other drug in a moderate or responsible manner?
Many will say there’s good reason for government to prohibit marijuana. There is a reason, but it ain’t good. It’s the same reason for an awful lot of government action: special interests.
Basically, the alcohol industry has billions to lobby government to ensure booze is kept legal and available as well as keeping marijuana illegal. The booze industry probably does fear the legalisation of marijuana because some people would move from booze to pot. The booze industry has big bucks to spend ensuring people can’t spliff up legally, but the marijuana lobby doesn’t. Of course some still maintain that government must prohibit marijuana because it’s harmful. And alcohol is not harmful? If the government banned everything which was harmful then just about everything, including us humans, would be illegal.
Not all alcohol is harmful just as not every drug is harmful. But though there are drugs which are harmful on the whole, the harmful thing is the manner in which individuals use drugs. You can’t have freedom without responsibility, and some marijuana users do not act responsibly. The same is true of alcohol users, yet pot is banned for the sake of the irresponsible few while alcohol remains legal. It’s this hypocrisy which does my fucking head in.
As for Owen and Nick, they were owners of their own bodies and lives. They were adults and intelligent enough to make the choices which they made. Though I was ultimately saddened by the choices they made, I could not deny them the right to make those choices.
Libertarian, atheist, punk rocker, 
There is some truth to the perspective that substance abuse was involved in these people choosing to kill themselves. There is also the perspective that the things in their lives that were hard to cope with led them to consider the release of substances.
Not everyone who kills herself is addicted to anything. Not everyone who is addicted to something kills himself.
So it seems unlikely that banning substances is going to do anything to make people generally happier, more prosperous, more successful, more accomplished, more in harmony with life, more caught up in the view that they have a meaningful opportunity to advance things for a cause or a project or a career. I think, in fact, that banning substances has the opposite effect.
By introducing authoritarian ideas and coercion and brutality, those in power are not helping anyone else feel any better. The sadistic get a sick, and sometimes guilty pleasure from the brutality. (The really sadistic don’t feel guilt, and are verging on psychotic.) Everyone else has that much less harmony, possibility, opportunity, and decency available.
You have my condolences for the loss of your friends. I am truly regretful that they chose as they did. In the end, the choice they took was the last choice on the menu. It is a sadder place, the world, for every person taking that choice.
The Puritans who want to ban things and control others aren’t interested in making the world a better place. They want to make things harder, meaner, nastier, more brutish, because at heart they are thugs who want no one to have happiness. Puritans do not stay awake at night staring at the ceiling wondering what it all means, whether anything makes sense, whether is anything to live for.
Puritans stay awake at night knowing that somewhere, someone is happy.
You’ve got a great site here guys, good content, good design. Keep up the good work. I’ll stay updated through your feed…Aloha