BTL Blog Comments

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:15:1258380942 GMT

Great piece, Francie!

At the conclusion, you question why drugs have become 'so commonplace, so easy to obtain and use' and you question the motivations behind so many people who use drugs. Yet I think you've answered many of those questions earlier in your piece as you discuss cultural meaning of drug use, drug use and identity, friendships/peers, etc. Other answers to your question may also be worldwide trends and profit motive within drug markets (the supply side of the equation).

My thoughts are that some people have not yet experienced (personally or through close friends) major negative effects, enough to change their behaviour or for them to do things differently. The social meaning of drug use in their friendship groups is powerful - doing drugs together can be just as meaningful as sharing food together. Health is certainly not the only consideration for most people.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:54:1258055643 GMT

I feel like my friends don't think there ARE any risks. But there are so many and I've slowly learned that the hard way, watching friends get burned. One of my friends took acid and went up then didn't come down for weeks. He's got bipolar now. He set fire to all his possessions. He shakes all the time. And his parents told me how many people they saw in the psychiatric hospital that had ended up there just from smoking weed. Another couple mates got years of depression from taking Ecstasy. Hash has turned one friend completely neurotic with paranoia. And another couple have just been lazy for years from endless smoking and got no career together at all, so they're totally depressed. Drugs are bad, mkaaay.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:46:1258055209 GMT

@Francie - if you believe the media - young people using drugs in the party scene pay no attention to the health risks of their drug use. But I don't think that's necessarily true - I think these people believe that they are taking measured risks.

@Olived - Does creativity mean risking yourself in terms of physical harms or is it just putting yourself out there emotionally?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:59:1258045183 GMT

Francie, you make a good argument that exposes some drug use as thoughtless and not enhancing creativity. To be honest it's challenging.

The missing link you might be looking for around youth, creativity and music is risk.

1. Us youngins take more risks than anyone.
2. There are more risque sub-sub-sub genres of music than there are pingers at a party.
3. Many would argue the fuel for creativity is risking part of yourself and putting it on show.

Everyone's assessment of risk is different. A harm to you might be a thrill for me. But that's not the point. The point is that within a comfy sub-cultural micro-cosm, risk is normalised by the group. What your friends and the scene says is normal, becomes our benchmark.

My question is, how long can we use this judgement system for before we become drones, bored with the repetition and potentially a scrambled brain?