This is a response to an article I read on Social Student (which you can find here). It isn't my full opinion on the matter. It is literally a response to somebody else's opinion on it. Because they are wrong, and I am right. (You should probably read their article first so that you know what I'm talking about.)
The person who wrote the article admitted they like to "binge drink as much as the next student" but that they don't want anything to do with drugs, or the people that take them, telling of how they disowned their old best friend when she started using the drug mephedrone. Now, I don't want to start bashing alcohol, because I too, like to "binge drink as much as the next student" (although I would never have phrased it like that), but I'm not going to be so hypocritical as to ingest something that has been proven to be dangerous while preaching about how dangerous drugs are. Because they're not. Not the drugs that students do anyway. Sure, they have their disadvantages, but I refuse to believe that MDMA or cannabis are anywhere near as dangerous as alcohol. I've seen the videos in high school biology. I've sat through my drug awareness lessons in Citizenship. I've clicked through the pages of FRANK and Wikipedia. I know. And you will too, if you do the research. The government are even considering using MDMA to treat depression. Will you be so against it then, when it is instead marketed as being healthy, as something your doctor prescribes?
If you're going to get judgemental about people who use drugs, then just make sure that your own vices are harmless, because really, what's separating you, a drinker, from somebody who uses recreational drugs? The law, that's what. And laws change. I remember my old science teacher telling me that if alcohol were discovered today, it would be banned immediately. And so it should be really. My life would suck without alcohol but if we're basing the law on how dangerous something is then alcohol should be up there with the real bad boys.
Of course people who are at university probably consume more drugs than people at school or college. That's because they've moved out, and are living with their friends, thus not at risk of being caught grinding their teeth at 7am by a disappointed father. However, universities are not full of drug takers. People who use drugs tend to hang around with other people who use drugs. If you don't want to take drugs then don't go to huge house parties that everyone is saying will be like "something off Skins", don't go to clubs that open at 7am, don't go to certain dub nights. If you listen to drug music, go to clubs with a reputation for debauchery and spend all your time with people who like to take drugs then congratulations, you'll probably be offered drugs at some point. If it's not your thing, stay away from the scene. Or just say no. From my own experiences at uni, I've found more pressure to drink alcohol than to take drugs. It's quite acceptable to tell someone "Drugs aren't my thing," but not so much to dive out of an initiation challenge, round of pub golf or dirty pint on a uni night out.
I dunno. I'm so tired and I know that this probably makes no sense but I'm just sick of people assuming that
a) Alcohol is moral and harmless but drugs are evil and people who take them should be stigmatised
b) People who use drugs are desperate for everybody else to use them and will shun anybody who doesn't
c) Drugs are everywhere. No they're not. Start spending your time in Venue rather than Sankeys and you'll see far less drug use.
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