I don't think that's ever been in question. Harm reduction isn't some utopian ideal that safe drug use == nobody ever suffers long-term negative effects.
Conquering those demons takes a lot of time, introspection, and often outside help. Harm reduction is about making sure you live long enough to hopefully get there.
To you, maybe, but it only takes a cursory glance at drug-related subreddits to see numerous people suggesting that you just need to follow harm reduction websites, stick to some arbitrary rules (e.g. only do MDMA every N weeks and take X, Y, and Z supplements), and you can avoid the negative consequences. You may know that’s untrue, but it’s common to see among drug users.
It’s also common to blame drug users who experience problems on failure to follow harm reduction guides, as if the guides are a perfect guide for avoiding the harms.
> Harm reduction is about making sure you live long enough to hopefully get there.
Modern harm reduction websites are about education in general, not just helping addicts survive. You will find things like dosing guidelines for first time users, expectations for what to expect, how to prepare, and so on.
These things are targeted at beginner drug users or the drug curious.
Especially when comparing with the negative consequences of doing alcohol.
The argument that any drug use is bad is pretty blown out of proportion.
This sentiment is confusing to me. I get that alcohol is bad. But how is that relevant to whether or not MDMA or LSD are bad?
I see it come up in these conversations pretty regularly, so there's probably a point there I'm missing. But I can't help but read it as "this thing I like to do isn't bad because other people do a different bad thing".
Now you can say, well I don’t drink alcohol either, but that’s not the reality of most people.
I'll have a drink occasionally, and (more rarely these days anyway) I'll occasionally have too many drinks. But I won't look at either of those as "well, I didnt do heroin, so that was a good choice".
I tend to look at it just as if I had eaten mcdonalds or taco bell or a tub of ice cream. It's something that I wouldn't do if I really wanted the best for myself (for some definition of best. Obviously everyone will have their own. Maybe your best is exploring your psyche, and damn whatever consequences may or may not come).
You don't need to justify it. Just recognize that you're probably trading off something else in your life for it, and in some cases that tradeoff may be sizable.
In any case, I think the comparative view isn't a great one. It implies that you have to have some kinda vice, and at least you kinda picked a lesser one. My own ideal would be to do very little of any of it, maybe even none. But if I miss that ideal, I don't have to rationalize it away.
Personally I think most substances in moderate quantities taken only occasionally are no big deal. Yes there is probably some minute health impact visible in long term longitudinal studies but it's probably dwarfed by other lifestyle factors. I would rather be someone who exercises regularly, eats a healthy diet and uses MDMA or cocaine a few times a year than a sedentary obese teetolar who's never touched drugs.
A more flexible approach would see drugs regulated purely based on actual harm coupled with availability of a less harmful analogue (will fentanyl users pick heroin if it's more easily available than fentanyl? If so regulate one much more strictly than the other)
Incidentally that approach might well see tighter regulations on alcohol than several currently illegal drugs.
Well, from the scientific view things are pretty clear.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Psychoactive_dru...
Only politics don't want to move. Because why ask science when you can ask the alcohol and tobacco lobby?
That community has an ongoing bitterness about this double standard.
Usually though, people making this point are not advocating for heroin or meth (although there's a reasonable argument there that the drug is not what does most of the damage in those situations - krokodil is just heroin manufactured with an extremely dirty process. It's perceived as being much worse, but what's "much worse" are the impurities from using gasoline as a solvent.
MDMA and LSD in particular have the advantage of no fast, cheap ways to synthesize at the expense of safety or purity.
If you're not predisposed to psychosis, can it really do anything besides give you a bad trip? Bad trips are traumatizing and may take a while to work through, psychologically, but it's not permanent damage.
Personally, I had a very bad trip that led me to stop doing drugs and, ultimately, to a lot of very positive changes in my life.
e.x. skip to 2:00 in this video https://twitter.com/sav_says_/status/1603512522509668352
However, the video you link to is from a notorious far right propaganda outlet. I don't think people will get an honest perspective from TPUSA, who clearly have an axe to grind (and bills to pay, which they accomplish by manufacturing outrage).
People use drugs for there benefits
Addiction is a symptom, generally, of alienation. To the addict the drug is helping. As the addicts loved ones that can be hard to belive, and demonstrably untrue. But still.
A much better paradigm is "benefit maximisation"
Ask ourselves what social policies will help maximize the benefits of drug use.
Leads to the same place with the harm, but without patronising users, and allows us as a society to explore the upsides of these drugs
As an aside this is true about language more generally. There is no true meaning of any given string of words. Language is a communication tool (and a lossy one at that). History of use gives words and phrases additional contextual meaning beyond any dictionary definition. Feedback is often necessary to avoid misunderstanding.
Very insightful. It would be great if we all were a bit more aware of this.
The succinct term for this phenomenon is "chasing the dragon".
Is anyone attempting to harm-reductively try meth?
[0]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines
The “harm reduction” websites are full of information about things like: Dose ranges for beginners, what effects to expect at different dose levels, routes of administration, and so on.
This information is targeted at beginners or drug curious people.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-supervisor-drug-over...
This varies with the drug. MDMA is notorious for losing its "magic" after six or so trips. There's a special empathic, soul-opening quality to it - the kind of thing that makes it such a good candidate for treating PTSD. But after a few times, it becomes more like a regular psychedelic amphetamine.. fun, but not life-changing.
On the other hand, pure psychedelics don't really lose their magic. Tolerance develops, but goes away after a week. Psychedelics aren't associated with brain damage, while MDMA mildly is.
Then there's opioids, of course, which are ruinously addictive and fickle with tolerance.
When you're on the outside of the community, it's easy to lump "drugs" together and make generalizations. But every class of drug is different.
Many of them had elaborate theories about changing synthesis or chirality or cutting agents or active impurities. They would even have theories about modern prescription Adderall or prescription opioids being 1/4 as powerful as in the past due to conspiracies by manufacturers.
The drugs may have changed slightly over the years, but the sad reality is that the real change was their accumulated tolerance and long term damage from drug abuse had blunted their response so much that they could barely feel the drugs any more. For some, this blunted reward response carried over to daily life, with depression and a hedonic being pervasive among the long term users.
A sobering reminder that the negative effects of recreational drugs last long after the hangover. I’m seeing an alarming trend of young people reading “harm reduction” material online and assuming they know the full picture of the risks of drug use. Seeing addicts (most of whom assumed they were using intelligently and practicing “harm reduction”) discuss their long term effects is a sad look into the realities of drug use. There is no free lunch.