Without drugs in my life I would be miserable. To some this may seem wrong or shocking, but the importance of drugs in our daily lives is undeniable. When we are sick we take drugs, when we are bored we take drugs, when we are tired or in pain again we turn to drugs. I believe there is a certain way that drugs should be used, and I feel if all drugs were used in this way, we would see a huge improvement in our daily lives.
So what is a drug? The Oxford dictionary defines it as “A medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body.”. I find this definition interesting because it does not specify whether or not drugs are good or bad. I think as the war on drugs continues the connotation of the word “drug” is almost entirely negative. How we should think about drugs goes beyond our ideas of what makes a drug good or bad, a drug like heroin could be used to benefit one’s life greatly, it just depends on its use.
There are two popular views on how drugs should be consumed. One view is that drugs should only be taken only if absolutely necessary. An instance of this would be someone taking antibiotics for a life-threatening infection. The other view is that people should use drugs in order to maintain the level of functioning of an average person in that society. In this case think of someone taking antidepressants to reach a baseline level of mental health. I believe however, that there is another ideology on when to take drugs. What if instead of viewing drugs as a crutch or a harm, we viewed them as tools.
Almost every drug has its use, even the most dangerous ones, it’s important to note this involves more than just illicit drugs but I’m going to touch on them specifically. We have been told to think that drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines are full of negative consequences with no upsides and it’s a lie. These drugs have very serious negative consequences but they also have legitimate uses such as pain relief, short-term, and long-term energy. I use these extreme drugs as an example to show that even the worst have uses as tools, but the less dangerous drugs contain far more uses in our lives.
If done correctly this could really change the way we perceive drugs, but also the way that we operate on the day-to-day. Alcohol could be seen as a social lubricant, marijuana as a relaxant, nicotine could be used to give short bursts of energy for when caffeine is too long-term. We could use adderall and cocaine to help us focus on precise tasks. There could even be therapeutic uses such as inducing anxiety with caffeine in order to train someone to combat it. I know what you’re thinking, and you are right, only in a perfect world would this not have negative consequences.
Addiction, damaged health and relationships, and death are all things that can go along with drug use. It will be difficult to determine the line that is drawn between a utility and a crutch when it comes to drugs. What it comes down to most I think is productivity versus maintenance. By this I mean are you using the drug to become a more productive person, or are you using it just for the maintain the level of drug in your body for no purpose other than to have it. I think people should have the free will to choose what drugs go into their body, that being said I think some more education is in order.
The war on drugs put we as a society in an odd place, we are not fully informed on what real drug use and patterns of addiction are. Before we go about taking drugs as we please we must first come to fully understand what it is to be addicted and what we can do to prevent it. I do believe that with what is available to us we should look at every drug as a way to improve our lives, and use them to make us the happiest, healthiest, and most productive people that we can be.