2000-10-28 - 2:19

But the drugs like me

You know I won't be filing a negative journal entry on a day when the boss takes everyone out to eat steak for lunch. Mmmmmm!

The whole team was there and the lunchtime conversation was interesting. It's always fun when you end up talking about drugs at work. I wonder how many people there think that I'm on dope, just based on my belief that marijuana should be legalized (and my general scruffiness). I find that really funny, considering the fact that I'm straight edge.

I also happen to be a libertarian, though, so I don't believe that it is up to the government to tell people how to act on their own bodies. I am strongly opposed to drug use; and I don't see myself ever trying drugs. However, while I think that my view is fine as a facet of my personal philosophy, I think it has no place in the law.

My stance on drugs has evolved over the years. When I was kid, most of the people that I knew in the neighbourhood were friends of my older brothers. I always assumed that I'd start drinking when I got older, because that was what I saw in everybody else.

However, as I grew up, I never had any desire to drink. I suppose that it was a combination of two factors. Firstly, my friends weren't big drinkers. Secondly, thinking back to all those times as a kid when I was around the older crowd, I realized that I liked people a lot better when they weren't drunk.

During my juniour high school and high school years, I also found reinforcement for my stance in music and writing. I am not at all a believer in the idea that kids are so mindless that they'll go along with whatever they hear in a song. Don't go suing Ozzy because your kid killed himself, okay?

However, any art that is communicating beliefs and ideas has the power to give its audience something to consider. For me, Minor Threat introduced me to the notion of straight edge; and Henry Rollins elaborated on it.

By the time I started university, I definitely identified myself as straight edge. While I had initially avoided drugs through no decided effort, now it was a conscious decision. I think that I'll save my full explanation for why I am straight edge for another entry, though, because I've had interesting conversations on the topic before, when I gave it some effort.

Around that time, I accepted the idea that alcohol was clearly a worse drug than marijuana. During my first work term in Ottawa, none of my three roommates were huge drinkers. However, over the course of the term, I did see each of them drink enough to produce a noticeable effect: one became very talkative and told me a lot of things that he normally wouldn't have wanted to say, one was definitely meaner, and one threw up on the street. None of these reactions encouraged me to drink.

Despite rationally arguing that alcohol was worse than marijuana, I still had a very negative view of pot. Over the next two or three years, though, I was around enough pot-smokers to soften my views. I almost invariably like people less when they're drunk, whereas I have no negative reaction to people who get high. While I used to think less of someone who smoked weed, now I have no reaction.

I've found my evolving view on drugs interesting. I still think that drugs suck; but I am able to separate personal philosophy from the law.

J.