Drugs: Creative Aid Or Hindrance?

[Anonymous]

You probably imagine me as a disillusioned drug addict, sitting in a musty basement offering my "fortunes" for crack.

No, I imagine you like every other person I've met who shared your views; an aging student-type with a tendency to read literary theory for fun and follow the crowd. They all think they're terribly out-there, but it's just a fashion, like being a Goth. It's not shocking, it's not avante garde, it's just dull.

 

[monster_magnet]

I can't begin to imagine the dullness of a life which prejudges and pidgeon holes contributors to message boards.

Your world of stereotypes sounds 'very' interesting.

 

[Anonymous]

No, I imagine you like every other person I've met who shared your views; an aging student-type with a tendency to read literary theory for fun and follow the crowd. They all think they're terribly out-there, but it's just a fashion, like being a Goth. It's not shocking, it's not avante garde, it's just dull.

I've never read literary theory before.

your "image" off me is well of the mark.


just like mine would be if I said that you were a narrow minded bigot.

Anyhow, back to topic.

i guess the problem is that "drugs" as a term covers a wide range of substances that it would be better to look at certain "substances" .

 

[monster_magnet]

For most i would imagine 'Drugs' conjures up images of:

skeletal, dark eyed social rejects, stinking of decay and squaller, turning to crime to fuel the slide into the hell they've created for themselves

or

spotty students huddled around a badly rolled joint trying to fathom the connection between 'Dark side of the moon' and 'the wizard of oz'

or

the city high flyer taking his earnings through his nose, shouting boring 'rugger' stories to seriously uninterested 'friends' called Charlie and Tabitha.

or

the dreadlocked earthy types finding themselves and their dogs 'feeling' the stones speak in the healing field at Glastonbury

or

the suburban housewife taking one pill to sleep and another to wake her up and yet another to control her weight and another for depression and another etc...

or

one of the million friday/saturday night dancers who throw the death dice everytime they swallow that little white pill and realise that God is actually a DJ.

It just is not as cut and dried as folk are making out.

 

[Anonymous]

Name Your Poison:

So, what's it to be kids?

Drugs, or bile?

 

[Bullseye]

Some folk need to take a lesson in economics, particularly supply and demand.

Drug dealers are not the problem, that's like blaming landlords or Threshers for alchoholism.

When the main dealers are "respectable" middle aged men pushing drugs on to kids, I call that a problem. As for alchoholism and alchohol abuse thats down to our culture(?).
Have you really seen the problems caused by drug abuse?. The parents whoose lives are wrecked by their junked up children?. A friend of mine told me his daughter was hooked on heroin, but luckily he did'nt know too much about it, I was not going to be the one who told him she was on the streets as a prostitute.
When I'm asked by a holidaymaker (when I'm in my cab) where the "nearest knocking shop" is (we get some nice tourist down here) ,I always advise them to go to the middle aged working girls (and yes I've got some phone numbers, theres always a working relationship between working girls and taxi drivers) as they are working for a bit of extra cash whereas the young ones are doing it solely to support their habit. I know this for fact as we often get used by them to ferry them around when they are desperate for a fix. See the ugly side of life through my eyes you may change your opinion. There again maybe not.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Michael Watson - you live in hastings, there is terrible heroin problem there (as you rightly point out).

I dont think anyone is disputing the fact that there are huge problems caused by drug abuse.

but it the issue of "drugs" is not as clear cut as

Drugs are Good vs Drugs are bad.

As for alchoholism and alchohol abuse thats down to our culture(?).
Have you really seen the problems caused by drug abuse?.

I have experienced both alcoholism and drug abuse in people I know .
A couple of close friends have died.

The problem I feel is the lack of education regarding drugs and their effects upon a person. to lump everything under the banner of "DRUGS" is misguiding and doesn't help people in the long run.

there is no point ignoring it as people are using drugs, and it is sad to say that the younger generation are getting into harder drugs for fun.

27% of adult men and 15% of women drink over the recommended safe levels

One in six people attending accident and emergency departments have alcohol related injuries or problems

One in seven people killed on the roads are involved in drink-drive accidents

920,000 British children have one or more parent who misuses alcohol

More than a quarter of 11 to 16-year-olds drink alcohol at least once a week

60% of employers experience problems due to employees' drinking

50% of the rough sleeper population are dependent on alcohol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1656142.stm

The drinks trade spends £227m a year to advertise its products and the government nets £11.5bn per annum in tax revenue from alcohol sales.

alcoholism is a killer - but there is less talk about the effects this has on people compared to the media coverage of drug related abuse.

 

[Anonymous]

I can't begin to imagine the dullness of a life which prejudges and pidgeon holes contributors to message boards.

Your world of stereotypes sounds 'very' interesting.

Oh, it is. It's a bit like visiting a zoo and shooting the mokeys with a waterpistol.

 

[Bullseye]

Originally posted by decadnids
Hey Michael Watson - you live in hastings, there is terrible heroin problem there (as you rightly point out).

I dont think anyone is disputing the fact that there are huge problems caused by drug abuse.

but it the issue of "drugs" is not as clear cut as

Drugs are Good vs Drugs are bad.

There has been a drug problem in this town since I was a kid, (about 30 years ago!) (bloody hell ,I sound old!), we all did a bit of blow, the occasional acid tab ect, but even then everyone (all the kids) knew that heroin and other hard drugs were lethal, so its nothing new, we also knew not to "hammer" it too much on the softer stuff, there was virtually no drug advice then but we still knew, whats the excuse today?.

 

[Anonymous]

Michael Watson

dunno mate, dont think there is an excuse.

Personally, from my experience with "kids" of today, a lot of them are pretty uninterested in a lot of things. "boredom" i guess. When I was growing up I wasn't ever bored, and could occupy my times with out resorting to "just taking drugs".

I guess a lot of kids dont seem to have "much to do" - and taken drugs all the time (sniffing glue, drinking alcohol), is an easy option - that takes no effort.

 

[Bullseye]

dunno mate, dont think there is an excuse.



I guess a lot of kids dont seem to have "much to do" -

Can any one tell me why they get bored?, they have more to do now than ever before.

 

[Anonymous]

Can any one tell me why they get bored?, they have more to do now than ever before.

I dunno, I was talking with my neice the other day, she is 12, and I was talking about return of the king, and I told her I knew who the king was and stuff, and she said "how do you know that?" I said I had read the book, she said, I read a book the other week, it was well boring, you might as well just watch the film.

even tho they have more to do, I dunno if that makes it less boring.

 

[Tyger_Lily]

Everything is made so easy these days there are no challenges.

When there is too much choice and things are too easy we become bored. Remember when solataire was the height of sophisticated computer games? Now it's crap. Not because of the movement in technology but becasue at the click of a mouse we can build empires and fight dragons without really thinking about it.

I work in education and learning has never been so accessible either.

Mind maps, writing frames and filling in the blanks are to name a few easy things to make learning more "fun".

Sometimes the children don't even really have to think about what they're doing their learning is so structured and "scaffolded". Sometimes they claim "I don't get it" because horrors upon horrors they have to actually read something.

It's also got to do with society too. Everyone wants a quick fix now. Be it buying a car, getting a loan or recreation.

We want it and we want it now and we'll be damand if we have to wait or take any consequence for it.

So what would you chose if you've been brought up with being subliminaly trained to be lazy, thinking the world owes you one and wanting everything right now? Would you spend an hour of your precious time planning and using your brain, or would you spend £10 on a pill which will work in about 15 minutes?

 

[Anonymous]

Old Fogey Alert! Old Fogey Alert! Old Foey Alert!

And we had real butter for tea and Hovis!

When I was a kid, life was mind numbingly tedious. And, living in the South West of Scotland, often unecessarily brutal and violent as well.

We couldn't wait to start smoking tobacco, starting off with cinnamon sticks for practice. If drugs had been available in those far off times who knows.

Yes, kids have more things now and there's also more and viler drugs available.

Boredom cuts deep.

 

[Kondoru]

The harsh reality about kids and drugs is; No matter how much they are warned by their parents and teachers and Elvis `legal pill popper` Presley they will take drugs if the class rebel does so.

Having said that I have seen too many kids get into drugs because their parents were in the drugs scene. (With the full knowlege of the authorities I may add.) oh, and there were also the lunch hour dope parties at mums house. (I have seen this with my very own `supposedly sheltered upbringing` eyes. I damn well reported it too. Nothing was done.)

Theres too much promotion of it in the media too

My Late grandmother warned me about drugs. she grew up in the 20s and 30s in a port town. She had quite a livley life (was chatting up guys up until the month before she died.) but I dont think she did drugs.

As for kids being bored. every generation says that. But I do admit that these days we have little excuse to. Chuck em a copy of Fortean Times.

 

[lopaka]

For most i would imagine 'Drugs' conjures up images of:

spotty students huddled around a badly rolled joint trying to fathom the connection between 'Dark side of the moon' and 'the wizard of oz'

Dang. Almost perfect. Except it was a bong, thank you.

 

[Melf]

not bad thread

but all i can add for now is this:-

"reallty is for people who cant cope with drugs"

where i heard/read this i dont know

(but if i made it up, it mine )

 

[Anonymous]

Chuck em a copy of Fortean Times.

Yup, january's issue has articles on "drug use"

 

[monster_magnet]

Five million Britons admit smoking cannabis. Medical research now confirms what they believe; cannabis is safe unless used extravagantly and addictively. Even then it is less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol. At the other end of the scale, medical evidence and experience alike are united in the view that heroin and crack cocaine have powerful addictive qualities and are physically and mentally destructive. You stay away from them; and most drug users do.

In between cannabis and heroin lies a range of soft, broadly non-addictive, drugs where once again people's judgment of risk is more level-headed than the law - although here social mores run well ahead of the medical evidence. Up to a million young people regularly use ecstasy - and deaths are astonishingly rare. The same is true of cocaine. The risk for the future is that we may discover that such drugs accelerate physical complaints, notably heart conditions, and cause mental problems in later life. So far the jury is out. What we do know, however, tends to support the view that these drugs, as long as they are pure, are largely non-addictive and relatively harmless if used sensibly. The old belief that there is a predictable and linear relationship between using so-called soft drugs and progressing inevitably to hard drugs has proved unfounded.

From an article here

IMO The article is sensible and generally calls for a more mature approach to drugs in our society. Sensationalism and misinformation is widespread and the deterants and programmes put in place to curb the UKs growing amount of drug users don't work. Any ideas what will?

 

[Anonymous]

Apparently the beatles never wrote on drugs. lennon said it got in the way.

 

[Anonymous]

The 1987 Granada documentary celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper album, It Was 20 Years Ago Today, had a soundbite from -IIRC- Jorma Kaukonen of The Jefferson Airplane, talking about how they always went onstage straight because

paraphrase:________________________
"you can't play guitar when the neck is 20 million light years long and writhing like an angry boa constrictor..."
__________________________________________________

In a related vein, (from another source) there's an anecdote about the band Mad River playing an open air gig on the same bill as Big Brother And The Holding Company, playing at the same time in a tent on the far side of the park. Apparently they all dropped acid before going on, and were delighted to discover that the Big Brother audience were abandoning the Big Brother show, and coming over to watch them instead. "We've made it!" they thought, convinced that they were playing better that day than at any previous point of their career.

Then the song finished and the irate Big Brother fans demanded, in the quiet that followed, that Mad River turn down the volume a bit, because their "tuneless cacophany" was completely drowning out Big Brother, themselves a band notorious for extreme loudness. Exit Mad River, stage whatever, suddenly bummed out on a seriously paranoid trip...

 

[Anonymous]

Apparently the beatles never wrote on drugs. lennon said it got in the way.

possibly not, but there is no denying that later in their carreer drugs had an influence on their creative output,

 

[Anonymous]

possibly not, but there is no denying that later in their carreer drugs had an influence on their creative output,

how do you know?

 

[Anonymous]

how do you know?

well, take their album Sgt. Pepper, it has tracks such as "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds".

"It [LSD] opened my eyes. We only use on-tenth of our brain. Just think of what we could accomplist if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world if the politicians would take LSD. There wouldn't be any more war or poverty or famine."
- Paul McCartney, 1967

although ringo did say

"I hope the fans will take up meditation instead of drugs."
- Ringo Starr, 1967

He said that it "made him feel closer to God" and was a great inspiration for music
:: said about - paul McCartney

 

[Anonymous]

well, take their album Sgt. Pepper, it has tracks such as "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds".

But then Lennon always insisted that it was just a song based on a drawing one of his kids did of a girl called Lucy, in the sky, with diamonds, and the 'LSD' thing was mere coincidence. (Tho' maybe he'd have been better off telling us Lucy was a breadhead and the 'LSD' was 'pounds, shillings and pence'. That's '£sd' for anyone not old enough to remember UK money pre-decimal.)

So do we believe the martyred working class hero rolleyes: ), or the (be)knighted divot that advised Michael Jackson to invest in song publishing rights?

 

[Anonymous]

well, take their album Sgt. Pepper, it has tracks such as "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds".



although ringo did say

How did I know you were going to say "Lucy in the sky with diamonds"

That doesn't mean they wrote it on drugs!

My art teacher when I was doing a BTEC in art and design ten years ago was the chap who painted pauls hammond organ in a pinball style design. He also painted a mural on Ringo's wall, painted one of the album covers and generally hung out with the beatles all those years back. He did a heck of a lot of drugs...but swore blind that the beatles were never out of it when writing material. It's a nonsense. Also, Lucy in the sky with diamonds = LSD is as big a myth as "Paul is dead". It's simply not true. What Zygon said is closest to the truth I'm afraid.

problem is, you put the idea in peoples heads and it stays there...no matter how many times McCartney does interviews telling people they didn't write any of their material whilst on drugs. Then people say, "ah yes but he would say that" or "yeah but that's not paul...paul is dead"

 

[Anonymous]

How do you think LSD affected your conception of the music? In general?

It was only another mirror. It wasn't a miracle. It was more of a visual thing and a therapy, looking at yourself a bit. It did all that. You know, I don't quite remember. But it didn't write the music. I write the music in the circumstances in which I'm in, whether it's on acid or in the water.

from an interview John Lennon had with rolling stones magazine.

the rest of the interview is pretty interesting, and relates quite well to this topic.

http://members.tripod.com/~taz4158/johnint.html

http://beatles.ncf.ca/lennon_inquiry.html

another interesting link.

 

[Anonymous]

from an interview John Lennon had with rolling stones magazine.

the rest of the interview is pretty interesting, and relates quite well to this topic.

http://members.tripod.com/~taz4158/johnint.html

I think EVERYONE knows he took drugs. He still didn't write songs whilst ON drugs.

 

[Anonymous]

I think EVERYONE knows he took drugs. He still didn't write songs whilst ON drugs.

I never said he did write songs ON DRUGS - I mearly mentioned that taking drugs had probably influenced the beatles later works.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok I accept that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is probably not a direct link to LSD - but as said before, the beatles, and john lennon was the initiator, where avid drug users later on in thier careers.