Drug Confusion

Drug Confusion
Having receieved a message from someone with little personal experience of drug use bar a singular smoke of marajuana however they had known other people affected by drugs. I feel obliged to make a few things clear. Perhaps in confusion over sportsmen and women using performance enhancing drugs the messager assumed recreational drug use could enhance creativity. In my experience the opposite is true. To bracket all drugs together is utter stupidity. Psychedelics often can deliver self understanding difficult to find by other means. Meditation and long spiritual quests can deliver a similar self understanding however I wouldn't say this leads to any greater creativity. If you know creative people it is more of a need and from my experience a creative individual will be actively creative everyday, either by art, music, design, writing or whatever means. Some creative people use drugs but this invariably stifles their creativity. Amphetamines can lead to productivity but the product is often adversely affected. Opiates render all creative activities irrelevant. Take note john cooper Clarke who spent a thirty year creative hiatus during his heroin habit, only now clean again has his career reemerged. Indeed, an artist who manages to be creative throughout a drug habit should be admired in as much as surmounting such an obstacle. Getting anything done whilst using drugs becomes harder, not easier. Any creative person who carries on producing despite drug obstacles can but dream of how much greater their output would be had they not used drugs. Whilst I find it quite shocking anyone should see otherwise there are clearly some who believe this fallacy. A dangerous view. Drugs will never help with creativity. They are an obstacle to creativity. You may find you are a strongly creative person who can battle on through such obstacles but, look around, few do. Most drug users see their lives crumbling.
Drug use is usually a symptom of other problems. People suffering from serious mental illness often self medicate. Drug use figures amongst schizophrenics and bipolar individuals are far higher than amongst more stable people. Some of this is self medication but some is not fully understood. Why smoking figures amongst schizophrenics is four times that of unaffected people isn't understood.
I would like to point out spreading misinformation like this is dangerous. Younger people may read such statements and believe drugs could help their creativity. Speaking as a creative individual who has self medicated against poor mental health I would like to say drug use only ever stifled my creativity. My creative periods invariably run parallel to clean periods. Addiction is still poorly understood but it should be understood what the word means. An addict has lost control of their own behaviour. Whilst a depressed person can take steps to recover, the addict finds change more difficult. It can be done though relapse is invariably a problem. We are fortunately emerging from a period where mental illnesses were blamed on the sufferers. No one would choose depression, schizophrenia, bipolar or addiction, not if they had experienced the conditions. Spreading these myths is very dangerous.
I should also add that as with sexism, racism and homophobia there are extreme right wingers who collect misinformation to advance their corrupt agenda. Those who are strongly anti drugs such as Peter Hitchens speak from ignorance and inexperience. The tide is swinging and just as racism and homophobia are on the decline, so too the prejudiced views against drug users and addicts are undergoing slow cultural change. Whilst I would never endorse drug use, most of my writing on drugs serves as a warning, I still believe it is a basic human right to do what one wants with ones own body. Politically I am neither right nor left but stand against totalitarianism of whatever form be it religious, political or cultural.


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