Why the social stigma between drugs?
 

I don't use drugs but I'm puzzled regarding the social "stratification" regarding differing types of drugs. Each drug seems to carry a social/moral judgment. Why the the hierarchy? Is it true that some drugs are "better" than others? Who makes the call?

Example of the hierarchy, in ascending order.

NOTE: These aren't my personal judgments just a summary of the 'common' perception of these drugs.

Crack = Lowest status. You're really fucked if you do this. Hints of criminality and absolute moral bankruptcy.

Meth = You are a redneck/hick who lives out in the sticks. Hence, the drug carries all the stigma associated with rural/country/'trailer park' folk.

Coke/cocaine = You are either a wannabe actress flunkie or ruthless business dude. You like to party but not in a rave/dance party kinda way. You obviously have some money and can make things happen but you're out of control. Linked to Republicans and business types.

Pot = You are mellow, easygoing person. You do this to relax. It's basically not even a drug anymore, really. Linked to reggae, environmentalism on one end, and to just a 'weekend' diversion mixed with some beer and a movie/video/concert on the other.

There's others for ecstacy, heroin, etc. But my point is, do you agree with ASSIGNING differing levels of moral "blame" depending on the drugs one takes?

My analysis: the level of moral "blame" decreases when people perceive the drug to be non-addicting. What do you think?

Possibly because people are educated as to the relative effects of different drugs. We know someone with a heroin habit is either stealing or doing other crime to pay for their habit. Some guy smoking a joint while he plays wow or reads gfy is fundamentally different drug experience and I think people know that.

Absolutely a false perception, usually marijuana usage is associated with lazy non working "slackers" and "procrastinators" who escape and put off their problems by smoking marijuana. In many "social circles" marijuana is just as bad as the aforementioned narcotics.

Great input, Ben. So you're saying that the STIGMA of a drug is in proportion to the PRICING of that drug? If heroin were, unit for unit, the same price as pot, there'd be less incentive to rob or commit crime for the habit.

Other than pricing issues, is there any other basis for differentiation regarding social stigma?

I'm pretty sure it is the extreme cases of (the result of) abuse/addiction that significantly define the stigma for a particular drug.

So... this leaves us with the media, life experiences, and inherent stereotypes :)

Ben from Ragecash's point actually brings to mind another Pricing-related issue.... Pot, unlike most other illegal drugs can be grown from home. This disrupts the high price = crime linkage.

If heroin was the same price as pot, heroin junkies would just have a bit more heroin before they ran out :)

Heroin is physically addicting, pot is not on the same level of heroin at all. It may be mentally addicting / habit forming... we're talking irritability vs physical pain when you don't have a drug.

Look at it like this... if your body is telling you it is starving and you are in extreme pain, you will steal bread to eat.

If there is a market for a drug, there will be crime done for it (for the money). If you're a user, and you're addicted... then the crime is all done for the drug.

Average price for pot is like 20 bucks a gram (yes I am aware that people get better deals)... a 20 shot of good crack is a pretty decent fix for a crackhead.

Price matters once you're addicted, but relatively speaking... drug prices are pretty competitive.

Right but there's little reports of people knocking off a liquor store because they are addicted to nicotine or people getting mugged cuz some dude is suffering from DT and needs to buy another swig. Maybe the issue is not just physical addiction... High pricing caused by the illegal status of the drug PLUS the fact people can't grow the drug relatively safely (unlike marijuana) = more crime for heroin, etc.

What do you think?

I think cigs are probably a step up from marijuana, with alcohol being next in line. Just enough to be approved by society... there was a thread here today about a guy that broke out of jail and stole 14 packs of cigs from a corner store. Same thing.

Still very far from physical withdrawal from harder drugs.

You ever seen someone going through heroin withdrawal? It's crazy... apples & oranges

Isn't the addiction comparison really a question of DEGREE not of KIND? Also, doesn't this raise the key issue that a lot of the problems "caused" by illegal drugs stem largely from the fact that it is illegal in the first place?

A gram of quality weed = $15 .....a gram of quality powder cocaine = $80-150.....a gram of quality heroin = $100 - $350

I wouldn't say drug prices are competitive. A kilo of heroin = $50-100,000, a kilo of coke = $10,000-$30,000, a kilo of high quality marijuana = $4,000 - $7500

Way different fucking ball park :2 cents:

Not to mention the aforementioned drug dealers are all in a very different class.

Get caught with a 2lbs of pot = 1 year in prison , get caught with 2lbs of heroin = life imprisonment..........therefor coke & heroin are a much more dangerous class of drug dealer, thus more violence = higher social cost & stigma

All drug stigmas are directly/or at best indirectly associated with cost & danger of possessing/selling.

A person could live to 100 years old shooting heroin/morphine (assuming they don't overdose). It's the cost attached which directly affects the health/welfare & freedom of said user.

I hope to see all drugs decriminalized in the future. Addicts are sick people who's brains have undergone transformation due to their chemical dependence. They are not criminals, in any sense of the word. What they do to obtain the drugs however.....thats a different story.

I've always wondered if your nick had any relation to Alexander Shulgin and his books PIHKAL and TIHKAL.

what say you?

William S. Burroughs lived a pretty long ass time as a junkie and did pretty well for himself.

can't disagree with that

Iced soy lattes are my drug of choice, but I'm always baffled when people who are really into one drug say what they like should be legal . . . and then slag whatever someone else likes. I'll dislike someone for their actual actions and I'm not big on excusing something because someone says they were effed up at the time, but I think it is just silly and poor logic to judge someone based on what drugs they enjoy or do not enjoy.

I'm meant competitive in the sense of a "fix" (i can smoke a gram of weed, i would probably die from a gram of H... which is like 8 or 9 doses anyway)

$20 of crack/weed/meth was plenty to hold an addict over for a few hours until they want more

right on about the risks though... consider this though, the feds are as harsh on LSD as they are on heroin but average society doesn't classify LSD or hallucinogenics as 'bad' as heroin (or any drugs administered intravenously)

addicts define a larger part of the stigma, the violence / risk associated with the drugs are secondary (but close.. i'd say 60/40)

think about this... not many have anything bad to say about the guy that smokes up here and there yet still manages to function in society... but we all have something to say about the guy that isn't doing shit but bumming his way through life, scraping his bong, talking about hippy shit all day and always stoned to the point they have absolutely 0 drive

bumpin you up

Interesting discussion so far. The following linkages appear: addiction > drug status, violence + likelihood of crime due to pricing > drug status, ability to fuction > drug status

we rely on stereotypes... because they are accurate more often than not ;)

Yea...brilliant

This same thinking has led to generations of genocide, racism & hatred worldwide.

The fact is, drug laws are based on racist thinking......& many drug stereotypes are based on the same racist undertones.

People that find these stereotypes "accurate" are typically uneducated in the arena at best........& blatantly racist/ignorant at worst.

I think you personally are simply uneducated in the drug arena. I highly doubt you're a raging racist/ignorant bastard. :2 cents:

shut the fuck up hippy.

if stereotypes weren't accurate to a large degree, we wouldn't rely on them throughout the day. you don't intellectualize the countless bits of sensory input you receive throughout the day... you take shortcuts based on experience. when everyone stops to look up... you look up. why? because life has taught you that the odds of there being absolutely nothing there and that people are looking for no reason at all, are minuscule.

you're just incapable of intellectual honesty. if i take you to the shitty part of town at 2 am, and we see a bunch of trashy girls, dressed like hookers, acting like hookers and approaching cars, waving people over etc... its a pretty safe assumption that they are hookers. you can guess that based on the info you have and your own experience has taught you that you have a greater chance of being correct than not... which is why you do it to begin with.

uneducated in the drug arena? really? "educated" meaning what? that i'm not a junky addicted to methamphetamine or opiates?

"drug laws" are not based on "racist thinking" - that argument can only be made for pot... i know the history of the laws, know what you're talking about and its a big stretch.

and its worth pointing out that being hyper defensive about any kind of drug or alcohol use one of the strongest indicators of someone being an addict.

Yea i can see this conversation isn't going anywhere. Have a good one buddy.

http://www.freakhookup.com/hosted-im...mel-gibson.jpg

I'm hypersensitive about all people in the world who are treated unjustly.

Check out my profile.....I'm an ACLU fundraiser....i also work with Amnesty International.

I'd like to think I am pretty well informed on the "drug stereotypes" & i know a lot about the millions of people unjustly sentenced to draconian prison sentences based on the racist stereotypes we speak of.

You say pot is the only drug related to racism? I think the better model for that would be cocaine & crack cocaine.

Anyways there is no point in arguing with you.....you think anyone with an opposing view is a Hippy. Well if trying to protect the rights/views of all people "regardless of what they ingest into their body" is being a hippy.....then sign me up.

drugs are bad mmmk

you just trot on down to 18th st. in Los Angeles at 2am and arm yourself with your sense of fairness and resistance to stereotyping. I'll say a few words at your funeral about what a great guy you tried to be and how you treat everyone and look at everyone equally and without prejudice.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

and to be serious... its fairly interesting how quick you are to start bringing up extremes like genocide in relation to "stereotypes" and absolutely can't admit that it they can, at least sometimes be completely correct. one could argue that you're judging me in the exact same way you claim not to judge others and are prejudiced against views that oppose yours in the exact same way you claim that those who see things differently than you do are wrong.

its fine that you support the ACLU... i personally wouldn't support the group that defends NAMBLA's right to organize to abuse children and all sorts of vile hate speech and behaviors.. but that's your call.

its always interesting to me that people can call their fight "the good fight" and never realize that they are fighting non the less, and are exhibiting the exact same behaviors and behaving as those they claim to detest... that they are no more tolerant than those they accuse of intolerance and no less angry than those they accuse of being angry or hateful.

if you truly believed anything you say and it wasn't simply a means for you to cope with and vent your own anger while convincing yourself that you are doing it in a positive way and that your own bitterness was healthy... you would have questions, you would have compassion. you would have understanding. you would have concern. you wouldn't be making moronic remarks about racism and genocide

just a little food for thought....

i think the stigma comes from the level of addiction and the outcome of said addictions. obviously someone heavily addicted to marijuana is in a totally different place than someone heavily addicted to crack.

I might be out of touch but won't 20 of weed go a few days where as 20 of crack is in hours or even minutes? Just occurred to me that I have inhaled but not sure I would know a pot high or how long it lasts. Same with Crack. so i will put down the keyboard.

If that neighborhood was visited by church members, food banks, needle exchange vans & others showing them good-will (people that look like me, showing them good-will)......then perhaps i would be welcome to walk in that area.

Instead those people get visited by overzealous nazi-police on a daily basis. Who shake them down, beat them, shoot at them & virtually treat them like animals....all under the premise of stopping these "evil drugs".

The drug war is used as a tool to keep the racial divide as strong today (if not stronger)....as it was before the civil rights movement.

Of course these are just my opinions. I don't claim to be an expert. Just my life experiences.

''Crack = Lowest status. You're really fucked if you do this. Hints of criminality and absolute moral bankruptcy.''

Any hard drugs when addictive leads to bankruptcy

Troll troll troll... Some of the biggest names in a lot of industries smoke pot, and they're more productive in their work than you are with your trolling job.

Crack and Coke and sometimes E are bad because you cut the drugs with chems to make people NEED and WANT them. its not even the drug its about the addiction. they cut that shit with some nasty chems and thats why the feens keep comin back!

damn pot smokers

we can agree to disagree... i don't share the view that there is good in everyone and that more hugs will change the world. you are blaming violent gangs like 18th st. MS13, crips, bloods etc etc etc on everyone except the people that choose to pick up a gun and kill people to impress their friends, gain credibility or just because they are violent and broken people, wayward immigrants with zero intent of assimilating etc.

although i can understand your side and believe the world could use a little more empathy, i don't agree that MS13... starting from a group of South American paramilitaries that quickly took over major cities in the US exists because they weren't hugged enough. they sell drugs because people buy drugs. they sell weapons because people buy weapons. they run whores and steal cars because there is demand for it. where there is demand, there are those willing to step in an fill that demand. They are more violent because more violence is required to take over those markets. thats always true. when that happens, it requires police action that's proportionate to the problem and the risks they face... in this case, a problem of highly trained, highly motivated, well armed and ruthlessly violent people who would rather shoot you than say "hello"... because that's the only behavior they respect.

your problem seems to be "the man" and not any particular thing. everything you have said so far is an indictment against authority.. not about "caring". "caring" is how your rationalize your resentment of authority.

mexican gang members aren't killing other mexican gang members (or any other ethnic group) because there is a shortage of "people that look like you" showing good will. they are killing because its an accepted part of running a business that's very lucrative.

Wow how racist is that? Welcome to 2009 a black man was able to put down the crack pipe long enough to get elected president. Not all minorities need needle exchanges. They need jobs and opportunity to better themselves. They will do just fine without your needle exchanges and foodbanks. Or are you confusing minorities and poor people?