Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v., but I'm pretty sure that people who use marijuana responsibly and in moderation can improve their overall quality of life. But what about harder drugs? Is it possible to responsibly use cocaine or LSD or some other hard drugs over an extended period in a way that enhances your life, without excessive risk of turning into a junkie?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

No.

We have evolved to be optimally "enhanced" as is in our natural condition.

Short term usage can have a positive effect however. An example would be LSD psychotherapy or an actor using cocaine before shooting a scene.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

i'm not an expert on this, but isn't smoking mary jane pretty harsh on your lungs, not to mention like it might give you all sorts of other mouth and throat cancers?

additionally, cocaine is a helluva drug.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

Maybe it's because I was a kid in the 80s, but I am pretty sure that any type of drug use over a prolonged period of time can't be good. I think the best you can shoot for with drugs is that you do the least harmful one.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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i'm not an expert on this, but isn't smoking mary jane pretty harsh on your lungs, not to mention like it might give you all sorts of other mouth and throat cancers?

additionally, cocaine is a helluva drug.

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doctors have been prescribing marijuana with vaporizers for some time now - no inhalation/combustion issues -

or you can eat that cookie, babee [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

to answer the OP -

WHAT, ARE YOU [censored] KIDDING?

every person who uses that stuff deterioates as the addiction gets worse - long term? - absolutely not - that's one of the things about drugs -

those with enough money to support a long term habit end up like [censored] - (David Crosby, almost any 70's rock star) -

absolutely no - I'd argue the same with alcohol as well though many can manage it in moderation better then I long term -

EDIT - I put cocaine/heroin in there - not sure LSD is a HARD drug - nor mushrooms - but those two in particular just do a number on anyone long term, and don't even start on meth.

rb

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

There are plenty of people who use hard drugs (even heroin) on occasion and never become addicted. I know people who use coke every week or two and haven't resorted to fellating strangers in order to get their next fix. Almost any illegal drug will be safe when used "responsibly and in moderation" and unsafe when not used this way. Even tylenol can destroy your liver if you regularly take too much of it.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

This thread is reminding me of a Chris Rock line in regards to being able to do things: "I could probably drive my car with my feet, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea".

You might be able to do hard drugs for a long time and not suffer any damage, but it just doesn't sound like that good of an idea.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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[ QUOTE ]
So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

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Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

[/ QUOTE ]

What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would of just ignored that comment. I have seen a couple recovering Heroin addicts. What it did to their bodies was disgusting.

fyc

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

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Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

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Yes. Some addicts actually have good jobs (stockbroker is a common one) and can have a habit for years without major problems. Not every junkie is f'ed-up 24/7 and someone like this wouldn't have the nutrient deficiency and major health problems that come with the street junkie lifestyle. Having ready access to money means they don't have to spend all day trying to score and can shoot up the good stuff in as sanitary a method as possible.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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[ QUOTE ]
So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

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Yes. Some addicts actually have good jobs (stockbroker is a common one) and can have a habit for years without major problems. Not every junkie is f'ed-up 24/7 and someone like this wouldn't have the nutrient deficiency and major health problems that come with the street junkie lifestyle. Having ready access to money means they don't have to spend all day trying to score and can shoot up the good stuff in as sanitary a method as possible.

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Are these people just lucky, or do they have a better plan/strategy than others? I would expect SOME of the many people who use heroin don't let it ruin their lives, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can be a +e.v. bet for anybody.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I bet it's possible if you just take decent care of yourself otherwise and don't become such a junkie that you lose your job and any means of supporting yourself.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

It's all relative to what you are trying to accomplish at a given moment. As a songwriter I have found that THC facilitates the creative mechanisms of my brain, but tends to curb my overall energy and motivation, even when vaporized (though I highly recommend this consumption method over any other).

It also seems to come down to how much your valuation of a drug is deluded by addiction or dependence. A drug that you had initially begun using for a distinct and valuable purpose may eventually evolve into an onerous vice, especially if subconscious mechanisms begin controlling usage.

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No.

We have evolved to be optimally "enhanced" as is in our natural condition.


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As we begin to better understand how the brain works drugs will be synthetically tailored to the individual and without detrimental side effects. Claims that the brain has been naturally enhanced to an optimal state are scientifically baseless. Tell this to the man whose life is thrown into utter chaos by bouts of schizophrenia. Evolution produced distinctly human brain mechanisms that permit elaborate creative and dissociative cognition. When certain DNA variations produce brain mechanisms that are excessively dissociative, insanity results. Insanity is hardly optimal.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

This depends what we mean by 'improve your life' but I think by most measures and speaking as someone who has taken a lot of drugs of different types for a long time, I would suggest that the answer is no. However, of we accept the maxim that life is the memories that we create, then I would argue that the "acquisition and use of illegal drugs" (the charge applied when I was rusticated from university) has given me more fine memories than the periods of clean living that I have sometimes indulged in.

As for the drugs themselves, I don't think there's much wrong with taking liberty caps frequently. Pot doesn't do you any favours if you smoke every day for a long period. I think coke's probably bad and it's always so impure. Smack is also impure and very few people are blessed with a lifestyle that enables them to take it without the moral consequences. Acid can really [censored] you up, but if it hasn't yet, it never will and gets kind of boring for that reason. E is really bad, IMO, if taken for a sustained period.

I can think of one really positive drug. When I'm old and in constant pain, and am more of a drag on society, friends and family than I can be a boon, then opium till death has to be the way to go.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I think it would probably only improve your life if you were an awesome rock star or super cool artist.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I would say the drug which can most easily be argued to be beneficial - if taken sporadically - is MDMA. You have amazing experiences, and it really can make you a mellower, nicer person with better insight into yourself. Take it every day of course and you'll end up a paranoid cabbage, but most users know this and since it's non-addictive will control their usage.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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I think it would probably only improve your life if you were an awesome rock star or super cool artist.

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Yeah when you're 45, mother of three, hitting the crack pipe a few times a week just doesn't seem to be a move towards improving your life.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

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Yes, but:

- They are extremely few and far between.
- The odds of ruining your life are far higher than they are of being able to engage in long-term moderate use.

Of course, it depends what you mean by regularly. Far more people are able to use heroin on an annual basis without a problem than those who use it on a weekly basis without developing a problem.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

Funny I found this thread...I went to a drug education class last night, put on by local law enforcement. Most of the class was dedicated to meth, and all the pictures of users that they showed us showed a rapid physical deterioration over time. Users get a continual nervous system stimulus that makes them scratch at their arms and legs...in some cases, to the bone. According to them, meth is ten times as addicting as crack, and crack is some scary s$^%. So I can't see anything hard like meth, crack, heroin, or LSD actually improving your life with long-term use.

A devil's advocate could claim that rock stars like Jim Morrison, Layne Staley, and a bunch of others couldn't have been as talented without LSD, heroin or coke. Even if that is true, the price some paid for harnessing that talent is too high IMO.

As for marijuana, in the class they said that today's marijuana has several times the THC that it did in the 1970's. I don't think an occasional joint by itself would really hurt anyone, but the cops said that some of the guys they've busted would smoke a dozen joints a day....and they just wouldn't care about anything in the world without being aware of anything around them.

ScottieK

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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Yes. Some addicts actually have good jobs (stockbroker is a common one) and can have a habit for years without major problems.

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I've lived and worked with addicts for the last thirty years and have known many hundreds of them. I've never met a single stockbroker out of the lot of them.

I have met doctors/lawyers/journalists/academics but all of them had [censored] their life up to some degree or other.

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Having ready access to money means they don't have to spend all day trying to score and can shoot up the good stuff in as sanitary a method as possible.

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Not really. It's a little easier for them because they don't have to rob or hustle to raise the money. However, they either have to score themselves, which puts them at risk of being robbed, getting busted or just not getting served because they don't look right. Or alternatively, they have to pay somebody to do it for them. This strategy usually works for a little while, but as the person they are paying is another addict, it tends to not be very long before the person who is scoring starts ripping them off -- either by cutting their dope, or blowing all the money on crack, or whatever, and our wealthy junkie either has to look for someone else to do it, or they go back to doing it themselves.

There are some people whose lives are improved by heroin addiction though. They tend to be people who live in abject misery: people who live in war zones, people who have been seriously sexually abused and can't get over it, people with serious organic pain of one sort or another, people who are long-term homeless, etc.

While heroin addiction might not be an optimum long-term strategy for such people, they'll tell you that the pain relief that it affords them actually *does* improve their life -- they wouldn't do it otherwise. Regardless of what the media might tell you, heroin users are no more irrational than the rest of us. They tend to know what the risks and consequences are, and choose dope.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

good post

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I have done LSD between 5 and 10 times from the age of 18-23. Everytime I did this drug, I always came to major conclusions about myself, my life and my surroundings during the self revelation period that always comes towards the end of any hallucigenic. These conslusions always made me a better person and I truly believe that I am the person I am today for the better because of my acid use. I know this might not answer the question as OP seems to be referring to hard drug use consistently over a long time frame and not 2x a year for 5 years but I still think this is an example of hard drugs allowing for something positive. Plus I tripped balls everytime which is cool.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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Plus I tripped balls everytime which is cool.

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What does this mean?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have done LSD between 5 and 10 times from the age of 18-23. Everytime I did this drug, I always came to major conclusions about myself, my life and my surroundings during the self revelation period that always comes towards the end of any hallucigenic. These conslusions always made me a better person and I truly believe that I am the person I am today for the better because of my acid use. I know this might not answer the question as OP seems to be referring to hard drug use consistently over a long time frame and not 2x a year for 5 years but I still think this is an example of hard drugs allowing for something positive. Plus I tripped balls everytime which is cool.

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This is actually kind of the sort of thing I'm looking for. I.e., if someone resolved to do LSD just a couple times a year until they grew out of it (very moderate use), could the expected benefit of that experience outweigh the risk of the plan failing and them screwing up their life?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

Yes. LSD was mind-blowing. It was the first drug I ever took. I was 16. You listen to Rubber Soul and then you listen to Revolver and you think I'll have some of that and it was really a life changing trip.

That said, my best mate went mad and even now lives with his folks (he's 36) and another friend saw something so ineffably transcendent he could't come back and took his life within 48 hours (not the same trips)

I repeat that, IMO, you only 'need' to do it once. It opens doors. Taking it again just opens the same doors and those doors never really close anyway.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

The idea that heroin is not harmful to your body is a little misleading. For instance, in the course of normal "responsible" use of heroin, even long-time users who "have it under control" are known to die of an overdose.

Sure, normal responsible use of a car can cause death, but I can reasonably expect to drive my car tens of thousands of times, for thousands of hours, thousands of miles, etc., and not die. Heroin, would you guess that after 10, 100, or what about 1000 uses, a person might reasonably expect to die of overdose?

But anyway, both marijuana and heroin are definitely known to have short-term positive effects on the careers of artists. But, for example, as Robyn Hitchcock put it, and I paraphrase, the great musicians of this century that used drugs to spur on short periods of genius then went on to lose their minds, die very young, or live on putting out decades of crappy music that can't hold a candle to their good work. Robyn never messed with drugs to any great extent, and as a result, his best song or best album may not compare to the best song by Syd Barrett, or the best album by some old jazz great, but over the years, he has continued to create work that is top notch.

So maybe if you want to be the best you possibly can be from age 18 to 25, massive hard drug use can help you, in some areas, as long as you don't mind being dead or kind of a loser in that same area there-after.

And of course, there are always exceptions.

Perhaps none of this is valid to begin with, because how drugs effect the top 0.02% of musicians and artists has very little to do with what impact it will have on the rest of the world.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

i think i have a weak mind (or perhaps a strong one) but just talking about doing this stuff now is kind of freaky (like i freak myself out about it). I'm 23, i smoked a lot when I was younger, did shrooms a few times, but that's about it. maybe i'm just a pussy but i don't really have any desire to have silly visions, strange (albeit great) feelings or to just 'speed' around on coke anymore. and it sort of freaks me out when i hear about other people doing it because it makes me think what's wrong with me that i'm not interested AND/OR what's wrong with them that allows them to do this to themselves and those they love?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

Lots of people use psychedelics regularly and would tell you their lives are improved as a result. Example would be the Native American Church, shamans, and various ayahuasca cults. That being said, I wouldn't consider psychedelics to be hard drugs.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

There have been many "geniuses," including Freud and Richard Pryor, who probably would not have been as great, without using cocaine. However, I’m sure all of them had a much poorer quality of life due to having used it.

From what I know of musicians Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Ray Charles, I believe the same may be true of heroin, but I have little personal experience with it.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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[ QUOTE ]
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So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

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I would of just ignored that comment. I have seen a couple recovering Heroin addicts. What it did to their bodies was disgusting.

fyc

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i 'would of' kept my mouth shut if i didn't know what i was talking about. ADDICTION caused those people to engage in risky behaviors, neglect themselves, share needles, etc. HEROIN itself has literally zero negative effects on the body or brain, even over a long period of heavy use.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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[ QUOTE ]
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So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would of just ignored that comment. I have seen a couple recovering Heroin addicts. What it did to their bodies was disgusting.

fyc

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i 'would of' kept my mouth shut if i didn't know what i was talking about. ADDICTION caused those people to engage in risky behaviors, neglect themselves, share needles, etc. HEROIN itself has literally zero negative effects on the body or brain, even over a long period of heavy use.

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What about withdrawal effects?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I've enjoyed this thread, however, I think that a lot of posters are missing the exact point of the topic. What we are discussing is -- as the title says explicitly -- the consequences of long-term use of hard drugs.

I would argue that it is highly unlikely -- like 10^-6 unlikely -- that any person with a reasonable expectation to a decent quality of life would have their quality of life improved by the REGULAR/HABITUAL long-term use of any illicit drug (inlcuding LSD, Shrooms), except pot. Although, I think it is still unlikely that this type of pot use would be beneficial to life quality.

On the other hand, I would argue that short-term or very infrequent use of some illicit drugs (LSD, shrooms, Pot, MDMA and some others of this nature) COULD indeed enhance the overall quality of a peron's life.

BTW, I have no evidence to support this. It is pure speculation.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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So obviously Heroin is probably ALWAYS -e.v.,

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What? Heroin/opiates are the only hard drug that has no harmful effects on the body other than it is highly addictive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine, but does anyone use heroin regularly without ruining their life?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would of just ignored that comment. I have seen a couple recovering Heroin addicts. What it did to their bodies was disgusting.

fyc

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i 'would of' kept my mouth shut if i didn't know what i was talking about. ADDICTION caused those people to engage in risky behaviors, neglect themselves, share needles, etc. HEROIN itself has literally zero negative effects on the body or brain, even over a long period of heavy use.

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The intense ADDICTION was caused by... *drumroll* taking HEROIN! Also heroin does do bad things to your body aside from directly causing you to not care for yourself.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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I would argue that it is highly unlikely -- like 10^-6 unlikely -- that any person with a reasonable expectation to a decent quality of life would have their quality of life improved by the REGULAR/HABITUAL long-term use of Asian Massage Parlors

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fyp

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

Come on guys, heroin must just feel GREAT. You don't think your life would be slightly better if you could have that feeling once or twice a month? I think the answer to that is clearly yes, and the question is more whether it would be possible to do so without accepting too much risk of addiction and all that other crap that comes with it. But with heroin, even taking it once or twice a year would probably entail too much risk (even an incredibly small risk of ruining your life could make the whole plan -e.v.). But there must be some amount of moderation that makes mushrooms enjoyable and not risky, right?

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have done LSD between 5 and 10 times from the age of 18-23. Everytime I did this drug, I always came to major conclusions about myself, my life and my surroundings during the self revelation period that always comes towards the end of any hallucigenic. These conslusions always made me a better person and I truly believe that I am the person I am today for the better because of my acid use. I know this might not answer the question as OP seems to be referring to hard drug use consistently over a long time frame and not 2x a year for 5 years but I still think this is an example of hard drugs allowing for something positive. Plus I tripped balls everytime which is cool.

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I've eaten much more acid than this (like a couple hundred trips, prolly 1k+ doses) and I believe that the notion that acid "makes you a better person" is ridiculous. I've heard things along these lines from many people over the years and I've always thought it was just plain weird. Maybe I've spent enough time thinking about my surroundings, the world, and life in general when I'm not tripping that there's not a whole lot left to discover while I'm hallucinating. I don't know, but to me acid is just a fun drug, nothing more.

Also, there are too many people calling acid a "hard" drug.

To answer OP's question: No. While I believe all drugs should be legal, I also believe that we'd all be much better off if they didn't exist.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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Come on guys, heroin must just feel GREAT. You don't think your life would be slightly better if you could have that feeling once or twice a month?

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But isn't that the problem? It feels great and thus everything else moves down a couple of notches on the greatness scale. So you go back to the heroin to feel that initial rush again, but its never good enough.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

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Come on guys, heroin must just feel GREAT.

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Many people don't especially enjoy heroin. These people get addicted because h makes their problems and pain go away for a while. So it's not the high they crave, it's the absence of pain. Others just love the drug.

Re: Can long-term hard drug usage improve your life?
 

I think pot can improve your life. I rarely do it, but I'm pretty sure it's +EV.

I hang out in Vegas a lot, and it's crazy how much meth and coke are done in that city. I've never touched either (in part b/c I fear that I could get addicted). I'm pretty sure that I'd get addicted to coke. Most people in Vegas who do meth and coke age better than I'd expect. It seems like you eventually lose your sh6t, but it takes a long time.

b