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Very interesting post. I appreciate hearing your take on this question. Like I said, I know several highly intelligent people who enjoy pill popping and mixing pills with alcohol. I have never understood why they would do such a risky thing. It doesn't take much education at all to understand the danger of overusing prescription drugs and yet many people do it. Many extremely smart people. I'm with Blarg though, I'm not sure I associate ethics with this behavior.


I'm not a pill popper. I have a huge distrust of pills. I'm freaked out by the continuing practice of doctors to over prescribe medicine to patients. I'm also weirded out by my friends, both in real life and also on the internet, who pop pills like they were candy, who get excited about getting their hands on someone else's pain pills like oxycontin (or, alternatively, Ambien or muscle relaxers or whatever the case may be).

I would bet there are quite a few bright 2+2 posters who are pill poppers. In my experience it is more often bright men who do this. Now why is that? As for girls, I guess I always thought only dumb girls did this but then again isn't Lindsay Lohan supposed to be bright? And Winona Ryder is supposed to be bright too. Hmm. What does it all mean? I think my sample size is too small.

You associate the practice with lack of ethics and has nothing at all to do with IQ. Interesting. My point was that if you are so smart, theoretically wouldn't you realize the consequences of mixing drugs with alcohol?

Maybe bright pill popping guys are tortured souls, self medicating to calm their over active minds or maybe they are bored addicts who need some kind of buzz in their life to make them feel more alive. Not sure. I would hope that a genius would be worried about destroying his body.

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I see what you mean that intelligent people should be able to asses the risks and avoid doing stupid things, i.e. hard drugs. But that logic only really applies to logical beings, not humans.

Humans take risks all the time, there is something inherently human in going too far, pushing boundaries and making mistakes. We've all heard the studies about seat belt wearing - when it becomes mandatory in a country/state people are more likely to have worse accidents as their increased feeling of safety causes them to drive faster/take more risks etc. They adapt to their safer enviroment and take more risks. I think there have been many studies which show that people do this instinctively.

We're driven by far more than a rational/logical brain and make mistakes accordingly. Horny guys offered sex on a plate will often take it if they think they can get away with it, they may even enjoy the thought of getting caught (did Clinton, the most guarded man on the planet, think those around him didn't get that he was banging an intern?) Drugs are easy to take and, come on, those bad things will never happen to us!

I wonder if the more active your brain is (and possibly having a higher IQ), the more likely you are to take drugs or take silly risks that in hindsight look stupid. If humans need to push boundaries, the more active brain will surely seek the further boundaries to push against? Of course, we have various checks and safeguards built within society to stop you going too far and many of us have ethical standpoints that prevent us doing much of what I've described (after all, you have to break the speed law to increase your risk while wearing a seat belt, or drive recklessly). Compare that to someone who lives in a world where many of societies rules don't seem to apply, or least those people, the Lohan's and Hilton's live with the impression that don't. Add in a few hangers-on who will get them what they want, when they want it. Slippery slope.