Why does it seem like the majority of people think problems are caused by drugs rather than problems causing people to turn to drugs?
2026-07-07 22:44 UTC
Replies (34)
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@over_clox@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 22:47
Not necessarily a proper answer, but… Captain Ketamine is supposedly worth over $2 trillion…
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@disregardable@lemmy.zip 2026-07-07 22:52
The drugs mess up your brain chemistry. Yes, they were in a bad place and did drugs. Being in a bad place didn’t make them engage in prostitution, break into cars, share needles, sleep outside, not brushing their teeth, not shower, etc. The drugs did that, and the drugs will keep them in that state until they hit rock bottom or die.
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@Two_Hangmen@midwest.social 2026-07-07 23:00
I never saw weed as causing someone problems in their life. I would agree that life can drive some people to use drugs, but I also think that meth makes life exponentially worse.
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@Melobol@lemmy.ml 2026-07-07 23:08
We all have our coping mechanisms. And without any doubt some of them are healthy and most of them are bad… And some of them will actively kill you. Drugs is in the last two categories. Tbh I think weed is a terrible drug, killing motivation and clouds thinking - but it is a step above alcohol. And should be legal. What we need to have a social network where nobody needs to turn to drugs, but realistically it’s not going to happen.
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@Zak@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 23:09
It’s an easy, comforting answer. “That person’s life sucks because they do drugs” doesn’t raise any uncomfortable questions, and it makes avoiding a similar situation seem easy. “That person is doing using because their life sucks” leads us to ask why their life sucks and whether the same thing could happen to us.
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@wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 2026-07-07 23:26
A simple explanation of a complex problem
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@DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 23:26
Those who want to control us need a boogeyman to point at, one that is NOT themselves. Ultimately, this is the reason.
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@orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-07 23:35
Do you consider weed a drug?
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@juliebean@lemmy.zip 2026-07-08 00:03
it’s the narrative pushed by the government, and most people are insufficiently wary of the stories they are told by the powers that be. if people abuse drugs because of a history of generational and personal trauma at the hands of racist, capitalist, i and imperialist forces, then the obvious answer is to counter those forces. if people abuse drugs because they’re just bad people who make bad decisions as part of an immutable personal failing, it is far easier to justify criminalizing drug use, imprisoning drug users, and using them as slave labor to fuel the machine. at least, that’s definitely what’s going on in the US.
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@Zephyr@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-08 00:14
It is very useful for collecting votes, justifying increased spending, and is ultimately lucrative. A lot of political topics are like this, IRL reality is more complex and no one has a silver bullet
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@SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2026-07-08 00:26
Can’t that be the same for other things? Drugs, violence, guns, gangs, etc. Nobody should want to do those things with a healthy mindset.
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@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 2026-07-08 01:00
Rugged individualism and idealism. We have long been conditioned to few these things as a personal moral failure rather than the inevitable result of social pressures. Mainly because this is more convenient for our masters.
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@Ftumch@lemmy.today 2026-07-08 01:08
A popular theory among self-proclaimed paychonauts, or people that like to experiment with drugs, but mostly psychedelics, is that using mind-altering substances could lead to ideas or insights that could be (considered) a threat to the status-quo. This is why the powers that be often demonize all drugs equally. As others have pointed out, many people don’t really like to think about the systemic issues in society that drive people into poverty, homelessness or other problems that often go hand on hand with drug addiction. It should be pointed out, though, that some drugs can and most likely will ruin your life. The first rule of experimenting with drugs is never, ever try heroin (or other opiates).
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@Schmoo@slrpnk.net 2026-07-08 01:15
It’s not either/or, it’s a self-reinforcing cycle, though it isn’t usually the drugs themselves that start it.
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@Zephorah@discuss.online 2026-07-08 01:23
The other layer is why do some turn to drugs as their coping mechanism while others never do. What’s giving people, in similar circumstances, better coping options/skills, or just inherent resilience, vs not?
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@mycodesucks@lemmy.world 2026-07-08 02:00
Because fixing the PROBLEMS means the people in charge lose money to build functional, supportive social structures. Much easier to throw victims in jail and monetize their “treatment” in privatizing poor people’s tax dollars.
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@MNByChoice@midwest.social 2026-07-08 02:52
Not a lot of vocal people that had big problems, almost turned to drugs, but didn’t, and noticed they still had problems. Why do people with problems assume other people don’t have problems, or have strength, or emotional maturity? We are all fragile and barely hanging on. All of us.
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@rmerc@lemmy.ml 2026-07-08 04:25
To answer your question, because they’ve never done drugs. people who blame the problem you describe solely on drugs don’t know anything about drugs, except that they’re scary and they hurt you.
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@AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-08 05:00
In addition to propaganda campaigns? It’s the same reason people try to shift the blame for most societal issues (financial, health, relationships) to a failure of personal responsibility. www.psychologytoday.com/…/why-we-blame-the-sick It’s a comforting lie people tell themselves because it gives them a false sense of control. Honestly, kind of the same reason people start doing drugs. Drugs or other habits to help people cope when they can’t keep believing a comforting lie, but also feel driven to their breaking point by too much reality and need an escape.
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@digdilem@lemmy.ml 2026-07-08 05:51
Amplification - drugs /can/ turn a small problem into a huge one. Plus sometimes people do start drugs for temporary or even trivial reasons - boredom, curiosity, peer pressure, even just availability - they don’t always need to be escaping something. When they say drugs ruin lives, it’s a truism often enough to be accurate.
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@daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-08 07:57
I’ve known people who has done drugs just because “party fun” and ended up hooked. There are plenty of people put there. Some would have take on drugs because their lives where miserable, or even as a form of anesthesic, but other just because they were fun (at the beginning) One of the most used drugs, tobacco, people start smoking “just because it’s cool”, and end up hooked for life. Never underestimate how addictive are drugs and how social pressure or just social behavior could make someone try a substance.
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@RiverRock@lemmy.ml 2026-07-08 09:25
Effects easy to see, causes harder to see
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@WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2026-07-08 09:34
Because the problem is them sniffing leaded gas, instead of fresh air. They should have just been born in 2000’s.
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@folaht@lemmy.ml 2026-07-08 10:42
Because you live in Usonia. This certainly isn’t the case with my country, the Netherlands, where the problem is considered one of regulation or with China, where the problem is considered one of national security and imperialism.
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@HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 2026-07-08 09:59
Easier and cheaper to actually do something about them. If drought hits your country would you rather people focus on bringing water to the plants (lack of water is a visible, tangible, actionable cause of the problem) or start a meteorology department and wait for rain (because weather is the one that caused drought). To make people not turn to drugs you need to provide them with a life worth living without drugs. I’m not talking utopian living. You want to turn people away from drugs? People who have their own house/flat, work less than 60 hours a week, have money to spend on hobbies after necessities like food or clothing, and have places to do those hobbies in. Those people do not turn to drugs. But those people aren’t obedient workers constantly stressed about chasing the goals of their employer. Those people aren’t exhausted sheep voting along party lines because they have no time or energy to research political topic themselves. If you are the government, you do not want those people existing at all. As for marijuana - marijuana stalks can be turned into plastic-like but eventually biodegradable substance. So the reason marijuana was so demonized had nothing to do with drugs, but everything to do with it competing with plastic.
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@Ringtail@slrpnk.net 2026-07-08 13:04
The pod " cool people who did cool stuff" with Margaret killjoy did a series on safe use sites and the “drug user liberation front” recently. Definitely worth a listen if youre into this subject.
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@minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-08 19:04
Because they don’t care about others and want access to the resources that would be spent to help them. They see drug addicts as losers who can’t compete and want to keep them out of the game.
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@teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2026-07-08 20:25
IMO the thought sequence goes: I’ve had struggles in my life and I’ve always had the option to use drugs to deal with it, but I didn’t. And most people around me feel the same way. So when I see other people with struggles turn to drugs, it’s their own fault for not being as strong willed as me and my ingroup. And when drug users cause problems in our society, I don’t feel bad for whatever happens to them, because it’s their own fault. But clearly not all life struggles are comparable, not everyone has the same system of support around them, not everyone has the same genetic predisposition to addictions, and probably 100 more variables. But a war on X is rarely about everyone in a society coming together and deciding that we should crack down on X, and more about a party/demagogue using X as a scapegoat for real, systemic issues that they have no idea how to solve. People hear politician make loud, confident speech about solving all problems using war on X, and people say “sure, sounds reasonable, do that, just solve it.” Obviously it won’t, the question is just how much damage the demagogue will do before people catch on.
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@aceshigh@lemmy.world 2026-07-08 22:40
We don’t deal with the root cause because it’s expensive, time consuming, complex and some people will get offended (ie: most of our problems are a result of bad parenting - adulting not knowing how to regulate themselves, adults being too exhausted from work, adults not knowing how to mirror etc. ). Symptoms are what’s treated. Ie: in the us the focus is on getting you back to work/ be productive and not solving your depression, anxiety whatever.
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@chunes@lemmy.world 2026-07-08 22:50
Because people don’t understand what they haven’t experienced. Like, at all.
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@BCsven@lemmy.ca 2026-07-09 03:26
Well oxy definitely turned normal people with pain, into uncontrolled addicts. I’d say oxy drug is a problem. I do know a few people (very well) who had a super good life then friend group gets them into drug scene and life falls apart. But yeah mostly its abused kids, neglected kids, or people with mental health issues looking for the soothing that others just get naturally as a coping skill
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@godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 2026-07-09 05:35
Because it’s simpler than admitting/dealing with systemic issues. It’s easier to imagine that someone doing drugs isn’t human than it is to ever imagine you could be there yourself. It’s a lack of empathy.
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@jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 2026-07-09 08:07
Because the human mind is preconditioned to prefer simple solutions that confirm pre-existing beliefs and biases, especially if they feel good.
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@Jolteon@lemmy.zip 2026-07-10 20:41
Because, like you said, even when drugs don’t cause the initial problem, they almost always make it significantly worse to the point that the drugs are the primary contributor to the problem.