RESPECT MY DRUG USE
BY PETER MOINICHEN
“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom… for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” William Blake
Thinking of us as brain damaged and ill (disease concept) or lost souls (12-steps). We are able to make informed decisions. We are the agents of our own path. Paternalistic harm reduction wants to manage our drug use while true harm minimization recognizes that substance use is not harmful. It is the relationship that we develop with substances that requires our own examination.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
Substances can be a blessing, curse, cure, balm, even a poison depending on our relation to them. There is nothing intrinsically fearful or evil about the non-ordinary state; rather it should be sought after and appreciated. To seek mood alteration is a noble pursuit, and yet mood and mind altering substances have become the demon to avoid, for those who have chosen to believe in abstinence. To desire an alteration in one’s mood, but then suppress it, stems from the belief that the mood we have is the correct one and others are false. What a crock of shit!
Substances can be a blessing, curse, cure, balm, even a poison depending on our relation to them. There is nothing intrinsically fearful or evil about the non-ordinary state; rather it should be sought after and appreciated. To seek mood alteration is a noble pursuit, and yet mood and mind altering substances have become the demon to avoid, for those who have chosen to believe in abstinence. To desire an alteration in one’s mood, but then suppress it, stems from the belief that the mood we have is the correct one and others are false. What a crock of shit!
Accept and respect my drug use. Remove the stigma that surrounds drug use. This is a movement for social justice built on the belief in, and respect for the rights of people who use drugs. We deserve a safe environment for the use of drugs. Pleasure is not just the result of intoxication; the complete consumption event, set and setting, contributes to satisfaction. The authenticity of one’s mood is determined by the individual alone. Altering mood leads to numbness, expansion, excitation, enjoyment; to lump all alterations under one umbrella commits one to a path upon which blinders must be worn.
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