How do we destigmatize drugs?

Spreading fact-based information

Povilas S Nov 06, 2020

J

Juran4 months ago

Martina Pesce4 months ago

Juran K.
About drugs helping only people who are terminally "bad", I do not agree. As I write in the introduction to the brainstorming session, drugs are used also to cure post-traumatic stress disorder and to help psychotherapy. I would say these are not terminal patients.

Also, feeling temporarily better can be very fundamental to open a window during cognitive-behavioral therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in order to allow the patient to face the trauma. And facing the trauma seems to be the key point of how to fix the cause of PTSD with cognitive-behavioral therapy [1]. Which of course does not mean that they directly solve the cause of the disease, but they do provide an opportunity to do so.


Reference:
[1] G. H. Seidler and F. E. Wagner, “Comparing the efficacy of EMDR and trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of PTSD: A meta-analytic study,” Psychological Medicine. 2006.

Martina Pesce4 months ago

Stigmatization of drugs = vaccination against misdirection of values

Dragan Otasevic Nov 06, 2020

[1]Arain, Mariam et al. “Maturation of the adolescent brain.” Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment vol. 9 (2013): 449-61. doi:10.2147/NDT.S39776

Povilas S4 months ago

Also, you are missing another important point here- not all drugs are equally addictive. Some have little to no addiction, this is the case with psychedelics. People don't take psychedelics for pleasure, they take it for experience. The effect a strong psychedelic will have on you is very unpredictable and depends on many factors - you might have a good "trip", in some cases you might have a bad "trip", but you are likely to have some of both. You are very unlikely to get addicted to strange experiences. So why are people doing psychedelics? Because they change the way you perceive and understand the world, some use the description consciousness-expanding. They affect your insights and emotional values and many people (and I'm not talking about hippyish junkies, but famous intellectual people like Steve Jobs, Sam Harris, Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey, Jack Nicholson, I could go on) have called psychedelic experiences they had life-changing. So when you say that some people try to hide their addiction under the name of shamanism, natural healing, etc. you really miss this point.

Povilas S4 months ago

Bans usually work in the opposite direction, especially for the youth - try to prevent something, they'll want it just because it's banned. And that's exactly the case with drugs - many teenagers want to try drugs, just because they are banned or if it's not the sole reason then it's a big part of the reason. Stigmatization doesn't help in any way, fear doesn't help. It only creates psychological tensions. If people will want to do it they'll find ways to do it and those ways will be more dangerous - bought from unsafe people, bad quality substances that are only more dangerous. Laws forbidding to sell drugs for underaged people is one thing, stigmatization is another. Stigmatization is mostly about providing false or inaccurate information and not explaining anything, just prohibiting. This is the worst way to bring up children. A child will instantly see that something is missing here, they are not telling me something, and no wonder they will want to find out by themselves. 

As a kid when I asked adults why people smoke they'd give me those sorts of answers: "they don't know what they are doing", "they are stupid", etc. But not the truth. And the truth is - people smoke because they like it. Yes, it's harmful, it cause addiction, but it also gives pleasure, relaxation, whatever the reason for a certain person. And it's not because they can't quit, that's just an excuse, addiction is not so strong that it would take your will away, not in the case of cigarettes at least and I don't think it's the case even with opioids, it might be hard and very hard in the case of the latter, but it's still your decision, - they simply prefer smoking. And you can explain all this to the child and explain why it's banned for young people and what are the risks and why people use it, everything, no need for woo-woo. 

The same with spiders and snakes - you can explain that it's easier to avoid all spiders than learn to differentiate poisonous ones. And it will work much better than imprinting blind fear, this kind of education will not only create phobias and psychological tensions in a young person, it will also worsen the relationships between parents and kids - a kid will feel that he/she is being treated badly, but won't understand why. This happens when things are not explained and only negative emotions are used in "education". Imprinting fear doesn't lead to anything good. 

Martina Pesce4 months ago

I believe this makes very much sense, and it is a good way to protect the under 25 population. Then a way to solve it so that this part of the population is safe and so that the stigma does not damage, it is indeed just to make clear how the dangers and risks change after that age. What do you think?

There are many many legal and dangerous accessible addictions (tobacco, alcohol, sugars, gambling, I could go on forever I think...). Why stigmatizing one that can even have at least one good side (=helping to treat some mental health disorder), while all the other addictions I just mentioned do not even have that? (apart from alcohol, partially, and tobacco for Parkinson's disease).

Also, I was not asking how to remove the fear of drugs, but the stigma. The knowledge and fear of the collateral effects of drugs it's of course very needed, but is the stigma also so needed? 

It's true, drugs are also used to help terminally ill patients, but not only! As I write in the introduction to the brainstorming session drugs are used also to cure post-traumatic stress disorder and to help psychotherapy. I would say these are not terminal patients.
As I also write in another comment in this session, feeling temporarily better it's the actual key to treat not terminal diseases such as PTSD.

Supporting drug-related scientific research

Povilas S Nov 06, 2020

religions and pleasure

Martina Pesce Nov 07, 2020

[1]Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (18 December 2012). "The Global Religious Landscape". Retrieved December 18, 2012.

Stigmatization is a form of protection from the hack we are not designed to defend against

Dragan Otasevic Nov 08, 2020

Povilas S3 months ago

Probably, just wait

Shubhankar Kulkarni Nov 09, 2020

Povilas S3 months ago

Martina Pesce3 months ago

Shubhankar Kulkarni3 months ago

Changing the laws

Povilas S Nov 06, 2020

Build up a platform for drug-sharing

Subash Chapagain Nov 06, 2020

Martina Pesce4 months ago

Povilas S4 months ago

documentary, movies, tv series

Martina Pesce Nov 07, 2020

Povilas S3 months ago

Creating safer, less addictive drugs

Povilas S Nov 26, 2020

Help stations for drug users in public places

Povilas S Nov 06, 2020

Martina Pesce4 months ago

Povilas S4 months ago

Martina Pesce It's not an idea, it's already a reality. I've personally seen them both in Lithuania and in France and heard about them existing in other countries, so I think it's pretty common these days, although I'm not sure how common. But obviously, at least in France, it was supported by the government and this is a very very wise thing to do in my opinion. The fact that they exist when drugs are still illegal contributes even more to destigmatization. They are not only in festivals, in France I saw it simply in a public square, I don't remember if it was an event going on or not, but it was probably the place where people often do drugs, a lot of bars around, etc. 

But even at festivals there are all sorts of people, not all do drugs, some might even be against them and they would happen to see those stations and it might influence their opinion one way or another. But I think it's destigmatization from the point of the users also - they feel safer and accepted so there is less of this separation in the mind - "me the user and the rest of the world who will punish me" and this more relaxed state of mind then can be passed to others whether users or non-users. If you go sober and see this sort of station you then think (as I did) - "oh, this is nice, so maybe the situation with drug stigma in society is not so bad as I thought". And if you are on something you'd think - "totally sober strangers that are working in the festival (aka "officials") are here to help me instead of calling the police? Then maybe there's no reason to be afraid". You see the point here?:)

J

Juran4 months ago

Safe drug use frequency and dosage standards

Povilas S Nov 26, 2020

Shubhankar Kulkarni3 months ago

Povilas S3 months ago

Shubhankar Kulkarni 
Sure, but it would still regulate much more than "you can buy as much as you want" system. Even for already legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco if you'd introduce it, then people who'd like to buy more than the standards they'd have to ask other people, probably those who don't drink or smoke at all, that would be the first complication for them - requires more effort, you'd probably need to pay them and also those people who'd buy for others would consider that they are buying it "from their own account", so if they'll want to buy for themselves they will have less left, etc. But you'd have to be a chronic user to buy much more than the standards and those cases wouldn't be that frequent.

Reporting the concentration in a medicinal preparation is not the same as a safe dosage standard for recreational use. I mean for single ingestion - sure, you can find what is a low, medium, high dose and what is too much, but I meant it in a context of frequent use. For example, in the case of caffeine, you can ingest much more than 400 mg and still end up ok, but if you use higher doses frequently it will be a problem. It's a kind of ratio between dosage and use frequency. This kind of information is far from common.

Shubhankar Kulkarni3 months ago

How do we destigmatize drugs?

Creative contributions

Spreading fact-based information

Stigmatization of drugs = vaccination against misdirection of values

Supporting drug-related scientific research

religions and pleasure

Stigmatization is a form of protection from the hack we are not designed to defend against

Probably, just wait

Changing the laws

Build up a platform for drug-sharing

documentary, movies, tv series

Creating safer, less addictive drugs

Help stations for drug users in public places

Safe drug use frequency and dosage standards

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General comments

How do we destigmatize drugs?

Creative contributions

Spreading fact-based information

Stigmatization of drugs = vaccination against misdirection of values

Supporting drug-related scientific research

religions and pleasure

Stigmatization is a form of protection from the hack we are not designed to defend against

Probably, just wait

Changing the laws

Build up a platform for drug-sharing

documentary, movies, tv series

Creating safer, less addictive drugs

Help stations for drug users in public places

Safe drug use frequency and dosage standards

Add your creative contribution

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General comments

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