excuse me while i rant a little here. as someone whose speech and (lack of) fashion patterns has got them labeled (incorrectly) for many years as a stoner, i have a bit of a bone to pick with something i've been seeing on FA.

i've noticed a kind of smarmy arrogance smeared all over the drug-free furs page. i don't think it's intentional, but it's there. that kind of "if you want to destroy your life fine with us ^_^_^_^^" feeling. and i sort of feel like i ought to say something about it.

do you drink coffee? you do drugs.
do you drink alcohol? you do drugs.
do you drink tea? energy drinks? also drugs.
hey, ever take a painkiller? high-ho-drugsyo.
need ADHD meds? anti depression meds? seriously.

someone out there is going to argue that caffiene/energy drinks aren't like "real" drugs. i'm here to tell you that's bullshit. caffiene is crazy addictive. it stomps all over your liver and your guts. if you take enough of it, you will hallucinate. i have hallucinated due to caffiene. if you take too much of it, you can OD and possibly die. my squeaky clean christian grad student buddy OD'd on caffiene and needed to be hospitalised.

is it about getting a high? is that what it is? drugs that make you high are bad? well, when i was in school overseas in japan i was given a medical cocktail that i had to take every day to fix a sore throat that left me positively loopy. does that make me a bad person? are people who lean towards nyquil when they get minor sicky symptoms bad?

trying to take a moral high ground about drugs is such a god damn slippery slope. everything is such a sloppy grey area, where the laws of individual states and countries don't even agree on what's "bad" and what isn't. unless you're 100% hardcore straight edge, you really can't even attempt to take a holier-than-thou stance. there's so many moral potholes and quandries, how can you even begin to justify to yourself the thought of "well i'm superior to ____ because *i* don't do drugs, and *they* do." do you know their individual situation? their history? do you know they're not PRESCRIBED the very drug you're smarming at them over? or, even if they're not prescribed, how do you know they didn't have a medical reason for it regardless? federal laws may say one thing and local laws say another. or someone may get an out of state prescription. sometimes these drugs are the only thing between people starving after chemo and being able to eat a normal lunch. acting like a condascending jerk to them because of their medical needs? not cool.

why do i feel like i can mouth off about this? i tried to go 100% hardcore straightedge for a year. i cut out caffiene, booze, tylonal, everything. and you know where it got me? in the ER with a 106f fever on a saline drip with a morphine additive. it's not easy. it's actually pretty goddamn dangerous.

really the only sane stance to take on it is this:
as long as what you're doing doesn't hurt the people around you emotionally or physically, who cares what you do.

and really, smarming all over other people? isn't winning anyone over to your side.
i mean just by virtue of their general civility, i'd much rather hang out with people from the pro-cannabis furs group than the drugs free furs. and i don't think that's the ultimate goal the drugs free furs were going for. :\

i'm not trying to decry being drug free. many people are, and they're really very cool and nice folks. i'm not trying to decry drug use either. many people use drugs who are also very cool and nice folks. but what i AM trying to decry is that people willfully ally themselves under a banner whose mouthpiece is NOT a cool or nice person and really is just looking for a reason to kick around folks who make different life choices than they do.

so just you know. think twice before putting a banner on your page that leads back to a bunch of nasty jerkwads talking about how great they are and how the "drugged lifestyle" is full of "haters."

also you know maybe. talk to a few people who actually do drugs before you formulate stereotypical opinions. i'm not saying talk to them about drugs (though it may shock you to learn they're not going to PRESSURE YOUUUUU into trying them too) but just talk to them like you would any other normal person. you know. before you judge them.

tl;dr straightedge furries write some pretty hateful stuff on their "horray for us!" page.