Wait, Are You Trying to Encourage People to Use Drugs?! Project Cynic FAQs
For my second post I thought it would be fun to review some of the common questions I have received on my project thus far. The feedback has been encouraging and helped keep me motivated so, for those of you who have commented, or contacted me, keep doing it! I am lucky enough to work with all things drugs all day every day, so I enjoy learning, debating, and making information accessible. Here are some of the common questions I have received thus far with my answers:
Are you trying to get people to use drugs?
No. I don’t need to do that; nature handles that part. My next blog post is about our species’ natural inclination to use drugs (hint: we’ve been doing it for 200 million years and we are hard-wired for it)
Are you trying to teach people how to use drugs?
Yes. Where else would they learn?
So you are saying that you want to teach people how to use heroin/methamphetamine/crack/fentanyl (insert any other scary thing here)?
Yes. Definitely yes. I cannot state this strongly enough. Yes.
Won’t that make people use drugs?
No. I am not that important.
Shouldn’t we be discouraging people from using drugs?
Why would we do that?
But what about all the deaths/addiction/jail etc?
Yes. These are indications that our current methods are terribly ineffective.
But won’t more people using drugs lead to more addiction?
The vast majority (about 80- 90%) of people who use drugs never become addicted. And, of the remaining 10-20%, about 1/2 of them resolve the issue without professional help. Also, our definition of addiction is nonsense (we will also cover that in the future!).
Wait, what about Fentanyl Ed, what about Fentanyl?!??!
You mean the synthetic opioid developed in 1959 that is far from new but is now one of our new drug trends? Well, historically our drug trends have been sensationalized to further marginalize minority populations and/or support our draconian drug and immigration policies. If I were a betting man, I’d say there may be some of that happening. Remember that weird “bath salts” trend and the sensational media stories about it turning people into cannibals? Yeah, things got a bit dramatic. We will explore the history of drug trends, sensationalism, manufactured crises, and the wild worlds of politics and profits as we move forward. And, there are errors with overdose reporting and a good portion of those deaths, big surprise, are from tainted illicit supplies and/or Fentanyl laced with other drugs. Fentanyl is not killing people, our attitudes and policies about drugs are.
So what do you actually do with this weird project and are you having a mental breakdown?
I am fortunate enough to work in this field in several capacities. For this specific side project I do 3 things:
Teach people how to use drugs. I want everyone to have a safe and healthy relationship with the drugs they choose to use
Teach people how to teach people how to use drugs. This is probably the one I am best at. I offer 1-2 day trainings for helping professionals on various topics relating to drugs and drug use safety.
Of course I sell drug related coffee mugs, shirts, and other merchandise. Hey I have to keep the lights on too. Plus, this is the only avenue I have where there is a simple and free exchange of merchandise for cash. Being in the helping world for the last 10+ years, its kind of cool selling a thing, getting money for it, then being done with the transaction. No billing, no notes, no insurance!
Hopefully I am not having a mental breakdown. I feel heathy, happy, and content and this is ridiculously fun for now. Of course, I am easily distracted so we will see where it goes.
If you have topics you want to see included or just want to yell at me and tell me this is all awful, please do so. For those who proceed, I hope you do so with an open mind. This will indeed be challenging as the topic of drugs and drug use hits hard for a lot of us. My goal is to help you learn to shift your perspective on drug use by helping you question some of the garbage we all hear about drugs and the people who use them.
