Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs,alt.hemp
From: [b--nd--r] at [cuug.ab.ca] (Roy Brander)
Subject: Re: Why use drugs?
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 03:59:17 GMT

:[o--ff--n] at [netcom.com] (Owen Hoffman) writes:
: Owen> Some people that don't use drugs often feel that drug
: Owen> users are trying to escape reality.  

Sometimes I take aspirin to escape the reality of pain, and sometimes
I take antibiotics to escape the reality of infection.

It does embarrass me, and I can't make this confession without a deep
sense of shame.  Truly strong people simply bear the pain in life,
and they fight their own battles, be they against people or bacteria,
without crutches to prop up their weakness.

The people who puzzle me are the ones not even morally courageous
enough to admit that these vices are shameful failings, though they
cry against the similarly pathetic use of drugs to fight off fatigue,
stress, or weariness of spirit.  Surely it is no less a sin to use
drugs to prop up the body than the soul, to make a headache a trivial
thing to ignore instead of a strengthening trial to the spirit as
nature intended it to be?