I actually completely disagree with you on this one. And I too have friends who are in rehab, have lost their children, friends who have died, people who are out there flailing and struggling with the truly, truly horrific mental illness that is addiction. I don’t drink, and I don’t drug. Ever. I’ve seen too much pain come from it.

BUT I am disgusted by the drug war, and I think the way society generally discusses drug use is completely counter productive. You know what? Most people who use drugs - even harder drugs, don’t end up selling their body for a buzz, overdosing, etc. Those who truly suffer from addiction do. And people who aren’t addicts might abuse substances as well. But, some people can use them responsibly. I don’t care to be around them when they do - but that’s my personal choice. And sure, many true addicts may convince themselves taht they’re functional for a while before having something truly horrendous happen, but unless we are willing to look at the the big picture reality of addiction and drugs, we will never, ever have effective and fair public health, criminal justice, and drug policy. We just won’t. And this sort of stigma and demonization of drugs is foolhardy. What about all the drugs that I take as prescribed? Sure, it’s different, but the side effects I’ve had? Horrible - and far worse than anything that happened the handful of times back in the day when I tried pot or alcohol. I’ve gone into amphetamine psychosis from taking Adderall as prescribed, I lost my vision and had an irregular heartbeat from Concerta, I’d wake up with inexplicable bruises on Seroquel, I experienced both urinary retention and temporary incontinence on Lamictal, I know multiple people personally who have had date rape type experiences while taking Ambien as prescribed, and I could literally go on and on. And what about caffeine? People often laugh at that, but let me tell you, it can screw with you, especially if you’re otherwise mentally ill.

To be honest, I’m with all due respect, a but outraged at your outraged. She never endorsed drugs - in fact, it sounds like her lifestyle is relatively drug free because she’s seen the ills it can do, but she also is willing to look at the larger picture.

When you stop looking at the larger picture, you loose any scientific or objective credibility.

(But I still like this blog - and I hope you’ll ponder what I’ve said.)

@ Katharine – Thanks for chiming in. It has been reported that Allen is currently living a drug-free life, and I commend her for that.

To be clear, as far as scientific credibility goes, I already have none. I am not a medical or scientific professional of any sort. My posts are strictly opinion posts, but for whatever bits of research I may quote and cite from time to time, and my experience in the world of mental health extends only as far as personal experience can take me (in other words, I have no professional background in mental health).

Objective credibility, on the other hand, is a bit different. While I normally look at most things objectively, I don’t know that I care to in this instance. My life has been too negatively affected by the drug abuse of others to read Allen’s remarks through anything but subjective eyes. That’s not to say that I fail to see the bigger picture when it comes to all drug-related problems, but it is to say that, when it comes to Allen’s comments, I fail to see anything but carelessness and, quite honestly, a bit of immaturity. It would be more productive for someone else to look at her comments objectively than it would be for me to.

Like you said, there may very well be a problem with the drug war; actually, I’m pretty sure there is, ha. However, I’m also pretty sure that pointing out that people can use drugs responsibly and function properly at work even if they use cocaine three days a week, like Allen did, isn’t the solution. Allen stated that she felt people were sensationalizing drug abuse, but I feel her own comment was sort of glamorizing it.

Perhaps you’d be interested in writing a guest post here at Celebrity Psychings regarding celebrities and how they relate to the drug culture and/or war? Let me know, and in the meantime, thanks again for chiming in!

This is the middle class version of drug use. Clean and sterile. People with this attitude don’t see the flip side of the damage it does to families and communities outside of Hollyweird or million dollar McMansions. They can also do their drugs knowing the police don’t target people that look like them for drug raids. I’ve sat in court and seen kids get burned on doing a lot less than cocaine three days a week. They didn’t have publicists — or lawyers half the time.

To play devil’s advocate for a sec, you kind of proved Allen’s point when you said, “Drug and alcohol abuse can cause permanent damage to a person’s physical and mental health.”

She was talking about “use,” not “abuse.” She’s making a distinction you’re not making.

Now, in real life, I’m quite comfortable making that distinction with alcohol (it’s okay for me to have a 6-pack in the fridge or a bottle of amaretto in the cupboard, but not to “abuse” it). But not with anything harder (and I know others will disagree with me, but that includes pot–I’ve just seen too many lives demolished by it).

It seems to me–and this is what I see you saying, Alicia–that there is never any use of hard drugs that isn’t abuse. There’s never any benefit that can outweigh the harm. I can be a casual beer or wine drinker, but not a casual meth or crack taker.

And I don’t think the argument about prescription drugs is valid. Those are taken because the good is supposed to outweigh the harm, something that can’t happen with hard drugs. If the good doesn’t outweigh the side effects, the harm, the patient should stop taking them. I’ve known people who would rather let cancer kill them than go through another round of chemo–the good does not outweigh the harm for them. When a drug is harming you and NOT resolving anything, you should stop taking it. Period. Hard drugs always cause problems, and never resolve them, so people should stop taking them.

So, yeah, I’m with you on this, Alicia.

I agree mostly with Kathrena who makes a strong point against demonizing street drugs. Sensationnalism and glamoring are both no no’s for me.
I work in the rehab dpt, since 84 in fact. I have,at times,deeply hated and despised alcohol and drugs. Special after havind eard horrific stories. But that missed the main issue at hand.

You can get mad at otherwise very usefull things such as simple “water” because it one day, drowned a loved one, You can hate almost anything for one reason or an other. Tt doesn’t make harm disaper nor resolve any kind of problem, nor do much good in the end. A long tie back we chassd witches in Salemfor apparently very good reasons. Psyhcs have since taken lessons form this episode on how we treat menta ilnesse. Feminites have argued the witch hunt was a way to do violence to liberalize women.

An other eample. Sex is both wonderfull and risky. It all depends on making the difference between how you “use”(bad choice of term but I’m only a french speeking guy so please don’t citicise me. Instead, ry to offer a better word,..) or “abuse”. Or again, between taking, giving, indulging in an infinite variety of ways that make it fulfilling and good experience versus a nightmare, for thyself, othes and even society at arge. Left over seringes in parks is a bad thing, for environmental reasons as well as for the our - ought to be at least-social commitment in raising our chilren in a nice versus an ugly world. I guess I could go on and on but hope my case is clear.

And still, I kind of like Alicia’s main idea, as I understand it. If we don’t need a potentialy dangerous substance, why bother? Why even just take any risk of ay sort when there are so, so, so many other ways of getting high, having fun, just plain old enjoying life? My only answer is that we humans have a strong innate tendency to experiment, tuch the untuchable, arise over matter, transcendreality etc. And, of coure, some people more than others. The openly living gay’s have understood this. They take pride in their lifestyles. Even the name they pref to go by “gay” signifies in french “happy going” or “fun loving”. But then, of course, your fun should always stop there where it starts to interfere with other people’s right to have fun.

nice topic discussed in a interesting way as far as I’m concened. Keep it up and thanks