108 replies to this topic

[Newsun]

I was thinking about this the other day. In my area in the boondocks of New York state, it is extraordinarily, laughably, and unfortuneately easy to get drugs as a kid (or adult, for that matter.) Within an hour I could have most common drugs with just one phone call, and within a week I could get many rarer and harder to obtain drugs. A twelve year old could get drugs more easily than would seem possible! Im curious: Is this situation common in the US (my guess: yes), and is it common worldwide?

[Triskele]

You are incredibly well-spoken for a twelve year old.




I think the question you're asking is difficult to quantify.  How easy is easy, you know?  But I don't doubt that there are areas where particular drugs really catch on like meth did in so many rural places.

[El-ahrairah]

I live in the boondocks of New York state as well, but I wouldn't have the first clue how to acquire illegal drugs. I'm far too young and innocent.

[Darth Arya]

Sorry to go off topic but Trzy I love your sig!!, except swap Stoli and Smirnoff .

On topic, I don't really think there's anything inherently wrong with using drugs if you have the right mind to take them responsibly, which at 12 I don't think anyone does.

[Sci-2]

Xanax and Percocets are incredibly easy to get. My friend and I were talking about this, and he mentioned how his friends' parents take these.

A kid I knew from a comic shop was smoking weed at 13.

It's incredibly pervasive. The extent to which it is a problem is another thing - know one guy who overdosed on Xanax, know another who will make up all kinds of stories that I think he semi-believes (in tears over a supposedly dying cat) to get them.

Weed seems less problematic, though I've heard it can hamper development of the brain if used too early. Not sure if this is true, just something I've heard before.

[Marie August]

The availability of illegal drugs is primarily why I think that many drugs should be legal. It's like prohibition. Making drugs illegal hasn't caused people to not use them, or not be able to get them. It's just created a lot of crime around supplying something that will always be in demand.

[Istari]

What constitutes as 'easy' varies from person to person. So, its hard to properly compare the 'easiness' of drug acquisition from place to place.

What also makes this question a challenge is that different people like different drugs. I know people who are all about prescription pills, but wouldn't know the first thing about acquiring a drug like cocaine. So, you can have people that find it 'easy' to get ahold of one drug, but useless at finding another.

[S John]

When I was kid it was always 10x easier to get weed than it was to get alcohol.  I became a stoner for many years as a result.  Thank God for that, though.  I think it really improved my taste in music.

[Dracarya]

Personally I think alcohol is worse than weed, and both are easy enough to obtain. When I was 12 I was drinking out of my friends' mums' alcohol cabinet. By 13, we found a shop that would sell us alcohol. I think drugs should be legalised and so controlled in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are controlled. People are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of the threat of a criminal record.

I don't know about harder drugs, but surely it'd be difficult for young kids to afford? Especially if they develop a habit. What self-respecting dealer would sell to a 12 year old anyway? In my area, that shit doesn't fly.

[Newsun]

I was just making a point that its easy for kids as young as 12. I'm 18. Kids in my hometown are smoking weed by 13 and sometimes younger, and doing worse by 14. I also don't think there's much wrong with people being allowed to do drugs, or at least 'softer' drugs. But kids? They should not be allowed near any kind of drug before 18 or 21.
And yeah, Catherine, unfortuneately people who take harder drugs for the most part don't have the right mindset to take them responsibly.

It's just sad that it's so easy for kids in my area, and I was wondering how it is around the world. I suppose other kids and relatively younger people would be able to best answer my question.

[Newsun]

And idk, a lot of kids have jobs by 14, and some steal. Most of the youngest kids getting drugs nowadays in my area get them from siblings or unscrupulous high school dealers.

ETA: And that's another problem. High quality fake ids are ridiculously easy to get for 70$ online.

Edited by Newsun, 19 June 2012 - 06:18 PM.

[Istari]

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Dracarya, on 19 June 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

Personally I think alcohol is worse than weed, and both are easy enough to obtain. When I was 12 I was drinking out of my friends' mums' alcohol cabinet. By 13, we found a shop that would sell us alcohol. I think drugs should be legalised and so controlled in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are controlled. People are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of the threat of a criminal record.

I don't know about harder drugs, but surely it'd be difficult for young kids to afford? Especially if they develop a habit. What self-respecting dealer would sell to a 12 year old anyway? In my area, that shit doesn't fly.

I agree that alcohol is far more detrimental than weed, but I don't think that some drugs should be legalized.

[a wooden chair]

sciborg2, on 19 June 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Weed seems less problematic, though I've heard it can hamper development of the brain if used too early. Not sure if this is true, just something I've heard before.

No more than our educational system already does.

S John, on 19 June 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

When I was kid it was always 10x easier to get weed than it was to get alcohol.  I became a stoner for many years as a result.  Thank God for that, though.  I think it really improved my taste in music.

I think so too.

Dracarya, on 19 June 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

Personally I think alcohol is worse than weed, and both are easy enough to obtain. When I was 12 I was drinking out of my friends' mums' alcohol cabinet. By 13, we found a shop that would sell us alcohol. I think drugs should be legalised and so controlled in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are controlled. People are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of the threat of a criminal record.

I don't know about harder drugs, but surely it'd be difficult for young kids to afford? Especially if they develop a habit. What self-respecting dealer would sell to a 12 year old anyway? In my area, that shit doesn't fly.

There's more than enough assholes out there who aren't self-respecting at all. Based off what you're saying though, are they more frequent in areas where the "criminal class" isn't looking out for their fellow man like suburbs?

[Darth Arya]

I think it would depend of the drug Drac, like X isn't really any more expensive than Weed so they could afford it but I doubt many a school kid could afford a coke habit for example.

Edited by Katherine Of House Sith, 19 June 2012 - 06:24 PM.

[Inigima]

I've never done any illegal drugs whatsoever, including pot, and even I could have most of them pretty quickly if I were so inclined. So, uh, yes.

[Newsun]

A lot of pills are mere dollars a pop, it's not hard to finance a habit like that.

[Dracarya]

Istari, on 19 June 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

I agree that alcohol is far more detrimental than weed, but I don't think that some drugs should be legalized.

It's a difficult one. They already give heroin addicts methadone, and there are plenty of prescription pills that cause similar effects as illegal drugs - by which I mean, the effects of the addictions itself are similar, not the effects of each drug. I feel that if they legalised drugs, there'd be less allure to them, and they could be controlled easier.

en trästol, on 19 June 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

There's more than enough assholes out there who aren't self-respecting at all. Based off what you're saying though, are they more frequent in areas where the "criminal class" isn't looking out for their fellow man like suburbs?

Undoubtedly, but where I come from we have a saying, 'don't shit on your own doorstep'. If you're selling coke to your neighbours' kid, then people will have a problem with that. Maybe I'm misreading your tone, but the "criminal class" isn't as bad as it's always perceived. The man who drinks too much whiskey and passes out on the sofa is acceptable, but someone who smokes a bit of weed and does the same is a criminal? Why?

Katherine Of House Sith, on 19 June 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

I think it would depend of the drug Drac, like X isn't really any more expensive than Weed so they could afford it but I doubt many a school kid could afford a coke habit for example.

I can't say I'm clued up on pills and stuff, but I imagine they're pretty cheap. Also there's a lot of these "legal highs" floating around, so I guess anything but hard drugs - like crack and heroin, for example - would be affordable.

[Darth Arya]

These legal high things seem even more dangerous to me, they seem to be effecting people more profoundly, or it could just be 'Daily Mail' type sensationalism.
I went through a stage of taking X and coke from about 18-20 a lot at weekends etc but I just grew out of it quite quickly, there is so much more to life to enjoy that drugs don't really interest me, now maybe I will once a year, like NYE or something but otherwise no.

Edited by Katherine Of House Sith, 19 June 2012 - 06:46 PM.

[Istari]

Dracarya, on 19 June 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

It's a difficult one. They already give heroin addicts methadone, and there are plenty of prescription pills that cause similar effects as illegal drugs - by which I mean, the effects of the addictions itself are similar, not the effects of each drug. I feel that if they legalised drugs, there'd be less allure to them, and they could be controlled easier.

In the case of prescribing methadone or pills, the idea is that these drugs are controlled by a patient's physician, and that physician can monitor the patient to protect them from developing a habit. For prescription pills, the benefits outweigh the side effects; they are meant to be used as medicine. For heroin addicts they are not trying to replace one habit with another, but are trying to rehabilitate; sometimes the route to rehabilitation is not perfect and drugs of a lower calibre are needed.

I don't know if the allure would be diminished; alcohol is legal and I for one am quite allured.

[Newsun]

Yea, synthetic marijuana and things like bath salts are purportedly worse for you than most more common drugs. Although the kids in my area (for the most part) won't touch synthetic marijuana because they've heard how bad it is for you. Just as some anecdotal evidence, I was in a halfway house/rehab/hospitalesque place and no fewer than three of the kids there (out of 20 or so) were there because they had overdosed on a particularly harmful brand of synthetic marijuana.