Sunday 2 May 2010

Drug abuse

Here I concern myself with drug abuse. I speak of any drug, from what in the UK is classed as C upwards. Cannabis falls into this spectrum, as does cocaine, heroin and all others. I think there can be little doubt that the class A drugs are 'being bad', if only for the extremely bad health side effects they produce, often more quickly and severe than smoking. But what of cannabis, cough medicine, glue and all the others used to 'get high'? Are they 'being bad'? I must confess, that while I do not approve of such things, I object not on moral grounds but health ones. Quite often we see people who have gone insane, died, committed crimes and so on, a a result of such drugs. But we must keep in mind that while this happens, numerically such drug abuse leading to such affects is much less often than say heroin abuse. I do here divorce health from morality, as I do not consider health to be a foundation reference point to discover if an action is moral or not, but only an incidental one. And thus, much the same as frequent sex, I can't consider such drug abuse to be 'being bad'... at least not as long as those who use such drugs do so in moderation and while under the influence do not harm other people or commit crimes, which surely most people who use such drugs do not. For, after all, they do what they do wilfully, and in these circumstances do not hurt anyone. So why are they 'being bad'? Perhaps they are not being good either, but not bad as a result.

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