Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!amdahl!uunet!littlei!reed!mojo
From: mojo@reed.UUCP (trained not to spit in the fan)
Newsgroups: alt.flame,alt.drugs
Subject: Re: Just say "No, you're an idiot"
Message-ID: <8290@reed.UUCP>
Date: 17 Feb 88 19:34:23 GMT
References: <1899@optilink.UUCP> <518@ddsw1.UUCP> <382@igloo.UUCP> <1289@homxc.UUCP> <120@ucrmath.UUCP>
Reply-To: mojo@reed.UUCP (trained not to spit in the fan)
Organization: Taliesin
Lines: 36

In article <120@ucrmath.UUCP> marek@ucrmath.UUCP (Marek Chrobak) writes:
>In article <1289@homxc.UUCP>, ldm@homxc.UUCP (the wharf rat) writes:
>> 	If you really wanted to make a difference, you'd teach people 
>> the truth about things, and help them to be the best that they can, instead
>
>  Can you elaborate on this more. If I understand you well it might look like
>this: Mrs. Smith, the teacher, says that marijuana is not really dangerous
>if not overdosed. But, please, my dear kids - don't ever take PCP. And from
>now on little Johny would not even come close to PCP, because he was taught
>the truth, he knows it's a poison.

Roughly, yes.  Obviously it's not that simple; however, as it stands, people
are generally educated to believe that all drugs are equal, destructive,
immoral, etc.--except alcohol and tobacco, of course.

Everything I learned about drugs in school was a load of garbage, because
the intent was not to teach me about drugs, but to convince me, by whatever
means, that Drugs Are Wrong.  The schools could perfectly well have said
"Well, marijuana thrashes on your lungs and looks like it might cause
short-term memory loss, maybe; LSD is totally non-toxic but psychologically
dangerous..." and generally offered some useful information.

Remember the media blitz about PCP a few years ago?  A lot of the horror
stories that were being flung around then are the same stories that were
told about LSD in the 1960's (and in fact are still being told about LSD
now).  As it turns out, they're fairly likely to have been true with
reference to PCP; but there's no way to know this except by personal or
vicarious experience.  (Fortunately mine was vicarious.)  It would be fairly
easy to have tried PCP, on the grounds that, since all the other information
about drugs that the Real World offered was tripe, the horrific tales about
angel dust were probably garbage too.
-- 
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\A tautology is a thing   \ Nathan Tenny            /  The opinions expressed/
/which is tautological.   / ...tektronix!reed!mojo  \  may not even be mine. \
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ FLAMES ANSWERED WITH NAPALM /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/