Drugs and Drug Dependency

I write this article from my own perspective, having had a relatively extended period of dependence on cannabis (hemp/marijuana).

Cannabis is often called a recreational drug... But when does 'recreation' turn into 'occupation', I mean, what leads a person to intoxicate themselves on a very frequent basis in a mood of depression or whilst being out of touch with daily life?

Lets look at the words. We can call drugs many things; somehow the descriptive word 'recreational' has stuck to cannabis. I'd like to work with that a little.

Cannabis certainly works as a recreational drug, providing the entertainment of real hysterical amusement and laughter, and inducing positive feelings of ease and relaxation. For some that is enough. I think for others though, including myself, these recreational sensations are more desirable - and why? Perhaps we feel as if there is not enough happiness and peace in our lives, not enough rest and play: we resort to a way of inducing recreational sensation artificially to replace a recreational deficit.

Or maybe "a cigar is just a cigar". Sigmund Freud, the great psychologist, was asked why he was forever smoking cigars, when cigars can be considered as having a phallic shape (Sigmund Freud made great progress in understanding the role of sexual tension in our society as it was when he was alive - which is still relevant today). Maybe, therefore, we find pleasure in a drug and naturally seek more of it, pleased with what we have found, and then become attached to the pleasure, as we might to any other - perhaps that is a satisfactory explanation of drug dependence, where it is not very obviously physically addicting or sought as a meanas of emotional relief.

Maybe too often we as a society second guess ourselves, and our real motivation, post Freud, and do so needlessly. Maybe there is not always actually "something missing" in our lives when we turn recreational drug use into a full-time occupation, - maybe it is just initially about pleasure, finding and exploring pleasure. But how effective or safe might it be to to use artificial means of inducing pleasurable states? Surely things can go wrong - whether mental illness creeps in, or we grow attached to the drug, or unexpected changes in consciousness occur due to taking in the drug. Also, if you forget where you were when you began using a drug a lot, then you are in danger of becoming trapped in your personal growth if things develop unexpectedly.

I was not abnormally prone to depression when I started using cannabis often. And I look back and can see that the laughter that came from using cannabis in the beginning of my relationship with it, which was among close friends, - that laughter reflects a happiness I had probably not known as much since early childhood. Just moments of it, but a number of moments. Laughing at something so hard you can't breath for about a minute! Sharing laughs.
Probably my psychological problems began with the deeper states that cannabis can bring, rather than the light euphoric states.

This is why earlier I loosely questioned the use of the word 'recreational' to describe cannabis. In different times and places around the world it is and has been used as a 'mystcial' drug and as a 'shamanic' drug. That's not recreational, not something to be played with! Not something to be ignorant about. Controversially, perhaps we are safer if we do not attempt to go too deeply in association with cannabis in-take.

After a while then, I began to see cannabis as offering me a channel towards Divine union: I was taking in the drug cannabis to offer me more feelings of spiritual wholeness. From recreational use, my use changed into mystical use, but one with attachment and without much insight. No wonder I felt holy and grandiose. First came major delusional jealousy then delusions and hallucinations. The delusional jealousy ended when I left my then-girlfriend, the hallucinations stopped with cessation of cannabis use, and the delusions of a paranoid and grandiose nature gradually subsided with anti-psychotic medication, but I have still been left with a daily experience of painfully disturbed thinking and mental awareness.

I think education is a good thing. I mean drug education for the young, for all ages. Cannabis is not just fun, it is spiritual as well. It probably requires some kind of initiation or guidance for deeper relationship with it, to safeguard against madness and allow full personal growth. It requires use in an appropriate condition - favourable environment, true understanding and emotional stability and peacefulness are all important (or all-important, if you wish to avoid a syndrome that damages person and society).
PS People also need to know that cannabis can lead you to focus on very fearful thinking, and that those thoughts can become mental habits in the form of pronounced anxiety (often anxiety concerning social relationships, a natural precursor to full social phobia). That's why environment, companions, emotions, and understanding are very important - if any of those factors are unfavourable (i.e. an unpleasant environment, with unfriendly companions, whilst feeling sad or unsettled, and not knowing what to expect from the drug intake) the result may well be frightening and possibly cause mental illness immediately or in the long term. Scientists say that mental illness is particularly a risk for younger cannabis users, up until the middle of young adulthood, around the age of thirty, some say, due to psychological maturity. But for a balanced view, let's not forget that cannabis is well-tolerated by many, who enjoy its effects, and let's remember that the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis is a contemporary issue for world governments, and that there are numerous groups lobbying for a group-decision in favour of free use of cannabis. Also, even as someone who used cannabis and became insane and suffered greatly, I can't deny that there are others for whom the herb is a friend (at the very least, as an aid to pain-management for some). Hopefully cannabis will be reinstated as a medically useful substance one day, because of it's pain-modifying properties. And perhaps its euphoric properties could be adapted into a safe medicine to treat depression.
Finally, it occurred to me today, that often we look to drugs to relieve sadness that comes about through the way we behave as a species - when that behaviour could be different. Not to ignore our merits, but we could be a more caring society (and a more free society). In as far as that is true, ultimately, people around the world will either take drugs or change their minds and feelings depending on what seems to be more preferable. Some use of psychedelic drugs, for example, is currently approved by legal courts around the world; there  may be a larger niche for this in our society, as something we consider has a place, but I think really, we will change a lot to adapt to the presence of a variety of drugs in our society, negating the desire for their use. We will become more harmonious, and happier, and more respectful of individuality and individual freedoms. In conclusion, in this way people will feel full, whole and fulfilled, open to a very wide range of positive emotions without recourse to narcotic assistance. And I imagine that spirituality would have a more accepted position in society, so that people will be free and encouraged to find their own truth. Tomorrow will be different. Through sorrow or willingly, we will create a happier society, where there is fulfilment and no want, and where nobility is not selective but universal.




There. Just some insights. And I didn't mention ESP once... I hope all that has been valuable to you.