<TITLE> Healthy Drug Use</TITLE>
<META NAME = "keywords" CONTENT = "drug use, health, responsibility, recreational drugs, Duncanian, moderation">
<META NAME = "description" CONTENT = "Examines the health responsibilities of the recreational drug user..>
</HEAD>
1. Choose to abstain from social-recreational drug use when appropriate for reasons of health and physical fitness. There are many times when it is inappropriate to use certain psychoactive drugs. Among these are times when a person’s physical health is impaired due to illness or injury or when a person is under severe stress or is emotionally distraught. There are other times when abstaining is appropriate, even though we may not be ill (e.g., during pregnancy).
2. Avoid the frequent use of recreational drugs for the purpose of coping with problems. When we begin to use drugs habitually in any specific situation or circumstance, we have moved from recreational to intensified or com-pulsive drug use. Once again, the user is someone who controls their use of drugs, not the person whose actions are dictated by those drugs.
3. Heed the advice of a physician either to avoid the use of a particular recreational drug or use it only as suggested. There are occasions when we are not the best judge of our own state of health. During these times, we must defer to the advice of others who may have our best interests in mind.
4. Recognize that social acceptability does not require drug use. As discussed before, each member of a social group should understand the boundaries
of acceptable behavior. In reasonable situations, that might include the use of recreational drugs and the right to abstain from the use of such drugs. Drug use is not an unimportant decision and should be made because you want to—and when you want to. Do not allow yourself to be put in a situation wherein you must defer to group opinion in order to be socially accepted. Conversely, do not contribute to a situation where you do the same to others.
5. Use drugs in the manner intended so as to minimize the potential risks. We have spent a great deal of time describing how drugs have been used and in what ways they may be used. This may provide some useful guidelines for you.
6. Recognize that recreational drugs are drugs and understand what that means. Recreational drugs are substances that have a broad range of potential effects. The determinants of the outcome of the recreational use of drugs depend on the combined effects of set and settings, the quantity of drug taken, and the manner in which it is taken. The effects we come to expect from a recreational drug do not always happen. Perhaps more than most other situations in which drugs are taken, social-recreational settings may be the most variable; therefore our expectations are more often chance than certain.
7. Set reasonable limits on the consumption of recreational drugs that are well within your own capacity, which can vary from time to time. Here, too, the consequences of set and setting become obvious. Everyone has their own limits. We learn these from experience. But even in one indi-vidual, the limits vary from time to time. The classic example is seen with alcohol. Almost everyone has experienced a situation in which they have had a few drinks, certainly less than they have many other times, and yet were more intoxicated than at any other time. We change over time, and that affects our reaction to drugs. Certainly everyone would agree that different individuals have different limits. The key point here really has two elements. First, you know your limits better than most others; there-fore you should set your limits on consumption. We are occasionally poor judges of our own limits, but it is our responsibility to become more responsible judges. Second, just as you would not want others to set your limits, do not set limits for others who are acting responsibly in their own behalf.
8. Be particularly careful of using combinations of drugs in recreational settings. A substantial portion of this book was devoted to the dangers of drug interactions. This point should be carefully heeded because we know that some interactions are potentially dangerous and because we do not know all of the potentially harmful combinations of drugs.
9. Remember that the use of some psychoactive drugs may mask some signs and/or symptoms of serious illness or injury. Avoid continued use of any
psychoactive drug for long periods of time. All drugs have several effects. In a recreational setting we are most interested in the psychoactive effects, but many drugs kill pain, slow responses to stimuli, and affect our in-terpretations of stimuli. Constant use of a drug may hide pain or discom-fort. We sometimes forget that pain and discomfort are important to us. Without them we often do not know about illness or injury, and perhaps the most effective way to complicate some illnesses and/or injuries is to ignore them.
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