Show Notes
Last week, Jonathan Van Ness, star of Queer Eye, came out with his memoir and an interview with NY Times about life managing HIV, sexual abuse, and drug addiction. They are all pressing issues in the queer community and in this episode, we dive into drugs.
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Why are drugs prevalent in gay and Asian culture?
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History of drug use in gay culture
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Prevalence of drugs on gay dating apps
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Chemsex culture
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Drawing the line between personal responsibility and encouragement
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The G epidemic in gay culture
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A look into drug consumption worldwide
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The opioid epidemic in the US
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Drug laws and regulations across Asia
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Impact of drug liberalization
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How to manage drug culture when it is around us
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LGBTQIA Youth Talkline (ages 23 and under)
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1-800-96-YOUTH
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Mon–Sat, 9.30 pm–12 am EST
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Tue, 7 pm–12 am EST
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Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Youth Hotline (ages 23 and under)
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1.800.773.5540
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Mon–Fri, 12 pm–8 pm EST
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Gay and Lesbian National Hotline
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1-888-843-4564
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Mon–Fri, 4 pm–12 am EST
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Trans Lifeline
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1-877-565-8860
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SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service) or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service, in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders. This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations. Callers can also order free publications and other information.
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Trevor Suicide Prevention Line
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1-800-850-8078
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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HIV/AIDS/STD Line
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1-800-342-2437
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HIV/AIDS Treatment Info Services
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1-800-448-0440
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TDD: 1-888-480-3739
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Mon–Fri, 12 pm–5 pm EST
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Covenant House’s Nine Line (a crisis line for youth and their families)
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1-800-999-9999
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National Runaway Switchboard
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1-800-231-6946
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National Youth Crisis Hotline
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1-800-HIT-HOME
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Alcohol and Drug Abuse Hotline
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1-800-821-4357
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Alcohol Hotline
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1-800-252-6465
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Drug Abuse Hotline
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1-800-888-9383
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Grindr finally deletes capital T due to concern over promoting meth
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Show Transcript
Steven Wakabayashi: Hello. So here we are. Here we are again. Hi everyone. My name is Steven Wakabayashi, and you’re listening to Yellow Glitter Mindfulness. Through the eyes and soul of a gay Asian. Every episode I share with you what’s on my mind and things I’m struggling with and how I’m working through it to help you live a more mindful, fabulous life.
Before you play on this episode, I just wanted to let you know in advance that some of the content in this podcast will contain details about drugs, both illegal and legal substances. Be sure to listen away from ears or use headphones accordingly. So this episode we talk about drugs, whether we like to admit it or not, they’re a huge part of both gay and Asian culture.
For the sake of simplicity, I am considering both illegal and legal substances. When I say drugs in this podcast, including alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and recreational drugs, unless otherwise specified as a gay Asian, I feel two things. On one side, I have the free hippie spirit of the queer culture that is deeply intertwined with drugs.
And on the other side, I have the zero tolerance culture of Asia that aims to silence drug trafficking and personal consumption with harsh punishments yet, They produce the bulk of the exported drugs in the world. In this episode, we cover why drugs are prevalent in both gay and Asian culture, history of drug use in the gay culture.
Where do we draw the line of personal responsibility versus encouragement? The G epidemic in gay culture, drug consumption worldwide. The opioid epidemic. The drug epidemic of Asia. Different punishments across Asian countries, the impact of drug liberalization on treatment, and how to manage life alongside drug culture.
So let’s start first by talking about queer culture and its relationship with drugs. Samsa, substance abuse and mental health service administration did a 2015 national survey on drug use and mental health. They found that the sexual majority, those who reported heterosexual on the survey, 7.8% of them reported either alcohol or illicit drug use disorder.
This compared to the sexual minority, those who reported as being gay, lesbian, or bi on the survey. Reported 15% with either alcohol or illicit drug use disorder, 7.8 versus 15.1%. Sexual minorities were almost twice as more likely to have alcohol or illicit drug use disorder versus the sexual majority.
Based on this survey. Along digging deeper there, research points to higher mental distress in sexual minority individuals that may play a role in the higher. Alcohol and drug use disorder. Totally. And if you think about safe areas for gay people to congregate, back in the day they were in the bars and in the nightclubs.
Some of the most popular social media stars in the queer community today are drag queens. And where do they primarily work? In the bars and nightclubs were drugs and alcohol. Are prevalent. Iconic Studio 54 nightclub opened in 1927 and hit the peak of its time in the eighties. For the first time, trans and queer performers were given the stage and everyone queer or straight wanted in.
And at that time, in the sixties and mid seventies, huge counterculture movement of hippies and experimentation with psychedelics and other substances were also happening at the same time. It wasn’t until 1966 that L SS D was banned in 1985, that M D M A also known as three four methylene dioxide methamphetamine, the same derivatives also found in meth and Adderall was banned here in the States.
Studio 54 had an open drug culture within its walls long ago, I also used to work in the nightlife as a bartender and dancer in the neighborhood of San Diego. And the worst part about the job was how intertwined it was with substances. And my job. I would be asked by the owner not to turn down drinks as they were handed to me by customers.
And on a handful of nights I had no idea how I got home from work. That’s when I realized. I had to leave. And as I moved to New York a few years later, starry-eyed and bushy tailed, I started to dabble in the nightlife scene as well. I was going to bars, club warehouses, you name it, multiple times a week.
And when I was in it, it wasn’t just alcohol being freely offered by friends all the time. I was handed weeded cocaine. Ketamine, also known as horse tranquilizer, M D M A sometimes. All in the same night. I took this further and made a lot of friends at the party scene, and also started to go to raves, circuit parties, gay cruises, and even Burning Man.
I was exposed to every type of drug imaginable and experimented as opportunities came up. As my health came crashing down in 2017, it was a huge wake up call to focus on taking care of my body. Thankfully. I never built in addiction to substances, and I have been clean ever since. It’s not just at parties.
Drugs are prevalent though. It’s also easily accessible through gay dating apps. When you’re skimming through the app, you’ll see a whole bunch of acronyms and emojis. In people’s profiles, they are indicating whether someone is a top, a bottom verse with the peach eggplant, or with arrows. But they can sometimes mean a whole lot more random sign note.
While I was researching for this podcast, I found someone’s thesis on eggplants and peaches underlying emoji use on Grindr. That’s the title from East Tennessee State University. It was pretty funny to read through and I can’t believe there’s a dissertation on this, and I’m not kidding at all. I’ll put a link to this in the show notes, but back to the point on these gay dating apps, some of these emojis and acronyms, I.
Are just more than sexual preferences. If you see a capital T inconspicuously placed in a word like par T, or if they have an ice cream emoji or a diamond emoji, this means ice. Or Tina, the street name for crystal meth or a crystal methamphetamine. And if you take a quick browse, You’ll see invitations for P N P or Party and play out in the open.
In these apps, they are invitations for gay meetups, centered around drugs and sex, also known as chemsex parties. Typically, they use meth. They are fast, cheap, and keep people all night to party and play all throughout the night. And if you haven’t gotten it yet, By play, I mean sex and also profiles with h and h.
It means high and horny, which means drugs are involved with play as well. And in the apps as you browse, you’ll find all sorts of emojis in the profiles. You don’t even need to contact them to see. If you see a tree, a clover leaf, a smokey emoji, it means pot. If you see a snowflake, a snowman, This means snow or cocaine.
An eight ball emoji means an eight ball amount of a substance. Typically, this is 3.5 grams of cocaine. If you see pills, they mean M D M A, Molly, and if you see a horse emoji with a syringe next to it, this is, or tranquilizer, also known as ketamine, going on these dating apps. Especially in metropolitan neighborhoods, you are guaranteed to spot these in profiles without even looking for it.
I’ve had friends go and travel abroad and use dating apps to procure third party favors. This is way too easy. Many will argue that the responsibility should be on the individuals themselves, but I argue for those who have yet to develop the mindset to be responsible, or those who are predispositioned with addictive personalities.
What checks and balances are in place to help these individuals. We live amongst a community of people around us, and it is all of our responsibility to care for one another. I’ve had friends fall into addiction because of the easy accessibility to drugs through the apps, and it hurt me to see them this way.
Where do we draw the line of personal responsibility versus encouragement? Grindr launched our own series of emojis a while back, and in 2017 recalled one emoji in particular, a capital T after users were outraged at the dating app for this encouraged meth users. Just like many of these social media platforms now, like Facebook, Twitter.
They’re finally taking charge of monitoring their content for endangerment harassment and political scams. Gay dating apps like Grindr, Jack Hornet, they all need to do the same as well. I heard it best said by a technology commentator years back when pressuring these social media channels to take control and monitor their content.
You can’t build the highways without employing the maintenance and patrol. When you build a social media platform or any platform for that matter, it is your due diligence to take responsibility for all of the actions on and leading from your digital product and a drug. I want to talk a little bit more in depth.
Is G A K A gamma hydroxy? Butyric acid, also known as G H B. It has been a part of the gay community for a while, but in the past few years I’ve noticed it taking over like a storm. And if you’re in the dating apps and you see a capital G anywhere, they’re talking about g. In the nineties, G H B was first marketed as a dietary supplement to bodybuilders.
Before it was widely known as a date rape drugs. This clear, odorless, viscous liquid, keeps you up, controls your weight, but when you mix it with alcohol, you are down for the count. But without mixing alcohol, you get the same feeling of being drunk. Without really being drunk. Although oil was listed as a Schedule one controlled substance by the US in 2000, it is also used to create sodium Oxybate, also a prescription used to treat narcolepsy.
So because of this, it’s classified as a Schedule three substance, but with schedule one trafficking laws in the us, schedule one drug means that. It is a drug with no accepted medical use with high potential for abuse. This includes heroin, M D M A L S D, also known as acid cannabis, which is federally illegal, but legal in some states and psilocybin the psychoactive substance of magic mushrooms.
Schedule three drugs are drugs with low potential for. Physical and psychological dependence, but are prescribed for medical use. This includes ketamine products with 90 milligrams of coating or more Vicodin, anabolic steroids and testosterone. The reason why G is such a problem is because one, It is extremely cheap for about a dollar 50 to $3 per dose.
You can get high for an hour or more. And when you compare this with alcohol and other drugs, it is so cheap in comparison. I see this frequently at. Gay bars now where you’ll see people lace their non-alcoholic drinks with G directly. It’s carried through dropper spa bottles, five hour energy bottles, and friends are sharing this with one another like breath mints and mixing it with their drinks out in the open.
G is also extremely accessible. It is. Accessible in some parts of the world as G H B to treat narcolepsy, but the precursor is still legal in most of the world because of its industrial use. One precursor particular G B L, which stands for gamma butyl acetone, is used for paint thinners and floor strippers and legally purchased in most of the world.
Including European countries with a license. Another legal precursor is one for butanediol or B D O. This is used in making polyester polymers like car bumper or used as solvents in printing inks and cleaning agents. People have been using these precursors to make G H B, but in the last few years I’ve noticed a trend in people taking these precursors directly.
More and more because they get high quicker and they last longer in the system as well. Although all these derivatives of G give a nice euphoria, it is so, so dangerous. They are first and foremost, extremely damaging to the body, especially when you use precursors like G B L or B D O that are used to either strip paint off walls, they damage your body.
Permanently. Sometimes when treating overdose cases, it is harder to recover from an overdose with precursors than it is with G H P. It is also extremely hard to dose because of its liquid form. People are not aware first and foremost of what they’re buying because G and all the different precursors, they all look identical to each other.
When you buy them as products, it’s so hard to tell whether or not they have been adulterated and in clubs when people are trying to dose and use it in the dark, people are fumbling around with various containers, droppers, lids, trying to measure and end up just pouring it into each other’s mouths, especially when high already.
As far as dosing goes, one milliliter can be the difference between a nice euphoria versus being unconscious on the ground. And gay parties I’ve attended to recently in the past few years, you see friends dragging and carrying their friends unconsciously in their arms out of the clubs. These products are also extremely addictive.
Friends who have been doing G on an almost daily basis have built a dependency on the substance and require hospitalization to wean off of it. Two years ago, I donated to a GoFundMe for a friend who was in the hospital due to his G abuse and in recovery, he could not function, let alone speak coherent sentences and with thrash in the hospital bed as he was being detoxed.
As he was starting to make sense again, he was in a delirious state talking about an alternate reality. How scary is that? And lastly, this drug is still extremely unknown. It is not extensively studied as many of the other recreational drugs, and people aren’t sure yet how it directly affects the body, how you get that euphoria and how it kills people through overdose.
Many of my friends will still argue that as long as substances don’t impact their jobs or their social life, It’s not a problem. The onus is on the individual themselves, and while a part of me wants to agree with that, the part I don’t agree with is the normalization of drug use for those who may not be able to handle it.
There are those who look at the community for an example of how to behave and when drug use is normalized or at worst expected in a social situation, for example, you have people who may not be able to tolerate it or who have addictive personalities that end up with substance abuse problems. With G being so prevalent and being normalized, it’s having a huge impact to the queer community and people are dying from this.
A three day party weekend goes by and someone mysteriously passes away typically when someone passes away. I’ve seen a trend on Facebook where people will rage over how either cancer or a car crash took their loved ones away. Way too soon. But when it comes to substance abuse, overdose, the cause of death is always silent.
Nobody wants to talk about it. Instead, you’ll see people celebrating who they were, but ironically, the people posting about memories with them on Facebook are the same exact people you saw doing drugs with them at the club. I’ve known some of these people who have passed away back in my party days. As friends and if.
I count friends of friends from social media. The count almost doubles. One friend from nightlife in particular had fallen into a coma a while back, and after he came out of it, I saw him back in the scene. My first reaction was to pull him aside and have a sit down conversation with him about the dangers of this lifestyle and to focus more on his health.
After my heart to heart with him, he was quickly pulled away by other acquaintances. And were offered substances. He passed away recently this year, a few months ago, and although I do not know the exact cause of his death, I do know that his health was rapidly declining, which was posted frequently on his social media and people still partied with him, offering him substance at every event I saw him at.
He was also dealing on the side, and I knew many people that still bought directly from him even after he came out of his coma and after he passed away. There are no mention about drugs or anything of that nature in his profile. Just loving memories of him and the parties he was at. Posted by the same people who shared drugs with him or bought substances from him directly.
When looking at this situation from outside in, who is the irresponsible party? Perhaps instead of pointing fingers using this and all the deaths of the community that hit two close to home as a sign that there is a problem here if someone falls. It’s up to us to pick them back up and to hold them up together.
This is our community. If we aren’t the agent of change, we are the problem. If we make the highways, we better also bring the maintenance and patrol I. As we look outward from the gay parties, raves and music festivals all around the United States and all around the world are in line to follow the trends of the queer community as well.
You see this with substances gaining momentum, ketamine and G in particular, and until we take a step back and figure out how to build a more mindful and mature relationship with these, we’re gonna have a problem on our hands. As we look globally based on UN’s 2018 World Drug Report. In 2016, there were 192 million cannabis users, 34 million opioid users, 34 million amphetamine and amphetamine related prescription stimulant users, 21 million ecstasy users, 19 million opiate users, and 18 million cocaine users.
This is happening all around us. In the US we have currently an opioid epidemic sweeping the nation. Long story short, doctors back in the day prescribed opioid painkillers because they were advertised by the companies who created these opioids, that they were non-addictive and that they would help reduce pain in patients.
Fast forward to today, we have people dependent on opioids and based on Department of Health and Human Services. A 2017 survey that they had done, 11.4 million people misuse opioids. 2.1 million people have an opioid use disorder and 48. Thousand people have died from it. And according to C D C since 19 99, 390 9,000 people have died from overdose involving any opioid use, including prescription and illicit versions of it.
These addictive painkillers gave rise to a synthetic need, fentanyl and heroin that people have become addicted to and are killing people everywhere. Though other parts of the world have started addiction onto other substances in Asia. Meth is gaining rapid momentum. According to A C N N investigation in 2018, Asian countries have ditched heroin in favor of cheaper, newer alternatives, methamphetamine.
This doesn’t require crops like poppies used in heroin production and production of. Amphetamines can happen everywhere and be hidden extremely easy. With poppies, they can be detected using satellite imagery and amphetamines can be covered in tarps and be made completely indoors. Production happen mostly in lawless areas of Thailand, lyos and Myanmar, what is called the golden triangle.
In between these countries, amphetamine production is. Extremely prevalent here and moved quickly on short notice. Myanmar actually is now thought to be the meth hub in the world making most of the meth that is transported a across international borders. And this is based on a 2017 assessment of drug seizures by UN’s office on drugs and crime.
And with drug trafficking on the rise in countries around Asia, it’s really funny when you think about the laws that are in place. Asian countries have some of the most harshest laws when it comes to drugs, capital punishment, and the death penalty. Is instated for drug use and trafficking across countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India, North Korea, Laos, and in Singapore, they have some of the strictest laws for having 0.5 ounces of certain drugs that is considered trafficking punishable by death.
And if we think about. Point five ounces, you are allowed to bring 3.5 ounces of a liquid on an airplane. This is almost less than one sixth of that. The death penalty is also in Taiwan and in South Korea, but Taiwan had their last execution in 2002 and South Korea had their last execution in 1997. And lastly, you also have Myanmar.
That has the death penalty, the meth capital in the world. Ironically, Myanmar has also legalized cannabis use since 1939. In the other countries of Asia, they don’t have the death penalty, but there is long-term prison sentence and high fines in place like Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Philippines.
In. Japan in particular, you can get five years of jail time for your first offense. And in the Philippines, although they abolished a death penalty after the end of Marco’s dictatorship in 1986, the current president Robert Es current war on drugs pushes. To bring back this capital punishment. And honestly, he’s already doing it.
23,000 people have died as a part of this war on drugs since 2016. And this isn’t just the people who are trafficking and who are using bystanders and. Anyone else just caught up in the same region have ended up dead, and they’re listed and classified as homicides under current investigation. And this was reported through Human Rights watch.org.
But when we talk about drugs, there has been this huge rise of marijuana legalization also in Asia. Thailand was the first country in Asia to legalize cannabis in 2018 for medical use, and it is semi-legal in certain states passed through bribery and Cambodia and Thailand. With the rise in drug production and trafficking, I.
It’s clear that regardless of capital punishment, drugs are still being produced and sold within and across borders even whereas corrupt government aids in the drug trafficking when there is so much money on the line, without criminalizing drugs, there will be no bribery to profit off of. And when money is the law of the land, there is no incentive to legalize this cash cow.
There have been many investigation pieces, including CNN’s look into Myanmar that point to this corruption. These harsh punishments impact atmos the civilian citizens who are buying and using drugs for personal consumption Because of grave punishments in place, many of the people who need treatment with substance abuse refuse to seek it, fearing that it may jeopardize their entire livelihood.
On top of this, there is a deep shame around substance abuse and many individuals end up refusing treatment because of the shame they feel or the shame they are afraid. To bring upon their family in Japan, they have a zero tolerance towards drug use, and for the first offense can wind you up with five years of prison time.
When business leaders and celebrities are caught using drugs, Japanese society disconnects and shuns them completely. When celebrity musician Pier Taki was arrested on suspected suspected cocaine news, Sega pulled a video game. Where he voices a character. Disney replaces voice as Olaf in their frozen two.
His TV shows were canceled and Sony music stopped selling his music. Japanese people do this based on KU or self-restraint companies Feel this and restrain themselves to. Disconnect with those who have acted against the laws of the land. They don’t challenge the laws of the land, they just follow it.
This is so different from our culture here in the US where celebrities can have multiple trips to rehab and still have top grossing music in the charts. But what is the impact of this in the land with such high expectations of itself? It has its cost. Japanese citizens are afraid to talk about curiosities drug use, or even approach substance abuse therapies.
According to Japan Times, there are only 40 institutions for drug addicts throughout the country, and 24 pre fixtures. In Japan have no institutions to treat drug addictions whatsoever. For a country of 127 million people with 40 institutions to treat drug addictions, this is unheard of. And to put it into context in the US that has 16 times the amount of people the US has 14.
Thousand treatment facilities, 40 versus 14,000. This is way more than 16 times the population, and this is just insane. These statistics are just mind blowing and. Still, regardless of the laws in place, accessibility, there is a huge rise based on a paper published in 2017 by researchers all over Japan.
They see that there’s still a huge rise in designer drugs like M D M A, cocaine, hypnotics, and cannabis use all over Japan. There is a need. These strict laws are impacting the people who need it most. These strict laws are impacting the way the citizens are talking and approaching drugs and drug use.
And while we’re on the topic about drugs in Japan, their laws on what are illegal is even more stricter than in the us. From the US Embassy’s website, they list that it is illegal to use even with a prescription in Japan. Over the counter prescriptions like pseudo rine, like Sudafed vix, and also prescription stimulants use to treat A D H D like Adderall, vising and dxi.
And so, Even if you have a prescription in the United States, keep it at home. You can betain, fined, or even imprisoned for a legal US prescription. And as we back up and think about drugs, I. Many people take drugs to cope with life’s harsh circumstances, whether it’s social or economic. Harsh laws are not going to resolve the pain.
People feel deep within their hearts, and if someone hits you with a bat, I. You wouldn’t blame the bat for the hurt you feel, and if someone is taking drugs to alleviate their pain, there’s no win to be had by blaming the drug globally. There’s a huge movement to de-stigmatize and decriminalize certain drugs like cannabis, some arguing that the plant’s medicinal properties far outweigh its recreational use in the us.
Cannabis is now legal in 33 states, and there is also a huge push. Of other recreational drugs based on their therapeutic use, like ketamine and psychedelics, led by many big name scientists and investors, including Tim Ferris. He also helped recently launch the Center of Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine this month.
That aims to investigate the effectiveness of psychedelics as a new therapy for opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s, post-traumatic stress disorder, post-treatment, Lyme disease syndrome, anorexia and alcohol use in people with major depression. There is also a study done with drug policy liberalization across 20 countries in 2018 with the International Journal of Drug Policy.
Many individuals from countries with prohibition based drug policies reported a far greater propensity for changing their help seeking behavior. In the event of a hypothetical policy amendments citing reduced fear of criminal sanctions, As a major reason, more liberal drug policies may pave the way for people to see harm reduction strategies and health service engagement.
But others argue like the Institute for Behavior and Health, that until all drugs are legalized all around the world, we won’t see the impact of drug liberalization. There will always be an at large, destructive illegal market, still looking to disrupt these reforms. And lastly, that takes us to my last point.
How do we manage drug culture that is prevalent, that is all around us? First, acknowledge that I. It is everywhere. It is not going away, and regardless of how hard you close your eyes or how hard the government cracks down on it, drugs will always be around us. Many of the drugs were created with therapeutic benefits in mind to help reduce pain or cope with trauma.
And rather than having a zero tolerance or negative bias against it, perhaps seek to understand why these substances were used or abused in the first place. Understand that people take these substances to cope with life circumstances. Some rely on it to connect deeper with others. And themselves. And when there is substance abuse happening, it is much a bigger sign of the emotional state of the person, or even a country that needs serious support.
Human beings are wired for survival, especially when it comes to substance abuse and in addiction. The pain of the substance far outweigh the internal or external struggles they may be facing. Life as we know it is always in the gray zone. There is no definitive right. And wrong. And even if we try our best to make laws for it, not only can people be addicted to drugs, people can be addicted to eating and working as well.
And if we need to protect our people, why have we not created zero tolerance policies for the killers of overeating and overwork? Has prohibition not taught us anything? Although I can’t say for certain, the answer is complete decriminalization or setting legal limits. What we can do is to try our best at understanding drugs in our society, our culture with more compassion and maturity.
Where there’s pain, there will always be people trying to alleviate it as best they can. Second, if you’re engaging with substances, ask yourself the deeper why. Many of my friends who party often use it as an escape to reality. This used to be me as well. I would go into parties semi sober, and by the time the event had finished, not remembering anything that had happened.
A few things I remind myself to manage substances and, uh, led to my sobriety as well. One, if you’re taking substances to be more social, more likable, more outgoing, understand that whenever you take substances, A magical alien doesn’t come out of the cloud and inhabit your body. You are capable of doing whatever you do and saying whatever you say, regardless if you are on substances or not.
You are already outgoing, you are already charming, and the key is to unlock this part of yourself that is already there, which requires practice. The sooner you start now, the sooner you can embrace it. And if you are taking substances to escape from a problem or situation, understand that it’s going to be there.
Regardless of whether or not you take substances, more than likely the problems may worsen or amplify when drugs are brought into the situation. The sooner you can deal with it, the sooner you can move on. And if you have someone in your life that may have substance abuse problems, approach it first with conversation and compassion.
Communicate it. Let them know what’s on your mind and how it makes you feel when they do what they’re doing. It could have been all a misunderstanding, or better yet you understand the situation a whole lot more. Ask how you can help support them and assess whether or not you’re capable of providing this support.
It’s okay to have limits on what you can provide, and it is absolutely no shame in referring people over to professionals who can help. It is their job and their passion to help people get better. Think of it as recruiting team members to help rather than passing your loved one around like a hot potato.
And if necessary, bring in friends and family to help as well. In the case of serious substance abuse, a single day of being belligerently high can have irreparable damage. If they’re either arrested or hurt themselves or others around them, there are 24 7 hotlines you or. Anyone that you care about can call to get the support.
I’ll put the link. I’ll put the number and link to these resources in the show notes. And lastly, if you’re engaging with substances of any kind, including legal, any legal substances, do your due diligence, research online, the substances, and their short and long-term effects. Reddit is a huge resource where you’ll see posts by people that are unfiltered.
And talk to multiple healthcare professionals and ask the questions. When you have the opportunity to do so. At least in the US it is against HEPA guidelines and patient confidentiality laws to report you to the police for substance abuse. I. There are only a few exceptions to this when it comes to reporting, child abuse, elder abuse, or someone that is considered an imminent threat to themselves or someone else.
But these laws are in place to protect you ask the patient buy test kits that are available online on Amazon, they’re cheap, and you only need to sacrifice a little bit of your substance to truly test and see what is going on in your body. You might be surprised. With the results and understand that your own personal experience with it can be extremely different from someone else’s based on your body’s current state and genetic predisposition.
Just because someone tells you it will make you feel a certain way. You might not, you might end up feeling completely different. You may not feel it, you may feel sick, or at worse, you may have an allergic reaction or build an addiction to the substance. Be careful with substances, just like adding salt and cooking.
You can always add more, but you can’t take away. You only have one body. Make the most of it, and I hope you enjoyed this, this conversation. It was a lot of thinking ruminations I’ve had in the past few weeks, few months, especially after my friend’s death, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to put this into words, and so here it is.
If you wanna reach me, you can follow or message me on my Instagram at. Instagram slash Steven Waka Bahi, and I also publish a weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to to get your share of yellow glitter and things in mindfulness that I’m loving or inspired [email protected]. And if you have time, I would really love a review and rating on iTunes so others can see this as a recommendation.
I would really, really appreciate it with that. So much love for you and your journey, your process, and hope your day can be a little bit more mindful. Bye now.