My war with drugs

I’ve always had a rather liberal attitude towards drugs. I don’t particularly want any for myself, but if you want drugs I don’t care. I think we spend too much money prosecuting pot smokers. I think most drugs should be legalized, taxed, and distributed to adults. I don’t think pot is a gateway drug – and the only people who use it as a gateway drug are people who would most likely find the harder drugs anyway.

I don’t have much experience with drugs, something that I occasionally regret (although the older I get, the less I regret it). I did, however, live in Venice, California for four years…so you may draw your own conclusions.

I don’t seem to have a particularly addictive personality – even with the cigarettes….I started smoking when I was 19, party because some of my new friends smoked, but mostly so I could meet a guy. That winter was super cold, and I had one 3 hour lab with Shane. I was madly in love with Shane – and he was a smoker. So, during the lab breaks, he’d go out to smoke, and I had to start smoking so that I, too, could go out for smoke breaks. No one in their right mind would go stand outside for 10 minutes in the 30-below-zero temperatures unless they were smoking.

It worked. I met Shane. We became friends. Of course, the grand romance I had originally envisioned never materialized. We corresponded for awhile after I graduated, but I haven’t heard from him for awhile.

Anyways – back to my point. So – I smoked. And later, when I first decided that the logical thing to do was quit, I had a little trouble doing so. But, when I really wanted to quit, it wasn’t a problem at all. And now, I can go smoke a pack of cigarettes when I’m hanging with my smoker-friends, and not smoke at all the rest of the time. I don’t have cravings, and now that I don’t have an hour-long-plus commute, the habit is completely broken.

So – for me, drugs have a kind of surreal danger. I’ve known people who’ve been unable to function without their wake ‘n’ bake lifestyle, and have known people whose lives have been screwed up by their own and their loved ones drug use – but it’s never been a huge issue for me and my loved ones. As far as I know.

However, in the last couple of days, my live and let live attitude towards drugs and whatever has been shattered.

I have a head cold. A rather severe head cold. A head cold that is causing 100% congestion, making it impossible to breathe through my nose, which makes sleeeping sporadic and not restful.

So – for the first time in over four years, I went to the store to buy some decongestants. And do you know what? The regular staples (DayQuil, NyQuil and Tylenol Cold & Sinus) all have fun little messages about their “new decongestants.” These “new” decongestants, I think, are not decongestants at all, for I am not decongesting. I did some research, and found out that many people do not feel that they are decongesting with the new drugs.

Then, I did some more research and found out that pseudoephedrine, the wonderful decongestant, is no longer sold in Oregon without a prescription. Most states were content to simply lock it up and make you ask the pharmacist, but not Oregon. And all because pseudoephedrine is used to make meth.

So – all you stupid meth cookers and users that have made it impossible for me to decongest – I hope you go to jail and rot. Because of you, I can’t sleep. In fact, I’m almost ready to embrace the death penalty if it means that I can have a little DayQuil.

I think tonight I’ll drive to Washington and buy some NyQuil and smuggle it back across state lines. Because of the new drug laws designed to cut down on meth cooking, I’m becoming a drug smuggler. How does that make sense?

(The answer? It doesn’t. In fact, none of this made sense, because I haven’t been able to breathe for three days and it’s starting to affect my ability to think and communicate.)

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