In the past I would have said when ask: “obviously not all drugs are bad” without being pressed. But when it comes to moment to moment decision making I would have subconsciously weight things such that not taking drugs is better. That is the pernicious thing. It’s not about what people say when pressed. It’s about how they make decisions moment to moment.
It seems that I used moral strictures subconsciously, while my stated position was almost be the opposite of these strictures. And both are—like you said—didn’t really make sense.
A bias against drugs is very different from “drugs are always bad”. It’s very reasonable to say “I’d prefer not to mess with my body via fairly blunt chemical intervention, but there are lots of exceptions for specific cases where the risk is worth it”.
Not taking drugs IS better, in the median case of a drug being offered to you. It’s just that the variance is wide—sometimes it’d be extremely bad (say, narcotics before a road-trip), sometimes it’s quite good (antibiotics when you have pneumonia). Often it’s less clear, and having a default position against this kind of intervention is probably OK.
In the past I would have said when ask: “obviously not all drugs are bad” without being pressed. But when it comes to moment to moment decision making I would have subconsciously weight things such that not taking drugs is better. That is the pernicious thing. It’s not about what people say when pressed. It’s about how they make decisions moment to moment.
It seems that I used moral strictures subconsciously, while my stated position was almost be the opposite of these strictures. And both are—like you said—didn’t really make sense.
A bias against drugs is very different from “drugs are always bad”. It’s very reasonable to say “I’d prefer not to mess with my body via fairly blunt chemical intervention, but there are lots of exceptions for specific cases where the risk is worth it”.
Not taking drugs IS better, in the median case of a drug being offered to you. It’s just that the variance is wide—sometimes it’d be extremely bad (say, narcotics before a road-trip), sometimes it’s quite good (antibiotics when you have pneumonia). Often it’s less clear, and having a default position against this kind of intervention is probably OK.