Oooookay so this chick Mary is on one of my mailing groups, and she just rocks, she sent this message in response to this particular query below. While I do not agree with some of the portions, I do see her point and tend to see what she is trying to say. However, she does rock and I do agree with the majority of this post, read to yer delight kiddos:
What should I say? If you guys have any advise, i would really appreciate it.
I think it's great that you establish with your brother early that he can talk to you and come to you with his problems. If you can talk to him about critical thinking skills, about accurately analyzing risks and benefits on his own, you'll be equipping him with tools he can use to deal with *any* situation he meets in life.
But limiting the discussion to drugs, first of all, where there's rock'n'roll, there's drugs. Where there's jazz, there's drugs. Where there's sports, there's drugs. Basically, where there's people, there's drugs. Especially if you include alcohol and tobacco in your warnings, which you should.
Next, point out that sober raving is a viable option. A lot of people do it. No, seriously… :->. And if they don't start out as sober ravers, often they become sober or near-sober after a six-month honeymoon where they act like total fools and swallow everything they can find. Most of the people that you see staying in the electronic music scene, month after month, year after year, have learned to greatly curtail their drug use. After a year, if someone's still here in the scene, they're probably much more excited about the music and the friends they've made than the drugs.
Then tell the truth about the bad shit, or the worrisome shit.
Explain, truthfully, the dangers.
Here's the kind of stuff *I* tell people I care about who are just starting to be curious about this stuff, including my personal list of “worst risks”, ranked in order of horribleness. Your mileage may vary, but this is based on long observation, and much personal fucking up. I'd love to save some other poor little shit the trouble:
- Methamphetamine. Widely available, cheap, effective, addictive, and fuckin' *NASTY*. Also guaranteed to lose you teeth, hair, mental acuity, and friends. I've buried more speedfreak friends than I've lost to anything else. This is an especially seductive drug, since, for the first few months, it turns you into exactly what everyone else seems to want you to be: focused, energetic, slender, hard-working, verbally facile, apparently vibrant, etc. But it borrows from the future, and the bills always come due, ya know?
- Heroin. Feels dandy, but it's horribly addictive and quite expensive. Plus, it sucks for dancing… or doing anything much, really… except preparing for that exciting lifetime career as a heroin addict. 
Since dosages and purity levels are not controlled, it's also way too easy to miscalculate and send yourself off to the graveyard forty or fifty years early. Oopsy.
- PCP. This one doesn't seem to be around much anymore, but it really sucks. It's the one drug I've seen that can *really* change peoples' personalities, really make them do stupid or violent shit they wouldn't otherwise do.
- Tobacco. Don't laugh. Sure, it's legal and an entrenched part of our culture, and, thanks to advertising, of Cool Culture everywhere. It's more addictive than heroin. It kills 400,000 Americans a year. Sure, they're not young cute Americans, like the movie stars and singers and comedians and models that die from heroin, but they're still dying decades too young. And when they don't die, they have strokes, which suck worse than being in prison forever. It also stinks like dogshit, requires frequent dosing, creates litter, makes fat Republican bastards rich, and is a big pain in the ass. A great habit not to start.
- Alcohol, if used to excess. Although not addictive for some people, it's highly addictive for others. Still a leader in the body count, thanks to accidents and the diseases that result from long-time heavy use. It's also fairly easy to give yourself a deadly overdose. Frats seem to lose a few incoming freshmen a year this way, far more than the total of Ecstasy-related deaths, worldwide, over the past 10 years. This is a perfectly jolly “social lubricant” drug if you stick to smallish doses and infrequent doses, and a real life-fucker if you don't.
And here is a set of general recommendations that apply to most drugs. Personal fuckups contributed mightily to this list. I'd *love* to save some other poor little shit the pain and trouble:
- No drug, including legal drugs, including prescription drugs, is safe for everyone, all the time. You are always taking a risk when you fool with your brain chemistry. You only get one brain to a customer. Be careful with it.
- Know what you're getting, insofar as possible. Legal drugs are nice this way. And test kits rawk. I buy them as gifts for friends.
- Don't buy crap from shady strangers standing around in the corners at parties, hawking their wares. Getting ripped off is one of the better (and commoner) outcomes from this scenario. Getting seriously poisoned this way is not unheard of. This is, for me, a NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!
- Don't do *anything* every day, unless it's a maintenance drug you need for a bona fide physical disease, like diabetes or schizophrenia or bipolar disease. (BTW, this doesn't include “something you got yourself addicted to, so now you feel like crap if you don't have it every day”. If you're addicted, knock that shit off and get treatment.)
- Hell, don't do anything every weekend. If you can't imagine yourself having fun without illegal recreational drugs or alcohol, you might be heading for trouble. If you're needing to self-medicate your depression that badly, see your doctor and get something more specifically tailored for your emotional or mental problems.
- Don't mix substances. (OK, marijuana seems fairly benign for this, but be careful anyway.) This includes legal drugs and prescription drugs. Some things that otherwise aren't much risk will kill you if you mix them with even a moderate amount of alcohol. Some anti-depressants must *never* be used with serotonin releasers like Ecstasy. Be *very* informed. If you take prescription drugs, read the package inserts. Know exactly what they do.
- Don't let your life be all about drugs, especially if you're still in high school or college. While you're concentrating on getting a buzz on, you'll miss out on educational and intellectual opportunities, and opportunities for friendships with worthwhile people. These opportunities may never come around for you again.
- Don't surround yourself only with friends who never judge you, never criticize you, never call you on your bullshit. Some “nonjudgmental” people don't judge or criticize, even when you do something really fucking stupid, because… well… they don't fucking care. Or they're finding your downward spiral entertaining and amusing. Or your degradation makes them feel better about their own loser asses. Not everybody who gives you shit is your enemy; not everybody who pulls you out of shit is your friend. Likewise, if suddenly *many* of your old friends are implying that you're developing a problem, don't just get new “nonjudgmental” friends. Check to see if maybe your old friends are right.
- If you're under 18, please avoid psychedelics. They can do strange things to a developing brain. I didn't follow this advice, and hell…*look* at me… I'm not kidding. There are ways in which I'm an effective successful adult, and other ways in which I'm really not very well equipped to deal with the world as it is.
- Use the *smallest* effective dose you can. This is not a weightlifting contest. This is no time for macho competition to see whose liver works best, or whose fragile brain chemistry can survive the most flagrant abuse and damage. Especially if you're doing Illegals,lose the Frat-Boy-Drinking-Game high-score mentality. It's wasteful, expensive, and dangerous.
- Realize that there is always a risk. Drugs like LSD, that might just give 1000 of your friends one hell of an interesting 7 hours, might uncover *your* latent schizophrenia . Ecstasy, that might give 1000 of your friends a cuddly, dancey, happy five hours, might hit you oddly, so you have a sour and bewildering time while all your friends are happy as clams. Or you might be prone to rEbound four or five days later. Be as informed as you can be. Read the info sites, like erowid, on the Internet. Take precautions, like nutritional supplementation. And if you are still feeling the lingering effects of some little indiscretion many days later, for God's sake, see a doctor.
