Does it count as recreational drug use if you're not having fun?
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Yeah I sure as hell wish I didn’t have to take a bunch of pills to survive. But medical conditions are no joke.
The post doesn't say recreational.
...yeah... The bottom row is kinda ableist as fuck.
No, not really. At all. It's just making fun of people that think they don't do drugs but take any number of things that are, in fact, drugs.
You're pretending this is saying anything about the drugs themselves beyond that they are, in fact, drugs.
Not pretending but interpreting based upon what I see now to be a wildly different set of biases. The medications on the bottom row and their conditions are still in many places heavily stigmatized and the reality of their existence denied (it's "fun" to be treated like a junkie by pharmacies when trying to fill a prescription that helps you function). Also, my perception of cannabis for recreational and medicinal uses being "normal" definitely made me see it in a radically different light than it was intended.
No one is saying you're wrong about people having bad perceptions of drugs.
The irony is, this joke is AGREEING WITH YOU. It's implying those judgemental assholes probably take some kind of drug themselves and shouldn't be stigmatizing drug use as bad.
Indeed! Just a problem with misinterpretation on my side.
How's that? Walk us through it.
Left to Right:
- Prozac (fluoxetine): An SSRI used to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, PMDD, bulimia nervosa, and other psychological disorders.
- Ritalin (methylphenidate): A CNS stimulant and dopamine/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy.
- Valium (diazepam): A benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, seizures, alcohol withdrawal syndrome (potentially lethal), muscle spasms, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, and various others.
Putting these in the same league as the others, which are recreational drugs of voluntary choice (though some highly addictive) implies that the disorders that they are used to treat lack seriousness.
That people with the well-studied major depressive disorder "just need to smile more/cheer up/spark up a joint and relax" and that they don't really need to choose medications to stabilize the chemical imbalances in their brains, despite its potential to cause their death.
Or that people with ADHD, which is literally a disability, people just need to not be lazy, they don't need to choose to use medications to help with their developmental disorder of the prefrontal cortex - just reward themselves when they do.
Valium is an important medication for people with severe, debilitating anxiety disorders like GAD that can allow them to function. For some, cannabis and isolates of its chemical constituents can be very helpful but others' brain chemistry can't tolerate it.
Hell, even the NSAID medications in the second row are often used for debilitating conditions like arthritis.
Beer, coffee, and cigarettes? Not so much. Though to be fair, coffee does get used as a marginally effective self-medication for those who who have either not yet been diagnosed with ADHD or are unable to use effective medications.
Honestly, considering the comm, cannabis would be right with the medications in the third row. Yes, it's used recreationally (no problem with that, to be clear) but, it is also a life-changing and life-saving medicine for people undergoing chemo, as well as people suffering from some psychological and physical conditions.
So, yeah...pretty shit meme that goes into similar territory to anti-vax.
I'm going to agree with the other commenter and say that I think you've missed the point of the meme. People will absolutely treat you as lesser for using cannabis because it's a "drug", while also themselves using drugs both recreational and otherwise. I've gotten strife from folks that take prescription opiates for using medicinal cannabis, as if I'm faking it. That doesn't mean that I think lesser of them for taking their needed medications. Though it is really interesting how doctor's actually think lesser of those on opiates. Ya know, because those doctors are garbage.
Also, as someone with ADHD, I'm going to be a little pedantic for a second. ADHD itself isn't a disability, it's the psychosocial conditions it causes that is the disability. For example, when someone has a leg amputated we don't call the condition that caused it the disability, we call the lack of a leg the disability.
I'm going to agree with the other commenter and say that I think you've missed the point of the meme.
Quite possibly. Likely my interpretation is heavily biased by having resided in places where cannabis has been legal for a long time and take the medicinal uses as a given.
Though it is really interesting how doctor's actually think lesser of those on opiates. Ya know, because those doctors are garbage.
Yup. Judgement like that does nothing to help a patient.
Also, as someone with ADHD, I'm going to be a little pedantic for a second. ADHD itself isn't a disability, it's the psychosocial conditions it causes that is the disability. For example, when someone has a leg amputated we don't call the condition that caused it the disability, we call the lack of a leg the disability.
I also have ADHD. I don't disagree with this assessment. Yes, saying that it is a disability is an oversimplification. It is indeed (primarily) the need to function in a society that does not usually even attempt to allow space for non-neurotypical people that causes it to be able to be so debilitating at times.
I mean, it is absolutely a disabling condition but it's just, within disability advocacy we generally talk about what the functional impact is as the disability, not the condition that caused it. So, with ADHD you have functional impacts like being unable to complete a task because of a mental block. When those tasks are ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) like feeding oneself, drinking water, going to the bathroom, even stuff like booking a doctor's appt for prescription repeats, that itself is the disability that ADHD is causing. Psychosocial disability is just the umbrella term for those collective difficulties around completing ADLs due to psychological conditions, such as ADHD, Autism, Bipolar, etc, and yes also the way those react with society as a whole but also like, every one's gotta eat, ya know?
Anyway, like I said it's just a little nitpick. It's similar, but the opposite to people saying that being in a wheelchair is a disability and it's like no, it's a mobility disability that causes a need to use the wheelchair.
And thank you for that "nitpick". Despite previously being on roughly the same page, I learned a bit in terminology that I was not aware of that helps to better describe things.
I think you're drawing a lot of inferences from a meme that weren't there. Especially since you compared it to anti-vax. I don't even know how you made that jump.
I have a few of the conditions that could be treated with the bottom row medications, if I tolerated them. For example, I treat my anxiety with CBD hemp because prescription drugs give me horrible side effects. All I got from this meme was that all of these things are drugs.
Probably, my interpretation of the meme is heavily biased by taking legality and legitimate medicinal (and recreational) use as a given as well as my experiences with not having ADHD considered "real" and "anti-chemical" people (typically also anti-vax) saying that all medicines from pharmaceutical companies are "full of chemicals" and detox is all anyone needs.
For real
I could stop drinking coffee any day. I just choose not to.
Caffeine headaches are no joke! Cold turkey is a rough path off caffeine.
I'm not addicted to alcohol, I just need it.
Tylenol and a cig arent the same as popping mollies and some heroin. When people refer to “drugs” they are generally referring to hard substances.
Me except it's all just different types of sugar
Don't forget Xanax. My very anti-drug mom randomly offered me one she got from a friend.