Kia ora and welcome to Critic Te Ārohi’s annual Drug Issue. This happens to be one of Critic’s most popular issues (alongside the sex issue – maybe we are all as mature as we think we are as young adults).
The first article I wrote for Critic in my tenure as Co-Editor was a harm reduction guide for taking drugs, as part of Campus101. Writing about drugs and safety made me realise how skewed the conversation around these sensitive topics can be. A reality of student life in Ōtepoti is that you’re nearly guaranteed to see drug usage happen in front of you at some point. Whether you agree with the principle or not, looking out for our fellow community members is essential, so having some understanding of harm reduction is essential.
This isn’t to say that all drug usage consists of illegality, danger and overdoses. My experiences writing for a student magazine has changed my perspectives on drugs themselves. I think that it’s made me remember through lots of research, writing and interviews over the years that ‘drugs’ is a broad term. It doesn’t just mean dodgy white powders in baggies.
Everyday as students we encounter drugs such as alcohol, paracetamol and caffeine. These drugs are all legal (to a degree), but I’ve witnessed first-hand abuse of all of these drugs. Alcohol and caffeine may be perfectly legal to buy in most circumstances as an adult, but that doesn’t mean that the negative effects you associate with illicit drugs don’t appear here. A mate that gets headaches and can’t function without their daily Monster is dependent on a drug, even if it’s not an illicit one.
This isn’t to say that our illicit drugs aren’t illegal for no reason. There’s a lot of discourse around Aotearoa, and the rest of the world, over what drugs should be legal or not. Everybody making these decisions just wants to keep everybody safe at the end of the day, we just have differing perspectives on how best to achieve this.
My message from this Editorial is that drugs are everywhere, not just the illicit ones. When we want to think about how we as a society can reduce drug harm, we need to stop looking at all drugs within a binary of illegal or not. Abuse, overdoses and dependence can happen on drugs whether they are illegal or not. Discourse around drugs is always in an inherently negative lens. While the harm caused is a good reason for this, it can miss the nuances in society that have led us to view drugs as we collectively tend to.
Many readers of this article will never want to touch illicit drugs in their life – that’s perfectly fine, and no social stigma should be given for somebody who follows the law. No matter how you view something as contentious as drugs though, it’s time to view the conversation from a wider lens.
Harm reduction is for everybody, users or not. The content in this issue aims to explore Dunedin life and drugs, far beyond someone doing a bump in a festival portaloo. I encourage everybody to read Heeni’s culture article about Māori Med Students, and Dylan’s one on weed as a gateway drug. These articles explore the nuances and ways drugs intertwine in our lives, rather than purely viewing everything with an inherently negative lens. The more we understand the systems that have caused us to interpret drugs the way we do, the more steps we can take to be safer and more informed for everybody.
