How do you deal with conflicting information about recreational drugs?

Published July 4, 2010

Question by drachnid w: How do you deal with conflicting information about recreational drugs?
There’s no right or wrong answer; this is about what you personally think. An example is the idea of death from LSD overdose. Suppose someone says, “You can definitely overdose!!” and another, “You can’t overdose!!” This is a factual contradiction, not a value judgment or opinion, ie. there is a right answer, and it may not be a simple one. What I want to know is how YOU decide what to believe when confronted with conflicting facts. Another example is whether or not MDMA causes brain damage. Or, for that matter, whether or not LSD causes brain damage. Don’t talk to me about what the answer is unless you’re explaining *why* you believe it. That’s what I’m looking for. You do not have to use these examples.
A lot of you didn’t quite get at the meat of my question. It’s not what you think about drugs, but *why* you think that. I’m not asking why or why not you would do drugs. A simple “they will mess you up” does NOT answer this question. 🙂

So far the answers seem to be (in no particular order):
1. Personal experience from doing drugs
2. Personal experience from friends who did drugs
3. Examining various sources of information, particularly medical research
4. “best judgement” or “common sense” based on what you’ve seen and read

Note that personal experience can tell you some facts (eg. effects), but not others (eg. LD50). So those of you who said that, how do you determine the latter?

Best answer:

Answer by kurticus1024
It really CAN mess you up.

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