Clarification: Comments or posts that violate rules in this community will either be deleted or be given a warning, the violating user would not be banned unless there's a need to. The 30-day ban mentioned in the post is for people who come into this post and argue for substance abuse, not for people who simply disagree with anti-promotion.

Suggestions for improvements to this rule are welcome, here's one:

Do not promote the use of drugs/alcohol/tobacco/weed/psychedelics/inhalants (for non-medicinal purposes).

After input from various comrades, I've decided to improve the rule with some explanation, this is my latest suggestion:

Rule 4: Do not promote drugs/alcohol/tobacco/weed/psychedelics/inhalants or any other substance that may be abused. We do not discuss the personal use of these substances out of consideration for comrades who might be affected by substance abuse or have bad experiences related to them. We understand that some substances may be used [medically|(for treatment)] in different cultures, but we think that this community is not the appropriate channel to receive medical advice.

It's almost 24 hours since I posted this, and the overall feeling I get is that this rule is "ok" only because of China's history, and not because it makes sense.

Let's imagine a scenario where the new rule only mentions "Do not promote or put alcohol in a positive light." What would be the reactions then? Keep in mind that in China, alcohol is legal for adults and can be advertised on national TV, but has the following restrictions: (from the 广告法 Advertising Law)

第二十三条　酒类广告不得含有下列内容：

（一）诱导、怂恿饮酒或者宣传无节制饮酒；

（二）出现饮酒的动作；

（三）表现驾驶车、船、飞机等活动；

（四）明示或者暗示饮酒有消除紧张和焦虑、增加体力等功效。

(DeepL translate) Article 23 Liquor advertisements shall not contain the following:

(1) Inducing or encouraging the consumption of alcohol or publicizing the uncontrolled consumption of alcohol;

(2) Showing actions of drinking;

(3) Exhibiting activities such as driving a car, boat, or airplane;

(4) Explicitly or implicitly suggesting that drinking alcohol has the effect of eliminating tension and anxiety, increasing physical strength, and so forth.

Is it unfair to lump all these substances together as though they have similar levels of influence on a person? Maybe it is, because why didn't I include games that are designed to be addicting, or mention porn, or other forms of escapism?

Speaking of porn, why can there be a Lemmygrad instance-wide rule 4 of "No porn or sexually explicit content (even if marked NSFW)", but I have to be met with a possible majority resistance (hexbear users can't downvote this post due to how their instance works) for anti-promotion (not a ban on mentioning them) of the listed substances in this community?

Anyway, this discussion post will be pinned for some time until enough consensus has been made on this new rule, and I will suspend the enforcement of this rule 4 in the meantime (not that there has been any violation yet).

On a basic level, I'm fine enough with you choosing to do this for this specific community, but is it really necessary? Have people actually been doing that here in this community specifically? If not, it's a pretty pointless rule honestly, especially if you're only making it because you disagreed with people talking about weed in a separate channel

Like, I don't think the rule's a bad idea considering China's history with drugs, but you should make sure you're doing this for the right reasons rather than out of some grudge or something

This is why I only sniff correction fluid.

I start by saying Im a nobody here but Im gonna leave my opinion, if there is a scientific undertanding that some of these drugs may have a positive outcome I think some discussion should be allowed, I have succesfully treated my depression with proffessional therapy and psychodelic mushrooms, I would not be alive if it werent for this substance, and as there is scientific claims that show the same results in many people, and it can potentially save lives, a ban on talking about it would be harmfull in my opinion.

I undertand chinese drug history and I get why you are doing this rule too, maybe add a allow a purelly scientific and data driven discussion?

I agree to it. Especially for a China community considering it's past struggle with drugs.

Nah this is hella corny. Bye. 👋🏿

I disagree

Sorry for being platform illiterate, this is only a /China rule, not a general lemmygrad rule, right?

Well, my feelings are so-and-so so I abstain... I don't think this policy affects me

On the other hand, some of the substances are of varying degrees, but who I am to judge, with China's history with drugs...

So anything that's psychoactive is banned? How about caffeine? That's got a higher effective dose to lethal dose ratio than substances you'll ban me for mentioning. Will you ban people for mentioning therapeutic applications of these substances? This is an ignorant proposition.

Considering China's history regarding drugs, this is a reasonable rule for this community. Also, I believe there should be a separate community for those who still wish to discuss recreational drugs, so that discussions about said topics may be directed there.

A day to mourn for every chunghwa enthusiast

I see nothing wrong with this given the context of China, so long as it's applied with context in mind. It's hard to think of a specific example and I don't want to be just inventing wild hypotheticals, but if conversation were to organically go to some country's drug policy that has a different historical context (such as the US and how it vilified drug use in order to do mass incarceration), I would hope you'd be understanding of the reaction to that in the US context. The same as others being understanding of the reaction to drug use / culture / policy in the China context. I would not expect you to be ok with others actively promoting drug use with such a context as an excuse to do so. I just wouldn't want someone to get a ban because they come from a different context and don't know the difference, so I'd hope you at least warn them first in such a case. Hope that makes sense.

hexbear doesn't have downvotes. seems weird to preemptively make a rule when we're not going to change or productively debate chinese drug policy and weed/shrooms/lsd/whatever aren't part of any capitalist plots to re-run opium.

are you ideologically anti-drug like middle-aged white americans or is the motivation here about respecting the history and material conditions that caused china to be how it is?

Hmm, alright.

My suggestions: 1) make an exception for using (psychedelic) drugs for medical purposes, provided there's sufficient scientific understanding of their efficacy; 2) clearly define what "put in a positive light" means - for example, the word "based" afaik comes from the word "freebase", referring to the purified form of cocaine; the word itself in my opinion have long become a harmless expression of approval, it's an old meme. 3) I think it's obvious to everyone, still - the context under which similar phrases are said matters. Saying things like "you are alienated, go ahead and try some MDMA" or something is unambiguously clear in its intent, that would go against the rule.

substance abuse

Is there anybody actually arguing that being addicted to something drug-wise is a good thing?

sure, i can agree with that. ive had my experience with them but i don't see why this should be a problem. rules are rules i suppose. its perfectly valid to have negative opinions on drug use, even if i think some arguments are cringe, the same is true for advocates. i didnt come here to promote chemical use or the effects there of, i came to find solidarity. it really shouldn't be controversial to be asked to keep those topics in other forums.