Place intractable physical pain in there.
Still, you seem to be categorizing a class of people with the drug you use.
Smoking pot can be said to have the same effect, removing people from their...existential angst. But we don't typically claim they smoke to escape any more than we drink scotch and smoke cigars to...escape.
You are still buying into the cliché that all opiate users "end up in the gutter" and that is what I'm trying to explore.
Ever used opiates?
a couple of times, i like them, which made me put them down and walk away, and never look back. i'd already seen too many people completely trash their lives over pills, a couple over heroin...i want to forget my problems for a little while, and enhance the enjoyment i experience...opiates make you forget everything for a while, you feel nothing, and from watching others who didn't step back, you quickly come to require the shit to function at any level. i don't need anything in my life that makes me jerk, twitch, itch, lie, steal, shit on myself, or turn tricks ...
the difference between weed and opiates is the same as the difference between 3.2 beer and everclear...while they're both classified in the same general class, they ain't even close to the same...i've smoked a lot of weed, and i never stole anything from anyone to get more, i never shit on myself because i was so high it just didn't matter to me, it never made me mumble, twitch, jerk, have spasms...i never sucked any dick to get weed...you can keep trying to say it's all the same, but that's bullshit, it's not the same, it never has been, and never will be.