The only way to truly know what you want, when it isn't clear, is to list the things you don't want and work from there.
Or if you have two options, flip a coin. How you feel about the result is what's important, not the result itself.
Let's talk Drugs in Fiction. I was in bed last night just thinking about things, as the brain does, and one line of thought basically arrived at:
"Any portrayal of drugs that is not negative is inherently positive."
Or, there is no neutral ground when it comes to having your characters use drugs, they either fall into a deep dark spiral because drugs are bad, or they are fine because drugs are good. The issue is too political to accurately represent it in fiction. In the real world, drugs can be negative or positive, but they can also just BE. I know people who have wrecked their lives on weed and x, I know people who have saved their marriage with LSD, I know people who occasionally puff on a joint at a party and it doesn't really affect them either way. But that third group is really difficult to write about.
Consider any story, then throw in a takeaway scene at a party or walking along the road or whatever, and the MC casually smokes some weed and gets on with it. The scene is written as if it's just one of those things that happen - it's not trying to be pro- or anti- anything, it's just a small detail of what went down in the story.
It would be confronting, yes? You would expect that to become a plot thread (or pot thread amirite?) and eventually end SOMEWHERE. But my point is, for many people, in their day to day lives, drugs aren't a plot thread. They just exist, as much as the commute to work, or buying fruit on a Thursday when the greengrocer goes door to door. Yet even I would be thinking at the end of that book "Why was that weed smoked? That went nowhere.", and I'm the one bringing this up.
Are you taking a stance simply by including it and having it have no effect? If it has the same outcome as say, a pint of mead at the tavern, then have you effectively sided with the pro-legalization group? By reducing the drug to 'just a thing' (as opposed to "A Big Thing"), you've implied that you don't think it's a big deal.
I don't have anywhere to go with this rant. I just thought it was interesting that writing a neutral drug experience in this day and age seems impossible.
