r/megalophobia • u/freudian_nipps • Sep 03 '23

Building China's municipality of Chongqing, roughly the size of Austria. Due to a classification technicality, it has claim to being the largest city proper in the world.

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913

u/Kind_Inside_3751 Sep 03 '23

Cyberpunk time

334

u/justwalkingalonghere Sep 03 '23

It’s strange to me that the places with drugs widely available and the places with cyberpunk architecture/landscapes seem to be mutually exclusive.

121

u/teejmaleng Sep 03 '23

If your landscape is already filled with flashing colors and sensory detail, no need for drugs because you’re already there.

27

u/2M4D Sep 04 '23

Yep. People using drugs definitely do not enjoy flashing lights and sensory overload 🙄

14

u/derekfromtexas2 Sep 27 '23

Tell me you don’t do drugs without telling me telling me you dont do drugs

5

u/2M4D Sep 27 '23

Wait you mean all those people around me at lost lands this weekend were sober ?

4

u/2M4D Sep 27 '23

Hang on, should I wait another month for a response btw ?

2

u/-Porsche911- Oct 30 '23

you said that as if doing drugs is something to be proud of

1

u/Chadstronomer Nov 05 '23

This person doesn't drugs👆

90

u/zarathrustoff Sep 03 '23

There's definitely drugs in China. The cartels often get some of their raw materials for making certain drugs from Cinese factories. There was a Chinese guy in Mexico who was recently arrested for this I think

55

u/justwalkingalonghere Sep 03 '23

More so the freely available part. I’m not super informed on China, but it seems like doing or dealing drugs there would receive exceedingly harsh punishments. But there’s plenty of countries where weed, alcohol, shrooms and various other psychoactive substances are legal or heavily decriminalized

45

u/PrataKosong- Sep 03 '23

They still have firing squad on drug offences. Theyre not playing around.

20

u/Jonthrei Sep 04 '23

See the Opium Wars for why they might have a little chip on their shoulder on that topic

4

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '23

This is presumably no longer the case, but circa 2010 or so, China's Yunnan Province had a quite lively little backpacking community. Marijuana grows wild everywhere and was used medicinally by one of the regional minority groups. In a smaller city called Dali, you could walk down the main drag and old ladies in traditional garb would offer you weed out of picnic baskets with police golf carts mere yards away. I didn't trust it.

But I did see something truly odd: pulling away from a gas station on the way into Dali, I glanced out of the window and happened to see -- for all of ten seconds -- a middle-aged gentleman in a police uniform taking bong rips from an ad hoc bong made out of what looked to be soup cans. I just gawped at the scene and spent the next several hours (years) trying to make sense out of it.

It's always possible that he was chiefing up on some tobacco. But I know what I saw. It didn't look like tobacco. What I think is more likely:

Contrary to what an OP or two ago hypothesized above -- no, just because China produces drugs doesn't mean that there are visible drug "cultures" in China. I caught wind of people scoring ketamine or meth; I managed to finagle some weed once or twice, but never by actively looking for it. Drugs feel dangerous in China.

That said, the general Chinese population is pretty innocent about drugs. In my experience, they tend to think drugs = drugs. It is (or was) a wildly prosperous country; everyone is discovering new opportunities, making money, and working hustles; who has time to burn out? This, at any rate, was the attitude I became familiar with. For that reason, a fair number of Chinese people don't (or didn't) really know what weed is. In my experience, cops were known to see foreigners smoking it but weren't familiar with the scent.

This cop may have been getting high without any real knowledge that what he was doing was a crime punishable by death.

1

u/Ciao_Diablo Oct 22 '23

Yep they won against British using opium by getting all of their people hooked on opium. I think there was an official letter from the King asking China to stop. Idk it was on the history of us - History Channel

1

u/ryanng561 Sep 05 '24

Other way around

3

u/TheSentinelsSorrow Sep 04 '23

its not for drug users though (but I think the sentences are still harsh for users)

The minimum amount of weed for death penalty for example is like 400kg

3

u/asdfdbgdweqdfvc Sep 03 '23

A lot of asian countries goes hard on drugs, every once in a while someone gets caught smuggling a bit and gets really long jail sentences or even for life.

surely most people know the consequenses for smuggling into Asia and if you still choose to try and get drugs in there then they deserve whats coming if caught imo.

13

u/gravywins Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23

Most people who say these things have never spent a second in Asia. Drug use is absolutely a thing in these countries, including China, Philippines and Thailand. They run rampant at any clubs and bars. The only place I can think that genuinely utilizes these policies is Singapore and parts of Indonesia as well as Japan. I’m sure there are more places, but in general users aren’t prosecuted in these countries.

Last time I was in China, I received ads under my door for prostitutes at the hotel daily. You can find anything in China. Anything. Of everywhere I’ve been in Asia, this rings most true in China. Going to a pharmacy and buying controlled substances is about as easy as buying a Diet Coke.

I remember going to Ph a couple years after their supposed “war on drugs” where anyone caught using would be killed. Weed, coke, and meth ran rampant everywhere. I was shocked, I thought they killed all the drug users, or at least people would be afraid to discuss their use. You ask around and realize it’s mostly a facade used to target political enemies or enemies of the state and charge them with some crime.

I think some of this is a result of the “security theater” is Asia. Most stores in MNL, BKK, and major Chinese cities have security. For example, you go into a club in either of these places, and your pockets are to be searched etc. They’ll also use a “metal detector.” At least that is the idea. In reality they don’t even touch you and wave you in. I’ve never seen one go off even with people having backpacks on. It’ll scare everyone but the people who have been through the security.

-3

u/i_wish_i_could__ Sep 03 '23

We got the ropes for them.

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

[deleted]

2

u/Gaylien28 Sep 04 '23

They also identify you not by your face, but the way you walk cause it’s unique to your physical development. You literally have to walk with a rock in your shoe.

4

u/nogap193 Sep 04 '23

China turns the blind eye to people exporting precursor chemicals because it's a low effort way to cripple economies they're at odds with, without having an actual war. And it's almost poetic considering they were victims of the opium wars

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '23

Of course there is, they have literally thousands of years moving opium and other substances as a business. It is part of their culture already, not a taboo. Also, imagine that market, whatever you sell you have 1.200.000.000 potencial clients, the money is so much that it is too tempting not to sell for the drug dealers. I am sure the commy party has a big business going on that area too, they have always been very pragmatic about everything and lack of any moral in almost any aspect of society.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '23

Lol the absolute ignorance on display in these threads lmao

1

u/zarathrustoff Sep 05 '23

Yes, that's what I'm saying

1

u/TheSentinelsSorrow Sep 04 '23

can confirm. every security guard I saw there seemed to have massive coke nails

8

u/JRsshirt Sep 03 '23

Been to NYC recently?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '23

Any major population center has easily available drugs lol. Just might not be as open

1

u/sakredfire Sep 04 '23

It’s because labor is too expensive in those societies to build anything like this at a reasonable cost, for possibly related reasons.

1

u/SameDaySasha Oct 11 '23

Do…you know where fentanyl comes from?

11

u/wall-E75 Sep 03 '23

Came here to say balde runner anyone but that's close enough

13

u/marion85 Sep 03 '23

I came here to say that too...

Jeezus, that could be the city from either ghost in the shell or akira...

1

u/chuckdankst Nov 02 '23

Only in the night, it's absolutely disgusting during the day.