Or just “I don’t do drugs”, or “I don’t do recreational drugs”?
Or “I don’t smoke weed” and “I don’t drink alcohol” when they come up, separately?
I wouldn’t generally say it at all unless I’m in a situation where I’m offered recreational drugs such as cannabis or alcohol.
My understanding is the term ‘straight edge’ might be more well known than ‘teetotal’, but neither are completely known by everyone.
I take straight edge to mean not doing any recreational drugs. However I read that straight edge can have punk culture connotations that some people might maintain are part of it. Like I might meet a punk straight edger who claims I’m not really straight edge unless I have connections to the punk scene. They also apparently often claim you need to be vegan to be straight edge, I am vegan though coincidentally but not for reasons relating to straight edge culture.
Teetotal I believe most often means abstinence from simply alcohol, but can be used to mean abstaining from all recreational drugs (I think). It may be more well known as just not drinking alcohol. For example teetotallers often still smoke weed.
Apologies if I misrepresented any of these terms.
Myself, when asked about my relationship to a particular substance that I don’t use, I’ll say either “I quit that - it doesn’t agree with me” or “well, I haven’t started it yet.”
The term “recreational drugs” feels pretty vague to me. Just off the top of my head, I personally don’t do alcohol, nicotine, opioids (including kratom), psychedelics, dissociatives, deleriants (at least not at doses that produce deleriant effects), THC, or caffeine. I also don’t use any prescription medications currently. But I definitely do exogenous psychoactive substances “recreationally.” Chamomile (which has depressant properties) and CBD, mostly. I’ve been known to experiment with mugwart, a mild stimulant as well. And there have been times in my life when I have used caffeine. Whether my use of melatonin could be considered “recreational” is probably pretty open to interpretation. Most people wouldn’t consider those uses to qualify as “recreational drug use” but I think the distinction is largely a political tool wielded for some pretty nefarious and inhumane purposes.
Furthermore, I’d expect that most people who would say they “don’t use recreational drugs” probably actually imbibe in ways that could be at least debatable.
I don’t personally think I’d want to use the terms “teetotaler” or “straight edge.” At least not entirely unironically. I guess I think it sounds self-righteous, dogmatic, or even condemnatory. I like to put a little more emphasas on the fact that I’m not better than the person I’m talking to by acknowledging there’s a possibility I might imbibe at some point in the future or that I did at one point in the past. Some of that may well be paranoia from social anxiety, however.
Hopefully this was somewhat helpful. I’m happy enough with how I communicate that I don’t do such-and-such substance. It’s served me well and I don’t plan to change it any time soon.