Christian Murdoch

Gustavo Ibarra
Health 1050-006
26 November 2015
Drugs, and Why and How Humans use Them
Introduction
Drugs are a big part of my life. They are a big part of your life too.
From ingredients in much of the food we eat, to a chosen substance for social
situations, to the pharmaceuticals you take for any health problems, drugs
play a role in everyone's life. Even if you're trying to minimize drug intake,
your avoidance is because of drugs strong presence in the world. This is not
a bad thing, many of these drugs provide a myriad of benefits to our
everyday lives. Whether it's for bad or good, drugs have a definite role in all
of our lives. In fact they are so established in our world, we have options
available to us that were not here in humans recent history. We have such
an intricate array of substances, that it actually goes beyond the mundane
drugs that keep your food from perishing early or that keep bugs off our
corn. Today's people have the option to use drugs on purpose, in search of
some benefits outside of what would be considered a "benefit." What I mean
is, people these days can make the decision to use drugs for many reasons,
one of the most interesting being to "feel good," that's what I mean as a nonclassic benefit. This obscure field of using drugs is very unique. Now there is
a certain glamorization of drugs through various outlets as well as entire

cultures surrounding individual drugs and even specific methods of using a

drug. This phenomenon interests me a great deal. Why people use drugs
and the culture that's been created, as well as drug users themselves. It
fascinates me, and I plan to explore these ideas over the following pages.
Keep reading if your interested by these ideas, or if you're a professor and
this is for a college course, just keep reading I promise the rest isn't as bad.
Culture
There are many different subcultures inside of drug culture. Let's look
at a few of them to get some information about people and drug use.
Specifically I want to cast a light on the big 3 of America, Alcohol, tobacco,
and marijuana. Drinking culture is very engrained into our people and our
society. Sense man figured out that rotten fruit juice can loosen you up a bit,
the glass has always been in the picture. There is a certain social ideology
that comes with drinking culture, and with reason too. There wouldn't be
such fixed and strong points within the culture if it didn't have as long as a
history with man. A large part of drinking culture is the idea that drinking
large quantities equates to higher status, as seen with binge drinking at
parties. If you do not want to or cannot drink the amount or as fast as what
is expected or has been displayed, you may be seen as inadequate. The
culture pressures people to drink more, an emphasis on getting very drunk.
More so than many other drug cultures, drinking culture often promotes
excessive use and reaching very high levels of intoxication. Remember of

course that this is very apparent today, despite the very available
information about how bad binge drinking is. The culture does not care,
drink up, broh.
We also have the very lovely tobacco culture, with a similar back-story.
Tobacco also has a very different relationship with its users. We no longer
have any form of pro-tobacco advertisements, in fact a heavy emphasis is
made on how bad tobacco is for you. Something I find ironic about tobacco is
how even though it makes one feel good by releasing adrenaline, it is
associated with feeling relaxed. Which is true, tobacco smokers do feel
relaxed it very well can relieve stress and help you feel calm, even if that's
not how your body reacts. Cigarettes are a commodity among people. It is
not uncommon to be asked for a cigarette by a random passerby, or to be
offered one by someone one only recently met; it has its own social tie ins. It
might not be very acceptable to ask strangers for food, but asking about a
cigarette is seen as fairly normal. Many drugs are associated with partying
and having an extra good time, and while cigarettes are undeniably a
socially influenced behavior, they are known as a calmer staple of someone's
day.
Last up we have marijuana. Another drug with a very long history with
humans. This one almost rides the line between drinking and tobacco.
Because weed can be used as a party drug and a social thing, but also has
heavy association with relaxation. We know that it relaxes you, but it can

still be used in the environment of a party, as something to bring you "up."

Stoner culture is very unique because up until a few years ago it was all
completely illegal. There aren't any ads on tv, but you can sure find pro
weed content on the internet. There is an old ideology about how bad weed
is for you, but as time moves on, we are figuring out that is not so true. This
could be a reason for the rising number of weed smokers, people are
naturally turning over to less harmful drugs. There is also an association of
kindness and happiness with stoner culture. Weed smokers are seen as
being supportive of positivity and of feeling good or happy, much more so
than any other drug culture. All cultures surrounding drugs have their own
ideas for what's normal and a shared reasoning behind usage patterns,
independant of other cultures or ideas outside their own.
So why then?
We've seen the ideologies and cultures involved in people and drug
use, but it has to come to something more. Drug culture exists, enough
people use drugs to create such a world. But what allows this to exists? The
reasons behind why people use drugs is the underlying point of interest for
me in this topic of discussion, and there are many reasons we think of when
trying to find answers. When you ask yourself why people do drugs, you'll
say things like to escape, because peers or other figures use them, for fun, or
curiosity. I don't think any of these reasons are wrong, I think they all are
sometimes someone's reason to use, but that they all also play many minor

roles in drug use. There is a correlation between a high IQ and being more
likely to use drugs (Sullivan, 2011.) This fascinates me. The reason is
because it seems like it would be black and white. You'd think that a smart
person would see the logic of why using drugs is bad for your health and
choose to abstain, and yet often the inverse exists. There could be many
reasons for why this occurs, nobody knows yet. Consider emotional
intelligence, things like common sense. Just because you are good with logic
doesn't mean you posses basic levels of decision making for all scenarios.
People with high intelligence may not have high emotional intelligence,
which makes sense as I don't think logic is the reason behind most drug use.
Again I don't think the decision to use drugs is logic based. I think that
intelligent people and drug users (both independently and as an overlapping
group) see the world in a different way. Which is true, as our view of the
world is shaped by our experiences and the world in which we live, which as I
said earlier, has a lot of drugs in it. We see the different types of drugs and
their place in our world, we see the people who use different drugs, and that
influences us.
I think that these people are more likely to wonder about things. I
think that they seek out different information and sources of answers to
things in the world, as well as different experiences and possessing different
values. I believe that these people (intelligent people and/or drug users) are
more likely to value experience and looking at things outside what is
considered normal. They might make the decision to drop acid because they

desire to change the way they think from how they normally do, or to live the
experiences of a hallucination. They might weigh this as more valuable then
the good health they would have from abstaining from such drugs. The
bottom line of all this, for me, is that drugs bring their own culture with them,
which was created parallel to us, we created the culture just as it created our
beliefs and interactions with said culture. And in this world of drugs, many
reasons exist to cause people to use, people who you might have guessed
would stay away from drugs as using drugs is illogical. Still, people choose
to do drugs for reasons outside of simple reasoning, and I don't think you
could narrow it down to one cause. Drugs have a quality about them that is
beautifully unique, they harbor an experience of being alive completely
unlike any other thing any form of life could find through the natural order,
and aspects of this offer are often what pulls people into wanting to do
drugs.

Sources
Brain Researchers, Smoking Increases Intelligence.
K, Klaus. Den Gule Negl. 2012, Web
How many People Does the U.S. imprison for drug use and Who Are They?
Caulkins, Jonathan. Sevigny, Eric.

2009, Web.

Drug Dependence, Its Significance And Characteristics.

Nathan, Eddy. H. Halbach. Isbell, Harris. Seevers, Maurice. Bull World Health
Organ, 1965. 32(5) 721-733. Print.
How Personality Increases Risk of Drug Abuse.
Rettner, Rachel www.livescience.com, 2014. Web
Intelligent People are More likely to use Drugs. why?
Bon, Sarah. The Fix, 2014. Web