Sunday, October 29, 2017 – America on Drugs
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations – wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. ~ Edmund Burke
The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it? ~ John Lennon
A junkie is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong. ~ Stella Adler
You should just say no to drugs. That will drive the prices down. ~ Geechy Guy
I don’t need drugs to make my life tragic ~ Eddie Vedder
A drug is neither moral nor immoral. It’s a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole. ~ Frank Zappa
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. ~ Wendell Berry
My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication – it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness – it is all that I have – and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, that will be all that my peers have as well. ~ Franz Kafka
If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in. ~ Bill Hicks
Drug misuse is not a disease. It is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment. ~ Philip K. Dick
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz. ~ Allen Ginsberg, Howl
Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither. ~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Now here’s somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he’s caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That’s the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons. ~ Milton Friedman
LSD is a psychedelic drug which occasionally causes psychotic behavior in people who have NOT taken it. ~ Timothy Leary
Most substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. ~ David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Did you know America ranks the lowest in education but the highest in drug use? It’s nice to be number one, but we can fix that. All we need to do is start the war on education. If it’s anywhere near as successful as our war on drugs, in no time we’ll all be hooked on phonics. ~ Leighann Lord
All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal. ~ Thomas Szasz
Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system. ~ P. J. O’Rourke
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ~ P. J. O’Rourke
Drugs are a bet with the mind ~ Jim Morrison
The sixties were when hallucinogenic drugs were really, really big. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we had the type of shows we had then, like The Flying Nun. ~ Ellen DeGeneres
I don’t do drugs. I am drugs. ~ Salvador Dalí
If God dropped acid, would he see people? ~ Steven Wright
It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously. ~ Jean Cocteau
He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie. ~ Anais Nin
Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon. ~ Abbie Hoffman
Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs. ~ Lily Tomlin
I’ve never had a problem with drugs. I’ve had problems with the police. ~ Keith Richards
Cocaine is God’s way of saying that you’re making too much money. ~ Robin Williams
I used to have a drug problem but now I make enough money. ~ David Lee Roth
Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most. ~ Jimi Hendrix
I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota. ~ Fran Lebowitz
Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality. ~ John William Gardner
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. ~ Rudyard Kipling
All right, brain, I don’t like you and you don’t like me – so let’s just do this and I’ll get back to killing you with beer. ~ Homer Simpson
I don’t respond well to mellow, you know what I mean, I have a tendency to… if I get too mellow, I ripen and then rot. ~ Woody Allen
If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution – then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise. ~ Aldous Huxley
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. ~ Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I lay in a field of green grass for four hours going, “My God! I love everything.” Yeah, now if that isn’t a hazard to our country … how are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we’re all one? ~ Bill Hicks
After a few months in my parents’ basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things is dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations. ~ David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Just Above Sunset 