59 Insightful Quotes About Drugs

Exploring the world of drugs, whether through personal experiences or the wider lens of society, can evoke a complex array of emotions and insights. From the highs and lows to the profound and mundane, drugs have long been a topic of fascination and contemplation across cultures and generations. In this blog post, we delve into a curated selection of 59 insightful quotes that capture the multifaceted nature of drugs. These quotes offer perspectives from artists, thinkers, and influencers who have navigated the intricate relationship between humanity and substances. Whether you're seeking inspiration, reflection, or just a deeper understanding, these thought-provoking words will guide you through the myriad ways drugs have been perceived and experienced.

1. “Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading the inevitable downswing that is sure to follow. The guests will repeat themselves one too many times, or you'll run out of dope or liquor and realize that it was all you ever had in common.” - David Sedaris

2. “Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.” - Richard Nixon

3. “Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space...All that negative stuff. All the pain...It just floted away from me, I just floated away from it...up and away...” - Melvin Burgess

4. “We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” - Hunter S. Thompson

5. “I don't do drugs. I am drugs.” - Salvador Dali

6. “Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” - Theodore Kaczynski

7. “I don't know if you realize this, but there are some researchers - doctors - who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they're doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they're surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour. They've never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say. Their volunteers - they're called 'subjects,' of course - are given mescaline or LSD and they're all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people's emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility. Most of them say afterward that they'll never do it again.” - Alexander Shulgin

8. “[H]ere was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a pint bottle, and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach.” - Thomas De Quincey

9. “I've wanted to feel pleasure to the point of insanity. They call it getting high, because it's wanting to know that higher level, that godlike level. You want to touch the heavens, you want to feel glory and euphoria, but the trick is it takes work. You can't buy it, you can't get it on a street corner, you can't steal it or inject it or shove it up your ass, you have to earn it.” - Anthony Kiedis

10. “I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time ... I had been the first to recommend the use of cocaine, in 1885, and this recommendation had brought serious reproaches down on me.” - Sigmund Freud

11. “I can't even produce a metaphor for the drug world anymore. I don't even like the phrase the drug world since the phrase implies a different world.” - Charles Bowden

12. “Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character.” - James Joyce

13. “A lady that I know just came from Colombia. She laughed because I did not understand. She held out some marijuana uh-huh, said it was the finest in the land. I said, no-no-no-no, i dont smoke it no more. It only makes me fall on the floor.No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door. A lady that i know just came from Morrocco, Spain. She laughed because i did not understand. She held out a ten-pound bag of cocaine, said it was the finest in the land. I said no-no-no-no, i don't *sniff* no more, it only makes me fall on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door.A lady that i know just came from Tennesee. She laughed because i did not understand. She held out a jug of moonshine, uh-huh, said it was the finest in the land. I said no-no-no-no, i don't drink it no more, it only makes me fall on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door.Ringo Starr's No-No Song” - Ringo Starr

14. “Disease is the biggest money maker in our economy.” - John H. Tobe

15. “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

16. “Ink, a Drug.” - Vladimir Nabokov

17. “The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.” - Michael Parenti

18. “I used to do drugs, but don't tell anyone because it'll ruin my image.” - Courtney Love

19. “Things began to go wrong when I was seventeen. My band’s twenty-year-old lead guitarist earned seven years in jail for a drug-fuelled spree of violence. The other band members were quick to let go of their musical dreams, but I never did. They did the ‘mature’ thing: after writing off the band as a teenage fantasy, they got real jobs and made some money. They called it growing up. I called it giving up.” - Mark Rice

20. “Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.” - Christopher Hitchens

21. “LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I’m recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one – but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that were just as valid. That had a profound effect on me.” - Alan Moore

22. “I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.” - Harry Nilsson

23. “Sometimes Alton Darwin would talk to me about the planet he was on before he was transported in a steel box to Athena. 'Drugs were food,' he said. 'I was in the food business. Just because people on one planet eat a certain kind of food they're hungry for, that makes them feel better after they eat it, that doesn't mean people on other planets shouldn't eat something else. On some planets I'm sure there are people who eat stones, and then feel wonderful for a little while afterwords. Then it's time to eat stones again.” - Kurt Vonnegut

24. “Home...Home....the word,...has...no...meaning” - Ellen Hopkins

25. “I'm not crying out for help, but I am sharing my experience in the hopes that readers will get something out of it. I'm not the one who gets to decide what that is, if anything. I'm just starting the "journey" if you will, so I can't possibly know yet what the "message" of my life really is. I only know what has happened so far, and how I've felt up until this moment. I agree that reading about the pain of others is concerning when they are still hurting and in the same situation as when they wrote about it. But what can you do? You can reach out, ask how you can help and be there to listen. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. You can't love someone who doesn't love themselves enough to take care of themselves and stay out of bad situations. Believe me, I know this.” - Ashly Lorenzana

26. “I automatically assume people won't like me, so I don't talk to them unless they approach me first. I can't become a part of a crowd because I can't get past that feeling that I don't belong.” - Stephanie Kuehnert

27. “I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.” - Charlie Sheen

28. “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" - Cassio (Act II, Scene iii)” - William Shakespeare

29. “I've always thought that love was being foolish and stupid. It's about being on the edge and I like being on the edge. It's not divine madness like some people think, there's no such thing as divine madness, madness is just madness. Love is hallucinating without drugs.” - Louis Nowra

30. “There has never been a 'war on drugs'! In our history we can only see an ongoing conflict amongst various drug users – and producers. In ancient Mexico the use of alcohol was punishable by death, while the ritualistic use of mescaline was highly worshipped. In 17th century Russia, tobacco smokers were threatened with mutilation or decapitation, alcohol was legal. In Prussia, coffee drinking was prohibited to the lower classes, the use of tobacco and alcohol was legal.” - Sebastian Marincolo

31. “What do you want? Where's the goddamn ice I ordered? Where's the booze? There's a war on, man! People are being killed!” - Hunter S. Thompson

32. “Here is the solution to the American drug problem suggested a couple years back by the wife of our President: "Just say no.” - Kurt Vonnegut

33. “Reason I know, is only a drug, and, as such, its effects are never permanent. But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief.” - Hope Mirrlees

34. “...introduced Doc to the miracle of morphine. From that very first shot it was as if he'd discovered the one vital ingredient that God had left out when He'd sent Doc kicking and screaming into the cold, cruel world.” - Steve Earle

35. “I didn't care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn't fun to watch.” - Anthony Kiedis

36. “Consider this:1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?And here's a bonus question:2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?” - Brad Warner

37. “Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter.” - George Carlin

38. “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...” - Ayn Rand

39. “But even Es and cocaine, over the years they blow holes in your brain, rob you of your memories, your past. Which is fair enough, convenient even.” - Irvine Welsh

40. “Even as I'm shoveling up my hooter, I realize the sad truth. Coke bores me, It bores us all. We're jaded cunts, in a scene we hate, a city we hate, pretending that we're at the center of the universe, trashing ourselves with crap drugs to stave off the feeling that real life is happening somewhere else, aware that all we're doing is feeding that paranoia and disenchantment, yet somehow we're too apathetic to stop. Cause, sadly, there's nothing else of interest to stop for.” - Irvine Welsh

41. “Over the years, Skye sampled every drug she could find, and like many addicts, had a working knowledge of pharmacology. She snorted coke and swallowed pills. She took downers—orange and red Seconal, red and ivory Dalmane, Miltown, Librium, Luminal, Nembutal, and Quaaludes. Blue devils, red birds, purple hearts. Enough of them sank her in a kind of coma, where she watched her own limbs suspended in front of her in syrup. For a party, there was Benzedrine, rushing in her veins and making her talk for an hour in one long sentence. Day to day, she carried yellow tablets loose in her pockets, Dilaudid and Percodan, and chewed them in the back of classrooms. But her favorite was the greatest pain reliever of them all, named for the German word for hero.” - Frederick Weisel

42. “Instead of being a gift that separates us from the animals, free will has become my gaoler. Junkies are the ultimate outsider, not only are we outside of society: we are outside of nature. I spit, turn, and wander towards the beach. Heroin gave me wings but took away the sky.” - Drew Gates

43. “Scott glanced at his watch but didn't register what it said. The notion of time had become as absurd as the quietly glowing trees.” - R.D. Ronald

44. “99% of all addicts are liars and thieves. This might sound unfair and even close-minded, but it's the truth. There are some exceptions to the rules, but they are incredibly rare. Most people are no match for their addictions. They will be driven to do things they would normally never have considered all in the name of getting high. Sad, but true. So if you're thinking of trying drugs, keep in mind that all the people you will be dealing with are likely to steal from you and lie to you at your own expense.” - Ashly Lorenzana

45. “Money is my drug of choice--and you can't make money if you're always stoned or high. (Twila Taunton in Redneck P.I.)” - Trish Jackson

46. “Issues are like tissues. You pull one out and another appears!” - Gary Goldstein

47. “Drug addicts driven to crime to finance their drug addiction are not often inclined toward violent crime. Violence requires all different kinds of energy, and most drug addicts like to expend their energy not on their professional crime but on what their professional crime lets them afford. Drug addicts are often burglars, therefore.” - David Foster Wallace

48. “Sometimes he missed the numbed, walking-underwater feeling feel that the cocktail of narcotics used to give him. But if a situation went down in here, he was going to need all of his wits to get out of it.” - R.D. Ronald

49. “I don't know what I expected – no maybe I do, Al Pacino from Scarface- but this drug dealer is more like Al Pacino at the beginning of The Godfather reasonably bemused, untouched by his criminal world, sitting with Diane Keaton whispering about Luca Brazzi, not yet asleep with the fishes, or like Al Pacino from Glengarry Glen Ross, although actually, now that I think about it, he's not like Al Pacino at all but more like Kevin Spacey from that film, and who's ever been afraid of Kevin Spacey?” - Jess Walter

50. “The Defendant: I am pleading guilty your honors but I'm doing it because I think it would be a waste of money to have a trial over five dollars worth of crack. What I really need is a drug program because I want to turn my life around and the only reason I was doing what I was doing on the street was to support my habit. The habit has to be fed your honors as you know and I believe in working for my money. I could be out there robbing people but I'm not and I've always worked even though I am disabled. And not always at this your honors, I used to be a mail carrier back in the day but then I started using drugs and that was all I wanted to do. So I'm taking this plea to save the city of New York and the taxpayers money because I can't believe that the DA, who I can see is a very tall man, would take to trial a case involving five dollars worth of crack, especially knowing how much a trial of that nature would cost. But I still think that I should get a chance to do a drug program because I've never been given that chance in any of my cases and the money that will be spent keeping me in jail could be spent addressing my real problem which is that I like, no need, to smoke crack every day and every chance I get, and if I have to point people to somebody who's selling the stuff so I can get one dollar and eventually save up enough to buy a vial then smoke it immediately and start saving up for my next one that I'll gladly do that, and I'll do it even though I know it could land me in jail for years because the only thing that matters at that moment is getting my next vial and I am not a Homo-sapiens-sexual your honors but if I need money to buy crack I will suck. . . .” - Sergio De La Pava

51. “The afternoon and the early evening slide by in a lidded daze where the ability to think in any identifiable way disappears and where every moment seems to be an eternity.” - james frey

52. “To stop the drug traffic is not the best way to prevent people from using drugs. The best way is to practice the Fifth Precept and to help others practice. Consuming mindfully is the intelligent way to stop ingesting toxins into our consciousness and prevent the malaise from becoming overwhelming. Learning the art of touching and ingesting refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements is the way to restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us. To do this, we have to practice together. The practice of mindful consuming should become a national policy. It should be considered true peace education... Those who are destroying themselves, their families, and their society by intoxicating themselves are not doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us (78-79).” - Thich Nhat Hanh

53. “If I want to feel as if I'm being sucked down a fathomless gloomy tunnel for hours and hours then I have a complete set of Schopenhauer at home.” - Ned Beauman

54. “You’ve been smoking again, haven’t you? Your eyes look like road maps and you’re in full bastard mode.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

55. “I mean, that's at least in part why I ingested chemical waste - it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-column read.I used to refer to my drug use as putting the monster in the box. I wanted to be less, so I took more - simple as that. Anyway, I eventually decided that the reason Dr. Stone had told me I was hypomanic was that he wanted to put me on medication instead of actually treating me. So I did the only rational thing I could do in the face of such as insult - I stopped talking to Stone, flew back to New York, and married Paul Simon a week later.” - Carrie Fisher

56. “I'm not an addictive personality, I just like getting high, that's all.” - Rita Mae Brown

57. “The path to a sustained victory in Afghanistan lies in improving their economy, creating jobs for the Afghanis, strengthening their government and national services, getting the provinces to trust each other and work together, and eliminating the opium trade. Previously, the United States' policy was to not get deeply involved in internal Afghani drug issues; now we've changed the policy and are actively working to eradicate the drugs. But nobody has yet to come up with a way to shut down the poppy fields and get the Afghani people back to work. Until that happens, the Taliban will inevitable creep back in.” - Michael DeLong

58. “She once told me of a night that fumed with escapes and was filled with bedsides reeking of ecstasy; she told me the stars cast not judgments, but blessings, knowing full well the disastrous outcomes of the deeds they cradled with the strings of their young hearts. She’d inhaled the night itself, those around her doing the same, and so all become one. No disharmony. No discordance. Nothing to shatter the cause; nothing to unearth the beauty. So as we together ascended that front porch, allowing the glow behind the blown-out windows and the odious steams plunder us from through the cracks...time forgot to distill us, and our steps became as silver as glass. I could no longer deny the boiling words of my blood: tonight would be the beginning of a very long road indeed.” - Dave Matthes

59. “...most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.” - David Foster Wallace