Why do people take plant drugs?
Why do people take drugs?
Cultivated peyote
Underlying causes of drug addiction or drug use:
The pursuit of pleasure: The need to feel different sensations is one factor that prompts people to take drugs. The wine has been drunk since ancient times for meals or meetings. Smokers describe the pleasure of smoking a good cigar after a meal or drinking a good cognac. Many drugs are taken to increase pleasure in sex. Hallucinogens or psychedelics are the most are often taken for this. Some of them can be sold illegaly through internet. (More information on the subject)
The search for greater creativity: Many writers, painters, or artists in general have used these substances to enhance creativity. During the nineteenth century opium was the main source of inspiration for many writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Coleridge or Baudelaire. Others used cocaine or hallucinogenic mushrooms as peyote. In the twentieth century, marijuana along with heroin is a source of creativity for many musicians.
In religious ceremonies: Some drugs have been used as a bridge to the divinity in many religions. Catholics use wine in their masses. Peyote is the basis of religion in many American tribes.
To overcome personal problems: Some people take drugs to overcome the sadness, depression or lack of personal happiness. It is almost a custom of the richest society to resort to pills when you are nervous or agitated. The excessive use of sedatives leads to a form of addiction that affects most of the social classes of Western society. Sometimes alcohol or narcotics can provide a gateway to unhappiness.
To heal the pain of diseases: drugs can be taken to overcome the pain from diseases. At first, the best anesthetic was alcohol, which was replaced with the discovery of opium and its derivative, morphine. Although drugs do not cure the disease, they make the patient’s life more bearable. For example, the therapeutic use of marijuana to eliminate the vomiting of cancer patients treated with chemotherapy is being considered as an acceptable medical possibility.
Cultivated marijuana
- As a way of connecting with others: Many drugs promote social relationships. The English custom of afternoon tea is well known as an excuse to develop the gathering between family or friends. More and more abundant cafes where one can drink or have a cup of coffee is a form of intimacy.
Other cultures, like the natives from South American, took coca together to feel good about themselves and the other members forming the group. Drugs play a social role in getting people to lose personal insecurity and being more confident with your partner.
We must not forget here that many young people enter the world of drugs just to not feel different from others. It is a way to feel that the group to which they approach accepts them. The entrance to the world of alcohol, snuff, marijuana or ecstasy, for example, occurs as a result of this.
As an attitude of rebellion: The constant prohibition on drugs has become precisely the very attractive for young people who expect to reaffirm its opposition to the principles of the adults. It is the same prohibition that determines in adolescent the desire to prove the “forbidden fruit”.
As an attitude of personal experimentation: Sometimes there is an individual intention of testing the effects that certain substances have on the mind or body. This desire to discover is inherent in the human mind and would, in a way comparable to the concern felt by the climber to reach the high peaks, or sharing the adventure when entering into the unknown jungle. Many famous people wanted to experience the effects of drugs. Sigmund Freud took cocaine regularly, Aldous Huxley did the same with mescaline, a substance taken from peyote.
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