Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.
—Billie Holiday (1915–59) American Jazz Singer
The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
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 (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
Of all that Orient lands can vaunt, of marvels with our own competing, the strangest is the Haschish plant, and what will follow on its eating.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
There seems to be no stopping drug frenzy once it takes hold of a nation. What starts with an innocuous HUGS, NOT DRUGS bumper sticker soon leads to wild talk of shooting dealers and making urine tests a condition for employment—anywhere.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
One pill, two pill, three pill, four,
five pill, six pill, seven pill, floor.
—Anonymous
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 (1940–93) American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the sources 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 (1947–2022) American Journalist, Political Satirist
Words are the most powerful drugs used by mankind.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
The real question is why are millions of people so unhappy, so bored, so unfulfilled, that they are willing to drink, snort, inject or inhale any substance that might blot out reality and give them a bit of temporary relief.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
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 (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
I think religion is bad and drugs are good.
—Bill Maher (b.1956) American Comedian, TV Personality, Social Critic, Author, Actor
Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
—Robin Williams (b.1951) American Actor, Comedian
I don’t use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough.
—M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch Graphic Artist
Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Woe to you, my Princess, when I come… you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
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 (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
No monster vibration, no snake universe hallucinations. Many tiny jeweled violet flowers along the path of a living brook that looked like Blake’s illustration for a canal in grassy Eden: huge Pacific watery shore, Orlovsky dancing naked like Shiva long-haired before giant green waves, titanic cliffs that Wordsworth mentioned in his own Sublime, great yellow sun veiled with mist hanging over the planet’s oceanic horizon. No harm.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
Pharma industry is the art of making billions from milligrams.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Which is better: to have fun with fungi or to have Idiocy with ideology, to have wars because of words, to have tomorrow’s misdeeds out of yesterday’s miscreeds?
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
—Martin H. Fischer
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 (1928–82) American Novelist, Essayist, Short Story Writer
Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won’t be for our benefit but for the authorities . To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Reality is the crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
—Lily Tomlin (b.1939) American Comedy Actress
If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you’re out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. If you think you need stuff to play music or sing, you’re crazy. It can fix you so you can’t play nothing or sing nothing.
—Billie Holiday (1915–59) American Jazz Singer
Junk is the ideal product… the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
It is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed out and zombie like. In this way our modern consumer society itself functions as an addict.
—Anne Wilson Schaef (1934–2020) American Clinical Psychologist
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 (1947–2022) American Journalist, Political Satirist
There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizable poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.
—Robin Williams (b.1951) American Actor, Comedian
There is only one reason why men become addicted to drugs, they are eak men. Only strong men are cured, and they cure themselves.
—Martin H. Fischer
A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to do so, for his death is a benefit to the race in general.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
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 (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!
—Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) English Essayist, Critic
Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.
—Jesse Jackson (b.1941) American Baptist Civil Rights Activist, Minister
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, that found me poor at first, and keep me so.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
If even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and drug rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to users could be dramatic.
—Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American Economist
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.
—Bob Marley (1945–81) Jamaican Musician, Singer, Songwriter
Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine,
jiggling your knees blankly in the rain.
When it snows in your nose
you catch cold in your brain.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
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 W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist