The uproar about drugs is itself odd. Illicit drugs are, on the whole, far less dangerous than the legal drugs that many more people consume. None of the illegal drugs is as lethal as tobacco or alcohol. If anyone has ever died as a direct result of marijuana, no one seems to be able to document it. Most deaths from hard drugs are the result of adulteration or unregulated concentrations.
Many people can be addicted to heroin for most of their lives without serious health consequences.
It has no known side effects other than constipation. Pure heroin does not destroy body tissue. Most cocaine users do not become dependent, and most who do eventually free themselves. Drug addiction is singled out as evil, yet ours is a society of addicts. We project on the black subculture all our profound anxieties about our own addictions to wealth, power, sex, food, work, religion, alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco and attack addiction in others without having to gain insight about ourselves.