The following is an answer and/or comment by inhahe aka ColorStorm (inhahe.com - myriachromat.wordpress.com).
What's your opinion on smoking/drugs?

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It's pretty disparaging to me that people actually smoke. I mean so many people. And they only do it because everybody else does it.. it's obvious groupthink. Nobody rational would ever smoke--it's quite obvious that anyone who starts will be addicted, it'll be really hard to stop if they ever do, it's a huge drain on your bank account, it's horrible for your health and can give you cancer/emphysema/whatever.. yet everyone just does it because they see other people doing it and they think it makes them cool. it's gross and obnoxious.

Drugs, I think it's interesting that they destroy so many lives and yet so many people still do them. Is that indicative of the short-sightedness of people in general? Is it because everyone thinks at first that they'll be able to handle them without being addicted? "It won't happen to me.." (same reason people don't see the insanity of driving).

Even if it's shortsightedness, how does it work? I mean what's the appeal of seeing a heroin junkie ruining his life? You can't see the pleasure he's having when he shoots up, but you can see the black under his eyes.. Or do the junkies always start out in the circles of people who can moderate their sh*t? I just wonder if the temptation of using drugs for the temporary high despite the drawbacks somehow magically wins out over all appearances. Kind of as if society is a person... society knows it feels good, so society uses it despite the ruination, and it can't be any other way.

I also think that, even for those people who use drugs in moderation / don't get addicted, it's probably not a good idea to achieve happiness through abuse of the body. That's like a free lunch, and there's (generally) no such thing as a free lunch. if it were actually a good thing to feel good in that way then evolution would have made it normal..

Of course, some people use drugs (psychedelics) for mind expansion and such. That's kind of a different matter. I'm still skeptical, because they achieve their mind-expansion through abuse of the body, but I'm a little more open in that case to maybe it being an actual good (though risky) thing for some people.