Question: what is the point of drugs?

Renata Medeiros answered on 15 Jun 2013:

Drugs have a bad name because when we talk about them we usually mean those that are harmful to us. However, there are many different types of drugs and most of them are actually very useful. The substances that we use as drugs are usually taken or made from plants and animals. Plants and animals produce those substances to help them functioning properly or to help them survive longer. For instance, plants and animals can produce substances that give them a bad smell, or bad taste or even make them poisonous so that other animals won’t eat them. They can also produce substances to help them protecting from the sun (like their own personal sun cream brand) or from disease (yes, plants get ill too!). For many many years, humans have been using these drugs found in plants and animals for their own benefit. Nowadays, most medicines we use to cure our own diseases or to take away pain are still made of drugs from plants and animals, though we also learnt how to invent and make new drugs. However, even the drugs used in medicine to cure us, can do us harm if you take too much. That is why the doctors always tell us how much we can take of the medicines they give us. The problem is when people take drugs that are not given by their doctors. Some people take such drugs because their colleagues tell them it is the cool thing to do or that it would make them feel happy or make them forget bad things. Some drugs might do that for a little while but they also make people addicted to them – you always want more and it becomes very hard to stop even when it’s harming you and not making you feel at all happy or cool. Because they are so dangerous, such drugs tend to be illegal. So the best point to make about drugs is to keep away from any illegal or harmful ones and use the rest wisely when necessary.