I am reminded while reading this article, that there exists hundreds of thousands of "casual" cocaine users who are capable of using for short periods of time,

I am reminded while reading this article, that there exists hundreds of thousands of "casual" cocaine users who are capable of using for short periods of time, even a single night, and then getting on with their lives. This is supported by statistics[1], but also my personal experience of knowing plenty of successful ambitious people who will occasionally take a weekend off and consume psychedelics, or MDMA, or split a gram of coke between friends for a night. In fact I think it's safe to say that the majority of cocaine users don't become regular users with expensive and costly habits. Of course no one ever writes lengthy exposés about the occasional users because that wouldn't fit the narrative that has been playing on loop for the last 40 years: "all drugs are bad and even one single use will lead to your ruin". It's people who are suffering from mental illness or who live in conditions that cause them mental anguish who usually become addicted to drugs in general. It's a form of escape and the community that dulls their pain. The sooner we can start having sane, even-handed discussions about drugs the sooner we can start solving the root of the problem, which is not drugs, but mental illness and mental wellbeing. Sensationalist stories such as this one that completely ignore >90% of drug users and focuses only on the ones' whose stories are worth exploiting for clicks are not helping. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/drugs-cocaine-environment-fair-trade http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/drugs-c... He cites 12:1, casual to addicted, in the USA.