yeah, I've seen the other end of it and it's nuts. Being in a metal band for years, I was exposed to and around a lot of folks inclined to take various substances.
And some of the things people did (and do) to get high astounds me. One dude worked for a moving company, and he and his moving buddies would steal duplicate prescriptions from old people's medicine cabinets. Many of these folks had passed on and they were hired to move stuff out of the house, so they looked at these 'free' drugs as a bonus. It blew me away the stuff I would see people take in combination with each other, completely oblivious and ignorant to the potential side-effects and/or lethality of drug combinations. More than once I would hear, after the fact, of someone getting rushed to the ER. I never stayed at those parties long enough to see it.
But I've seen people snort, ingest, and smoke (I ran if anyone was injecting) things that were mysterious in nature. They thought it was "xxx", but the effects were "yyy", so they were often not quite sure. Blew my mind how stupid people would be to escape reality. I remember playing a party and the hostess came out with a bowl of white powder. She offered, and I declined as I never liked coke. She giggled and said it's not coke, it's a bunch of ground up substances. "Mystery Mountain" she called it. People put it in their drinks, rolled it with pot to smoke, and some even snorted it. I never could comprehend the mentality of putting something unknown into your system for a supposed temporary good time. I always figured to each his own and all that jazz, but I always tried to avoid those situations because people would inevitably start acting erratically and unpredictable. Dangerous to be around, IMO.
Now I occasionally see someone from back then, 15-20 years ago, and they look like they have aged well beyond their years.
I just hope and pray that I'm a good enough parent to teach my kids to stay far away from all of it and have them actually avoid it.
Sorry for the long post. CnD's mention brought back some experiences.