"The chase [for drugs] is always exciting. There are cops and bad guys and freaks and hookers. You're diving into a big insidious video game, but again, you're being tricked into thinking that you're doing something cool, since the price is always bigger than the payoff.

You immediately give up your love and your light and your beauty, and you become a dark black hole in the universe, sucking up bad energy and not walking around putting a smile on someone's face or helping someone out or teaching someone something that's going to help his or her life. You're not creating the ripple of love; you're creating the vacuum of shit. I want to describe both sides of how I felt, but it's important to know that in the end all the romantic glorification for dope fiendery amounts to nothing but a hole of shit. It has to appear enticing, because that's why God or the universe, creative intelligence or whatever you want to call it, put that energy here. It's a learning tool, and you can either kill yourself with it or you can turn yourself into a free person with it."
-- Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue