Mindsweeping

So, essentially, all experiences alter the mind. In much the same way that everything that happens creates history. Once it's happened, it's history and that's why "We're witnessing history in the making", while technically true, is a bullshit phrase. It's redundant. Everything we see is history in the making, whether it's a dictator being shot, or the paint on the wall you're staring at while you're taking a dump because you needed to go so bad you didn't have time to look for a magazine.

Some experiences alter the mind faster and more strongly than others. "Drugs" legal or otherwise, do so, but generally in short term. Discussion of such isn't as interesting as say, the effect human interaction has on the mind. It's longer lasting and more powerful, though no substances are ingested, nobody has to be arrested (yet) and the youth of the nation may rest easy. All writers are concerned with social interactions of varying shapes and sizes, and as such are essentially obsessed with mind altering experiences. This would seem a reasonable cause for many writers to also be obsessed with mind altering substances. You work out what makes you feel X, you can write about it in Y. People say the best way to write is to write about what you know. Of course, this doesn't mean crime writers have to go out and murder someone's family to write a good book, but if they understand the social workings and power games and emotions involved, then they'll probably come out with something pretty good. Now, you don't need to understand chemically what's happening, that certain "feel good" chemicals are naturally released in the brain when you kiss someone you think you love... but you could argue that the naturally produced stuff is better than the synthetic stuff. Higher purity, etc. It can be just as addictive, and we want to feel that feeling again and again, so we chase the high, forgetting that it's never going to be the same high we had before. This disappointment leads us to try other methods and eventually we're drunk and desperate and we're beginning to realise we're missing our shot at happiness because we're reaching too far and splitting ourselves in half. We're on the wrong drugs people and we don't even realise.