High Price

thought as being the height of brilliance. Under the influence of cocaine, dull or usual thoughts sometimes seem more important or significant than they are during nonintoxicated states. This is one of the main reasons that people take drugs: to alter their consciousness. And, as far as we can tell, humans have sought to alter their consciousness with psychoactive agents (often plant-based) ever since they have inhabited earth. There doesn’t seem to be an end toward this pursuit anytime soon. In other words, there has never been a drug-free society and there probably will never be one. So slogans like “our aim is a drug-free generation” are nothing more than empty political rhetoric.
    Nonetheless, although I thoroughly enjoyed it, I never developed the intense craving for or compulsive use of cocaine that some users describe. I knew that if I developed a serious cocaine habit it would have jeopardized my ability to earn money, which in turn would have jeopardized my housing arrangement with Betty. With no money or accommodations, I seriously doubt that Melissa would have remained interested in me. So, when cocaine was available—and Melissa and I did it about twice a month for a few months—I often did want more as we enjoyed our supply. When we ran out, however, I never found myself unfolding the packet to see if there was perhaps a hidden clump left or looking on the mirror for stray flakes. I didn’t even consider going out and buying some. It was certainly pleasant and I definitely enjoyed the sense of clarity it gave me. But it wasn’t irresistible to the point that I was willing to jeopardize the things—earnings from work, housing, and Melissa—that allowed me to indulge in the first place.
    Yet again, I’d had the experience of most drug users, the not particularly exciting nonaddiction story that never gets told. I was in the 80–90 percent of cocaine users who do not develop problems with the drug, the group that rarely speaks out about their experiences because they have nothing much to say about them or because they are afraid of being vilified for having taken an illegal substance. In the current political climate, it is not surprising that many drug users do not speak out about their experiences. I served as an expert witness in multiple court cases where mothers have had their children removed from their custody simply because they admitted to smoking marijuana. My testimony on behalf of these mothers, explaining that it’s inappropriate to conclude that someone has a drug problem simply because they admit to illegal drug use, didn’t seem to matter. Since we tend to hear from that problematic 10–20 percent, their experience is incorrectly regarded as the norm.
    Indeed, when I began researching drugs myself as a scientist, I first discounted my own personal experience as being aberrant, falling for the propaganda that continuously puts pathology at the center of the drug dialogue. I ignored my own story, just as I had when I didn’t notice that problems in my neighborhood that were later attributed to crack cocaine had actually preceded it.
    B ecause my ties to Atlanta weren’t particularly strong, when Melissa suggested that I move with her to North Carolina and take a job at her mother’s restaurant, I agreed. I became their short-order cook and manager. The idea was that their restaurant was going to be a huge success and make us all lots of money. Simultaneously, I enrolled at UNC-Wilmington in 1989, still set on finishing my degree. I managed to get some Pell Grants to cover the tuition. If that didn’t work out, I figured the restaurant job would.
    Without my relationship with Melissa, I might never have become a neuroscientist. If I hadn’t met her, I wouldn’t have moved to Wilmington and wouldn’t have taken Rob Hakan’s experimental psychology class at UNC-W. Also, I would have never met my two other crucial mentors at that school, Don Habibi and Jim Braye. I don’t know if I would have completed my education without these three men. Due to my seemingly interminable work at the restaurant, I almost dropped out within a few months of starting.
    Managing a restaurant and being a cook is hardly a part-time job. Pretty soon I found myself working twelve- to sixteen-hour days for minimum wage, dumping the grease into the grease pit when my shift finally ended at 1 a.m. and wondering how the hell I’d gotten there. I stank of sweat and cooking oil and every part of my