Drugs: A Social Norm Analysis

Drugs have always been a social norm and throughout this essay I intend to look at four texts which portray drug use in different situations with different individuals. The four texts are songs, Deja Vu by Eminem, Chris Dolmeth by Hopsin, Ill Mind of Hopsin 6 by Hopsin and The Girls on Drugs by Wale. I have discovered two distinct connections in these songs, one of the connections is that there are many different reasons as to why people choose to do drugs, and the other connection is the purpose which is that the artists are trying to show us that the outcome of doing drugs will only ever be bad.

This first connection, that there are many different reasons as to why people choose to do drugs, is shown through all of the different stories
However in this song the artist is talking about somebody else’s, possibly a friend’s, experiences with using drugs. The characters name in this song is Jesse. Jesse and Eminem had similar reasons as to why they chose to do drugs, Jesse’s reason was also that he was surrounded by an environment that showed him that doing drugs was okay. The quote that showed me this was “until he had started hanging around with them other kids, who showed him how to drink a Corona and puff a cig.” This quote shows that the group of friends that he was hanging around taught him bad things that he thought wasn’t bad because they were all doing it. So the environment around him, which was his friends, was a huge influence on his choice to start doing drugs. Another reason was that doing drugs made him feel good and the quote that showed me this was “he'd wake up for school feeling like it's the end of life. He’d hop off his bed to go and sniff a line. A couple minutes later, now he’s energized.” This quote makes it clear that he thought that the drugs he was doing made him feel more stimulated even though it’s likely that he only felt bad because he started doing drugs in the first place. It’s quite fascinating how a simple Corona and a cigarette from a few friends can lead to an intense addiction to meth. Like with Eminem, it’s crazy how much of an influence his mother’s drug use had on
In this song the artist is talking about the female population not just one person like the other songs. This song also shows an environment in which girls are influenced to do drugs. The quote that showed this was “try to tell me adderall make her get a rush, used to use it to study until she fell in love. Told me that buzz make her think a lot, told her “nah you lying, ‘cause you don’t eat enough.” Adderall makes you lose your appetite if it is taken often and it also causes weight loss. What Wale is saying here is that this girl is taking adderall in order to lose weight. I think that the environment around her caused this to happen because people always advertise skinny women as beautiful and overweight women as ugly. She probably wanted to feel beautiful. Even though this is just a side-effect of the drug this girl only used it because of that one side-effect. Another reason as to why these girls chose to do drugs was because they felt depressed and they thought that doing drugs would make them feel better. The quote that showed me this was “that’s why she want to get high, because she’s feeling low.” This was the same reason that Jesse did it, he too wanted to feel happier. This is also sort of why Eminem did it, however, he used drugs as a way to get over his friend’s death. This reason is quite common in society because people often use drugs to forget about things or to make themselves happier. I would