Sociology Story: Why We Do Drugs

A large pick-up truck screamed by. As soon as the eyes of the driver met that of the vagrant he was about to pass, he halted his car to a stop. The shrill screeching of the brakes echoed on the empty city block with the resonance to shatter the windows of the nearby skyscrapers. A burly man slowly opens the door of the car, exits, and then shuts it with authority. Expecting the vagrant to run away, he steadily approaches the druggie like a predator advances on its prey.
“James, what were you thinking?”
The man who spoke thrusts his fist into the wandering addict. As the man falls to the ground, his rags float in the light wind. He hits the ground and gives a smile.
“I was thinking?” James asks coyly while massaging behind. The muscular attacker’s calm airs of nonchalance turns into red hot fury. His razor-bladed boot is sent right into the side of the man on the ground, though he shows no pain. While he thrusts his foot again and again, a bead of sweat drips off of his shaved head and into his thick eyebrows that are nestled over his cold blue eyes. James stops moving; the attacker assumes he’s dead. He gets back in his truck and drives away.
******
Ten years earlier, a similar young man walks into his afternoon chemistry class. James is half an hour late, but the lecturer is normally late, so he’s sure he’ll be fine. As soon as he opens the door, a warm voice chimes, “Mr. David; why do you insist on being fashionably late to my class?” The professor gives a toothy smile and James recognizes that he has the attention of everyone in the hall. He gives a shrug and the other students chuckle. He takes a seat near the front to compensate for his disturbance and starts to listen.
“As I was saying before we were so kindly interrupted: we have been studying the effects of certain chemical compounds in the human body. Now, since Mr. David was so late, he will give an example of one of the natural chemicals the body produces as part of its reward and punishment system.”
James has a solid mastery of the concepts behind chemistry and easily quips, “Dopamine, of course. It serves important roles in behavior and cognition, motor activity, motivation and reward, inhibition of prolactin production, sleep, mood, attention, and learning.”
“But what, Mr. David, is a synthetic compound that stimulates dopamine production in the body and overloads the dopamine receptors in the brain?”
“Um…”
“Exactly; it’s an off topic point, but important nonetheless. Benzoylmethyl ecgonine artificially produces dopamine, which is a compound you all may colloquially call it ‘cocaine.’ The dangerous part about it is the sole fact that it can take control of the body’s ability to reward itself and affect its mood. Many cocaine addicts have sever withdrawal symptoms and even can develop severe neurological conditions such as Riley-Day syndrome. But I digress…
******
The corks pop off the bottles and fly into the air. Alcoholic foam sprays into the air and onto the walls of the hall. With each pop comes a collection of cheers and shouts. Medical school decision letters have just arrived at the house and everyone is in a jovial mood. James was expecting his envelopes to be delayed because Law Schools release their decisions later than the medical schools. He was still glad he switched from medicine. Though he didn’t have any new news, he simply had attended to congratulate his friends in the department.
“Congrats on Harvard Med Dave!”
“I’m so happy for you Marla, you’re gonna love UCSF”
“I can’t believe you got into JHU Med!”
He felt like he was being too facetious, yet everyone at the party didn’t seem to care. It was a happy day for everyone. Soon it escalated into one of those college parties that freshman always had; someone invited a friend who invited other friends and others invited their friends. James enjoyed the juvenile fun nonetheless; he only went to a handful of frat parties as an underclassman.
The best part of the party for James wasn’t the New York Giant pizzas someone had ordered or the groovy tunes blasting through the walls. It was the skinny, blue eyed blonde in the room. He had met her before: she wasn’t yet of “drinking age” and had snuck into a few bars. He knew the girl, but hadn’t had the time to get to know her. She was a native Arkansan, which showed through her heavy southern drawl, but had a delicate mastery of the English language; she was a literature major. Everything about this girl fascinated James; there was no other girl like her. James was even more impressed that he got her to come upstairs with him.
She locked the door behind them. He pulled away from her face, “that private eh?” he asked. She smiled bashfully, “I do that when I break the law.” He curiously tilted his head, and seeing this she followed with, “it’s fun!” She laid out a razor blade and a Ziploc bag. She transferred a thin line of fluffy powder onto a table and rolled a dollar bill tightly.
******
“Take your things, you’re done here.”
James lulls his lanky body through the door of his supervisor and shuffles to his desk. Someone had already done the job for him, a nice parting gift from McDanahue and Smirsey. Despite his strong track record at M and S, the firm was forced to fire him when an altercation with a co-worker caused his co-worker to reveal one of his illegal habits. Federal investigators had found enough white powder in his desk to make a rather fine cup of tea. The judge had only sentenced him community service, but M and S went through with firing him.
He spent the next few weeks looking for a job, but his story was a cover story of the Chicago Sun; previously he was well known as the best prosecuting attorney in all of Chicago. Often, the other lawyers who argued against him could not debunk his arguments and had no idea how he could have accumulated so much research; it was as if he never slept or never ate. It seemed as if cocaine usage explained everything.
Soon the house wasn’t even his: he rented his rooms to more people than there was room for and kicked himself out of his own house to compensate for his lack of income. Not even that could support him and he lost the house and his rent income. His debt took over him and most dealers in town knew he couldn’t pay it off. Only 3 years after becoming the most famous lawyer in Chicago, he became the infamous using loser. It was no wonder that his
******
The day after the Med School Acceptance Letter party everyone seemed to congratulate him. They told him of the entertaining feats he had accomplished, yet James couldn’t remember anything from after his closed door encounter. Julia –the girl he was with- had invited him to more of her friends’ events. He never had so much to do socially; he usually spent his time getting all of his work done for his joint Pre-Med and Pre-Law tracks. He had never been so happy.
******
An ambulance transferred him from the ground to a stretcher. They weren’t sure he was going to live but they rushed him to the hospital. His heart rate was low and his blood pressure couldn’t pump blood downwards, but they had restored him to livable conditions.
When he awoke, the doctor was in the room. “How often have you used blow or crack?” James looked around and settled back into his pillow. “So you recognize me eh?”
“Recognize who?”
“You know, James David, the lawyer from the paper.”
“No. I only recognize a James David who’s a patient in critical care. Mr. David, you have the thinnest blood of anyone who has ever been brought here and a quick drug test showed us what you’ve done.”
“Um…” James drifted back into a deep sleep.
******
A young man walked up to James, who was reclining in his chair locked into an intense game with Barry from Houston, Texas.
“Sorry Barry,” James said, “this guy made an appointment.” His blank stare showed some understanding and he walked slowly away.