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I hate to nitpick, but most drugs that produce strong pleasure (heroin, cocaine, etc.) tend to have bad effects on experienced pleasure in the long run. This is an oversimplification, but basically brain chemistry eventuallu adjusts to the presence of the drug, so that instead of feeling normal when you're not on the drug and really good when you are, you eventually end up feeling merely "normal" when on the drug and terrible when off of it. If you are going to live for more than six months, the "direct effects" of heroin and crack cocaine will probably end up causing more misery than pleasure over a lifetime.

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Yes, this is a good point and should not be missed. There's no free lunch in psychopharmacology. That said, it seems plausible that some modes of drug use do in fact lead to net gains in wellbeing over one's lifetime, though of course this would depend heavily on the substance, user, doses, and more.

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