Anyone tried drugs in 80`s or your friends ?
Was drugs popular in 80`s(more than in present) ?
Was drugs a big problem in 80`s ?

Based on all I know and have seen, back in the 80's it was more "burnouts" and metalheads (oftentimes they were grouped as one and the same, which, of course isn't true) that tended to do drugs.

Oh sure, tons of people probably still smoked weed in the 80's, but for the most part, it seemed like it was more frowned upon by the average person than in the decades before or since. This was when Nancy Reagen's "Just say No" campaign was going on.

In the 60's and 70's, and again in the 90's and 2000's, it was/is more of a social/common thing, but in the 80's, it was viewed as more of a "loser" or "rebellious" thing to do, if that makes sense.

Also, as far as the truly "dangerous" stuff, this was also when cocaine and crack were making their way into the inner cities. So it was still a problem, just like any other time.

Yep coke & crack were big in the 80s, but yeah i think Marty is on the right track though. Drugs were more frowned on in the 80s than they were on the 70s or the 90s. Yuppie culture was a big thing in the 80s & cocaine was commonly & stereotypically associated with it, but that drug wasn't really affordable for the average person. Usually that drug was associated with those executive types that could afford to live in condos & would. That was the stereotype anyway.

coke was big out here...
once I was driving friends while we were out on the town and
they said "pull up to this house we'll be right back"

I fell asleep in a running car for hours and hours and they never came out.
a pick up turned into a party and they left me there.
i was mad and stopped hanging out with them

Chemicals were more popular than POT in the 80s:

Chocolate Mescalin
MDA (pretty close to extasy)
Cocaine
LSD

Mushrooms were also "all the rage".


At least where I hung out.

It was all out there, just more expensive than it is now !!
Cocaine was the yuppie drug of choice, I guess because it was expensive and also it keeps you hyper for a long time so people could work long hours and party long hours and just not sleep or eat.
Dope was big at my college and I did have one friend who went from alcohol and dope to heroin, very sad.
Glue sniffing/aerosol sniffing was huge in the 80's in the U.K. I knew two people who died from that.
Amyl nitrate was big in the clubs too before esctacy arrived on the scene. 

people thought hash was cool.
ick.

people thought hash was cool.
ick.


No kidding, and whose idea was it to hot knife the stuff at the stove?  And let other people do it for you, typically people who were already baked!  I mean I wouldn't trust a stoned person with a bag of chips never mind holding a red hot piece of metal 2 inches from my flesh!

Hot knife??

Hot knife??



You take ordinary butter knives and stick them in the stove element until they get red hot - then you use one knife to pick up a tiny chunk of hash, squeeze it between the two knives and inhale the resulting smoke.  A pop bottle with the bottom cut off was a popular accessory for this past time.

WOW! I can

the 80s were all about drugs in smalltown upstate ny
we smoked weed like  chimneys  snorted coke  mushrooms were eaten by the ounce 
that was when we learned how to grow killer bud(still a fine art)LSD was apopular party drug
in 87 or 88 i did extasy the first time(we called it the hug drug)it was $20a hit
people are wrong if they think there were less drugs in the 80s
now it seems that crack  & meth are taking over the local area
Ill stick to an occasional smoke leave the other stuff alone
the smoke is purely medicinal  lol

All I know about 80s drug culture is what I learned from having read every Bret Easton Ellis novel. Coke was the thing in those books. THE thing.

The answers....

No and no.
Yes.
Yes, especially cocaine and heroin. Cocaine was a really big problem back then.

There was also the contraversial "Just Say No" campaign.

The "hippie" drugs were out!  Hallucinogenics, depressants, etc...  They were viewed as trash.  Only burnouts used them.  Rebellion was done by teenagers via fashion and sometimes sex, much like any teenager of any era.  But drugs, not really.  In the later teen upper ages, cocaine was used.  It was socially acceptable, more so in big cities.  The eighties were all about class, thus the accessories, cars, and material items.  Therefore, the expensive drugs were accepted, and drugs which were uppers for efficiency, mostly coke.  Crack was used, but was called "the poor man's coke" and wasn't as accepted as it's parent, cocaine.  Another drug, in the late 80's and early 90's made a quick debut, ICE!  It was an extremely dangerous form of crystal meth.  For the most part though, good ole ETOH (alcohol)!  Accepted anywhere, anytime, any age, any era.

The only people I knew who did drugs (as in pot) did happen to be metalheads: Long hair(esp.mullets) for the guys, bleach-clonde mullets/frizz perms for the girls, tight jeans, flannel shirsts and heavy metal T-shirts. I was friends with a couple of them, but they mostly despised "rich kids" like me. I didn't try drugs or drink until much later.

Based on all I know and have seen, back in the 80's it was more "burnouts" and metalheads (oftentimes they were grouped as one and the same, which, of course isn't true) that tended to do drugs.

Oh sure, tons of people probably still smoked weed in the 80's, but for the most part, it seemed like it was more frowned upon by the average person than in the decades before or since. This was when Nancy Reagen's "Just say No" campaign was going on.

In the 60's and 70's, and again in the 90's and 2000's, it was/is more of a social/common thing, but in the 80's, it was viewed as more of a "loser" or "rebellious" thing to do, if that makes sense.

Also, as far as the truly "dangerous" stuff, this was also when cocaine and crack were making their way into the inner cities. So it was still a problem, just like any other time.


"In the 60's and 70's, and again in the 90's and 2000's, it was/is more of a social/common thing"

It was frowned upon, though, in the 60's, and was really a countercultural (aka "hippie") thing, and the hippie movement started in the mid-60's but grew much larger in the late-60's.