Drugs

Drugs are any substances (other than food that provides nutritional support) that, when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin, or dissolved under the tongue causes a temporary physiological (and often psychological) change in the body. A pharmaceutical drug, also called a medication or medicine, is a chemical substance used to treat, cure, prevent, or diagnose a disease or to promote well-being. Psychoactive drugs are chemical substances that affect the function of the central nervous system, altering perception, mood or consciousness. They include alcohol, a depressant (and a stimulant in small quantities), and the stimulants nicotine and caffeine. These three are the most widely consumed psychoactive drugs worldwide and are also considered recreational drugs since they are used for pleasure rather than medicinal purposes. Other recreational drugs include hallucinogens, opiates and amphetamines and some of these are also used in spiritual or religious settings. Some drugs can cause addiction and all drugs can have side effects.

Links To Peel
Peel admitted in the Guardian, published on 11th August 1997, that he smoked dope in his hippie days, but after later gave up on them:

"I just feel emotionally, spiritually and in some cases physically recharged by music. I've never been a great one for drugs really, and that's not just a safety position I've adopted to avoid having the house raided. I used to smoke dope in the sixties and it always used to make me feel slightly sick - I used to get sort of dry heat and hot flushes, and I thought that 'actually I didn't have to do this'. If I'm feeling a bit depressed or I'm just working in my room and listening to a bunch of records, I have certain things which I know are great records, and I go and put one of those on and it has an almost narcotic effect, and just recharges you."

Despite not taking recreational drugs in later life, Peel was a supporter of drug liberalisation and once criticised Tony Blair in the Independent, published on 11th April 1998, on his slapping of his minister, Claire Short's, comments on liberalising the drug laws, calling it as "slapped down for trying to discuss drugs in an adult way."