[FrontierPsych]

Personal responsibility plays probably 80% of it, and that really points to the company one chooses to keep.

When one keeps drug addicts or drug-friendly people as friends, that is the worst possible decision that one can make, of all decisions in life. It is all of our personal responsibility to to associate with "good" people - and cut out people that must be avoided. If one avoids the drug-friendly, then the odds go way down that one will take drugs. If drugs are not easily available, then the tempation goes way down if they are never around you. As an example, I personally have no idea as to where to get drugs. Who has them? Where would I go? Why would I make some special trip driving around everywhere trying to find drugs - spend hours and hours, maybe never finding them? And one might hang out with friends, and not take drugs as they pass them around, BUT, all it takes is one moment of weakness, and boom, there goes another life flushed down the toilet - notwithstanding the whole "exception argument" drug users give: "Yes, but I am functional" argument - that one works and takes drugs. Heard that one a million times and good for you, but that doesn't apply to most, which is what the point is.

I've known a couple of people who told me that they tried drugs, and I immediately cut them out of my life. I wasn't a dick when I happened to see them around town, but I certainy was not hanging out - just polite, then said that "I had to be somewhere else."

How many times have I heard someone say, "These are my friends, I'm not that shallow that I am going to turn my back on them." Foolish thing to say.

The reality is, if you hang out with successful businesspeople, odds are you will become successful in business. If you hang out with artists, you'll have a greater chance of being an artist. If you hang out with scientists, you'll have a greater chance of being a scientist. If you hang out with drug users, odds are exceptionally great that you will become a drug user.

The company one keeps. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Personal responsibility is to chose one's friends wisely.