Deleuze on Drugs

@pareidoliac

Two things must be distinguished, abstractly: the domain of vital experimentation, and the domain of deadly experimentation. Vital experimentation occurs when any trial grabs you, takes control of you, establishing more and more connections, and opens you to connections. This kind of experiment can entail a kind of self-destruction. It can take place with companion or starter products: tobacco, alcohol, drugs. It is not suicidal as long as the destructive flow is not reduced to itself but serves to conjugate other flows, whatever the danger.

The suicidal enterprise occurs when everything is reduced to this flow alone: ‘my’ hit, ‘my’ trip, ‘my’ glass. It is the contrary of connection; it is organized disconnection. Instead of a ‘motif’ that serves real themes and activities, it is a simple, flat development like a stereotypical plot where the drug is for the drug’s sake. And it makes for a stupid suicide.

Gilles Deleuze :: Two Questions on Drugs :: Two Regimes of Madness