People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn’t own doodley-squat, so they couldn’t improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead. The results had been catastrophic so far–suicide, theft, murder, and insanity and so on. But new chemicals were coming onto the market all the time.
Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions