Since Reefer Madness, drugs have popped up in more movies than Michael Caine. Here are some of the best examples of people tuning in, turning on, and dropping out on all sorts of crazy shit.
449627914- Movie: Broken Lizard's Super Troopers
Drug: Marijuana/mushrooms
The last thing you want to see when you're toking up with your friends en route to some sweet poutine in Montreal is a pair of flashing lights in your rearview. The only way it could be worse, of course, is if you just happened to have panic-eaten a full bag of weed on top of a bag of 'shrooms and those cops in question have decided to deliberately fuck with your head. That's right, you are freaking out, man. And this is just a precredit sequence.
449627927- Movie: New Jack City
Drug: Crack
Never before has crack addiction looked so damn scary. And by that, of course, we mean the terrifying sight of a shirtless, sweaty, quivering Chris Rock sucking on the glass dick like it contained the meaning of life (during a thunderstorm, no less. Thanks, director Mario Van Subtle). Almost clean and given an important undercover assignment, Rock's Pookie blows it all on one last hit. The next day at work? Things, um don't turn out so good.
449627903- Movie: Almost Famous
Drug: Acid
On a quest to hang out with "real" people, Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond ends up at some random teenage house party sipping acid-laced beer from a red plastic cup. Naturally, it results in him standing on the roof above a pool proclaiming his deity status (while debating if his final words should be "I dig music" or "I'm on drugs!"). But it all turns out to be nothing a little "Tiny Dancer" can't heal…
449627944- Movie: Half Baked
Drug: Marijuana
Most pot movies are content to have their stoners giggle and lay around a lot. They do this in Half Baked, certainly, but they also stumble upon weed's magical ability to make you feel like you're floating five feet off the ground. And that's not all—smoke enough of it, and you can fly your stoned ass all the way to the state prison to visit your cop-horse-murdering friend before Nasty Nate eats his fruit cup.
449628001- Movie: Scarface
Drug: Mounds and mounds of cocaine
Cuban drug lord Tony Montana is backed into a corner and decides to test the theory that snorting a two-foot pile of coke will, in fact, make you bulletproof. And it kinda works. Tony absorbs more lead than Biggie and Tupac combined and still has the wherewithal to launch a few grenades just for good measure. He finally falls, but he takes a shitload of people with him. Coke. Is there anything it can't do?
449627965- Movie: Trainspotting
Drug: Heroin
To the strains of Lou Reed (of course), Scottish heroin addict Renton celebrates not going to jail by injecting himself with so much H that even passing out on the floor isn't good enough—he then sinks into the floor. From his OD vantage point, he watches as Mother Superior drags him down the steps and stuffs him in a cab like a garbage bag full of Salvation Army clothes, all the while seeing floorboards and carpet around his peripheral. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
449628028- Movie: Airplane!
Drug: Glue
Haven't we all uttered this phrase at one time or another? Stressed-out air traffic controller Steve McCroskey just needs a little something to loosen him up. That something is, of course, a nice tube of model glue. When you're hanging upside down from the ceiling stoned to the bejesus belt, all that crashing airplane nonsense doesn't seem all that bad, now does it? It's all about perspective.
449627980- Movie: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Drug: Ether/mescaline
Circuses are, by their nature, creepy and disorienting things. Mixed with a Las Vegas casino and a nice little cocktail of mind-scramblers and they are freakish pits of unholy nightmares. Hunter S. Thompson and Dr. Gonzo stumble their way past one gross, misshapen creature after another. Having been to Vegas on numerous occasions, we can attest that the drugs aren't responsible for all of them.
449628050- Movie: Léon
Drug: Unknown
We have no idea what, exactly, Gary Oldman's psychotic DEA agent Stansfield has stashed in those little yellow pills, but they make him enjoy slaughtering an entire family with a shotgun a little too much. We have to admit, though, anything that makes your body contort the way his does within seconds of ingesting it is probably worth trying once. Once.
449628064- Movie: Boogie Nights
Drug: Cocaine
No movie has captured the twitchy, nervous, nails-on-a-chalkboard tenseness of cocaine better than Boogie Nights. You know the scene: one wild-eyed dude in a robe and one rail-thin Chinese lady-boy with an armload of firecrackers. Each "bang" is like the tick of a clock, inching toward the point where Thomas Jane's Todd finally snaps and loses his shit. It's tense enough to put you off coke, guns, and the music of Night Ranger in one fell swoop.
449628090- Movie: Pulp Fiction
Drug: Heroin
Vincent Vega had it made. He had a nice, charming evening with Marsellus Wallace's wife, kept her entertained, and was about to calmly and collectively sidestep the temptation to sleep with her. Then she had to go and snort a bagful of heroin. Cue a frantic drive and an equally frantic search for a syringe full of adrenaline. Her heart starts beating again, ours almost stops.