Question: What means by being high in drugs?

Robert Hampson answered on 10 Nov 2014:

There are many different kinds of drugs. Paracetamol is a drug, so are antibiotics. Drugs are defined as chemicals which can change a desired biological behaviour.

Illegal drugs often dramatically effect the brain. They can stimulate it and make it excited (generally called being “high”) or they can dull it and slow it down (generally called being “low”). Coffee for example makes you “high”, while alcohol makes you “low”. However, in comparison to illegal drugs caffeine and alcohol are very weak and not very addictive.

Drugs like cocaine or ecstasy stimulate various areas of the brain and kind of make it run faster. Many people who take ecstasy require a lot of water to remain cool because of the amount of activity it triggers in the brain and nervous system. A drug like cannabis slows the brain and is generally considered to make people calmer and more mellow so it should really be called a low I suppose. However, it is still called being high, probably because “being high” now essentially means the effects which closely follow taking illegal drugs!