I think there is no better time to start doing drugs in your life than your teens and drugs are never as mindblowing and euphoric as when you're a teen. First off when you're young, you're so much more impressed and curious about everything. Once you enter you're early 20's everything takes on a more drab been there done that feeling no matter what you're doing the mystique to life is a lot less mysterious. You know that feeling when you're in you're teens and you score ecstasy and its like "Yo guys guess what I just got some pills, Hell yea! oh shit man we're going to have a fucking blast and it ends up being one of the most memorable times of your life, I just couldn't imagine it being like that at all when your older. You're surrounded by a lot more of your friends you grew up with, its easier to make new friends when you're still a kid, you're normally a lot closet to your friends and no one has anything to do, jobs, kids and all that that comes later in life, Its like your youth is meant to expand your mind through chemicals and have a blast while doing so.
People say Drugs mess with a young persons mental development, but they can do that at any age and I disagree with that statement when using it in a negative sense. I've noticed that people who didn't start doing drugs till collage and after collage or later in life are so much more narrow minded and "my way and opinions are right and yours are not" about things. I fully believe in most cases, not all, but most help add a bit of flavor to your mental development. I feel like all that "its bad for a developing mind, wait till your well into your adult years is part of Americas stigma of drugs still hanging around, and Americas tradition of babying our young adults. Remember when you first found psychedelics when you were a teen? It was like finding the holy grail and completely opened your eyes to a new view on the world, you've never felt closer to the people around you and in tune with the world. I feel like this experience is best had when you're younger so you have more time in your life to evolve those thoughts and share them with others, combined with having the imagination of a younger person and star lite outlook on life which may not be so bright once you've gotten older and have seen more ugly realities of the world.
Also in my experience, its the people who had overbearing parents and couldn't start using drugs till later in life or the people who were against drugs and then tried them and realized what they were missing out on are the ones who feel like they need to make up for lost time and end up going balls to the wall without educating themselves and wind up in the hospitals and graveyards. And as for the whole "doing drugs to seem cool thing" when I was in high school which wasn't to long ago at all, mid 2000's there really was no such thing as "the cool kids" everyone, no matter your clothing style, music preferences, hobbies, interests, everyone who at least smoked weed for the most part got along, nothing brings people together and creates bonds like drugs, its an easy way to get to know people you otherwise never would have even thought to talk to. Drugs are as "cool" as playing video games these days, its just a normal part of life that most people enjoy, not something that makes you "cool." I never understood that idea.
Looking back, I started smoking weed at 14, then mushrooms, coke, oxy, ect all within the same year and it snowballed from there, I would not change a thing. I would feel like a missed out on some of the most valuable experiences of my youth had I waited till I was older. Especially marijuana, I feel like that is as much a part of growing up as pubic hair. I'm not at all recommending every young person go out there and start doing drugs, decide for yourself it totally up to you, but the idea that drugs should be saved for adulthood for everyone is crazy, yea there are certain people that cant handle them at a younger age and it is best to wait to have those experiences when your older but certainly not everyone. I feel like the most reasonable answer is "Its up to you and how you feel about it, no one can decide if your mind is ready or not but you, if you feel you are, dip your toes in the water first don't dive head first"
