The vast majority of young drug users see substance use as a positive experience. Why else would they continue to take them? Most research on the other hand pathologises drug use by looking solely at the negative consequences, contributing to the misunderstanding that young people are increasingly self-indulgent and, in a meaningless world, hell-bent on self-destruction. In this refreshing new article Karenza Moore and Steven Miles try to understand the social roles of drug use in the everchanging lives of young people and come up with an alternative view. Rather than seeing drugs as a destructive force, Moore and Miles portray drug-taking as a stabilising factor in the volatile world of growing up.