Peer Pressure, Drugs and Love: The deep lessons from ‘High’

When Kayode tells Lami that he “like the ‘S’” on her chest, he didn’t know it would change his life forever.

In a scene that left us almost despondent, Mrs Cole (a new member of the rehab family who becomes addicted to prescription painkillers after a difficult childbirth) accidentally burnt her newborn baby because she was high on prescription drugs that made her “feel so good and less depressed.”

“If God made weed grow naturally, then how can it be bad?”

This comment by Kayode’s rehab inmate ‘Slow’ (His given name is Richard) had us thinking hard.

But not too hard before we suffered a mental meltdown.

Another killer line from ‘Slow’: “Love is like drugs and if you’ve never been high before, then you’ve never loved because a shish opens the third eye…”

We should add that the need to remain in the favour of friends and admirers is a known path to a life of substance dependence for a lot of people.

Parents should show greater responsibility in limiting the amount of pressure they place on their kids.
In the play, Mrs Johnson makes use of emotional blackmail to coarse her daughter, Lami into seating for countless scholarship examinations. This makes her give in to the pressure of taking a ‘catalyst’ (from Ryan) to aid her studying and not disappointing her deceased father.