Sting Uses Drugs to Enhance Creativity

Pop icon Sting has led an amazing life and career. In a recent interview with Britain’s Event magazine, the former front-man for The Police revealed that he uses marijuana as a “creative tool” and that the drug has helped him write some of his biggest hits.

THC and Music

Sting has never been afraid to speak his mind, especially when it comes to the legalization of marijuana. He is a long-standing advocate for the drug and credits much of his creative genius to the use of THC.

“I think if [drugs] are used specifically as tools for a stated purpose [they should be decriminalized]. As in ‘I’ll smoke this joint and I’ll write a song…or I will write a piece of poetry,’” he said. “Then I think it’s perfectly acceptable.”

“If I’m feeling stuck on a lyric or an idea isn’t quite gelling, sometimes a puff of weed will free it up. It’s a tool, just as a pen is,” Sting told the magazine. “Several artists have used drugs to make great art. I certainly wouldn’t advocate that you have to take drugs to make art, but then you can’t nullify the work of the Beatles. They took LSD and they made fantastic albums.”

Can Drugs Really Boost Creativity?

Drugs have long been thought to increase human creativity. Though the idea has been scoffed at by the scientific community, modern researchers are revisiting the issue. As a matter of fact, recent tests have shown that altered states of consciousness (any method that removes people from their usual way of viewing the world) help to improve the creative thought process.

A recent study published in Consciousness and Cognition took a hard look at the effects of intoxication and how the resulting creative process is affected. Once the data was compiled, researchers found that certain levels of intoxication improve creativity performance by almost 30 percent. What’s more, male participants were able to solve problems much more intuitively than their sober counterparts.

Musicians Relying on Drugs for a Creative Boost

Sting is certainly not alone when it comes to using drugs or alcohol during the creative process.

• David Bowie: Used cocaine to overcome crippling shyness
• Ozzy Osbourne: Abused multiple substances to perform and write music
• Elton John: Abused cocaine, snorting up to one line every four minutes
• Beethoven: Drank wine as often as he wrote music, and was an alcoholic

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