Drug subcultures are examples of countercultures that are primarily defined by recreational drug use.

Drug subcultures are groups of people united by a common understanding of the meaning and value (good or otherwise) of the incorporation into one's life of the drug in question. Such unity can take many forms, from friends who take the drug together, possibly obeying certain rules of etiquette, groups banding together to help each other obtain drugs and avoid arrest^[1] to full-scale political movements for the reform of drug laws.^[2] The sum of these parts can be considered an individual drug's "culture".

Many artists have used various drugs and explored their influence on human life in general and particularly on the creative process. Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas employs drug use as a major theme and provides an example of the drug culture of the 1960s.

Ethanol (simply called alcohol) is a psychoactive drug^[3][4] primarily found in alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is one of the most commonly abused drugs in the world (Meropol, 1996)^[5] often used for self-medication,^[6] and as recreational drug use.^[7]

Cannabis subculture has been responsible for the genre of films known as stoner films which has come to be accepted as a mainstream cinema movement.^[8][9] In the United States the culture has also spawned its own celebrities (such as Tommy Chong and Terence McKenna) magazines (Cannabis Culture and High Times) and, in North America, its own distinct holiday: April 20, which is marked as a day for calling for the legalization of cannabis.^[10][11]

• Narcoculture in Mexico
• Entheogens
• Kava culture