The Harmony Village website notes that Israel is unique in its cultural focus on international travel. Approximately 50,000 young adults embark on international trips each year after completing their military service, more than half the number of soldiers discharged. Estimates show that 90 percent of these travelers use drugs and about 2,000 young adults in this population suffer "mental disturbances," 800 of which are "severely affected and require treatment."

These numbers are by no means true to every social group taking to the backpacking trail, but the Israeli pool provides a unique study population. While Israelis may be more likely to partake in drug tourism due to their recent discharge from the IDF, the same opportunities for drug use are available to all travelers.

Recognizing the potentially long-lasting and well-known dangers associated with drug use abroad, it is natural to wonder why so many young Westerners partake in drug tourist activities. Why would Benjamin Light or David take such risks in one of the world's least developed countries? In Laos, there are very few people or facilities prepared to help if things go awry.

Belhassen and sociologist Natan Uriely from Ben-Gurion University and the University of Illinois posit that leaving home allows vacationers to throw caution to the wind; what one person would never attempt at home becomes fair game in a new and exotic environment. "What we found is that there is a diversity in terms of motivations and in terms of meanings associated with the [drug taking] practice," Uriely explained over Skype from his office in Israel. "So we cannot say that it's related to one thing, it's a sort of escapism or self identity crisis. These are people doing it for different reasons." Of these many motives, Uriely and Belhassen were able to identify two key reasons travelers partake in risky behaviors and rationalize these behaviors to themselves: pleasure and meaning.

Pleasure-oriented travelers tend to try various drugs with little interest in the destination itself, often with hopes of escaping routine living. Those seeking meaning use drugs perceived as part of a local culture or rave subculture. In local cultures, travelers hope to derive authentic experiences from participating in customary drug practices, such as consuming the hallucinogenic cactus San Pedro in Peru. In rave culture, trance music and drugs such as Ecstasy, LSD, and amphetamines become the bonding experience. (It is also important to note that Uriely and Belhaussen define drug tourists as not only those who travel seeking drugs, but those who use even if it was not the original travel goal.)

Hedonistic behavior while traveling is nothing new. It is the foundation of leisure tourism. Drugs, though, are providing a new frontier, extending the boundaries of pleasure-seeking vacations. Researcher Rob Shields refers to these leisure spaces as "liminal zones," where societal norms and values are suspended; activities generally viewed as deviant become acceptable by the surrounding population. Psychologist Erving Goffman called these environments "backspaces" or "action spaces," where travelers are encouraged to partake in adventurous behaviors. "Tourism is inexorably tied up in notions of freedom," Robert Caruana and Andrew Crane from the University of Nottingham and York University wrote in the Annals of Tourism Research. "The promise of 'getting away from it all' is predicated both on the desire to be free from the drudgery of everyday life, and the seductive possibility of freedom to engage in novel or forbidden behaviors."