On Drug Use

[aperson]

Since someone bumped the old thread I decided I might as well put this out here. I feel that the general public has a grossly uneducated view of drugs, largely because most of us have chosen to accept the standard view given to us rather than do our own research. Hopefully what I have to say here might change your mind if you carry these views; however, I'm open for debate and discussion.

My background: I smoke lots of pot when I'm at school, often daily, but I usually smoke with a vaporizer because I care about my lungs. I don't really enjoy drinking, though; the only other drugs I really enjoy are mushrooms and LSD, though I have tried Ecstasy, 2c-i, 2c-e, DXM, alcohol, cocaine, opiates, and many others. I am about to begin my 3rd year majoring in neuroscience and mathematics at Rice University; I have certainly wasted all of my time sitting on Pete's couch

A lot of the disdain for drug use comes from lack of information. Most people seem to draw a line at where a 'drug' is, but they do not understand that drugs play an integral role in our day to day survival. Since we have a problem with clarity, let's make sure we know what drugs are: Illegal drugs are drugs, tobacco is a drug, alcohol is a drug, caffeine is a drug, and additionally, every single vitamin and mineral you place inside your body from eating food are drugs. If we were to go without getting a proper regiment of vitamins, our body would become deficient and our mental abilities would erode. The fact that our mental abilities are correlated with vitamin and mineral intake shows that all of us require psychoactive drugs in our day to day survival. Potassium and Sodium are required for neural firing to work. Without them, our brains would simply be a dead network of unfiring neurons. We wouldn't even have a functioning brain with which to experience all of these other drugs. Are potassium and sodium not psychoactive?

Additionally, our body produces, on its own, many drugs similar to or exactly the same as scheduled substances on the NIDA scheduling list. For example, opiorphin is a natural opiate produced in our saliva glands to ease pain on wounds. Now you see why many animals and people lick wounds; they are doing drugs to ease pain. Ironically, this drug is similar in structure to morphine and heroin but is many times more potent per volume than either. Our body also produces DMT (n,n-dimethyltryptamine) in the brain. DMT is an incredibly powerful hallucinogen that has been demonstrated to be released in small amounts in the brain during sleep. It has been conjectured that DMT is partially responsible for dreaming. DMT, however, is a schedule I (the tightest scheduling) on the NIDA scheduling list. Therefore, all of us internally possess a substance which is illegal in the highest degree of magnitude. Additionally, it appears that we all trip off of it at night.

Therefore, it is an absurd conjecture to say that drugs are 'not natural.' If they aren't, then nothing we ingest is natural. Furthermore, where can we draw the line between drugs being natural or unnatural? Whether they were chemically synthesized or not? Some drugs that are chemically synthesized can also be found in nature. We can synthesize 4-PO-DMT (psilocybin) chemically, and we can also find it as one of the main active ingredients in magic mushrooms. If we have synthesized something that we haven't found in nature yet, who is to say that we simply have not discovered a plant that contains that property. As an example, scientists synthesized 4-PO-MT (baeocystine) before they discovered it naturally occurring inside psilocybin mushrooms. It's absurd to presume that baeocystine became natural once it was discovered inside these mushrooms.

Some drugs are so natural, however, that they make us trip without even being there. LSD is a perfect example. Contrary to urban legends, LSD does not stay in your spine nor any other part of your body nor does it cause your brain or any other region to bleed or become damaged. Actually, LSD is rapidly metabolized from your system after taking it. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD wrote, "The concentration of LSD in the various organs attains maximum values 10 to 15 minutes after injection, then falls off swiftly. The small intestine, in which the concentration attains the maximum within two hours, constitutes an exception." The psychedelic encyclopedia expands on this, "After two hours, only 1 to 10 percent is still present in the form of unchanged LSD; the rest consists of water soluble metabolites -- such as 2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-LSD -- which do not possess any LSD-type influence on the central nervous system."

What's the catch? We trip on LSD, strongly, for around 6 to 8 hours before we come down. For the strongest part of the trip, most of the LSD is already gone. LSD, then, is actually a catalyst for something that occurs in the brain without any drug even being present. In fact, most of what LSD does is amplify neural processes and effects into the brain. In this sense, it takes our reality and enhances it; colors become more vivid, sensations have more depth, emotions are amplified, etc... and all of this can occur while no usable amount of the drug remains inside of our body.

Hopefully, with this understanding of drugs, we can come to a less judgmental conclusion about drug users. We are all drug users; we require drugs to survive. The delineation between acceptable and unacceptable drugs is largely made by society and the government. What one society can view as a sacrament, another society can view as a sinful vice (such as with psilocybin mushrooms in the Oaxaca region of Mexico and in the United States). Different drugs have different properties, and it is the user's responsibility to ensure that they understand and are able to handle the drugs which they choose to use or misuse.

We are quick to place the blame on the drug instead of the user. It is ultimately the user's decision which lies at the core. For me, I have used mushrooms and LSD to deepen my understanding of reality. Both of these drugs, I feel, have made me more compassionate towards other people, and they have helped solidify my notion that everything in the world is equally beautiful (because staring at a wall can be just as breathtaking of an experience as seeing the most beautiful landscapes). I believe my drug use has been an overall positive experience in my life. Though it is possible to come to these conclusions without drugs, why should we question the route we take to get there? On the other hand, mushrooms and acid have the possibility to destroy a person's perception of themself and emerge a broken shell of a person. The power of any drug ultimately rests in the hands of the user. We should blame the user for any consequences that occur, not the drug.


I would also like to address some points from the last thread which I thought were dangerously presumptuous:

Drugs develope a dependency on the user. every time that person does them they become a little less potent. So every time they do them they have to take more and more.

This is not true for all drugs. Most drugs we ingest on a day to day basis don't. Most illegal drugs don't, too. Psychological addiction differs from physical addiction. Additionally, many drugs have anti-addictive properties. The illegal drug ibogaine has been demonstrate to almost entirely eradicate addiction to opiates, tobacco, or alcohol after use. Drugs such as mushrooms anecdotally have anti-addictive properties. Many users report not wanting to do other drugs after taking mushrooms (even if they had a good trip). I'll echo these sentiments as well. While it is true that many drugs possess addictive properties, it is the job of the user to research the drug and understand these properties before he or she takes it.

Most people I know who do drugs are complete losers. All they do is sit around in theri basements getting high and watch old cheech and chong episodes.

I like to vaporize some weed and then jog around campus or play DDR. Some of my best artwork has come from either tripping on substances or sparked from visuals I saw while tripping. Claims like these only continue an uneducated culture that will never truly understand the properties of drugs. The truth is, there is a diverse population of drug users. From the junkies to the weekend potheads to the psychonauts, many people use drugs for many different reasons.