Onward! To another class of psychoactives!
If there are no further questions on cannabis deriviatives specifically, I would like to move onto a new category of chemicals, this being the dissociative class. Dissociatives are sometimes considered psychadelics, but they are very unique from typical tryptamine and phenethylamine psychadelics. Classic psychadelics (LSD, DMT, Mescaline, Ecstacy, etc.) operate on what is pressumed to largely involve serotonin channels (if someone has more questions, I can look up more detailed info on the biochemistry). Point being, these psychadelics usually lead to a sense of "sensory overload." Some have described a classic psychadelic as removing the filter which helps limit what sensory inputs we experience. Thus under the influence of LSD, etc. a person may experience bizarre colors, auditory distortions, tactile sensations, and at the best...Complete ego dissolution. The classic psychadelics are said to be the "light, life affirming" side of the psychoactive spectrum.
Here is where dissociatives drastically differ. They are sometimes called the "dark side" of the spectrum. Dissociatives can lead to at some early stages to relaxation and then to a weird sense of being stoned. At higher levels, vision can become distorted or doubled, and complete ego dissolution is also possible accompanied by hallucinations, etc. However, the hallucinations are not guided by sensory input. Dissociatives lead to sensory shutdown. The ego becomes dissociated from the body. The vessel becomes very numb and the senses become useless. When this sensory shutdown accompanies ego dissolution, many become terrified. The experience is as if one has died. Therefore, dissociatives are credited with producing "near death" and "out of body" experiences.
Dissociatives have clinical uses in anethesia and veterinary medicine. Probably the most famous dissociative is PCP...This is a drug that I have tried to find for many years with no success. It is often presented as a liquid into which marijuana cigarettes are dipped. This practice sometimes leads a pot smoker to freak out because they have laced weed. In reality, this is VERY rare in today's market...PCP is very rare, I'm surprised they still include it on a NIDA-5 drug test. I used to joke that, "Maybe one day, I'd be lucky enough to find an unscrupulous dealer who would sell me some pot laced with PCP." LOL, I was never that lucky.
A lot of the press regarding PCP is typical extremist propaganda. Generally, people under its influence were quite peaceful, it were those few bad apples that acted violently or incredibly stupidly that gave PCP a bad rep. I have heard anecdoctal evidence that PCP is a "psychadelic chainsaw" that is capable of transporting you to completely different worlds.
That said, what dissociative drugs do I have more direct knowledge of? Well, there is Ketamine, a verterinary and human anasthetic. Then there is Tiletamine, a veterinary anesthetic. There is Dextomethorphan HCL. Then there is Salvinorin A. To go into all these, that will take another post and some more time...
