Who gets high?

[sesame]

Originally Posted by GRH

I had this tingling in my head, and I asked my friend about it. He said that everytime I felt a tingle, it was the explosion of some brain cells dying a violent, horrible death. That fucked with me a bit...But it never slowed me down...

Great Snakes! Are you kidding? That means you are slowly killing your brain! Therefore, I should warn you as a friend...
Meditation is painful in the beginning but infinitely helpful to Life. And DrugUse is blissful at start but Fatally harmful to life.

[GRH]

Originally Posted by sesame

Great Snakes! Are you kidding? That means you are slowly killing your brain! Therefore, I should warn you as a friend...
Meditation is painful in the beginning but infinitely helpful to Life. And DrugUse is blissful at start but Fatally harmful to life.

LOL, my friend! My friend is far from a brain scientist, he told me that just to fuck with me. As far as I know, marijuana doesn't have any harmful neurodegenerative effect. The same can't be said for all drugs though, alcohol among them. But to the larger issue at hand, drugs ARE in fact a Pandora's Box of sorts...With great pleasure comes the potential for great pain.

[sesame]

My point is, if your mind is foggy, and your bliss vanishes when you sober up, you have nothing! No memories, some horrid experiences (like Carlos Castaneda saw himself getting eaten by a monster, in a drug induced state) and a shaken CNS (central nervous system): how does it help someone to become creative?

David Hume used it though!

[GRH]

Originally Posted by sesame

My point is, if your mind is foggy, and your bliss vanishes when you sober up, you have nothing! No memories, some horrid experiences (like Carlos Castaneda saw himself getting eaten by a monster, in a drug induced state) and a shaken CNS (central nervous system): how does it help someone to become creative?

David Hume used it though!

The mind is not always foggy, nor are all memories gone, nor is the bliss. I have never had a "bad" trip. I have had MANY difficult trips. Difficult trips represent my own fears, anxieties, and hangups. These can become manifested in very frightening imagery, but I feel there is an opportunity to learn from ALL of these states of consciousness. I probably have a different perspective than many on this topic. I hold a more shamanistic view and I believe that some of what is seen is in fact true, if only on a Jungian level. Tapping into this other world allows us many great feats...The ability of time travel, the ability to interact with spirits, the ability to see reality with our normal filters removed.

As to becoming creative, I have written some of my greatest poetry under the influence...That is something I do not care to share right now. But beyond poetry, it is this altered state of consciousness which FUNDAMENTALLY changed the way that I look at the world, the way I perceive myself, and the way I perceive God. Some of these profundities arose because of a VERY difficult trip, yet that one experience remains to me, one of the single most profound and spiritual experiences of my life. (Don't worry, we can get to it eventually ).

[GRH]

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...

[GRH]

Ketamine and Tiletamine are both veterinary anesthetics, though the former is also approved for human use, particularly among burn victims. I'm not sure why its anesthesia is preferable in this class of patient. They are typically used as a liquid for injection, but among the using class, the vials can be emptied, the liquid evaporated, and the precipitate insulfated. Alternatively, you can sometimes score a vial prior to dilution, in which case you don't have to go through the pains of evaporation. And in even another alternative, if you are not phobic of needles and injectable drugs, you can always inject the solution.

Ketamine's biggest claim to fame was use by Jim Lily, a 1960's scientist who injected a lot of ketamine and also dappled with sensory deprivation. He supposedly developed these elaborate theories regarding dolphin communication under the influence-- to be honest, I don't know if his ideas hold up under modern scrutiny, but he was quite the pioneer, if a bit eccentric.

To be honest, neither of these drugs do I have a huge impression of. Ketamine intoxification has a stage called the "K-Hole." This represents that dividing line between being somewhat messed up and being completely dissociated from one's self. Personally, I find it peaceful and enjoyable. Some have freaked out...For a pop culture reference, Marilyn Manson penned a song titled "Dissociative" on his album "Mechanical Animals." My take is that he pretty much freaked out, assuming the song was inspired by ketamine, as he claims. The lyrics go, "I can never get out of here...I don't want to explode in fear...Dead astronaut in space..." While those sentiments do capture the feeling to some extent, they really represent the panic side of the spectrum. Again, this is not atypical, I guess I'm just more at peace leaving my body behind.

Tiletamine is registered ONLY for veterinary use, but those of us creative enough to see the structural similarities among drugs, and brave enough to venture where few have gone before, have sampled this substance. The trademark name is technically a combination of a dissociative and a benzodiazepine. This benzodiazepine is what scares me, because I don't have tons of experience with them, and they can, in the wrong combination, be fatal if taken to excess. Thus my dapplings with tiletamine were always done with caution. Anecdoctal reports that I have read suggest that IV use of this drug can be VERY powerful, moreso than ketamine, but I was much too paranoid to venture into this realm blindly.

I must say, it seems I am a Tiletamine hard-head of sorts. I could cut several lines of the stuff and feel pretty good. I would go into a numb, relaxed state and would usually drift off to sleep eventually. I sampled a few vials over the years and shared with some friends...EVERY friend who ever tried it with me had a MUCH more severe reaction than me. All participants insulfated a line or took the equivalent of a small oral dose. The few that tried it with me almost invariably got INCREDIBLY messed up. Many ended up completely stupid, muttering jibberish, tripping over themselves, etc. In all cases, I had to remind the people what we had done the night before and tell them that yes, they had taken some drugs, and yes, they had gotten really messed up. One guy ended up staying with me in a hotel miles away from where he started because there was no way he was going to make it home. I don't think he had any recollection of getting there, no recollection of throwing up in my car, etc. It's odd the physiological differences between us...Why two overweight men should react so much more profoundly than me, maybe it speaks to my own junkie disposition. At the minimum, it should suggest EXTREME caution if ever trying a substance, you never know how your body will react...Not necessarily how your friend's body reacts.