The Drug Appreciation Thread

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In summary, the conversation discusses different drugs and their effects, with one person sharing their experience with caffeine and amphetamines for treating depression. Others mention the potential harm of methamphetamines and the importance of medical supervision when using these types of drugs. The conversation also touches on societal attitudes towards drug use and the pressure to conform to certain behaviors.
  • #1
ShawnD
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We all take drugs. Some are legal, some are illegal, and all of them are awesome. Let's share some stories about which ones we like and why we like them; purely from a scientific view of course :biggrin:. Feel free to throw in background information as well, not just "well I took meth, liked it, and now i scratch my face so jesus doesn't kill me lawl."

My favourites are caffeine and amphetamines.

Caffeine
In grade 11 I had to do a research paper on an illegal drug of my choice and present it to the class. I picked cocaine and went with the motif that cocaine was nature's cure all for the blues because it increased dopamine production in the brain (dopamine is responsible for feelings of euphoria). Jump ahead 4 years to 2005 - Shawn is seriously depressed and needs help. I tried Paxil and nearly killed myself while taking it, so that wasn't the answer. I eventually remembered my cocaine research paper and immediately started searching for an inexpensive alternative. To my surprise, I found that caffeine is very similar to cocaine in how it affects the body. Both are stimulants, both increase dopamine production, both can be freebased if you feel so inclined, both suppress appetite, and both are very addictive. The only real difference is cost; cocaine is $80 per gram, caffeine is $0.80 per gram ($8 for a bottle of 100 pills 100mg each). As soon as I started taking in huge amounts of caffeine, my depression went away completely and I feel like I'm king of the world. My attention span is much better, I'm more talkative, I actually feel like going out and meeting people; I feel great. Such amazing results and it only costs about $0.48 per day (6 pills per day). That's literally half the cost of those damn Paxil pills I tried taking before.

Amphetamines
They have the same basic effect as cocaine and caffeine, but it's done a different way and leaves more of a relaxed feeling so you're not all jittery. Great for social occasions, but not for depression because of the high cost (being illegal kinda makes things expensive). Ephedrine is very similar but it doesn't quite have the same mood altering effects.
Try not to buy into the hype the media pushes about meth being the scourge of our cities; it's really not. Do you have a problem with ravers? I sure don't, and basically all of them take meth. Ever heard of "Ecstasy"? Its sometimes called MDMA which is short for 3,4-methyldioxymethamphetamine. Meth bad? Never has been, never will be.



So what's your drug of choice and why? :smile:
 
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  • #2
This is rediculous, you talk about cocaine and methamphetamine like they are vitamin pills.

Let's talk about the damages that Methamphetamines do. It can cause severe withdrawal that is more intense and longer lasting than both speed and cocaine. It appears to have a neurotoxic effect, damaging brain cells that contain dopamine as well as serotonin, another neurotransmitter. Over time, methamphetamine appears to cause reduced levels of dopamine, which can result in symptoms like those of Parkinson’s disease, a severe movement disorder.
 
  • #3
You need a good, thorough neurological (not psychiatric) workup to figure out what the underlying problem is. All the stuff you take has a different effect on you than on normal people. Obviously something is very different to begin with.
 
  • #4
zoobyshoe said:
You need a good, thorough neurological (not psychiatric) workup to figure out what the underlying problem is. All the stuff you take has a different effect on you than on normal people. Obviously something is very different to begin with.
I have to agree on this. Amphetamine-like drugs are used to treat neurological disorders, and have very different effects on people with those disorders than on people without those disorders. There is a big difference between using these drugs under a physician's supervision to treat an underlying problem and recommending them to otherwise healthy people as a recreational drug.
 
  • #5
my drugs of choice? some sunshine and laughter...and okay, my daily cup of coffee...
 
  • #6
Kerrie said:
my drugs of choice? some sunshine and laughter...and okay, my daily cup of coffee...

Coffee should be criminalized :grumpy: :grumpy:

All these starbucks are taking over Earth. And when people don't have their coffee... people die...
 
  • #7
Moonbear said:
I have to agree on this. Amphetamine-like drugs are used to treat neurological disorders, and have very different effects on people with those disorders than on people without those disorders. There is a big difference between using these drugs under a physician's supervision to treat an underlying problem and recommending them to otherwise healthy people as a recreational drug.

Isn't it kinda like radiation then? It can be used for good in certain cases, but normal people don't run around looking for reactors to crowd around.
 
  • #8
coffee is all I have as well as one or two beers when I go out, but never enough to go over the 0.05 blood alcohol limit for driving. I've noticed that more and more people are taking drugs on a regular basis, but I don't really see the point.
 
  • #9
big man said:
coffee is all I have as well as one or two beers when I go out, but never enough to go over the 0.05 blood alcohol limit for driving. I've noticed that more and more people are taking drugs on a regular basis, but I don't really see the point.

And i was just thinking about something earlier. Whats so big about drinking or smoking? I mean, its like an abomination if you don't do either. Why don't people go bananas when I say I don't drink Mr. Pibb or that i hate soccer (ok maybe some people will go bananas over the latter :P). I don't really care about cars... i don't listen to any of this so called "music" that's out there right now and I don't watch many sports on TV yet no one runs up walls when I tell them this. But man, no drinking? People will blow up on you for some reason. Or well, the people i know.
 
  • #10
I sit an watch the ladies go by, that's the best drug :rofl:
 
  • #11
wolram said:
I sit an watch the ladies go by, that's the best drug :rofl:

Sometimes that ends up having some really bad side effects :rolleyes:
 
  • #12
I like shroomsies. There's this movie called "the waking life". It's an animation with some really funky stuff and it starts talking about these really weird (and occasionally deep) philosophical issues. If you watch that while on acid or shrooms you will have one hell of a trip (except for that one part in the jail, that can be quit scary if you're on lsd)
 
  • #13
Caffine and alcohol is as far as I'll go, and I try to moderate my intake of both. I've never smoked or taken any illegal drugs in my life. I'll admit, I'm curious about cannabis, but I still don't really want to try it.
 
  • #14
Pengwuino said:
Coffee should be criminalized :grumpy: :grumpy:

All these starbucks are taking over Earth. And when people don't have their coffee... people die...

I agree with the starbucks comment, however, that's capitalism for you. If I do go to Starbucks, I usually order a cold drink, their coffee is nasty otherwise...
:yuck:

I'm curious about cannabis, but I still don't really want to try it.

Although I support hemp farming, those who smoke a lot of marijuana really tend to be disconnected from reality. Personally, I don't find that a very great trait.
 
  • #15
Moonbear said:
I have to agree on this. Amphetamine-like drugs are used to treat neurological disorders, and have very different effects on people with those disorders than on people without those disorders. There is a big difference between using these drugs under a physician's supervision to treat an underlying problem and recommending them to otherwise healthy people as a recreational drug.
Sure the effects would be different in some people, but not for the reason you're thinking. It seems very well established that dopamine does this, serotonin does that, epinephrine does this, and X does Y. Drugs change those balances around the same way in everybody. That's why coffee and amphetamines give everybody more energy, they make everybody's heart rate increase, and they make everybody have heart attacks when they're taken in very high amounts. Similarly, marijuana makes everybody relax on some level, and LSD makes everybody trip out.
Sure some people are different, but their reactions to drugs are only dependant on how they interpret data while taking those drugs. If you give mushrooms to a happy person and to a paranoid person, the paranoid person might completely freak out and start attacking peope. Did the mushrooms go through some different chemical reaction in his brain? Nope, they did the same thing but he interpreted the data differently. Happy guy thought the walking statue was cool, paranoid guy through the walking statue had to die. Hallucinogens generally have that duality associated with them. Some peope like the feeing of life not being real, but I happen to hate that feeling and avoid hallucinogens at all cost because of it.

Of course I talk about drugs like they're vitamins, because they fix problems. You can either drink a coffee in the morning or you can start doing some elaborate changes to your diet and throw in an hour of exercise and only jerk off when the moon is full but why would you do that when you could get the same chemical results by drinking something that takes 1 minute to make? As humans we look for the most effective way to fix a problem, and a coffee trumps major life style changes in every way.
Same goes for amphetamines. You can either go to a psychologist for years and years to learn how to want to hug and snuggle with people, or you could take a pill that maks you love other people more than nature could ever force you to.
Then after that you have your pain medications. I'm not even sure if pain has a non-drug alternative. It's sort of hard to just ignore a migraine.

matthyaouw said:
Caffine and alcohol is as far as I'll go, and I try to moderate my intake of both. I've never smoked or taken any illegal drugs in my life. I'll admit, I'm curious about cannabis, but I still don't really want to try it.
Cannabis really isn't aything special, and like alcohol, many of the effects tied to it are actually BS. Marijuana does not make you hallucinate and start seeing rainbows everywhere; that's LSD that does that. Marijuana does not make you start freaking out over everything; that again is LSD and mushrooms and only when given to people who were already paranoid to start with.
If you don't try it, great. If you do, that's great too, but don't go in with any stupid ideas of what it should do. It doesn't even do half the things people think it can do.
 
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  • #16
kerrie said:
Although I support hemp farming, those who smoke a lot of marijuana really tend to be disconnected from reality. Personally, I don't find that a very great trait.

I know what you mean. I have friends who use it heavily, and they never seem quite 'with it'. I've seen one person go pretty much off the rails, and I think cannabis played a major role. On the other hand, I have friends who are occasional users, and it doesn't seem to affect once the initial effects have worn off.
 
  • #17
matthyaouw said:
I know what you mean. I have friends who use it heavily, and they never seem quite 'with it'. I've seen one person go pretty much off the rails, and I think cannabis played a major role. On the other hand, I have friends who are occasional users, and it doesn't seem to affect once the initial effects have worn off.
It's sort of a chicken-egg thing. Were people nuts before they started taking drugs, or did they go nuts after taking drugs? You'll find people arguing on either side, and with good examples to back their arguments.

I tend to think that you have your own messed up mental problems before you start taking drugs, then you take drugs that go perfectly with your style of craziness. I like to have tons of energy, be motivated, talk fast, think fast, and generally live life a lot faster, so I stick with stimulants like caffeine. If you look at other people on stimulants, their personalities are strikingly similar to my own. If you go to a university and look at the drug usage there, you'll generally find that serious students (people there to actually learn) favour stimulants over other drugs. It's gotten to the extent where caffeine is almost seen as an integral part of being a nerd, and people are even starting to buy shirts showing the chemical structure of caffeine like this.
If you look at the opposite end of things, you'll find that most dropouts like depressants; marijuana being prime example. People who love to just sit back and relax take drugs that can help them sit back and relax. The majority of my friends are dropouts, and they love marijuana more than I love caffeine. I can't understand why you would want to just chill out all the time. They can't understand why I would want to be on edge all the time. We're fundamentally different, and our choice in drugs clearly reflects that.
 
  • #18
ShawnD said:
Of course I talk about drugs like they're vitamins, because they fix problems.
They cause many problems too when you use them to fix problems. Think alcohol; it's fine as a social drink, but don't use it to drink away your problems.

It's fine if you take substances to you, as long as it is not addictive and does damage to your body.
 
  • #19
Some find poppers to be a nice stimulant, others don't.
Some actually need amyl-nitrate products for their heart condition.

I can't see the point of thread hailing the properties of dangerous drugs; but, hey, that's just me.
 
  • #20
Durgs taken without a medical need is wrong. It's sad that some people can't discover how to feel good about themselves without taking drugs. Then how they feel is the drug, it's not them.

I agree with Arildno,
 
  • #21
ShawnD said:
Sure the effects would be different in some people, but not for the reason you're thinking. It seems very well established that dopamine does this, serotonin does that, epinephrine does this, and X does Y. Drugs change those balances around the same way in everybody. That's why coffee and amphetamines give everybody more energy, they make everybody's heart rate increase, and they make everybody have heart attacks when they're taken in very high amounts. Similarly, marijuana makes everybody relax on some level, and LSD makes everybody trip out.

I don't know about that. Maybe basic physiological effects like increased heart rate (if that is an attribute of a given drug) remain fairly constant, but I do think subjective effects can vary greatly depending on one's pre-existing brain state. For example, marijuana retains distinctly marijuana-esque subjective effects when taken with some drugs (such as alcohol), but in some instances when it is taken in when one is already under the influence of a hallucinogen, there is almost no discernible subjective effect, or at least only a very subtle one that is not very marijuana-like at all. There have also been a number of reports that hallucinogens, even at high doses, do not have a strong effect on very experienced meditators. I don't know to what extent those reports are true-- they come from anedotal evidence rather than controlled scientific investigation-- but they do seem to have some plausibility since there have been a number of independent reports, and there is neuroscientific evidence that the brain activity of experienced meditators is markedly different from the average person.

Perhaps these examples are somewhat extreme, but they do indicate that a given drug can have drastically different subjective effects depending on the user's pre-existing activation patterns and chemical balance in the brain. And by subjective effects I don't mean to refer to how a user responds to a given change in his subjective experience, but rather the primary change in subjective experience itself.

ShawnD said:
Of course I talk about drugs like they're vitamins, because they fix problems. You can either drink a coffee in the morning or you can start doing some elaborate changes to your diet and throw in an hour of exercise and only jerk off when the moon is full but why would you do that when you could get the same chemical results by drinking something that takes 1 minute to make? As humans we look for the most effective way to fix a problem, and a coffee trumps major life style changes in every way.

I agree that drugs can have quite positive effects, not just in terms of fixing problems, but also just in terms of making a positive addition to what otherwise might be a more or less 'baseline' condition of overall happiness or whatever. Most people will tend to stress the deleterious effects of drugs in discussions like this, and they do exist and must be respected, but I don't think many people appreciate the extent to which at least some kinds of drugs can be used in a healthy manner and effect very positive changes. Unfortunately, the existing attitudes and laws towards drug use in most of the world make such responsible use much more difficult to enact, but it can be done and the benefits can be quite profound.

ShawnD said:
Cannabis really isn't aything special, and like alcohol, many of the effects tied to it are actually BS. Marijuana does not make you hallucinate and start seeing rainbows everywhere; that's LSD that does that. Marijuana does not make you start freaking out over everything; that again is LSD and mushrooms and only when given to people who were already paranoid to start with.

Technically speaking, marijuana is a hallucinogen of sorts, and when taken at very high doses it can have effects reminiscent of the more powerful hallucinogens (though no, you won't start seeing rainbows everywhere). And people can indeed freak out quite thoroughly on marijuana with an acute paranoid reaction, although I would agree that such paranoia is of a different (ultimately less powerful and pervasive) kind than the kind one can get on a hallucinogen. But in general, I'd agree that marijuana is not as potent or dangerous as many people seem to believe-- there is a lot of misinformation and skewed perspectives. Certainly marijuana is roughly on the same order of subjective and physiological effects as alcohol, and in most cases is probably much safer to use-- one cannot die from a marijuana overdose, and marijuana does not tend to incite dangerous or reckless behaviors.

And I also have to take issue with your claim that only people who were paranoid to begin with freak out while on hallucinogens, since this is just not true. A completely psychologically healthy person can have quite a bad time on a hallucinogen and this can be triggered by any number of internal (mental) or external (environmental) factors while under the influence of the drug. A trip can start off quite well and then spiral into a hellish experience from just the very slightest of cues if the user is not prepared to handle it well or is in a certain kind of setting or does not have a sitter to help guide him through.
 

What is "The Drug Appreciation Thread"?

"The Drug Appreciation Thread" is an online forum or discussion group where individuals can share their experiences, thoughts, and opinions about various drugs. It can be found on social media platforms, forums, or websites dedicated to drug culture.

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The safety of participating in "The Drug Appreciation Thread" depends on the individual's personal choices and the platform where the thread is located. It is important to research the platform's guidelines and rules, as well as practice caution when interacting with strangers online.

What kind of content can be found on "The Drug Appreciation Thread"?

The content on "The Drug Appreciation Thread" can vary widely. It can include personal stories, advice, reviews, and discussions about different drugs, their effects, and their cultural significance. However, it is important to note that not all information shared on the thread may be accurate or reliable.

Is "The Drug Appreciation Thread" only for positive discussions about drugs?

No, "The Drug Appreciation Thread" may include both positive and negative discussions about drugs. It is a place for individuals to share their experiences and opinions, which may differ from person to person. It is important to practice open-mindedness and respect for others' opinions and choices.

Can "The Drug Appreciation Thread" be a helpful resource for drug education?

While "The Drug Appreciation Thread" may provide some information about drugs, it should not be considered a reliable source for drug education. It is always best to seek information from credible sources, such as medical professionals or reputable organizations dedicated to drug education and harm reduction.

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