I haven't done much recently, but my history is much like your Az, tried MDMA and loved it, got into looking a blue light all day. It's interesting back then we thought the whole MDMA neurotoxic thing was not really proven.
I recently got high on opiates from an OTC medicine recently. My friend claimed he could get high from loperamide, I did not believe him but i saw him take 400mg and appear clearly high...
So i did some research and saw others agreed it works and tried it myself. It's a legit longlasting Opiate high with a bit of an anti-cholrgenic affect as it makes your mouth super dry. I wonder if you've heard of people using this or how long it will be legal?
Yeah the MDMA thing is still contentious - a lot of people will claim that it's as safe as aspirin (which is stupid, because aspirin actually kills a fair few people), then scientists will do the whole "this is your brain on drugs" routine, and nobody knows what to believe, so they just believe what they choose to, as a rule. It's even complicated by harm reduction advocates like UK scientist David Nutt, the guy who was fired as a Drug Adviser because he said taking MDMA killed less people than horse riding - which is true, but horse riding doesn't fry your serotonin receptors.
But I've seen too many people who ate pills frequently for a few years in their late teens/early 20's, then ended up with depression/anxiety disorders later down the line drugged up to the gills (could be argued that I fit into that group), and a few who just ended up completely fried, just empty eyed.
I've heard about Loperamide, a fair bit actually (it was a frequent topic of discussion on 420chan's /opi/ board). In the US it's common to take it to help with the symptoms of withdrawal - it's technically an opioid iirc, but it isn't controlled because it supposedly doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. Reports vary on the extent to which it can make you feel good, it's interesting that you got a buzz off it. Do you have an opiate tolerance/history of use? I'd be interested in knowing more about how you'd compare it to any other opiates you've taken.
I wouldn't worry about it being banned anytime soon though. It seems to be one of those "everyone is different" things, but if enough people could catch a buzz off it that they could grab loperamide from the Chemist instead of going to their dealer, I think the wider addict population (and then the media) would have caught on long ago. Nevermind that opiate addicts have enough trouble crapping as it is...
Kinda curious, how often is coke cut with shit that fucks people up?
Varies massively. You can roughly calculate it based on how close you are to South America geographically, how far down the chain you're buying it and (tied into the other two) how many times it's changed hands. If you're in South/Central America you can apparently get it fairly pure for a few dollars a gram. Probably not completely pure unless it comes straight from the production line, but it's safe to assume that almost every time it changes hands/crosses a border from there, it gets stomped on again. So if you're in the US, for your average weekend user buying from your average dealer, probably something like - once after production when the guys down there convert the coca leaves into powder, then again when it goes north and is sold to the Mexican Cartels, again after the Mexicans get it over the border and sell it to the big time domestic distributors, again when they sell it to the smaller local distributors, then if your dealer is a douchebag or an addict (and he probably is) again when he gets his hands on it. The amount it's cut each time and whether it skips any of these steps or has any steps added is what determines whether you get nice, 60 - 70% stuff or shitty 20 - 30% stuff which is mostly novacaine, laxatives and maybe some other random stimulant (anything from meth to whichever RC stim is doing the rounds that week - 4mmc was big for a while, then MDPV and one of the fluoro-amphetamines, dimethocaine hovered around for a while, no idea what it is now) or, if your dealer is a real douche, caffeine.
As far as actually "fucking people up," it depends. It used to be just novocaine, laxatives and maybe some speed or caffeine (although there was a brief period where a fairly carcinogenic cut was used, I saw some once from an old stash, but I've forgotten the name). These days there are two major things to worry about - the first is the huge amount of random RC stimulants. These are completely untested drugs created by adding or subtracting atoms from known drugs to create slight variations which are legal in some countries. Some of them are fairly harmless (for drugs), some are more dangerous than what they're replacing. Likewise, some provide amazing highs, others are pretty shitty. Only way to know is to try it - and the market is just as unregulated as the street drug market. Just because a vendor say they're selling pure MDPV, doesn't mean they aren't selling you whatever they scraped out of the bottom of their latest batch of the substitute amphetamine/cathinone of the month. And every time one gets banned, we go one step further into unknown waters. For the first time in history, there are millions of people over the world getting high on molecules that had never existed on this planet a month or two beforehand. So that's something to worry about.
The second is levamisole, which for some reason they started using to cut cocaine fairly high in the food chain (ie. in or before Mexico, because it was showing up in a lot of samples, all over the world) a few years ago. Nobody knows why, though a couple theories were floated around. The problem with levamisole (which was used as a de-worming agent until the side effects became an issue) is that it kills your white blood cell count, which is obviously not a good thing. Several regular cocaine users have ended up in hospital because of this, although it hasn't reached epidemic proportions or anything. But it's definitely not something you want to be putting in your body.
As an interesting example, in my 8 years of drug use, I've never used cocaine. Ever. Given that Australia is an island continent a considerable distance from South America, the streets aren't exactly flooded with it, and what we do get is both low quality (ie. imported around 30 - 60%, from what I remember) and extremely expensive - the average gram on the street will set you back $400AUD (about $300USD right now). Now all of our drugs are relatively expensive due to this Island Continent problem (although we're better off than places like New Zealand, Alaska and most of Scandinavia), but paying $400 (when the average income is A$75,603) for what will be, if you're lucky, 20% coke, is insanity. Obviously people do it, but it's primarily two demographics - people connected to importers who have access before it goes from the importers to the bikies to the dealers, getting cut each time, or a small niche of well off bankers, actors, "local celebrities" and the like (and the dealers who sell it to them) who do it primarily as an image thing, and just care that they can be seen emerging from the bathroom with a little bit of white powder they
accidentallyforgot to wipe away from their nose at whatever club or party or magazine launch party they're at. If it actually keeps them awake to drink more overpriced champagne, they won't complain, but it's 90% an image thing, the actual high is secondary. It's also pretty much nonexistent outside of Sydney and Melbourne, with a bit making it's way north to the Gold Coast and Qld, since those are the places where the finance industry/celebrity culture/shipping lanes collide (heroin is also rare outside of Sydney and Melbourne, although that's mostly due to the shipping lane thing - apparently there's a fair bit in Perth which is brought back via. the Army bases located in Western Australia, but that might just be hearsay, so don't quote me on that).
The result of this (as well as being located just south of the Golden Triangle, which realized about 20 years ago that they could make a lot more money if they put industrial size meth labs next to their poppy fields) is that meth is the go-to stimulant in Aus, and not just white trash coke like it is in the US. It's actually fairly expensive ($300 will get you half a gram, it's generally sold in points, bags of 100mg, for $70), but it's also reasonable to very high quality due to the sheer quantity which goes around, so people figure they can buy a $400 gram of coke and snort it over 3 or 4 hours, or buy a $70 point of meth which will keep them going 12 - 24 hours, depending on the quality.
It's primarily a middle class drug, but it goes across the entire spectrum of society - it's massive in the IT industry for the long hours of being able to focus on coding, of course the entertainment and hospitality industries, in general it gets a lot of use just as a utilitarian drug to keep people awake and going. It's also a party drug - more or less any nightclub will have a resident dealer and people snorting/smoking in the parking lot (especially since the MDMA drought of '09 - '12, MDMA is back, but so many people got hooked on meth in the process that it's really dug in (and nearly killed the club scene in a lot of ways, people just stayed in their cars to smoke half the night, then stayed home to smoke, then stayed home to shoot up, and off they went), as well a lot of house parties and festivals. And of course it's incredibly addictive shit (especially since smoking is the most popular ROA - pipes are passed around at parties the same way a mirror loaded with coke might be at a party in the US, but smoking is intensely more addictive, and unlike coke you don't have to cook it into freebase to smoke), so a lot of these people end up using more and more, becoming full timers, spending all their money on it, resorting to crime, falling apart physically and psychologically, etc etc. It's not pretty, I've seen it happen to a shitload of people I had fun with back in the day and it sucks because the shit is everywhere and there's no pharmaceutical option for treatment like there is with opiates.
Anyway back to coke, here's an interesting article Vice did about the coke in London:
London, This Is What's Actually in Your Cocaine | VICE | United Kingdom
tldr: apparently it's mostly shit, just like Australia (although they don't get overcharged as much).
Opiates and junkies really disturb and sicken me. The way it ruins lives, what it turns people into, what it puts family/loved ones through.
However it does fascinate me in a way as well. I've worked with and known my fair share of users of various severity. I don't hate junkies as a person, I guess I just hate the addiction and everything that revolves around it. Obviously legalization would be the best thing for overall harm reduction but good luck seeing that in the US during our lifetimes.
Thanks for the posts Azrayne, best new thread in a while. /popcorn
Yeah no doubt it's fucked up in a lot of ways. It's kind of like that one crazy girl you dated who was amazing in bed and really awesome when she's chilled out, but would go completely batshit over nothing at all and have crazy mood swings every other day, constant breakups and get-togethers. A wild fucked up love/hate relationship that just isn't sustainable, but you still find yourself drunk dialing her at 3am. A lot of people have that kind of freaked out out fascination with it even from an outsiders point of view (junkie lit/films are pretty much their own genre).
I'm actually pretty optimistic about drug law reform. When I first started getting high the idea of even weed being legal anywhere in the first world was ludicrous - now you guys have 2 (3?) states where it's not just decriminalized or wink wink nudge "medical," (although I am interested in the medical research going into is, especially with cancer and pain management, but there are so many fields where it has huge potential) but actually straight up legally for sale, for the first time in almost exactly 100 years. Your President and your Drug Czar actually coming out and saying that drugs need to be a health issue and not a law enforcement issue. Just the other day Nevada announced they wanted to try and pass a pilot program for heroin maintenance. Shit is really starting to snowball - of course there's a huge amount of money and industry and lobbying behind maintaining the status quo, which makes these changes even more amazing. It's an interesting time for drug policy.
Glad people are finding this stuff interesting.
Man Azrayne.. we woulda been good rl friends back in the day.. I always felt like I was one of the few sane users that I knew. A friend of mine was huge into bluelight for years through high school and beyond (if you ever heard stories of the florida party that got busted, he was there). We'd test our MDMA during our rave years in high school, and avoid taking them more often then every 3-4 weeks as it took that long for your body to replenish the seratonin.
Never felt like an 'addict', just an informed recreational user. Tried lsd, shrooms, K, benzos, coke, weed, etc.. never a problem until I tried opiates. The physical withdrawl symptoms really got me. The worst part was, I didn't like to take very much, I never wanted to be 'high' and nodding out, but I'd rather be high then in withdrawl. So, if the only thing available was something super strong, that's what I took. I liked the small euphoric feeling as it was hitting you. I'd take small doses, but more often, just to prevent it from peaking. If my friends were snorting 30mg roxies, I was breaking it into quarters or halves instead.
The worst part? To this day, I still think I'm a better person when I take a small amount of opiates. I have energy, I'm outgoing, funnier, motivated, friendly, etc.. Non-biased 3rd parties that had no idea I was taking opiates have verified it even.
The problem is, if I don't have access to a steady supply of lower potency opiates, I eventually am in a situation where I have to take something stronger and quickly build up a higher tolerance again.
So, a few years after being clean, I was involved in a car accident and started having actual pain. But, I didn't really want to get back on the rollercoaster of normal opiates between being high or in slight withdrawl, even if I had found a doctor to prescribe it, so after jumping through a bunch of hoops I now take suboxone as a potentially permanent pain medication basically. I've found it's really the best fit for me, as it's very difficult to actually get high on it, and also lasts extremely long. When I first saw this doctor, he treated me like any other addict coming in, but after awhile he realized my situation is quite different then most and now he sees me on different days then the normal suboxone patients.
I really hope that in a few years we'll see buphrenorphine being prescribed as an actual pain medication for some people with mild pain rather then percocet/vicodin/etc.. I think it'll prevent a lot more accidental addictions. It's much easier to taper off and quite since the effects are milder and longer lasting. There's no extreme 'drop' when it stops working that makes you want to take more. I've forgotten to even take a dose for 6+ hours, for example.
If only the regulatory committees in charge would pull their heads out of their collective ass about the drug. There's more restrictions and procedures for being prescribed it then their is all the hardcore opiates like morphine, oxycodone and such that are effectively heroin. It's less damaging, but yet because it's 'only' prescribed for addicts, you pay out the nose for it and have to see the doctor every X weeks.
I also agree that in my experience, the majority of problems with drug users stems from the fact that it's illegal. That day/week their normal hookup is out, they spend all their time looking for a hookup (rather then doing productive things) and then that person takes advantage of the situation and charges out of the ass (causing the addict more economic problems and into more desperate actions). Yes, there's plenty of people that would still abuse it if it was legal, but there's also a lot of people I met who are pretty responsible at the times they have a steady, easy and cheap hookup for their fixes.
Yeah man you sound like most of the guys I've hung out with. There seems to be a very cyclical pattern to a lot of drug use - start out with weed and booze, experiment with MDMA/acid/K/etc. At this point most people either get hardcore into partying with uppers, or skip straight to downers. The upper crowd burn out after a while, and swap to downers too eventually, just takes them a bit longer. Then you decide being an addict sucks, get treatment, finally get clean after a few years of back and forwards, and you're maybe back to occasionally drinking/smoking weed. Obviously not everyone does it like that and it depends on a lot of factors, but it's common enough that a lot of people I know have seen the same pattern.
You're right about opiates making you feel more functional, especially at first, and especially oxy, which has that energizing feel to it. It's a pill which makes you better at what you do, feel amazing, kills pain - who wouldn't want that? It's only when dependence and tolerance develop that shit goes out the window.
I'm on suboxone as well, the system is different here, less frustrating in ways, more in some. I tried a physio when my back first got sore, then a pain management doctor (took me two years to get a referral because I was young and male and nothing showed up on the MRI), by which point I'd already gone from eating low dose codeine pills from the chemist, to extracting big doses from those pills - at the time you could get boxes of 100x12.8mg of codeine with 200mg of ibuprofen for $14, a 20 minute CWE would give enough codeine for 2 or 3 decent highs if your tolerance is low/moderate, I actually had this massive graph of 25 or so pharmacies in close range which I'd cycle through to make sure I didn't hit each one more than every 2 weeks or so, although one or two obviously didn't give a fuck. Ironically the closest and so the one I hit up the most is now the pharmacy where I go to pick up my suboxone twice a week - to eating/snorting oxys (hah, I can remember the taste of that drip just thinking about those days) and chewing the occasional fent patch, to shooting oxys and morphine (and dabbled with the more obscure ones, but those were the mainstays), but I went in completely honest about my drug use, expecting he'd have some kind of non-opiate way of managing pain we could try out. It became pretty fucking obvious he didn't, I even had to suggest the one medication we did try (neurontin), so that was a waste (dude was also a douchebag, but that's another story). He suggested suboxone, but I blew it off at the time. It was only later when I couldn't keep up with the whole thing that I decided to tried subs - only to discover the clinics all had maxed waiting lists (a blessing in disguise as it turns out, I've heard nothing but horror stories from those clinics since) and no doctors were willing to bother going through the 8 hour or whatever training course to prescribe to a junkie.
Luckily the shrink I'd started seeing when I started having anxiety issues from the meth (poor woman had never dealt with a drug addict before, so the whole thing was new to her, but she's the only doctor other than my dentist who isn't a dick about the drug thing) was willing to do the training, and now I get a script from her. But I still had to go to the Chemist every day for 2 months to pick up my dose in the morning, then gradually over the course of 18 months they'd give me more doses and I'd go in less frequently, till I got down to twice a week. It's a stupid system for something like suboxone, I mean even in the US you guys can just get it a month at a time like a normal medication, on the flip side you guys pay a shitload for medications, especially if your insurance fucks you around, it's much simpler here (I pay a straight $5/dose, which adds up and doesn't really make sense as a system, but beats what I've heard from people in the States). It didn't fully help my back pain, but combined with a shitload of paracetemol/ibuprofen, occasional muscle relaxants and a bunch of other random treatments and lifestyle changes, the pain is down from a 5 - 7 to a 1 - 2, and I'm working on slowly tapering off it (managed 24 - 16mg really easily at 1mg/week, but hit a wall at 16 where even dropping 1/2mg makes me feel crap for days, so I guess it's gonna be a long term process).
Haha, no never, but I followed that whole drama when it exploded. Fucking hilarious.
