[HN Gopher] A Texan who built an empire of ecstasy
___________________________________________________________________
A Texan who built an empire of ecstasy
Author : wallflower
Score : 84 points
Date : 2025-05-04 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texasmonthly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texasmonthly.com)
| ativzzz wrote:
| MDMA is so fun. It's something I would love to do once a year or
| so for the rest of my life. Unfortunately it seems that people
| can't really grow up and do drugs responsibly. People either hard
| pivot away from drugs early on because they were abusing them, or
| they go down a path where drugs define them. The only way to keep
| getting good drugs that I know of is to keep in touch with
| friends on the latter path, but I don't really want to associate
| much with them.
|
| Same with weed, it seems most people I know either quit smoking
| completely, or do nothing but smoke weed. I'm in my mid 30s.
|
| Where the responsible casual adult drug users at???
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I wonder if this is the difference between functional user, who
| is clearly overdoing it, but is on the 'latter path' and
| 'casual adult drug user' that checks in once a year for novelty
| value. I personally do not have big enough social circle to
| draw any real conclusions here.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Isn't this the golden age for casual weed users, with the many
| states that have legalized recreational use?
| treetalker wrote:
| Decriminalized? As I noted in my other comment, it's still
| illegal federally, and the state and federal governments are
| separate sovereigns that can and do independently create and
| enforce laws (subject to various federal constitutional
| limitations).
| maxerickson wrote:
| Meh, living in Michigan, it's clearly a free for all.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Same in Oregon. Nobody cares.
| quesera wrote:
| Sure, this is correct.
|
| But there are recreational cannabis dispensaries,
| collecting state sales and cannabis taxes, in (almost
| literally) every other strip mall commercial district in
| many US states. They might be more common than liquor
| stores, honestly.
|
| That fits no practical definition of "illegal" in an
| ordinary person's daily life.
| awithrow wrote:
| Come to Denver, while there are plenty of folks that fall into
| both of the categories you lament, there are plenty of
| occasional adult users too. I suspect its a combination of both
| the legal status of both weed and natural medicines as well as
| the music scene. I have many friends who enjoy the occasional
| trip and you would never know from a casual conversation.
| morkalork wrote:
| I would be the once a year occasional user in my 30s but I have
| no idea where to get it anymore after moving to a city in my
| 20s. I have no interest in going to nightclubs and chatting
| kids a decade younger than me to get ripped off. And same for
| cannabis, I completely stopped smoking but it's not because I
| can't find any - it's legal here - I just don't care. It's not
| fun anymore.
| aegypti wrote:
| I know this sounds terrible, but the most responsible, _purely
| casual_ drug users that I know are mostly parents, assuming
| 30+.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Parents of older kids maybe?
|
| I have no interest right now dealing with the next day
| effects of drugs lol
|
| A long stretch of sleep is my mdma right now
| abxyz wrote:
| Finally, someone on HN I can relate to. My wife and I love
| luxury dining experiences, so we eat at McDonalds 364 nights a
| year and go to the highest rated Michelin 3-star restaurant on
| the 365th night.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Nothing to be ashamed about just because you can afford it
| more so than so many other devout fans of food service.
| skybrian wrote:
| And don't cook or do anything else? That's pretty extreme.
| nicbou wrote:
| They are pretty common in Berlin. Some people are fine with a
| responsible amount every once in a while.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Fortunately in many states now you can just go to a local
| dispensary and buy weed. I usually get edibles because it's
| better than inhaling smoke. Now for me it sometimes replaces an
| evening beer, usually just 2.5mg or 5mg for a light buzz. You
| probably don't hear much from casual users because we're not
| talking about it because it doesn't define us, any more than a
| morning cup of coffee does.
|
| Whether beer or weed, I'm usually having it after the kids are
| in bed and I'm just chilling before my bedtime.
|
| As for other drugs, I don't bother simply because I'm not
| interested in getting involved in the illicit drug scene. I
| don't have time for that.
| treetalker wrote:
| In the USA and many other places, one is not allowed to do what
| one likes with one's own mind. (For those who haven't gotten
| the memo.) Whether that's right or wrong, potential legal
| consequences alter the _in vacuo_ definition /calculus of
| "responsible use".
|
| If one decides that legal consequences are no matter, and if
| one disregards the consequences of any effects on others, then
| another option is to find or grow one's own. Indeed, in some
| but not all jurisdictions, magic-mushroom spores (for
| microscopy purposes only, of course) are perfectly legal to
| possess and even mail. For non-plants and non-fungi, the
| analog, I suppose, would be to thoroughly master practical
| chemistry and synthesize whatever one wants for oneself in a
| home laboratory.
|
| None of this is legal advice, of course. Don't break the law.
| And carefully examine and consider past, present, and future
| life choices.
|
| P.S.: I see many other comments mentioning that weed or other
| drugs are "legal" in certain states. Don't be duped: many of
| the substances they refer to are still illegal federally.
| Federal law is distinct from state law. The federal
| government's policy (if any) of not enforcing certain laws does
| not mean it can't or it won't. Again, none of this is legal
| advice.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I expect any attempt to enforce marijuana laws by the federal
| government would be _extremely_ unpopular.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I'm in the quit drugs completely camp but I have to say that it
| wasn't because of drug abuse or addiction. Leading up to the
| birth of my daughter I just decided it didn't fit in with a
| family lifestyle.
| quesera wrote:
| I know people who have "taken 20 years off" from their
| favorite recreational chemicals, explicitly to raise children
| and get them packed off to college. :)
| dyauspitr wrote:
| That sounds great! Retirement is the perfect time for
| recreational chemicals.
| el_nahual wrote:
| We exist! I took MDMA for the first time in my late 30s.
|
| What a fun, and joyful substance.
|
| I took it as an adult: while partying, with my wife, at
| festivals.
|
| Responsibly (test it first!). Not too much. Just a couple times
| a year.
|
| I love it and has made my life better. But I'm glad I waited to
| "do drugs" until I was older and my brain and personality were
| a bit more settled.
|
| My favorite thing about MDMA is that, while the experiences you
| have while on it are of course an "altered state of mind,"
| those experiences are still _your experiences_.
|
| I did, in fact, experience seeing my wife dancing freely and
| openly under scintillating lights and thinking: "wow."
|
| I did in fact experience seeing two of my best friends talking
| with each other in a quiet corner of the festival and realizing
| "I love these people. They are special."
|
| And because those experiences are real, they unlock a
| "register" which is now available even when stone cold sober.
|
| A few weeks ago I was totally sober, in the middle of the day,
| when I saw two friends of mine (brothers) walking together
| having a discussion. And in my "MDMA" register I thought: "how
| special brotherhood is."
|
| I'm certain not everyone who takes MDMA has experiences this
| good. I've been in spectacular settings and my age has afforded
| me the luxury of taking it with a good mindset.
|
| But it's pretty fucking cool.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Responsibly (test it first!). Not too much. Just a couple
| times a year.
|
| MDMA fans will argue this on the internet, but MDMA use (even
| without polydrug abuse) is associated with cognitive deficits
| in memory and learning. There's a lot of experimental
| evidence showing it has damaging effects on neurons.
|
| The damage done by a drug like this wouldn't necessarily be
| obvious or even at the level to pass the threshold of
| significance in a scientific study after one or a couple
| doses. However, there isn't much debate even among drug users
| that taking MDMA frequently produces some profoundly
| debilitating effects on long-term users.
|
| I think everyone should be aware that it's very likely that
| each MDMA dose is incurring some level of damage that is
| either long-term or potentially permanent. A couple sessions
| at moderate doses might not produce strictly significant
| effects but it's amazing how quickly people go from "a couple
| times per year on special occasions" to having 20-30
| exposures over a decade or two, which starts putting them
| beyond even the inclusion criteria for most light use studies
| that were performed.
|
| EDIT: Also note that using DIY testing supplies on your pills
| is great practice and necessary in the age of fentanyl, but
| it's not definitive. The only real way to test is to ship
| some of your pills off to one of the groups that tests for
| free and wait months for the results. Pills can contain
| multiple substances. There is a problem right now where one
| of the "research chemical" manufacturers has produced a large
| batch of a compound that is normally used for lesioning
| (damaging) serotonin neurons in lab studies. It has
| recreational effects, though, so it's being sold as a drug.
| There's concern that vendors will start mixing it into
| pressed pills to cut them with an active substance.
| dingnuts wrote:
| > it's amazing how quickly people go from "a couple times
| per year on special occasions" to having 20-30 exposures
| over a decade or two
|
| a couple times a year is 20 exposures over a decade. were
| you trying to demonstrate an escalation? did you mean 20
| over a year?
| serjester wrote:
| I would love to see some studies on this because everything
| I've seen is either rats that were exposed to truly insane
| doses (10X more than a human would take) or among long
| term, heavy users (weekly).
|
| I don't necessarily doubt that there's some level of brain
| damage going on, but the extent is poorly understood and
| likely over exaggerated.
| kin wrote:
| Same, any existing study I've read follows abuse-level or
| Chronic usage. Would love to know affects of recreational
| usage.
|
| I'd imagine such a study would be quite difficult because
| so many things could affect your results: sleep, diet,
| age, alcohol, covid, etc.
|
| I know nothing about this but I feel like the technology
| exists to scan your brain before and after to see neuron
| damage. I just want to know if a single use causes
| permanent brain damage and to what extent.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > because everything I've seen is either rats that were
| exposed to truly insane doses (10X more than a human
| would take) or among long term, heavy users (weekly).
|
| These studies get emphasized by MDMA proponents because
| they find them easiest to argue against.
|
| Many of the arguments are based on flawed logic, like
| taking rat mg/kg numbers and translating directly to
| human mg/kg numbers. This isn't how drugs are scaled to
| animal doses (see
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4804402/ if you
| want to understand) so it leads to a lot of claims that
| studies are giving insane doses when they may not be.
|
| Honestly this game isn't my favorite because someone
| always comes along to point out why various studies
| aren't 100% perfect in humans with a large sample size
| and then tries to suggest that therefore it should all be
| ignored. If they can't attack the study, they attack the
| motivations of the authors or insert claims like how the
| sample group may have been taking other drugs. If that
| fails, they try to claim that the drug users may have had
| those deficits to begin with, which led to the drug use.
| It goes on and on.
|
| Here's one random study where abstinent users had
| decreased memory scores. The decrease scaled relative to
| how much of the drug they recalled using:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9855498/ (Opponents will
| point out one of the authors is hated in the drug
| community due to past controversy and therefore they
| won't trust the study)
|
| Here's another one where ex-users showed verbal memory
| deficits, among other things:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510479/
|
| It's honestly not hard to find studies like this, but
| what you won't find is big placebo-controlled gold
| standard trials with enough dosing to achieve statistical
| significance. That's because it's not ethical to do so,
| and therefore it won't happen.
| serjester wrote:
| I appreciate you dropping those.
|
| In https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9855498/ the average
| dose was a staggering 440mg a month (multiple rolls a
| month) with a sample size of 24 people. This is
| definitely falls under "heavy" usage and even then it's
| hard to disambiguate correlation vs causation in such a
| small, underpowered study.
|
| The average participant in your second study,
| https://sci-hub.ru/10.1177/0269881106059486, had again
| taken an average of 800 lifetime doses. These are insane
| amounts and do not remotely reflect the average user.
|
| Here's a meta study for example that found no long term
| impact among more realistic users -
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3053129. I
| haven't looked into this in a long time, so I ran a deep
| research query, and for typical usage (<50 lifetime
| doses, months between sessions) there seems to be very
| little evidence of structural or functional harm.
|
| [1]
| https://chatgpt.com/s/dr_6817cd9ce85081918c7d55fa9a28c654
| qoez wrote:
| Thank you for being the necessary but resposible buzzkill
| in conversations like this
| mx7zysuj4xew wrote:
| There's nothing necessary about it, if anything it just
| lowers the signal to noise ratio
| HaZeust wrote:
| Was about to call my old dealer; cheers
| yobid20 wrote:
| So I was a heavy user. Every weekend, up to 5 pills a
| night, for years through college and into early 20s. This
| was back in the late 90s early 2000s. Now I am in my 40s.
| Top rated software engineer by my peers, sharp as hell,
| getting even sharper every year as my knowledge still
| grows, described as a true 10x expert engineer because of
| how much I do and code circles around everyone else. I am
| not saying this to brag. My point is simply that if there
| were some sort of permanant damaged cognitive effects, it
| never affected me like that. I never had any negative side
| effects ever. Or perhaps there was and I could have been
| the next Einstein but damaged myself to be where I am now.
| Guess I'll never know. I havent done again since I was
| around 22 or 23. It just stopped being enjoyable to me and
| everyone else I knew had already moved on past the party
| phase of their lives.
|
| Also, a weird coindidence, during the heaviest usage
| phases, those were also my highest grades during college.
|
| Do I regret using it so much? Not really. That was probably
| the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. I have very
| good memories , some of the best I've ever experienced.
| Often I think back I wish I could go back and do it again.
| Being an adult and getting old simply just sucks.
| neilv wrote:
| > _I think everyone should be aware that it's very likely
| that each MDMA dose is incurring some level of damage that
| is either long-term or potentially permanent._
|
| In school, I knew a very smart person who got into drugs,
| especially MDMA. They later got clean, but when they got
| brain imaging done for some reason, a doctor who looked at
| it said they could tell the patient had done a lot of MDMA.
| Reportedly, the damage was visible on the imaging, and it
| was characteristic.
|
| I'm sorry that my friend had to learn the hard way, and I'm
| glad that I was always too scared of drugs to try any
| myself.
| Teever wrote:
| What is your friend doing now?
| reillyse wrote:
| Not to be rude but gunna have to call BS on this.
|
| I don't think MDMA usage shows up like this on brain
| scans, it's not even like brain scans are that accurate
| and that nothing else could cause a scan to look bad.
|
| This smacks of very anecdotal "this is your brain on
| drugs" energy.
| mx7zysuj4xew wrote:
| Sounds a lot like the "LSD orange" story that gets told
| over and over
| neilv wrote:
| I relayed what my friend said that the doctor said.
|
| I'm sure that a doctor commenting on imaging knows vastly
| more about the topic than I do. And probably more than
| you do.
|
| Or are you asserting that I'm BSing, friend was BSing,
| doctor was BSing, or doctor had been fed BS?
| reillyse wrote:
| So at this point there is a chain of three people who we
| have to believe and honestly you've left out whatever
| doctor was doing the imaging - usually a radiologist
| looks at the imaging and interprets it.
|
| Unless they were doing a scan for "does my brain look
| like I took a bunch of ecstasy" the probability of the
| radiologist saying "it looks like the patient did a shit
| ton of ecstasy is close to zero" .
|
| Secondly there is no characteristic markers for ecstasy
| use - it doesn't leave a big X on the brain. This idea is
| like thinking somebody could look at an xray of a broken
| bone and name the person who caused the damage.
|
| Lastly the story has the characteristics of a normal BS
| anecdote , with the allusion to authority (a doctor told
| me!) and it just so happens to dovetail really well with
| your life choices and validates you. So yea whiff of BS
| off this one.
| valec wrote:
| dosed reasonably (~125 mg with no redoses), ideally at
| lower ambient temperatures, and ideally with an SSRI at the
| end of perceptible effects to stop MDMA to keep circulating
| through the neuron and causing oxidative stress, you will
| quite literally see 0 axonal damage. maybe some
| neurotransmitter depletion, but this is only temporary.
|
| PCA yes that is concerning but I would be extremely
| surprised if it ended up in the MDMA supply chain. MDMA is
| made cheaply at quantities several magnitudes higher than
| research chemicals. it's much more likely PCA will be sold
| as a cut for others RC's -- especially as a part of those
| dreadful cathinone soups labelled "3-mmc" these days
| el_nahual wrote:
| What is the best resource for "safer" MDMA consumption?
| (Like, which SSRI to take and at what dosage).
|
| Also, isn't mixing SSRIs and MDMA a huge no-no, given the
| potential for a serotonin storm/serotonin syndrome?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > you will quite literally see 0 axonal damage.
|
| There is absolutely no scientific backing to support such
| an absolute claim.
|
| The animal studies using SSRIs worked because they dosed
| the SSRIs _before_ the MDMA. By occupying the serotonin
| transporter the MDMA is prevented from entering the
| neurons, which prevents the damage.
|
| Taking an SSRI afterward might do something for the very
| tail end of the dose, but that's after most of the action
| and therefore most of the damage. You can't get all of
| the recreational effects, _then_ block the transporter
| afterward and expect the same protection.
|
| SSRIs are also potentially dangerous with MDMA due to the
| possibility of serotonin syndrome.
|
| There have been numerous recipes floated around in drug
| circles for combating the neurotoxicity but they're
| extrapolations and hypotheses, not firmly supported
| concepts.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Likely all amphetamines are neurotoxic the same way MDMA
| is, but we still use them for many things, including adhd.
| As a wise man once said, the dose makes the poison.
|
| And as we know alcohol is carcinogenic and there is no
| known safe dose, but people still drink.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Meanwhile, taking a couple of beers daily for decades
| doesn't make anyone raise a brow, you can even find people
| that says it's good for your heart, according to some
| doubtful study from the 90's.
|
| In some of those studies you might be referring (e.g. DOI:
| 10.2174/1874473711306010008) say that MDMA users score
| worse in memory, _but better_ in depression and anxiety,
| and equal on cognitive or mood. Of course what makes the
| headlines is that MDMA is bad for memory, no mention to the
| positive effects. And of course, the narrative would be
| that if you take MDMA a couple of times per year, soon you
| won 't even remember your own name.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Meanwhile, taking a couple of beers daily for decades
| doesn't make anyone raise a brow
|
| There are a lot of people bought into the idea that ~1
| drink a day is beneficial due to the flawed studies like
| you pointed out.
|
| But most people who keep up with things know better. My
| primary care doctor gives a reminder that drinking is not
| healthy despite what some old headlines claimed (even
| though I rarely drink).
|
| Even the podcasters seem to have caught on, with many
| emphasizing that no amount of alcohol is beneficial and
| even 1 drink per night consumed consistently over time
| has damaging effects.
|
| There is a lot of backlash when podcasters get too close
| to these subjects. I remember when Huberman touched on
| the topic of marijuana and Reddit was up in arms.
| Huberman isn't great at scientific accuracy (to say the
| least) but he was directionally correct. Many people
| didn't want to hear it, though.
|
| People like to think their drug of choice is the safe
| one. They cherry pick a few studies that agree and choose
| to dismiss anything that doesn't.
| sireat wrote:
| Sure alcohol is not healthy.
|
| Unfortunately, neither is oxygen.
|
| Now you will say that we need oxygen and can survive
| without alcohol. But then again, we do not have a
| Faustian bargain of choosing to abstain of all the fun
| things in life and living for 200 years.
|
| The elephant in the room is that no matter how healthy a
| life style you live, we presently have no way to reverse
| a rapid decline in quality of life around 85-90
| culminating in complete collapse ages 100-110.
|
| And those are absolute best case scenarios!
|
| My illusion of being in control of your destiny was
| shuttered when Jack LaLanne -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne died at 95.
|
| You can have a great quality of life until mid 80s by
| leading a moderately healthy lifestyle provided you do
| not get cancer.
|
| After that we are a loss on how to prolong our lives.
|
| I would almost welcome if Larry Ellison would prove us
| wrong in 10-15 years at least there would be theoretical
| hope. We'll see about Peter Thiel as well, but I will not
| be alive to see his experiments.
| getpost wrote:
| > everyone should be aware that it's very likely that each
| MDMA dose is incurring some level of damage
|
| I think this is overstating the risk in supervised clinical
| usage, depending on what you mean by "some level of
| damage." It's possible that a single alcoholic beverage may
| induce some level of damage, but that is irrelevant for
| most drinkers. A more realistic comparison might be the
| risk associated with surgical anesthesia, which is
| significant, but that doesn't mean surgery should be
| necessarily avoided. There are always risk/benefit
| tradeoffs, and the MAPS research has focused primarily on
| MDMA use after other therapies have failed.
|
| The MAPS Investigator's Brochure[0] acknowledges that,
| while preclinical studies in animals have shown
| serotonergic neurotoxicity at high or repeated doses, there
| is as yet no consistent evidence of neurotoxicity in
| controlled clinical settings with limited dosing. The
| report characterizes high-, medium-, and low-level risks.
| No high-level risks were identified, and medium-level risks
| are mainly cardiovascular and psychological.
|
| [0] https://maps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/MDMA-
| IB-15th-Edi...
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Something I see a lot these days, what with modern
| scientism and all, is that even a tiny amount of $x causes
| permanent damage. You hear it about everything, from
| sunlight exposure to alcohol to sleep deprivation to red
| meat consumption. Most of the studies, of course, are an
| amusing combination of poor study design, funding bias
| and/or p-hacking, but occasionally a well-designed
| independently funded study by honest people slips through.
| Typically these studies will show the effect size so small
| as to be negligible. For example the Nature study about
| alcohol consumption shrinking brains showed an effect size
| over a lifetime of drinking equivalent to a fraction of the
| brain shrinkage that occurs over a normal year.
| Statistically significant? Yes. Practically significant,
| and enough to outweigh any benefits? Ehh...
|
| But the larger problem is that the slabs of thinking meat
| that we inhabit are the most complex system in the known
| universe, and it is usually impossible to understand the
| effects of a single chemical. I wrote about this here a few
| months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42326209
| mx7zysuj4xew wrote:
| I don't know where you get your facts from but every issue
| you brought up has either been thoroughly debunked
| (cognitive deficits) or borders on sensationalism
| (fentanyl)
| bheadmaster wrote:
| > I did, in fact, experience seeing your wife dancing freely
| and openly under scintillating lights and thinking: "wow."
|
| That's not cool, man. How would you feel if someone looked at
| _your_ wife that way?
| el_nahual wrote:
| Thanks. Fixed it. Meant "my wife."
| Etheryte wrote:
| Naturally, the original version was a lot more funny
| though.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It makes me exceedingly happy if people think my partner
| is hot. Different strokes I guess
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Where the responsible casual adult drug users at???
|
| The majority of alcohol drinkers fit this description:
| Occasional, casual use in very moderate doses.
|
| However, as I've gotten older I've been surprised at how many
| people I know grew to fit your description: They either diverge
| toward consuming a lot less of a drug or abstaining completely,
| or they get trapped into an escalation where they do it too
| much, too often, or at too high of a dose.
|
| Even the people who I considered the most discipline and
| responsible users grew up to have a period of problematic use
| that they didn't see coming.
|
| I have a friend who worked in the rehab field for a while. He
| said if you took a look at their patients without knowing the
| context you'd never guess their common problem was drugs.
| People from all walks of life get trapped in abuse patterns.
|
| Some go from stable use to an abuse spiral when triggered by a
| stressful event: A divorce, breakup, or difficult quarter at
| work. Some spiral when they enter a new friend group that
| pushes it and makes access easy. Others spiral out of control
| when they hit depression or even a period of boredom.
|
| At this point in my life I even know one person who spiraled
| deeply out of control on classic psychedelics, which many on
| the internet will claim is impossible or "something else must
| be going on" because it goes against typical drug use wisdom.
| Yet it happened and it's a problem.
|
| Side note: Much has been written about MDMA safety in recent
| years but the neuroscience people I know state in no uncertain
| terms that they will never touch that specific drug due to
| neurotoxicity.
| plemer wrote:
| How would you know if your coworker, neighbor, or anyone else
| was a responsible drug user unless they told you? We're harder
| to spot, but I know plenty.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> The only way to keep getting good drugs that I know of is to
| keep in touch with friends on the latter path, but I don 't
| really want to associate much with them._
|
| It's a _lot_ easier to get drugs without connections than it
| used to be. A couple hundred bucks of Monero, the tor browser,
| and a DanceSafe testing kit with fentanyl strips is all you
| need.
|
| _> Where the responsible casual adult drug users at???_
|
| Quietly getting high and not broadcasting their drug use. There
| are a lot more than you think. I was recently surprised to find
| out that one of my childhood friend's parents, who I had
| considered to be the most straight laced and/or puritanical
| family in the community, regularly drink magic mushroom tea
| that the church sound guy buys for them off the dark web. Once
| you include prescription medication, the number of people high
| on something on any given day approaches 100%. People be
| trippin balls, yo.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Once you include prescription medication, the number of
| people high on something on any given day approaches 100%
|
| 100% of people are not on prescription drugs. Most
| prescription drugs do not have euphoric or "high" producing
| effects.
|
| Even among drugs with recreational effects, people who take
| them as directed at therapeutic doses will not be "high" when
| using them regularly. The person who has taken the same dose
| of Adderall daily for ADHD for a decade isn't buzzing and
| getting things done like someone taking their first 10 doses
| they borrowed from a friend. The chronic pain patient on a
| stable dose of a opioid is certainly not feeling a buzz, just
| temporary relief from their pain. The recreational effects
| are short lived.
|
| We need to stop this false equivalence between people taking
| medication and people being "high".
| throwup238 wrote:
| Great point, I didn't mean to make that equivalence and
| that last line was made in jest.
|
| In my defense, I haven't had my coffee with Bailey's yet (
| _cough_ :).
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Caffeine and alcohol are both pretty popular, and I would
| guess the majority of adults take one or the other or both.
| I'm willing to be educated if someone has numbers.
| quesera wrote:
| > _We need to stop this false equivalence between people
| taking medication and people being "high"._
|
| Fair. But we should do the same for the false _non_
| -equivalence between alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and
| "drugs"!
|
| At which point, GP's 100% comment is a reasonable
| approximation of truth. :)
| spicyusername wrote:
| can't really grow up and do drugs responsibly
|
| This is a very naive, almost willfully ignorant, understanding
| of how addiction and drug abuse works.
|
| It's more like a genetic lottery. If you didn't get the right
| set, there is no such thing as responsible use, only abstinence
| or destruction.
|
| The challenge for society is how to grapple with this genetic
| inequity.
|
| Zero tolerance would probably be best for everyone, at the
| expense of the entertainment of some. It would also be
| impossible to legally enforce and seems to result in abusive
| policing and organized crime.
|
| Laissez-faire would fix the above problems, at the expense of
| those genetically predisposed to addiction, which is a
| significant percentage of society, and which has been shown to
| have horrible social side effects in terms of crime, mental
| health, child abuse, and mortality.
|
| It's a hard problem.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Sounds more like you've just bought into some over
| simplification of genetic effects on addictive behavior. It's
| definitely not all or nothing for everyone.
| WalterGR wrote:
| What's MDMA's addiction risk profile and therapeutic use
| potential vs. other "party drugs" such as - say - cocaine?
| jpalawaga wrote:
| Molly addiction risk: low. Once your brains serotonin is
| depleted, the drug stops working, and the hangover isn't
| really something to be avoided.
|
| Cocaine addiction risk: moderate. Similar to alcohol. Most
| people won't end up otherwise a bonafide addiction but some
| will. Its use is inherently addictive, most people do not
| have just "one" bump and then go home.
|
| Molly therapeutic use: still under research, but extremely
| promising in helping to resolve ptsd and other similar
| issues. Potentially other uses, too.
|
| Cocaine: used as an anesthetic. It can also be used to
| reverse the effects of some other drugs in emergency
| situations (I.e. canceling out a downer, or other
| situations where you need a burst of energy)
| rickandmorty99 wrote:
| I'm not sure. My parents are heavy drug abusers. All my
| grandparents were alcoholics.
|
| The only thing I'm mildly addicted to is coffee and I roll
| once every 2 years on mollie.
|
| A few differences:
|
| 1. I've been pushed hard to do education. I did and became
| way more science-minded than anyone in my family.
|
| 2. I've seen the effects of drug abuse on my parents/grand
| parents. I was anti-drugs until 21.
|
| 3. I opened up experimenting when I was 27. All my
| parents/grand parents got hooked between the ages of 13 and
| 16.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think one of the causes of addiction is dopamine
| dysregulation where the normal feels bad and drugs help fix
| that, at least temporarily. I wonder if instead of using strong
| drugs such people would be better off skipping the addiction
| part and go direct to a rehab where they use a weaker drug like
| modafinil. I think the dopamine dysregulation caused by strong
| drugs is already likely pre-existing in those who are seeking
| the drugs in an effort to fill the hole. Those same people are
| more likely to become addicted and have more difficulty
| quitting.
|
| I take Modafinil at half the normal dose of 100mg and have been
| on that same dose steadily for years with little sign of
| building a tolerance or an addiction.
| rickandmorty99 wrote:
| Some drug info teams at festivals told me I'm the most
| responsible drug user there is when I told them that I take
| MDMA at most once per year but preferably less.
|
| Also the test lab I come into were excited to see me when I
| came in to test DMT.
|
| But I prefer to do it in private with a close friend, or two.
| I've done it twice at festivals (MDMA). In both cases, while it
| was fun, it was also quite chaotic at times.
|
| Countries where you can test your substances [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_checking
| hbsbsbsndk wrote:
| Weed doesn't hit for me, but it's so easy to buy good mushrooms
| near me. It's like a nice weekend vacation to just walk around
| my neighborhood (or better, go to a cottage and trip in
| nature).
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I agree. It was my favorite. Used to do it a lot in my 20s. I'm
| in my late 40s now. Haven't done it in years but I would love
| to do it once a year and just dance my ass off at an event or
| festival.
|
| I personally don't like weed. I am not a fan of smoking/vaping
| anything (the act of smoking itself) and I've tried
| edibles/gummies of varying mg and types and just never found a
| high I enjoyed on it.
|
| I enjoyed LSD when I was young but would probably find it too
| much now. Mushrooms are great though, but also haven't done
| that in years. Would also do that once or twice a year.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Where the responsible casual adult drug users at???
|
| They are around you all the time, but they don't advertise
| because it _isn 't_ a personality defining hobby for them.
|
| Regarding weed, I feel like it is still more common than not.
| Working professional that will have a gummy or toke in a social
| setting or after putting the kids down.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's probably consumer-oriented social programming that's
| responsible - the ideology of 'more is better' is pretty baked-
| in these days. The entire business model of the recreational
| drug industry - both legal and illegal - is built around the
| heavy user, regardless of whether the substance is alcohol or
| amphetamine.
|
| The amusing thing from the chemist's point of view is that the
| legal substances sold cheaply over-the-counter - ibuprofen,
| aspirin, etc. - or even the prescription antibiotics, which are
| not much more expensive - are not easier or harder to
| synthesize than the illegal drugs, from LSD to MDMA.
| Incidentally, a large proportion of what's clandestinely sold
| as MDMA is just some amphetamine derivative like Adderall,
| possibly blended with small amounts of fentanyl to create the
| 'happy glow' effect.
|
| Literally the only reason there's a lot of money in the illegal
| drug business is that the drugs are illegal. This in turn
| generates associated profits in the private prison industry, as
| illegal industries are unregulated and typically use violence
| to enforce contractual agreements, instead of the courts.
|
| Just legalize and educate - excessive drug and alcohol use
| destroys your mind and your body in exchange for fleeting
| pleasures, it's never a good idea.
| jraby3 wrote:
| I take it once a year with a community of about 150 like minded
| friends at my house in Vermont. It's amazing.
|
| Find your tribe. It does exist.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I'm impressed you host 150 people once a year. That has to be
| a lot of work.
| thruway516 wrote:
| _and_ they are friends and like minded. Even more
| impressive when you consider that is close to half the
| population of Vermont
| latchkey wrote:
| Chillits has been doing it yearly, for 26 years, with about
| 300 people. Meritocracy based volunteer organization. It is
| a lot of work, but when a community of like-minded people
| comes together around a single event, it is quite powerful.
| Gud wrote:
| I am a responsible drug user. I think we're not noticed much
| because if you are a reasonably well adjusted individual, you
| will be low key about it.
|
| It's called self reflection and not buying into the lifestyle.
|
| Many drugs kind of suck and you have to be tactical in their
| use.
|
| I do coke once perhaps every quarter. MDMA maybe once a year? I
| avoid overdoing it because they both come with a terrible,
| unpleasant downer, especially if you do too much. I have access
| to great coke and great MDMA.
|
| I smoke weed perhaps 10-15 times a year. I used to smoke it
| daily when I was suffering from severe depression. I credit
| cannabis with being alive.
|
| I don't want to end up with some weird ass world view, so I've
| avoided LSD and mushrooms. I did mescaline twice - highly
| recommend.
|
| Alcohol and tobacco I've stopped. Terrible drugs overall.
|
| So we do exist, us responsible drug users. I suspect the drug
| using population in general, due to the legality and taboo of
| their usage, will be of a less stable character compared to the
| general population. I suspect this plays a big part in your
| observation.
| throwforfeds wrote:
| > I don't want to end up with some weird ass world view, so
| I've avoided LSD and mushrooms.
|
| I'd be with you if you said ayahuasca, or maybe iboga, but
| mushrooms are really pleasant and I don't know anyone that
| has come back weird from a strong mushroom trip. LSD is one
| of my favorites, but it's definitely life altering if given
| the right set and setting, and many people are looking for
| escape rather than deep internal work. I still think most
| people would benefit from it at least once in their lives, as
| long as the conditions are right for it.
|
| But I agree with you overall, you can certainly take drugs
| here and there and be a perfectly well adjusted individual.
| I'd argue maybe even more so than the masses out there
| drinking alcohol every night!
| edweis wrote:
| If you are interested in the topic, you can check the
| autobiography of the biggest manufacturer of LSD in history: "The
| Rose Of Paracelsus" by William Leonard Pickard [1].
|
| It is both poetic and fascinating. It's not an easy read but I
| recommend it.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28930020-the-rose-of-
| par...
| WalterGR wrote:
| The author's Wikipedia entry:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
| woleium wrote:
| There is the story in Dr. James Ketchum's memoir of a barrel
| containing 40lbs of LSD turning up in his offices. He worked on
| the Edgewood arsenal as part of the US military. This was
| enough LSD to make several hundred million people trip and
| worth nearly $1 billion at street value. Are you suggesting
| that Pickard manufactured more than that?
| snypher wrote:
| Easily. DEA alleged he made 2lbs every 5 weeks, from the late
| 80's to late 90's. They also seized 'up to' 80lbs.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Where's the demand for all that LSD. I can't imagine more
| than 30 million people ever doing it and probably less than
| 2 million habitual users in the US.
| alwa wrote:
| https://archive.is/e5cPl
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