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Uh... sorry!!

Not at recreational doses, and there's some controversy over the Olney lesions too.

www.erowid.org/dxm

Also, about 7% of whites are hypersensitive to this stuff, and take several times longer than most people to metabolize it. So you might take 250mg, and not be back to normal for three days.

But hey, I'm weird. About 2/3 of people who try it don't even like it, let alone addict to it. Read about it at Erowid, the place to find out about psychoactive materials.

The reason wasn't the diphenhydramine, he took it because of the dextromethorphan, aka DXM.

Some claim that dimethyl-triptamine will show you the secrets of the universe; I, however, doubt that it will help you with your finances.

I guess I should have provided a link.

Exists Already. ...for a certain type of drugs anyway. ;)

Exists Already. ...for a certain type of drugs anyway. ;)

Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.

- Kristin Wilson, Nintendo, Inc., 1989.

It appears that this "joke" is actually only about three years old, google shows the sig file first appears on Usenet in on December 12, 2000, attributed to 'anon' or 'unknown'.

i beleive the grandparent may of meant prescription drugs

I had a computer in my room; my parents thought I used it too much, so they kept my keyboard for all but one hour of the day. This was based on the mistaken notion that my box wouldn't be bootable without a keyboard. With on-screen keyboard available, all this really did was make access more irritating.

They had the right idea, though. A bigger problem than what content the kids are viewing is how long they're spending online. Kids should have real-life experience with people thier own age, the Internet is notorious for replacing that with far less fulfilling interaction.

But obviously, content can still be a problem. Censorware doesn't work, a better idea is to have some kind of log set up so that you can see what your children are viewing. They will be reluctant to look at porn if they know you will find out about it.

Remember there are also a lot of weird, cult-like groups on the Internet. Talk to your kid if he's reading anything to do with "otherkin," "multiples," or any other group that claims to be metaphysically different from the general population. I would rather have my children into drugs than otherkin...seriously. This is the kind of thing that teenagers often grow out of, but sometimes they don't and turn into useless fat narcissists instead.

It's a cliche, but even if your kids protest the rules now, they will be thankful for it later. I personally wish my parents had paid attention to what I was doing on the Internet. I wouldn't be hooked on furry porn now, and and I wouldn't have gotten into all the stupid script kiddie shit I find so embarassing today.

And there are countless tales of people tripping on LSD staring at the sun and burning their corneas out... Well I'll call bullshit here. Show me a documented fatality from a resonable dose of MDMA. Bueller. Bueller.. Bueller...

Now since ecstacy is an illegal, uncontrolled drug I'm sure many people have been fucked over by what they thought was ecstacy, but if you want to back up that statement give me 1 (one) legitimate reference to an MDMA toxicity related death.

Get some facts and get back to me when you have a clue.

And let me touch briefly on hallucinogens: They are too dangerous for the average person. I think keeping them illegal is the right thing to do because it motivates people to be cautious about how they use them, which can only be a good thing. Most people have only a tenuous grip on reality to begin with :P
Have you ever actually tried hallucinogins? They are not nearly as dangerous as they are rumoured to be -- much like marijuana. Oh, they certainly can change your perceptions, and they can make you uncomfortable, but it is nearly impossible to die from taking too much LSD or psilocybin. They aren't addictive. There isn't a physical withdrawl. They build tolerance quite rapidly, meaning it's hard to do them often. They are in many ways, quite safe.
Keep in mind, the most dangerous of hallucinogins, datura, is quite legal. You can grow it, you can possess it, you can even ingest it, all without incurring a penalty. Of course, it could easily kill you and basically make you a danger to yourself and others for about 12 hours, but never mind that. A lot of people fool around with this plant simply because it is legal. The effects and dangers are well known, and well documented, but when you can't get ahold of 'safe' hallucinogins, sometimes unsafe ones become quite attractive.
Honestly, your attitude of "these drugs should be legal, and these illegal" is no better than our current state of affairs of "these drugs should be legal, and these illegal." If nothing else, you should be advocating help for those truly addicted, not jail time.

Do some research. I'd recommend you have a look at a site like Erowid.

Pharmaceutically pure (ie not cut with crap) Heroin actually does very little damage to the body and is nowhere near as addictive as Nicotine.

Most of the problems associated with Heroin use are due to it's illegality pushing up the price by a ridiculous amount and dealers cutting it with nasty stuff.

K

like that?

Well, if they were breaking the law.

Ohhh, but how did they determine "if"? Maybe the police should be allowed to enter everyones home and listen to everyones phone calls to search for something illegal. If they happen to find something, that's another criminal behind bars.

Remember the infared detectors police thought would be great for to catch people growing drugs in their basements? Luckily, that was shot down by the Supreme Court.

Mmmm... Nutmeg

Not really sure what you're talking about or why it's flamebait, but since you mentioned "Wormwood" I thought I'd footnote that the wormwood root, which is found in true Absinthe, contains alpha-thujone which is the active ingredient in the widely-banned Anise flavored liquor. It is chemically similiar to THC and is believed to induce some trippy psychosis (which blends nicely with the 120+ proof aperatif).

Can't test for creatine- it's in the body naturally. There was some talk a few years ago of testing for elevated levels of creatine in athletic competitions, but it just wouldn't work. The levels fluctuate too much naturally for any test to provide good data.

Besides, people have been experimenting with the various "smart drugs" for years and years, and the various academic testing boards couldn't care less. I don't think amount or type of chemical assitance could realiably provide an increase in the reasoning skills these exams test.

But they criminalized magic mushrooms last year.

Hence the link to the table showing typical alcohol content of beers.It clearly shows what you are trying to say (again).
Also check out Silly beer laws for the types of stuff that some unknowing visitor may find if they end up wanting a beer in, say, Georgia.
I know there are good beers here (and defend it when I get visitors), that was what my pint[sic] was meant to be. (any other recommendations other that Trippel?)

Nah, Been living here USA, for a while now, the run of the mill beer is pretty much the same.
There are some wierd laws about the maximum content of alcohol, that differ from state to state. Subsequently even brew pubs will not have a strong (i.e over 7%) ale.
quick google for some figures here.
Oh, we (aussies) definitly drink MORE beer, at FASTER pace, perhaps that why some americans lose their heads (and they think we are AA candidates).

As a partially tangential aside, you may recall the media coverage for Provigil, the drug that allows non-jittery wakefulness for up to 48 hours, without dependency issues or major side effects. Provigil is a trade name for the chemical modafinil, which is Schedule IV in the US and requires a prescription.

Adrafinil -trade name Olmifon- is the precursor drug to modafinil, and it has the benefit of remaining unscheduled and uncontrolled in the US. It also has the same effect as modafinil: adrafinil is metabolized into modafinil by the body. Adrafinil also costs about 20% of an equivalent dose of modafinil. Quite exciting (just watch the potential liver side-effects)...

I have yet to locate a US supplier of adrafinil; I suspect this is largely due to the lack of FDA approval.

On a completely unrelated note: in one of the "I, Robot" stories, a reporter tried to use x-ray reflection to tell if Stephen Byerley was a robot. When I read that, I thought "what a crock", because I thought x-rays were too energetic to be reflected. Looks like Asimov was right again.

As someone who uses MDMA more than he'd like, I'd like to say that 5-HTP is not a natural precursor to serotonin.

While 5-HTP is the last metabolic step in the production of serotonin (5-HT), it does not naturally occur in significant amounts in human diets. 5-HTP is instead metabolized from L-Tryptophan, an essential amino acid. Tryptophan was banned due to unidentified toxins present in certain batches of the nutritional supplement.

This may seem like nitpicking, but there is an important difference between the way the human body handles 5-HTP and tryptophan. Although we're extremely good at rate limiting the conversion of tryptophan to 5-HTP, we're not so good at rate limiting 5-HTP -> 5-HT. This means that ingesting too much 5-HTP can lead to a temporary condition known as serotonin overload, which could be described as rolling on MDMA without the fun. Dose with care!

As someone who uses MDMA more than he'd like, I'd like to say that 5-HTP is not a natural precursor to serotonin.

While 5-HTP is the last metabolic step in the production of serotonin (5-HT), it does not naturally occur in significant amounts in human diets. 5-HTP is instead metabolized from L-Tryptophan, an essential amino acid. Tryptophan was banned due to unidentified toxins present in certain batches of the nutritional supplement.

This may seem like nitpicking, but there is an important difference between the way the human body handles 5-HTP and tryptophan. Although we're extremely good at rate limiting the conversion of tryptophan to 5-HTP, we're not so good at rate limiting 5-HTP -> 5-HT. This means that ingesting too much 5-HTP can lead to a temporary condition known as serotonin overload, which could be described as rolling on MDMA without the fun. Dose with care!

I hate to break it to you, but you're both wrong.

And LSD was developped in Switzerland, I think.

Yes, LSD was synthesized by Dr Albert Hofmann in 1943, and he discovered its mind-altering properties while riding his bicycle on the way home. This is a quote from his laboratory notes:

I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain inrelief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, colored pictures flashed past in a quickly changing kaleidoscope. After a few hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared. what had caused this condition?

More information can be found here and here.

They are in Utah, aren't they? I guess it would have to be peyote.

http://www.erowid.org
Not just fun drugs, either. All kinds of information about all kinds of pharmaceuticals (too lazy for spell check)

There is a great collection of information on caffeine at the Erowid Caffeine Vault.

Erowid is, as always, your friend.

whoops, i forgot to include a url:

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/absinthe/absinthe. shtml

As for being a depressant, in all but small doses, alcohol depresses the central nervous system, including brain activity. This does not necessarily mean that a person becomes depressed due to this, especially since alcohol has several effects on the brain, many of which to lead to increased talkativeness, comfortability, empathy, and pleasure in the company of others. This counteracts the "depressant" effects of alcohol in medium to heavy doses. This is one reason why drinking (a lot) alone can be a bad thing, your body becomes depressed, and without the stimulation of others, you may become temporarily depressed as well. Cannabis does not have this effect, if you're not depressed before you smoke, you're most likely not going to be depressed after you smoke.

As for undesirable physiological effects of cannabis compared to that of tobacco (and especially frequent usage of cigarettes), cannabis has several things going for it.

Firstly, as you said, the frequency is lower, and while you say you know one or two counter-examples, that's hardly indicative of any norm. I don't know anyone who smokes the equivalent of 20 (1 pack of cigs) or 40 (2 packs) marijuana cigarettes a day, not to mention 20 or 40 a day for years on end, which happens a lot with nicotine addiction.

Secondly, almost all tobacco easily available in the United States contains radioactive particles (see http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_hea lth2.shtml, and it's not difficult to independently verify this by going step by step). Tobacco crops in the United States are required by law to be fertilized with phosphates that happen to be rich in the radioactive element radium-226, which decays into two long-living radioactive elements, lead-210 and polonium-210, which stay throughout your body and especially the lungs for decades, causing lesions, and anyway messing up your cells. Quote from abovementioned article: "According to U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (on national television, 1990) radioactivity, not tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking related lung cancer."

Thirdly, THC (and other active ingredients?) in marijuana relax your lungs (such as the alveoli), which allows harmful material to be more readily expurgated, as by coughing or simply breathing, whereas nicotine constricts your lungs, keeping harmful material in them. Nicotine and related chemicals (such as nornicotine) also has all sorts of negative effects on the body, such as contributing to the growth of cancerous cells.

Cigarettes specifically also contain many other chemicals (various carcinogens, arsenic, possibly addictive substances additional to nicotine) not present in other tobacco products or in the tobacco leaf itself.

Smoking marijuana heavily certainly can increase coughing (production of phlegm, etc.) and the frequency of lung and throat infections, and may reduce lung capacity, but these are not life-threatening and would generally only be an annoyance. These are also not real problems for infrequent or light smokers.

"first off, your a knee jerking moron looking for an excuse to smoke pot."

Well, I'm not going to descend to your level, but I will say this: I don't NEED an "excuse" to smoke pot. I enjoy it, that's all. It has no noticeable adverse effects on my health, in stark contrast to cigarettes, which I quit a number of years ago. Furthermore, this discussion really has nothing to do with my own personal choices, although I'm sure you will tell yourself I am completely biased and unreliable, despite all the objective studies and research I have made direct reference to.

The other reply already answered your points on legality and usefulness pretty thoroughly, so I won't go there. The point is, hemp cultivation is suppressed by the United States. The evidence is everywhere, if you do some objective research instead of just attacking people's positions because you don't like what they say.

"You can certianly create a car that would operate that way, but if you dump a gallon of the stuff in your ordinary car, ity will not work. Do you kow anything about agriculture? how many acres would a person need to get the 10 gallons a week they need to get to work?"

*Sigh...* You're either not very good at abstract reasoning, or you're being deliberately dense. I never said a gasoline engine would run on the stuff, nor did I claim that running a car on what you could produce in your backyard would be feasible. You're interpreting what I say very narrowly. All I was saying is this: Hemp is a renewable fuel source that anyone can grow very easily. Large scale domestic cultivation could provide for all or most of our energy needs, and totally reduce air pollution and dependance on foreign oil. Most non-toxic, environmentally friendly products made with hemp back in the 30's (like paint and varnish) have since been replaced by toxic oil based products. We're literally choking our planet in the name of industrial profit.

"less harm full does not = harmless."

Never said it was harmless. Just about everything can be abused. But alcohol, which is far worse than marijuana, required a constitutional amendment to be prohibited. Why? Because, constitutionally speaking, it's not the government's place to dictate what we are allowed to do with our bodies in private, as long as we're not violating someone else's rights. Land of the free, remember? Or do you want a future like the one in "Demolition Man", where everything bad for you, from salt to "fluid transfer", is illegal?

"People smoke far less pot than cigarettes"
"perhaps because it is illegal?"

I wasn't talking about overall usage, I was talking about individual usage. You think a pot smoker sitting in his basement bases his intake level on its legality? "Oh.. I want another joint, but I better not, because it's against the law!" I think not. People smoke less pot than tobacco because the effects of pot last longer than a cigarette, and it's not physically addictive. Sometimes when I am out of town, I go without pot for weeks, and barely even notice. No cravings.

But, since you brought it up, let's talk about overall usage and legality. Marijuana consumption in Holland has decreased 40% since it was legalized in 1976. Consumption in every single state that has decriminalized it has decreased. This argument was over a long time ago.. the facts are easy to find, here's one reference.

"but it is addictive all the same, very powerfully addictive."

EVERYTHING enjoyable can be addictive. Video games. Sex. Chocolate. Coding. We going to outlaw everything that makes you want to do it again? Or are we going to encourage moderation, and responsible usage? As for how marijuana compares to other substances, go here, and check out the charts at the very bottom of the page. Marijuana is at or next to the bottom of every scale, even below caffeine.

Criminalizing it just drives it underground, makes it harder for us to spot people who DO have a real problem, that need help. (There will always be a certain percentage of abusers, just like alcohol. Do we help these people, like AA, or throw them in prison and destroy their life even further?) And statistically (see above), criminalization tends to INCREASE usage.

"well that shows how bad cigerattes are, not how good Pot is."

It DOES show how good pot is, RELATIVE to cigarettes. What do you think comparisons are for?

"you seem to think if it was legal, it would threaten the big companies out of some profit, when in fact, the tobacco industry would make a ton of cash"

Who the hell is talking about tobacco companies? You keep trying to turn this into a smoking issue. This is mainly about oil/petrochemicals, timber, and fibres such as cotton. These commodities would be seriously devalued if a cheaper, superior alternative (hemp) developed into a major industry. But when this was poised to happen in the 30's (because a machine to automate hemp processing was invented), the oil and timber players saw an opportunity to sabotage the hemp industry before it even got started... through media hype, bribery-- er I meant special interest contributions, a biased committee, the false promise that industrial hemp cultivation would not be affected by a "tax act" on marijuana, and not a shred of scientific medical evidence whatsoever.

Not even close; it was created over 50 years ago by a Swiss researcher working for an ordinary pharmaceutical company.

See this timeline , for instance.

It's true that the US government (military, CIA, etc) did do some rather illicit experiments with various hallucinagens (and other drugs, and radioactive treatments, and diseases, etc).

But they didn't invent any of those things.

Try LSD

Cheers,

W00t

That dude shouldn't get just any chemistry set. He should ignore inorganic chemistry and go for the gold (organic chemistry). He needs to read Phikal first. Then he needs to check out Rhodium and The Vaults of Erowid and a gander at The Lycaeum

LSD only lasts a few days in your system, same as mushies. 2C-B is prolly okay as it's not in the standard tests, and is water soluable so it's out of your system fast. ketamine is through and through in a few days, same as mescaline.

All in all, if you want to have a "wow - bitchin'" evening, it's entirely possible. Just don't come into work the next day talking about all the drugs you were doing, and enjoy!

LSD only lasts a few days in your system, same as mushies. 2C-B is prolly okay as it's not in the standard tests, and is water soluable so it's out of your system fast. ketamine is through and through in a few days, same as mescaline.

All in all, if you want to have a "wow - bitchin'" evening, it's entirely possible. Just don't come into work the next day talking about all the drugs you were doing, and enjoy!

LSD only lasts a few days in your system, same as mushies. 2C-B is prolly okay as it's not in the standard tests, and is water soluable so it's out of your system fast. ketamine is through and through in a few days, same as mescaline.

All in all, if you want to have a "wow - bitchin'" evening, it's entirely possible. Just don't come into work the next day talking about all the drugs you were doing, and enjoy!

LSD only lasts a few days in your system, same as mushies. 2C-B is prolly okay as it's not in the standard tests, and is water soluable so it's out of your system fast. ketamine is through and through in a few days, same as mescaline.

All in all, if you want to have a "wow - bitchin'" evening, it's entirely possible. Just don't come into work the next day talking about all the drugs you were doing, and enjoy!

LSD only lasts a few days in your system, same as mushies. 2C-B is prolly okay as it's not in the standard tests, and is water soluable so it's out of your system fast. ketamine is through and through in a few days, same as mescaline.

All in all, if you want to have a "wow - bitchin'" evening, it's entirely possible. Just don't come into work the next day talking about all the drugs you were doing, and enjoy!

Ahh. Your post made me wonder what the hell DMAE and pyroglutamic acid were.

Here is a page from Erowid explaining "smart drinks."

According to this, the cola with the most caffeine is Afri-cola. I've had it. It's quite good.

You can get caffine pills which are very convenient. See this comparison chart of various brands. An ex-girlfriend used to pop a couple of them before going to work after a night of no sleep.

As for the best way to experience the music, I have some suggestions.

- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian

It is my Joke. I wrote it, then I took the rest of the day off as I was so chuffed with it. I am gutted that it has been claimed and passed around by so many people. Intelectual property law will not save me, the false claims will continue until I am man enough to give it all up. All I can say is - it seems that it is very unlikely that it was written by a Nintendo employee in 1989, being as Pac Man was still around and not much of a childhood memory, there were very few claims that gaming influenced childrens behaviour, and that the wording of it is identical to how it has been deliverd in my stand up routine for 6 years

(the Pac Man quote is also apocryphally attributed to Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989, and Karen Price, Nintendo Representative)

~ ....welcome to my ***420th*** post
.~ ...wouldn't YOU rather be smoking a fat doob right about now?
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420