I first heard about "ecstasy" at a rave in Sacramento. It wasn't called "ecstasy" then, it was just called "pills". My friend and I were trying to sell weed at the rave and no one wanted it; kids were making fun of us, telling us to go back to Woodstock. So we found a source of pills in San Francisco - a former cop that reminded me of Fred Schneider from The B-52s, and we went back to another rave in Sacramento. The two things I remember from the whole experience are:
1. People REALLY liked this stuff. I'd never seen people so happy to buy drugs. We usually sold out within a few minutes of showing up, just hanging out in the parking lot.
2. Unlike other popular drugs (weed and coke), it seemed almost impossible to get caught. I had one interaction with the police - a kid at Sac State got sick and needed medical attention; the cops eventually questioned him and he ratted on us. A cop later rolled up, questioned us, then asked if we would get him a date with one of our friends, some pretty girl we knew from the rave scene. He basically said he'd look the other way if she went on a date with him. The girl agreed and that was it. So yeah, I know things changed, but at the time, cops just weren't taking "pills" seriously. (BTW, the girl did go on a date with the cop; she said he was a tool. He showed up to the date with his gun holster under his jacket, and flashed his badge to the waitress when she asked about ID to buy booze from the bar. There was no second date.)
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...
Probably about half time in the city at clubs and parties, and half time out in the forests and remote beaches.
Strawberry double dips were prevalent, a few other designs, microdots etc.
I'm pretty sure it gave me a perspective still today, that I would not otherwise have.
I don't think it caused any "damage". I still graduated with one of the hardest 4 year degrees and went on to use the degree in a career. I don't have any regrets about it all and the events that unfolded.
There were, however, many, many notable incidents and events, most of them more than little bit funny, even today.
I don't really remember expressly how, why it ended, it was like organic decay. I think it just ran it's course with availability of LSD, us having the time and places to do it, and eventually I think life just took over.
But, definitely, there were some regular repeat customers.
So if you are having a drink somewhere and you suddenly unexpectedly get this really happy, warm and cozy feeling, as if everything is alright with the world, there is love everywhere and you just have to hug and kiss somebody, anybody .... well do not hug or kiss anybody. You may have just been drugged.
There is a very troubling lore about MDMA, in that it apparently it is not such a bad drug, etc. I don't know about this ... I do know that a lot of MDMA deaths happened at the extasy fueled raves that were popular in the 90s and the early 2000s. They say those deaths were from other causes ... I do not know if this is true, but I have a feeling that this mantra of "MDMA is not that bad it is all about love, etc. " has been taken up by would-be-rapists to convince themselves that what they are doing is not that bad. That MDMA is not really a rape drug like Rohypnol, so there is nothing wrong in slipping one into a person's drink.
Well they are wrong. It is a serious crime and it is attempted rape if intent is established.
I confronted one of the guys that slipped me MDMA. It is not difficult to guess who did it, they usually make sure they are close to you when you are having those "I need to hug and kiss someone, anyone" feelings. He essentially admitted it without saying it outright and started laughing. Thought it was a cute thing, like something out of a romantic comedy.
I wish I had proof to send all those f*ckers to jail but of course when you are happy on MDMA you do not think to save the evidence for the police. But next time I will. I have thought about this enough that next time I will recognize the symptoms and do what needs to be done regardless of how happy I am feeling.
If anyone cares, none of these events resulted in sexual assault, I am a very careful person and I do not easily give in to strange feelings.
> at the extasy fueled raves that were popular in the 90s and the early 2000s. They say those deaths were from other causes
If you are at an illegal rave, maybe some hot squatted warehouse with no AC, you dance all night with no break, do ALOT and don't drink any water there is a good chance you collapse.
Don't do that.
Also, ecstasy is typically taken communally, in which case it's not a very effective rape drug since it decreases sex drive and causes temporary erectile dysfunction in many men.
XTC doesn't make you want to kiss anybody, you might lower your standards, but won't make you attracted to men if you aren't already before taking it.
Even if what you say is true and if ecstasy only “lowers your standards” then, by definition if someone makes you take it without knowing it is still an attempted rape. So you are defending rape, you disgusting pervert.
Maybe years of pill popping had done just that to Jenkins. "
... eyes rolling
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???
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.
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.
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.
Diphenhydramine (Benadryl/OTC Sleep Aids) use is associated with an increased risk of dementia [1], while benzodiazepines like Xanax and Ativan are strongly associated with long term cognitive deficits [2]. Taking many drugs is a cost-benefit analysis, and it's important to be informed about the possible consequences before diving in.
[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...
[2] https://academic.oup.com/acn/article-abstract/33/7/901/47349...
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.
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.
Can we deep dive into that statement? To me, at a glance, LaLanne's life looks like one that began out of control, then he took control of it and through doing more or less what everyone recommends (high protein, high fiber diet low in sugars and carbs with a bunch of exercise every day) he got exactly what one would expect (a life well past the mean life expectancy and with a relatively high quality of life even into his 90s, even being able to do his normal workout routine before he died). Unless you took him literally when he said "I can never die" that feels like an overwhelming confirmation that diet and exercise are key parts of a long, healthy and happy life.
So we’re talking roughly an extra 30%!
I was one of those "Here for a good time, not a long time" people in my twenties. Booze, drugs, parties, shows, "Why would I wanna skip all of this just to go to the gym and pretend to run?" After a few years of partying like that you assume the hangover is the worst thing that'll happen and you'll bounce back after two days. But the universe had a gift for me: my uncle, who was about 35 years older than me, had the same attitude. I watched his addiction progress from "he just likes to have fun" to "sure he drinks too much but underneath it he's a good guy" to a point where his family was making him sleep in the garage. The whole time this was happening he was "Here for a good time, not a long time".
It took him over a year to die, once they determined that the liver and kidney damage was beyond mitigation or repair. I got to take care of him, as I lived with my mom (his sister) and his nuclear family had kicked him out after he pulled a gun on his daughter for coming home pregnant. In that year, he lost motor control, couldn't walk and could barely talk. Once I watched him try to tip his head back to drink from a glass of water and his head just kept going backward until he fell over. Only one of his three kids bothered to visit him. It was the one he pointed a gun at. He forgot her name.
Did you know that organ failure has a distinct smell to it? It's ammonia and engine coolant, saccharine sweet but with just a hint of rot. Our whole house smelled like that for the last few months. Those miasma months were spent helping him to the bathroom and explaining to him that he's at Vicki's house, Vicki is his sister and no he can't take his truck and go to the bar because he doesn't have a truck anymore and his license is revoked. He spent the last week of his life in someone else's bed, howling in pain and terror.
I, otoh, got my shit right. I'm not entirely sober but neither do I party like I used to. The bargain I made with myself is that I can do drinks with friends a maximum of twice a month, and I can't ever do drinks alone. I've been able to stick by that for several years now, even after the overdose death of my brother (who was another one who never saw the sense in anything other than maximum immediate fun). I take two fifteen-twenty minute workout breaks per day, one for weights and one for cardio. I've lost 25% of my body mass, I can bench press my dad and I'm actually having a much better time than when I was having a good time all the time. He was in his fifties when he died. I'm 40 now, and while he had already started his decline at 40 I'm stronger and more capable than ever. And I don't even have to tell myself "no" very often. Usually it's just "That's enough for now".
Maybe one day I'll be old and decrepit, but I won't be middle-aged, decrepit and hated by everyone I know. To me that's such a good deal I can't imagine why anyone would turn it down.
Project it to some extremes and its easy to see why sociopathic dictators and billionaires (which most if not all of them are) would love to see significant life prolongation, of course only theirs. One of the biggest threats to near future mankind as it is IMHO, imagine 300 years of rule of pos like puttin' for example.
That totally raises eyebrows I'd say. I like beer as much as the next person, but nobody I know pretends that daily beers would be fine, healthy, or even acceptable. The only person that I know of who likely drinks ~daily self-identifies as an alcoholic.
Alcohol consumption is totally normalized here. In fact, the only socially valid reason to not drink at a party or celebration is that you are driving later. That's my experience at least.
I'm also from Europe but a bit higher up, and grew up in a party drinking culture. It wasn't an issue if you were drunk twice a week as long as those were the designated party days, Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was reserved for the unavoidable hangover.
Alcohol with food wasn't too common so drinking alone on other days heavily hinted towards losing control.
It's a bit sad, but it's a reason I pick the car sometimes. To have an excuse for not drinking.
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.
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.
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
You have to agree the presented studies are very far from 100% perfect, you just chose to believe them. That is your choice but you shouldn't force this choice on others.
> what you won't find is big placebo-controlled gold standard trials with enough dosing to achieve statistical significance
Would they be really needed if MDMA really was the killer drug you are making it to be? Because for alcohol (or heroin) abuse it's not that hard to get statistical significance from observation studies on population - a combination of large number of people abusing alcohol and its large negative effects. Where are similar studies for MDMA proving your claims?
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.
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
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.
Also, isn't mixing SSRIs and MDMA a huge no-no, given the potential for a serotonin storm/serotonin syndrome?
SSRI:s will give you a strong tolerance against serotonergic drugs and it will take a long time to lower that tolerance, months, maybe a year or two. As far as I know it hasn't been studied scientifically but I've seen people get quite uncomfortable experiences from MDMA and 5-HT2a-psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, those) after being off SSRI medication for several months, that I amateurishly attribute in part to downregulation of serotonin sensitivity.
A more acute risk is MAO inhibitors, which are sometimes prescribed as antidepressives. You're more likely to suffer acute damage or die from a combination of MDMA and an MAOI than with an SSRI, though neither is a good idea.
The Bluelight forums are a decent source of harm reduction advice, https://www.bluelight.org/community/forums/. Be aware that some participants in the discussions have problems with risky or abusive use, or give bad advice. Stickied guides tend to be of high quality, however.
2mg/kg dose, so ~160mg for an adult human. More importantly rat to human is usually a 6ish HED factor so that’d be <30mg. In reality metabolism, brain volume, etc all matter but this is not an even remotely safe drug.
Also taking SSRIs near MDMA administration is one of the worst pieces of what is doubtless intended as harm reduction advice I’ve ever seen. You don’t hand people a recipe for serotonin syndrome because of a small scale rat test or two.
you have a deep understanding of releaser pharmacology if you state this. don't take it from me though--matthew baggott, one of the leading researchers studying enactogen pharmacology recommends doing this exact thing
1. He's talking his book to a certain extent. This is his life's work and he runs a company in this space (though a B corp) so he will have a bias here. That's fine overall, as it may help balance people unfairly biased against psychedelics, but it's worth remembering. I'm not saying this to impugn his character so much as to point out everyone has biases, and someone in his position likely has strong ones, even if partially-founded.
2. He believes an SSRI alleviates negative symptoms, but we don't know it does more than alleviate the comedown. It appears his endpoint was cognitive performance post-use, not long-term damage that may appear once off the SSRI.
3. This doesn't touch the dopaminergic risks of amphetamines, which are substantial.
A few exploratory bits of research into one potential way to alleviate the acute effects post-administration don't translate to an established method to use this in a remotely-safe fashion.
And as we know alcohol is carcinogenic and there is no known safe dose, but people still drink.
Another hypothesis is that the human serotonin systems, specifically the prefrontal cortex, are relatively young and not evolved to take a beating, unlike the 'fight-and-flight'-related dopamine systems.
One indication that this might be the case is differences between people that use amphetamine regularly through nasal or oral routes compared to people using MDMA in a similar manner, where the latter group typically suffers more obvious neuronal damage faster. Amphetamine needs to be taken at very high doses to affect the serotonin transporter, so you'd typically see this in users mainlining lots of it.
As far as I know you don't see the same mental and neuronal risk profile with e.g. 6-APB and similar benzofurans that David Nichols lab produced in the nineties, as with MDMA. They are also not as subjectively rewarding and 'fun' as MDMA, indicating that the dopamine release plays an important part in this regard.
'The dose makes the poison' is usually credited to Paracelsus, late 1400s, early 1500s. Whether he should be considered wise is a matter of debate, Francis Bacon disagreed and argued against Paracelsus and the rosicrucians that did consider him to be.
Edit: Should probably add that methamphetamine is a much more potent serotonergic agent than amphetamine, and in some societies 'amphetamine' or 'amphetamines' tend to actually mean meth because that's what's available to them.
- mitichondrial inhibition
- hyperthermia
- excitotoxicity for DA at least
- hyperthermia speeds up redox cycling of dopamine quinones
- more quinones due to all your dopamine unprotected by vesicles
- metabolic impairment means harder to regenerate NADPH/make glutathione
- probably others I can’t remember at the moment.
You may notice many of these “synergize” in a way that’s particularly bad for the user.
It’s really not worth touching for anyone outside a clinical setting.
Why did you take this as an invitation to do a purely theoretical exercise in listing possible mechanisms for neurotoxicity? At the very least you ought to have anchored your reasoning in actual risky MDMA use, what people actually do, instead of just ranting out words that could scare a layperson. I.e. behaviours that are common, like combining MDMA with alcohol, or dopaminergic psychedelics like LSD and 2C-B, or forgetting to drink water, or whatever that isn't pseudo-academic stuff like 'sped up redox cycling of dopamine quinones'.
I also think you should have taken the time to show that you have an understanding of why millions of people disagree with you. In my opinion it would also be prudent to compare the risks you see with other neuronal risks, like living in an environment with ICE exhausts or having kids and suffering sleep deprivation for years on end or just plain old poverty. The latter is shown to, on average, have detrimental effects on the brain that can be clearly visible in medical examinations, unlike sporadic, responsible use of MDMA.
Your suggestions, while interesting, don't remove these risks. Yes, certain types of abuse make it worse: dosing higher, polydrug abuse, hot environments, and dehydration are all ways to damage your brain further. However, use of MDMA in an ideal sense probably still causes some level of damage.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16472832/
2mg/kg dose, so ~160mg for an adult human. More importantly rat to human is usually a 6ish HED factor so that’d be <30mg. In reality metabolism, brain volume, etc all matter but this is not an even remotely safe drug.
This isn't a "purely theoretical exercise", most of those are established mechanisms of amphetamine toxicity. This isn't "listing possible mechanisms", this is sharing salient info of risks of which possible abusers (given the nature of the thread and discussion so far) should be aware.
I'm sure as heck not "ranting out behaviors that would scare a layperson". Most of what I listed is pretty comprehensible with a grasp of high school chem and bio. Most of the information for this is freely available online. The information we have should scare a layman out of use, and probably someone with a greater background, too.
Whatabout-ing with sleep deprivation or similar doesn't make sense to me either. Did I say that was good or healthy? Bad things stack. Your body doesn't keep a record where it says "you've accumulated 10% damage from an un-fun cause like exhaust or sleep deprivation, so now you get to experience 5% damage from a fun cause like molly." That's just a really weird way of thinking about this.
People are within their moral rights to run the risk but I don't understand this defensiveness that it's somehow a good or smart risk to run for the average case of abuse.
I find it unethical to try to scare people away from recreational drug use, for several reasons. One being the inherent distrust of their ability to form their own opinions, another the kind of linguistic gatekeeping involved where scientific information is withheld through the use of professional or academic vocabulary, and yet another that I don't believe that it works, in my experience it has more often than not the opposite effect and enables or fuels harmful behaviour.
Where do you live, is it actually true that they teach neuroscience in highschool there or did you just make that up? Or do you think one can do a risk assessment from your comments without having a scientific understanding and mental model of the nervous system in general, and the central nervous system in particular?
We know from a lot of informal experimental data that sporadic, responsible MDMA use is, on average, very safe. It's likely to be safer than a long term weed habit, which carries a risk of damaging the heart and things like bronchitis, besides the contamination risks which are relatively hard to test for.
Also, it's not "whatabout-ing". Without a frame of reference the risks you bring up are meaningless to most people and useless in regards to policy. To judge whether you want to take the strictly neurotoxic risks involved in dancing on MDMA you'd need to understand how it compares to other factors in your life. In practice few people go about it in this way, however, and for good reason because the immediate risks involved in going to roll at a rave like party are of a quite different nature. Things like traumatic injury from a fall or sexual abuse or financial harm or the psychological effects of mistaken intimacy with strangers or somesuch.
Having fried a piece out of n thousand axon terminals isn't really a concern to most users, and compared to the drudgery of everyday life it likely feels like a low price to pay for many people. To convince them that this should be their primary concern requires another strategy from you..
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.
They seemed potentially on a less-common career trajectory before they got derailed. But of course people's lives take turns for all kinds of reasons, so who knows whether they could've had a different life.
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.
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?
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.
By this time most people I knew were working, serious work (with serious pay), so it was heavy on for the weekend, but then an enforced 5 days/nights off to work (gotta pay for your habits).
I never really had suicide Tuesdays, or the various variants of it, usually managed to get some food or calories into me during the weekend, probably the worst of it was just the sleep deficit.
It started to taper off when children started arriving, as the double hit on sleep deficit, even if all the other problems and responsibilities could be managed, was just a killer.
I would argue that no noticeable cognitive decline occurred, I have worked 30 odd years in a highly demanding profession demanding abstract thought and the ability to deal with lots of details and join dots others may not see. So I think I would notice if I was fried.
One thing was, pretty early on, I got on to the concept that most drugs are buy now, pay later. And that if you were going to do something that was going to vastly increase the rate of consumption of certain precursor chemicals in the mind and body, to preload heavily to avoid depletion burn out.
So I had a standard stack of supplements we almost always would take first. Maybe why I never really had the Monday/Tuesday crashes many seemed to, as well.
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.
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?
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...
For me, MDMA was definitely a crazy positive experience. It def helped against my depression in sense of letting me experience and remembering the experience something I haven't known existed before.
After that the memories of that day and feeling
I ask because I've seen people get in trouble this way. They have a first experience which is amazing and then get into chasing it.
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
That's not cool, man. How would you feel if someone looked at your wife that way?
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.
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.
can't really grow up and do drugs responsibly
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.
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.
It's definitely not all or nothing for everyone.
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)
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.
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!
I do. It can have long term manic effects for bipolar folk. Person I know hadn't been diagnosed yet at the time
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.
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
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.
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”.
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. :)
In my defense, I haven’t had my coffee with Bailey’s yet (cough :).
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.
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].
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.
Now factor in how hard it is to actually dose and the possible inclusion of other amphetamine analogs. Eg I’ve heard of para-chloro(meth)amphetamine showing up a few times, which is used intentionally as a neurotoxin to permanently destroy neurons.
And of course you have dysregulation of the brain’s temperature, magnified by the hot and high-cardio environments where MDMA is usually taken, which can be additionally neurotoxic.
If you synthesize your own or know someone who can, your risk is lower, but MDMA is simply not a safe thing to take.
They also do other unsafe things like drive cars and cross roads (anywhere in most countries where jay walking isn't a thing).
Find your tribe. It does exist.
I am impressed. I know a few people like me but 150 is a lot.
I’m really curious to know how one goes about this.
One thing that the upwards explosion in ticket prices has done is practically ensured only responsible people can go!
I love what the people I meet are into in professionally, as its pretty top tier professions and investing, and I have pretty much have nothing in common with the people that resent and lament the costs. (Payment plans are somewhat resetting that but the prices are continuing to increase, and there’s just a couple a wooks to spice things up)
Having a drug experience regiment by day is pretty common
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.
I find that stuff like methadone is really quite strong, and I don't see how it isn't addictive. I figure it's to keep addicts alive while they get treatment instead of them getting a hot shot somewhere and ending up in a grave.
The brain quickly adjusts and the rush from the modafinil goes away, it was gone by my second dose - it feels rather more like a coffee but longer lasting and smoother / cleaner I guess, it's hard to describe.
I think most people seeking such drugs are actually self medicating and would generally choose normal if it was an option. While I do have access to stronger drugs I have no desire for them. I also take Amitriptyline which helps balance out the Modafinil and the two together with Modafinil in the morning and Amitriptyline at night have been really effective at treating my dysautonomia and keeping me on a productive even keel.
I am not an expert, but yes Methadone is addictive. It is drug replacement therapy, and Methadone is still a drug. The primary criticism of its use in addiction treatment is that it replaces dependence on one drug, like Heroin, with dependence on Methadone. A benefit of its use is indeed that it's a well regulated drug whose composition is known.
My understanding of why it helps in addiction treatment is that it triggers the same receptors as the drug it replaces, therefore satisfying the addiction, but it produces less intense effects and stays active for much longer, with less severe withdrawal symptoms spread out over a longer time period.
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.
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.
So you either stop using the drug (if you are lucky) or go on a downward spiral of higher doses, more negative side effects and life deterioration.
No it's not. I think my doses have even gone down over the years.
Or are you talking about using it monthly / weekly?