Science and Drugs forum - Page 17

Schatze · 05-13-2008, 09:28 AM

Uhm it's really hard to overstate the harm e can do to you.

Long term chronic users have found been found to have massive cell loss/death/abnormalities in their major serotonin pathways.

Moderate use the risks aren't so clear, but there is probably accumulated cell death over time just to a lesser extent.

Once in a while, what's a few neurons here or there?

Put it this way. What does the "MA" stand for? methamphetamine. It has the same neurological double whammy (reuptake blockage, reversal of transporter) that meth does that causes all sorts of bad thing to happen neurologically and perhaps psychologically.

I don't mean to preach but MDMA is probably the worst drug after meth you could pick up as a habit in regards to neurological and psychological health. Not to mention the sympathetic innervation increases risks of heart attack, heart failure, blood clots, strokes, etc., and these risk factors remain after prolonged abuse.

Do extasy if you want. But it is NOT a harmless drug. It makes heroin look angelic in the gross physiological changes that can occur.

Azrayne · 05-13-2008, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schatze

Uhm it's really hard to overstate the harm e can do to you.

Long term chronic users have found been found to have massive cell loss/death/abnormalities in their major serotonin pathways.

Moderate use the risks aren't so clear, but there is probably accumulated cell death over time just to a lesser extent.

Once in a while, what's a few neurons here or there?

Put it this way. What does the "MA" stand for? methamphetamine. It has the same neurological double whammy (reuptake blockage, reversal of transporter) that meth does that causes all sorts of bad thing to happen neurologically and perhaps psychologically.

I don't mean to preach but MDMA is probably the worst drug after meth you could pick up as a habit in regards to neurological and psychological health. Not to mention the sympathetic innervation increases risks of heart attack, heart failure, blood clots, strokes, etc., and these risk factors remain after prolonged abuse.

Do extasy if you want. But it is NOT a harmless drug. It makes heroin look angelic in the gross physiological changes that can occur.

Oh yeah I agree, any kind of 'habit' or 'prolonged abuse' is going to lead to bad, bad things. But with the proper precautions, taken once every 8 weeks or so at the most, with moderate doseage, the damage is supposed to be minimal, and easily recovered from.

Alcoholism can destroy your liver and damage your brain, doesn't mean you should never, ever drink. Just don't do it excessively and don't be a dumbass about it. Same applies to MDMA.

Millie · 05-13-2008, 05:20 PM

I wouldn't even compare MDMA and alcohol like that. They're completely different sports altogether.

Salshun · 05-13-2008, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schatze

Uhm it's really hard to overstate the harm e can do to you.

Long term chronic users have found been found to have massive cell loss/death/abnormalities in their major serotonin pathways.

Moderate use the risks aren't so clear, but there is probably accumulated cell death over time just to a lesser extent.

Once in a while, what's a few neurons here or there?

Put it this way. What does the "MA" stand for? methamphetamine. It has the same neurological double whammy (reuptake blockage, reversal of transporter) that meth does that causes all sorts of bad thing to happen neurologically and perhaps psychologically.

I don't mean to preach but MDMA is probably the worst drug after meth you could pick up as a habit in regards to neurological and psychological health. Not to mention the sympathetic innervation increases risks of heart attack, heart failure, blood clots, strokes, etc., and these risk factors remain after prolonged abuse.

Do extasy if you want. But it is NOT a harmless drug. It makes heroin look angelic in the gross physiological changes that can occur.

For every scientific report I read that says X causes long term effects on your brain you find another one a week later that says they haven't found proof yet. I really don't know what to believe.

I do believe, however, that once every 3 months you have nothing to worry about.

Schatze · 05-13-2008, 08:46 PM

I wasn't being flip with, "what's a neuron here or there". Even if it had any sort of tangible impact, with such minor damage over a long period of time the brain would just rewire itself most likely. Once in a while, go for it. I did, and may in future. The people who show profound malfunction are multiple times per week users who have been doing so continuously for years. I think the alcohol analogy isn't bad, I'll go into it later.

But I've seen the pictures of PET, fMRI, MRI of people who were chronic users. There is a remarkable difference between long term users and controls. There are case studies to back up that in some chronic users this neurological damage does have some sort of psychological or psychiatric consequence. (multiple times per week, higher doses, for years, typically starting young)

There are other individuals who show similar patterns of damage but don't show any psychological or psychiatric effects. Whether plasticity was triggered (and we really don't know why it happens in some individuals more than others) and the brain rewired to compensate, or if there were other neurological changes, or a combination of a bunch of other variables, is still up in the air. Need to wait for enough of them to die and donate their bodies to science.

There is no debate in regards to the neurological damage it does. There is still a debate about the gross effect this neurological damage and its affect on the macro scale because some individuals exhibit major neurological, psychological, psychiatric problems with the pattern of damage to serotonin systems (and these pathologies are consistent with our understanding of what the serotonin pathways do), other people who have similar damage simply do not exhibit any abnormality beyond the neurological level.

Best way to liken it, is to an alcoholic. A drink or two or three or 10 every once in a while won't harm you neurologically to any meaningful extent. But if you look at a long term drunkard, under an MRI his brain has shrivelled, sulci have flattened out, and the ventricles have enlarged. Now, despite this gross neurological damage, some people will never experience measurable defects despite what is blatant and obvious damage that looks very similar on the gross scale as Alzheimers. However, others go on to develop "dry drunk", pre-senile dementia, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (although that's semi-related to diet of an alcoholic as well), etc. etc. Why do some individuals have pervasive neurological damage but suffer no seeming macro scale deficits, and why do others develop dry drunk, pre-senile dementia, anterograde memory, loss of motor and cognitive skills?

We don't know. The damage looks the same, but obviously something is different on the cellular, intracellular, or genetic level. However, there's over a hundred years of research on alcohol, MDMA research was mainly in regards to therapeutic uses, up until around 1985 and then it took some time for these cases of chronic long term users to crop up, and it took a while for imaging to improve. The tentative verdict is that MDMA can cause serious brain damage with chronic, prolonged, frequent use, it's just not guaranteed that it will. Much like alcohol. There may be many underlying diatheses we don't understand in both cases that impact the etiology of developing measurable impairments from both substances.

--
off topic aside from one of my courses.
Anecdote: I had to answer a question about the pharmacology of drugs and the neurological changes involved, sometimes seeming contradictory effects that should not occur given the models of neuronal functioning in regards to specific classes of drugs (one of which I included was anti-depressants, for which both the monoamine and serotonin theories of depression these drugs should be absolutely non-functional, didn't get into the emerging 2nd messenger theories that mesh with the other two to make them theoretically work).

There was a subsection after the question that simply asked, "Why is this so surprisingly difficult and seemingly contradictory". My answer, paraphrased; "It's not surprisingly difficult, it would be surprising if it was not difficult to understand the neuronal effects and how they translate into gross behavioural or cognitive functioning. The brain is quite simply the most complex, interconnected singular object that we know of. What would be surprising was if pharmacology and the effects on neurology and the subsequent micro and macro scale manifestations were easy to understand; in a vast system of interconnected, constantly changing neurons and glia of all sorts and varieties (both in cellular activity and makeup and interconnectedness), it would be surprising if many of the results given our current limited, disconnected understanding were not contradictory."

I got full marks for an answer that was supposed to be a lot more technical and lengthy. The above paragraph pretty much encapsulates the problems facing the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. Neurology and psychology are fairly well understood (not that there isn't IMMENSE room for improvement); psychiatry, somewhat less. It's just the three don't mesh. Which is why this is an interesting field, because attempting to reconcile these fields with each other fully plus a couple of others will be huge. Not just to scientists, but to everyone.

Azrayne · 05-14-2008, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Millie

I wouldn't even compare MDMA and alcohol like that. They're completely different sports altogether.

Why, because one is legal and one isn't? Not to turn this into a legality debate, but I think it's a fairly valid comparison.

Sadly, it's like Salshun said, there are so many contradictory reports and studies out there these days that nobody knows what the fuck to believe anymore. When you add that the whole 'boy who cried wolf' scenario we have with modern prohibitionist agendas to the mix (omg MDMA causes parkinsons one pill will kill you marijuana is a gateway drug not even once!), it just leads to people ignoring advice all together because they can't figure out what's true and what isn't, and just doing whatever the hell they want and hoping for the best, which obviously isn't a good scenario.

Schatze · 05-14-2008, 02:21 AM

Actually it was synthetic heroin that caused Parkinsonian symptoms in users in California in the 90's. The dude accidentally synthesized a toxin that attacked neurons in the nigrastriatal pathway. Funnily enough, several of them were cured by micropipette injection of aborted fetuses dopaminergic neurons into the regions of the brain damaged. Went from totally immobile to being able to ride bikes. High success rate.

That's why the Parkinson's crowd is so hot to trot on stem cells; not only is a cure possible, we know how to do it. Ethical restrictions on the use of aborted fetuses killed that program, but if they can create differentiated dopaminergic neurons and inject them into the substantia nigra and surrounding areas it almost certainly will cure/substantially improve the outcomes of people with Parkinsons. There are a few trials using undifferentiated stem cells that have shown success too. Michael J. Fox really does have very, very good reason to advocate stem cell research.

But MDMA DOES damage your serotonin circuits, with long term heavy use (years). That's a fact. What we don't know is why some of these individuals show no clinical symptoms while others show severe symptoms consistent with the disruption of the role these circuits play.

Again, like alcohol. Alcoholics suffer severe brain damage; their brain shrivels, the sulci shrink, the atria enlarge. Some go on to lead normal lives with no cognitive or clinical problems, while others become dry drunks, get pre-senile dementia, Wernicke's-Korsakoff etc.

But this is PROLONGED, CHRONIC, FREQUENT use. Minor insults like introducing psychoactive chemicals to your brain get shrugged off pretty easy except in extreme cases. That hangover from last night's carouse? A large portion of it is the disrupted homeostasis of your brain; within a few hours or a day, you're fine as a a fiddle. The brain rocks, except when it gets fucked up :/

edit: P.S. My pharmacology texts all, very respectfully, make fun of the gateway theory of marijuana. What you'll get in a drugs and behaviour or pharmacology course is worlds apart from the crap that's spewed by mass media. And usually, from what I've seen, in regards to drugs and behaviours text, they even include graphs in the sections on marijuana rating drugs based upon physiological damage, criminality, and addiction potential. Marijuana is right near the bottom on every one. It's not scientists that make laws, but politicians pandering to the public. Nicotine is usually in the top 4, and alcohol within the top 7 (depends on metrics, but I've seen 5-8 rankings).

Salshun · 05-15-2008, 05:33 PM

Got 1.5 grams of PRIMO coke today. Cut straight off the block. A pea-sized bump sent me flying.

Salshun · 05-15-2008, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azrayne

Why, because one is legal and one isn't? Not to turn this into a legality debate, but I think it's a fairly valid comparison.

Sadly, it's like Salshun said, there are so many contradictory reports and studies out there these days that nobody knows what the fuck to believe anymore. When you add that the whole 'boy who cried wolf' scenario we have with modern prohibitionist agendas to the mix (omg MDMA causes parkinsons one pill will kill you marijuana is a gateway drug not even once!), it just leads to people ignoring advice all together because they can't figure out what's true and what isn't, and just doing whatever the hell they want and hoping for the best, which obviously isn't a good scenario.

Yeah, it seems that we have a lot of media induced paranoia these days. Whenever their is a report of an OD on Ecstasy it's never as cut and dry and we're lead to believe. It always ends up being the result of dehydration, or super hydration where they drank so much water they got sick and died, or a combination of other drugs that led to the OD. I don't think I've ever read a single report where it was "Person took X, only X, and they died solely based on an overdose."

Millie · 05-16-2008, 06:09 AM

You want to talk media-induced paranoia? The local news media here in SoCal have been on a vicious personal crusade to get salvia criminalized. It's amazing how ridiculous the "news stories" about the subject are. They play out as little more than Reefer Madness-style horror stories of debauchery, insanity, murder, etc. Sometimes I doubt any of the local news producers or anchors has even seen salvia in person, let alone has any freaking clue what he's talking about.

Turn on any local news channel around 6pm and you'll hear promos the likes of "It's dangerous! It's more powerful than LSD! It can drive your children criminally insane! And it's...legal?! Stay tuned for our special investigation of salvia!"

Sadly, this is pretty much how the road to criminalization works. The media whip up some hysteria, parents put pressure on legislators to get bans on the books, and the rest is history. So if you're at all into salvia: smoke 'em while you got 'em. Personally speaking, salvia has never really done much for me. But it's annoying watching a pretty harmless plant get illegalized on pseudoscientific (at best) grounds right in front of our eyes.

Salshun · 05-16-2008, 07:38 PM

Yeah, and yet alcohol, which ruins lives, leads to DAILY DUI's where families in minivans get t-boned by drunks, guys come home drunk and use their kids as punching bags...still legal.

Makes me sick.

If we can preach control and restraint with alcohol, like we do in those "please drink responsibly" messages at the end of every alcohol commercial, we can do it for drugs.

dak · 05-17-2008, 08:12 PM

Got a lot of experience with salvia. Grew it for many years, made varying concentrations of extracts and consumed it frequently. I'd have to say it has a much higher chance of resulting in personal injury when compared to marijuana if irresponsibly used.

Yes, the effects are brief but onset is very rapid, catching the inexperienced off guard at higher concentrations. Complete loss of control over actions is fairly common. When dealing with concentrated extracts seconds after the sole initial hit without supervision chances of falling out of a seat or while trying to move around is a real risk. Dosing yourself into such a state can be achieved with a single hit.

I could easily see someone taking their hit, immediately falling back, hitting their head hard and being unable to respond to the trauma. A passenger in a moving car could realistically "freak out" and interrupt the driver.

Personally I do not feel the government should have any say in regulating it but the fact is when dealing with higher concentration the user can easily briefly lose touch with reality and pose a hazard.

Korbal · 05-18-2008, 09:59 PM

Yeah, salvia is one of the few drugs that I'd say you should have a trip sitter for every time.

I can only relate what my friend told me that I did after smoking salvia because I was in a totally different world. I had planned on taking the hit (20x extract with a torch lighter), blowing the smoke out the back door and then running to the couch to lie down. Mistake. I apparently made it all the way to the couch only to completely stop dead in my tracks 1ft away. At this point I was gone and if I was similar to what my friend was like I was drooling and completely unaware of the real world. My friend then had to balance me or I would have fell over, but then I apparently tried to walk and again would have tripped and fell into shit if my friend was not there balancing me.

The trip from my perspective was so fucked up; I was in a bus? (I really don't know, some sort of box) and the world was being torn apart right in front of my eyes. It was like the air/space 2 feet in front of my face was being torn open bigger and bigger, closer and closer, by a huge rotating single blade (I didn't see a blade but that's what the effect was like if that makes any sense. whooshing by every couple seconds.) and inside the opening I knew was another dimension/universe.

I guess I'm glad I tried it, and would possibly do it again in the right setting (and always laying down). I don't see why one would want to consume this frequently or even grow the shit, but everyone's different. You have to be pretty naive if you didn't think this was going to be put illegal if pot is illegal, but what can you do. It's still bullshit that drugs are illegal in the first place.

Schatze · 05-19-2008, 08:51 PM

They outlaw salvia, someone will just get one of the hundred other known plants that do a similar thing and use those.

Fuck, there're so many psychoactive varieties of DMT that can be extracted or created synthetically very easily, I don't know why no one is doing it large scale. No market, I suppose.

Salshun · 05-20-2008, 11:47 PM

The American drug user is one of THE most innovative people on the planet. I've seen retarded/high idiots turn into geniuses when they needed to be. We always find new ways to get high, new ways to use old drugs, and new ways to avoid getting caught. I can say that every drug user I know is damn intelligent person. Some of them know so much about the shit they take they could give doctors a run for their medicine. I have 1 friend that can explain the complete metabolizing process from injecting heroin to being high, coming down, etc, and explain the whole process.

I think I've brought this up before, but in terms of legal highs, my favorite has always been Propylhexedrine, the main ingredient in these over the counter inhalers called "Benzedrex". Propylhexedrine is apparently like 2 or 3 molecules different from amphetamine, and at one time the inhalers DID have pure amphetamine in them.

It seems like a cheesy, cheap way to get high, I know, but it works. It feels IDENTICAL to good speed. Basically you guy an inhaler, crack it open until you pull the medicine-soaked cotton from inside it, drop the cotton in a bottle of soda but make sure it's dark soda for the phosphoric acid. (Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc. I use the 20oz Dr. Pepper bottles. Let the cotton soak in the soda for a good 45 minutes, shaking occasionally.

Now comes the unfun part. Empty the contents of the soda bottle into a glass. When the cotton comes out, be sure to squeeze it dry into the soda.

Drink the drink. Within an hour, full blown crystal meth like body feel, for about $6. And completely legal, can find the stuff in ANY pharmacy style place (Walgreens, Rite-Aid, etc.). Also, unlike some speedy drugs, on this stuff I am very focused and can get a TON of work done. I make the drink whenever I'm behind at work and have to catch up.

05-14-2008, 02:21 AM	#247 (permalink)
Schatze Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,274 +2 Internets	Actually it was synthetic heroin that caused Parkinsonian symptoms in users in California in the 90's. The dude accidentally synthesized a toxin that attacked neurons in the nigrastriatal pathway. Funnily enough, several of them were cured by micropipette injection of aborted fetuses dopaminergic neurons into the regions of the brain damaged. Went from totally immobile to being able to ride bikes. High success rate. That's why the Parkinson's crowd is so hot to trot on stem cells; not only is a cure possible, we know how to do it. Ethical restrictions on the use of aborted fetuses killed that program, but if they can create differentiated dopaminergic neurons and inject them into the substantia nigra and surrounding areas it almost certainly will cure/substantially improve the outcomes of people with Parkinsons. There are a few trials using undifferentiated stem cells that have shown success too. Michael J. Fox really does have very, very good reason to advocate stem cell research. But MDMA DOES damage your serotonin circuits, with long term heavy use (years). That's a fact. What we don't know is why some of these individuals show no clinical symptoms while others show severe symptoms consistent with the disruption of the role these circuits play. Again, like alcohol. Alcoholics suffer severe brain damage; their brain shrivels, the sulci shrink, the atria enlarge. Some go on to lead normal lives with no cognitive or clinical problems, while others become dry drunks, get pre-senile dementia, Wernicke's-Korsakoff etc. But this is PROLONGED, CHRONIC, FREQUENT use. Minor insults like introducing psychoactive chemicals to your brain get shrugged off pretty easy except in extreme cases. That hangover from last night's carouse? A large portion of it is the disrupted homeostasis of your brain; within a few hours or a day, you're fine as a a fiddle. The brain rocks, except when it gets fucked up :/ edit: P.S. My pharmacology texts all, very respectfully, make fun of the gateway theory of marijuana. What you'll get in a drugs and behaviour or pharmacology course is worlds apart from the crap that's spewed by mass media. And usually, from what I've seen, in regards to drugs and behaviours text, they even include graphs in the sections on marijuana rating drugs based upon physiological damage, criminality, and addiction potential. Marijuana is right near the bottom on every one. It's not scientists that make laws, but politicians pandering to the public. Nicotine is usually in the top 4, and alcohol within the top 7 (depends on metrics, but I've seen 5-8 rankings). Last edited by Schatze : 05-14-2008 at 09:51 PM.

05-17-2008, 08:12 PM	#252 (permalink)
dak My sig will turn you wicked gay. Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: France Posts: 4,024	Got a lot of experience with salvia. Grew it for many years, made varying concentrations of extracts and consumed it frequently. I'd have to say it has a much higher chance of resulting in personal injury when compared to marijuana if irresponsibly used. Yes, the effects are brief but onset is very rapid, catching the inexperienced off guard at higher concentrations. Complete loss of control over actions is fairly common. When dealing with concentrated extracts seconds after the sole initial hit without supervision chances of falling out of a seat or while trying to move around is a real risk. Dosing yourself into such a state can be achieved with a single hit. I could easily see someone taking their hit, immediately falling back, hitting their head hard and being unable to respond to the trauma. A passenger in a moving car could realistically "freak out" and interrupt the driver. Personally I do not feel the government should have any say in regulating it but the fact is when dealing with higher concentration the user can easily briefly lose touch with reality and pose a hazard. __________________ Iran != Threat Your taste in movies, music and every other form of art sucks. Your world view is cripplingly distorted. You should go to the kitchen and slit your wrists right now.

05-18-2008, 09:59 PM	#253 (permalink)
Korbal edits every post Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 501 +0 Internets	Yeah, salvia is one of the few drugs that I'd say you should have a trip sitter for every time. I can only relate what my friend told me that I did after smoking salvia because I was in a totally different world. I had planned on taking the hit (20x extract with a torch lighter), blowing the smoke out the back door and then running to the couch to lie down. Mistake. I apparently made it all the way to the couch only to completely stop dead in my tracks 1ft away. At this point I was gone and if I was similar to what my friend was like I was drooling and completely unaware of the real world. My friend then had to balance me or I would have fell over, but then I apparently tried to walk and again would have tripped and fell into shit if my friend was not there balancing me. The trip from my perspective was so fucked up; I was in a bus? (I really don't know, some sort of box) and the world was being torn apart right in front of my eyes. It was like the air/space 2 feet in front of my face was being torn open bigger and bigger, closer and closer, by a huge rotating single blade (I didn't see a blade but that's what the effect was like if that makes any sense. whooshing by every couple seconds.) and inside the opening I knew was another dimension/universe. I guess I'm glad I tried it, and would possibly do it again in the right setting (and always laying down). I don't see why one would want to consume this frequently or even grow the shit, but everyone's different. You have to be pretty naive if you didn't think this was going to be put illegal if pot is illegal, but what can you do. It's still bullshit that drugs are illegal in the first place. __________________ "And for the record, I've been a Retribution Paladin the entire time I've played WoW."--Glaive Last edited by Korbal : 05-18-2008 at 10:02 PM.

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05-13-2008, 09:28 AM	#241 (permalink)
Schatze Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,274 +2 Internets	Uhm it's really hard to overstate the harm e can do to you. Long term chronic users have found been found to have massive cell loss/death/abnormalities in their major serotonin pathways. Moderate use the risks aren't so clear, but there is probably accumulated cell death over time just to a lesser extent. Once in a while, what's a few neurons here or there? Put it this way. What does the "MA" stand for? methamphetamine. It has the same neurological double whammy (reuptake blockage, reversal of transporter) that meth does that causes all sorts of bad thing to happen neurologically and perhaps psychologically. I don't mean to preach but MDMA is probably the worst drug after meth you could pick up as a habit in regards to neurological and psychological health. Not to mention the sympathetic innervation increases risks of heart attack, heart failure, blood clots, strokes, etc., and these risk factors remain after prolonged abuse. Do extasy if you want. But it is NOT a harmless drug. It makes heroin look angelic in the gross physiological changes that can occur.

05-13-2008, 05:20 PM	#243 (permalink)
Millie More Adventurous Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 5,675	I wouldn't even compare MDMA and alcohol like that. They're completely different sports altogether.

05-13-2008, 08:46 PM	#245 (permalink)
Schatze Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,274 +2 Internets	I wasn't being flip with, "what's a neuron here or there". Even if it had any sort of tangible impact, with such minor damage over a long period of time the brain would just rewire itself most likely. Once in a while, go for it. I did, and may in future. The people who show profound malfunction are multiple times per week users who have been doing so continuously for years. I think the alcohol analogy isn't bad, I'll go into it later. But I've seen the pictures of PET, fMRI, MRI of people who were chronic users. There is a remarkable difference between long term users and controls. There are case studies to back up that in some chronic users this neurological damage does have some sort of psychological or psychiatric consequence. (multiple times per week, higher doses, for years, typically starting young) There are other individuals who show similar patterns of damage but don't show any psychological or psychiatric effects. Whether plasticity was triggered (and we really don't know why it happens in some individuals more than others) and the brain rewired to compensate, or if there were other neurological changes, or a combination of a bunch of other variables, is still up in the air. Need to wait for enough of them to die and donate their bodies to science. There is no debate in regards to the neurological damage it does. There is still a debate about the gross effect this neurological damage and its affect on the macro scale because some individuals exhibit major neurological, psychological, psychiatric problems with the pattern of damage to serotonin systems (and these pathologies are consistent with our understanding of what the serotonin pathways do), other people who have similar damage simply do not exhibit any abnormality beyond the neurological level. Best way to liken it, is to an alcoholic. A drink or two or three or 10 every once in a while won't harm you neurologically to any meaningful extent. But if you look at a long term drunkard, under an MRI his brain has shrivelled, sulci have flattened out, and the ventricles have enlarged. Now, despite this gross neurological damage, some people will never experience measurable defects despite what is blatant and obvious damage that looks very similar on the gross scale as Alzheimers. However, others go on to develop "dry drunk", pre-senile dementia, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (although that's semi-related to diet of an alcoholic as well), etc. etc. Why do some individuals have pervasive neurological damage but suffer no seeming macro scale deficits, and why do others develop dry drunk, pre-senile dementia, anterograde memory, loss of motor and cognitive skills? We don't know. The damage looks the same, but obviously something is different on the cellular, intracellular, or genetic level. However, there's over a hundred years of research on alcohol, MDMA research was mainly in regards to therapeutic uses, up until around 1985 and then it took some time for these cases of chronic long term users to crop up, and it took a while for imaging to improve. The tentative verdict is that MDMA can cause serious brain damage with chronic, prolonged, frequent use, it's just not guaranteed that it will. Much like alcohol. There may be many underlying diatheses we don't understand in both cases that impact the etiology of developing measurable impairments from both substances. -- off topic aside from one of my courses. Anecdote: I had to answer a question about the pharmacology of drugs and the neurological changes involved, sometimes seeming contradictory effects that should not occur given the models of neuronal functioning in regards to specific classes of drugs (one of which I included was anti-depressants, for which both the monoamine and serotonin theories of depression these drugs should be absolutely non-functional, didn't get into the emerging 2nd messenger theories that mesh with the other two to make them theoretically work). There was a subsection after the question that simply asked, "Why is this so surprisingly difficult and seemingly contradictory". My answer, paraphrased; "It's not surprisingly difficult, it would be surprising if it was not difficult to understand the neuronal effects and how they translate into gross behavioural or cognitive functioning. The brain is quite simply the most complex, interconnected singular object that we know of. What would be surprising was if pharmacology and the effects on neurology and the subsequent micro and macro scale manifestations were easy to understand; in a vast system of interconnected, constantly changing neurons and glia of all sorts and varieties (both in cellular activity and makeup and interconnectedness), it would be surprising if many of the results given our current limited, disconnected understanding were not contradictory." I got full marks for an answer that was supposed to be a lot more technical and lengthy. The above paragraph pretty much encapsulates the problems facing the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. Neurology and psychology are fairly well understood (not that there isn't IMMENSE room for improvement); psychiatry, somewhat less. It's just the three don't mesh. Which is why this is an interesting field, because attempting to reconcile these fields with each other fully plus a couple of others will be huge. Not just to scientists, but to everyone.

05-15-2008, 05:33 PM	#248 (permalink)
Salshun Sometimes the voice of FOH reason Join Date: May 2003 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 1,212 -6 Internets	Got 1.5 grams of PRIMO coke today. Cut straight off the block. A pea-sized bump sent me flying.

05-16-2008, 06:09 AM	#250 (permalink)
Millie More Adventurous Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 5,675	You want to talk media-induced paranoia? The local news media here in SoCal have been on a vicious personal crusade to get salvia criminalized. It's amazing how ridiculous the "news stories" about the subject are. They play out as little more than Reefer Madness-style horror stories of debauchery, insanity, murder, etc. Sometimes I doubt any of the local news producers or anchors has even seen salvia in person, let alone has any freaking clue what he's talking about. Turn on any local news channel around 6pm and you'll hear promos the likes of "It's dangerous! It's more powerful than LSD! It can drive your children criminally insane! And it's...legal?! Stay tuned for our special investigation of salvia!" Sadly, this is pretty much how the road to criminalization works. The media whip up some hysteria, parents put pressure on legislators to get bans on the books, and the rest is history. So if you're at all into salvia: smoke 'em while you got 'em. Personally speaking, salvia has never really done much for me. But it's annoying watching a pretty harmless plant get illegalized on pseudoscientific (at best) grounds right in front of our eyes.

05-16-2008, 07:38 PM	#251 (permalink)
Salshun Sometimes the voice of FOH reason Join Date: May 2003 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 1,212 -6 Internets	Yeah, and yet alcohol, which ruins lives, leads to DAILY DUI's where families in minivans get t-boned by drunks, guys come home drunk and use their kids as punching bags...still legal. Makes me sick. If we can preach control and restraint with alcohol, like we do in those "please drink responsibly" messages at the end of every alcohol commercial, we can do it for drugs.

05-19-2008, 08:51 PM	#254 (permalink)
Schatze Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,274 +2 Internets	They outlaw salvia, someone will just get one of the hundred other known plants that do a similar thing and use those. Fuck, there're so many psychoactive varieties of DMT that can be extracted or created synthetically very easily, I don't know why no one is doing it large scale. No market, I suppose.

05-20-2008, 11:47 PM	#255 (permalink)
Salshun Sometimes the voice of FOH reason Join Date: May 2003 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 1,212 -6 Internets	The American drug user is one of THE most innovative people on the planet. I've seen retarded/high idiots turn into geniuses when they needed to be. We always find new ways to get high, new ways to use old drugs, and new ways to avoid getting caught. I can say that every drug user I know is damn intelligent person. Some of them know so much about the shit they take they could give doctors a run for their medicine. I have 1 friend that can explain the complete metabolizing process from injecting heroin to being high, coming down, etc, and explain the whole process. I think I've brought this up before, but in terms of legal highs, my favorite has always been Propylhexedrine, the main ingredient in these over the counter inhalers called "Benzedrex". Propylhexedrine is apparently like 2 or 3 molecules different from amphetamine, and at one time the inhalers DID have pure amphetamine in them. It seems like a cheesy, cheap way to get high, I know, but it works. It feels IDENTICAL to good speed. Basically you guy an inhaler, crack it open until you pull the medicine-soaked cotton from inside it, drop the cotton in a bottle of soda but make sure it's dark soda for the phosphoric acid. (Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc. I use the 20oz Dr. Pepper bottles. Let the cotton soak in the soda for a good 45 minutes, shaking occasionally. Now comes the unfun part. Empty the contents of the soda bottle into a glass. When the cotton comes out, be sure to squeeze it dry into the soda. Drink the drink. Within an hour, full blown crystal meth like body feel, for about $6. And completely legal, can find the stuff in ANY pharmacy style place (Walgreens, Rite-Aid, etc.). Also, unlike some speedy drugs, on this stuff I am very focused and can get a TON of work done. I make the drink whenever I'm behind at work and have to catch up.