Drug withdrawn over fears it made youngsters want to kill themselves

[KaBar2]

Suburbian Bum

 

You're absolutely correct, I did take a lot of drugs, and I did sleep with a lot of women. People that are depressed and fucked up do all kinds of stupid things. And, of course, nobody knew about HIV back then. The second I found out about HIV (actually back then it was called HLTV, if memory serves--about 1980 or 1981) I radically changed my sexual behavior. I was living in San Francisco, and it was the eye of the hurricane--gay men were dying by the score all around us. I never went to a public bath house, but I had a number of girlfriends. (There used to be public bath houses in San Francisco where gay men went to pick up men and have anonymous sex, and bath houses where both gay and straight people went, and bath houses for straights only. All I can say is these people should have KNOWN BETTER, even back then before we knew about HIV.)

 

We took every drug we could get our hands on in the 1960's. It was majorly stupid. I knew I was wrong even when I was doing it. I thought I was so smart, so hip, so sophisticated. When I was 14, and we were dropping acid (it was still legal then), it never even occurred to me that the ADULTS who sold us the drug could not care less if it killed us, or if we got hurt freaking out, or if we became brain-damaged or schizophrenic. What did they care? They had our FIVE BUCKS. They could not care less. Fuck us--just two more stupid kids taking something that we did not even know what it was. It could have been ANYTHING. How would we know? Strychnine. Drano. PCP. We did not have a clue. We knew absolutely nothing about it, except that it cost five bucks, and the upstanding, forthright citizen that sold it to us told us it was "Purple Owlsley." If it had killed us both, it would have served us right. We were IDIOTS.

 

Somehow, it never occurred to us that dosing the pre-synaptic neurons of our brains with LSD might have a permenant, negative affect. Like, DUH. What if it gives us schizophrenia? What if it causes a stroke? What if it causes brain damage resulting in mental retardation? No problem, man. Let's drop that shit.

 

Later on in my life, I met people, stupid assholes just like me, same age, same everything, who dropped LSD and had a stroke; who became schizophrenic and wound up living in Rusk State Hospital; and one who suffered some sort of diffused blood clotting that resulted in a state of brain damage that looks, to the average person, like mental retardation. NONE of them could accept the fact that they did it to themselves. Each and every one of them was going through life all resentful and full of anger, bitching about how unfair it was, how their drug dealer "fucked them over," how "nobody told me" it could result in permenant brain damage. Why the fuck should anybody have to tell me that? The shit was ALREADY ILLEGAL, AND I KNEW IT. (Well, in the case of the LSD in 1964, it wasn't illegal, but I knew it was wrong even if it wasn't yet against the law.) Shit--WHERE WAS MY SENSE OF SELF-PRESERVATION? WHERE WAS MY STREET SMARTS? WHERE WAS MY SURVIVAL INSTINCT? I was a little punk kid with a cap of alleged LSD in my hand, and I took it because my self esteem was so low, I didn't want my friend to think I was "chicken." I thought I knew what I was doing. Of course. Stupid kids always think that, and they never know a goddamn thing. It's self delusion.

 

I was extremely lucky that I escaped unharmed from the many stupid things I did as a kid. I've met many people who did not escape unscathed. The consequences are harsh. If you do something stupid, you may pay BIG TIME. Minimizing the danger is just self delusion and ignorance. "Don't do this."

[MagatsuTaito]

get off your pedestal king knowitall

[KaBar2]

Go AHEAD AND TAKE ALL THE DRUGS YOU WANT

 

Since you don't care to hear the voice of experience, you get to learn from the University of Hard Knocks. See ya in Detox, or the prison shower, LOL. I got a friend from high school who did a total of ten years in prison for selling cocaine (Edit: nah, it was a total of 7-1/2 years. He got five years in Texas, and served 2-1/2, then got busted again and got a ten year sentence on a Federal beef, and served five.) He's kind of a slow learner, I guess. The great thing about brain damage is that sometimes you can't tell it happened to you. So you going around saying shit like "Why didn't anybody tell me it could cause hemiplegia?" Never mind, you don't want to hear it. Yet.

[Guest amorphic]

children should not be on anti-depressants.

[ment2]

an anti-depressant that makes you want to kill yourself..

[MagatsuTaito]

Re: Go AHEAD AND TAKE ALL THE DRUGS YOU WANT

 

Originally posted by KaBar2

Since you don't care to hear the voice of experience, you get to learn from the University of Hard Knocks. See ya in Detox, or the prison shower, LOL. I got a friend from high school who did a total of ten years in prison for selling cocaine. He's kind of a slow learner, I guess. The great thing about brain damage is that sometimes you can't tell it happened to you. So you going around saying shit like "Why didn't anybody tell me it could cause hemiplegia?" Never mind, you don't want to hear it. Yet.

 

hey dude i was just joking. i dont touch drugs at all ive never even smoked a cigarrete

[KaBar2]

Kids and Anti-depressants

 

I think the reason you guys don't understand why depressed kids should be on anti-depressants is because you may not understand that persistant, profound depression (like a depression serious enough to lead a kid to use illegal street drugs, for instance) has very little to do with situational life experiences (breaking up with your girlfriend, or your parents getting divorced) and a LOT to do with chemical imbalance of neurotransmitters in the pre-synaptic neurons of the brain.

 

Depression has a PHYSICAL ETIOLOGY (the levels of neurotransmitters, especially serotonion, dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and GABA are insufficient.) The transmission of neural impulses (thoughts, more or less) is less and less efficient as the depression deepens.

 

I've seen kids as young as four who had made serious, life-threatening attempts to take their own lives. I've seen the son of a millionaire who was arrested sucking dicks in a public restroom to raise money for crack. I had a patient who committed twelve violent armed robberies (to get money for drugs,) and didn't understand why he was going to prison. Depression is a real disease, and it requires antidepressants to overcome it.

[GnomeToys]

Later on in my life, I met people, stupid assholes just like me, same age, same everything, who dropped LSD and had a stroke;

 

I've never heard of a stroke being caused by LSD. Do you have any actual medical evidence of this? It would have more likely been one of the 20mg doses of DOM that was going around at the time.

[some pittsburgh flavor]

ok, kabar has to be the oldest person ever to say "LOL" and mean it

 

i like to snort/eat ritalin. why? it's fun, and good for artwork. Sure, long-term use can lead to blah blah blah but i know all that. You know? it doesn't really phaze me. i smoked cigarettes for over two years. i'm turning seventeen soon; i had older friends, you know the drill. I quit that because it was stupid. Now, SPF, why not, then, is the ritalin stupid? well, see, you have to learn about the drug first. then you have to learn what doses to abuse and how often you should abuse them without doign much harm. then, you have to have some will-power and not get addicted or do it more than once a month. "But spf the long-term" but yeah i'm slowly sobering up of everything, gradually... cigarettes gone, pain killers gone, salvia gone... it's goign to be really hard because i have great effects with all of them and they are readily available for cheap....

it's a personal thing. people need to learn that if you're goign to take enough of a certain drug to OD it wouldn't even feel good. learn some moderation for your own sake.

[KaBar2]

Gnome Toys

 

I doubt that stroke is a common side effect of LSD. In 1970-71, I worked at a rehabilitation hospital as a transportation orderly (moving paralyzed patients to and from PT, OT, labs, etc.) I had a patient who was a few months older than me (20) who was hemiplegic from a stroke he sustained while tripping on LSD. He told me that at first he thought it was just part of a bum trip, but soon realized that he had suffered some major medical problem. He made it home, and fell into bed and apparently went to sleep, and when he awakened the next day, he was completely paralyzed on his left side--the left side of his face, his left arm and left leg. Testing eventually revealed he had suffered a type of stroke associated with an aneurysm (a permenant blood-filled space created by the unexpected ballooning or dilation of a blood vessel--usually an artery.) This is the only occurrance I've ever heard of an LSD-related stroke, but it made a profound impression on me.

 

Much more common is LSD-related schizophrenia. Either the victim already had a prediliction for schizophrenia, and the LSD sparked it off, or the patient just suffered some serious disruption of his mind associated with the use of LSD. Either way, it's bad shit. I knew a number of people who became "acid casualties" back in the late '60s and early '70s. I also knew a number of people who had awful accidents occur while they were fucked up--including a girl who leaned against a balcony railing at a party and the railing broke, dropping her onto the edge of the pool, breaking her spine and paralyzing her. And then there are all the people who freaked out and tried to commit suicide while tripping, including my girlfriend from 1968.

 

LSD was discovered while searching for a headache remedy, and refined and popularized by the CIA working within the Ivy League establishment. It was "weaponized" by the CIA, but although they tested it for over 20 years, they were unable to put it to good use. Timothy Leary was a Harvard professor who was introduced to LSD by a colleague working on a grant on a project for the CIA.

[space base]

YEAH DUDE!!! LSD RULES! IM GETTING SOME SHEETS PRETTY SOON, JEEAAHHH!!!

[KaBar2]

Well, make sure you've got good mental health coverage on your health insurance. You might need it.

[some pittsburgh flavor]

yeah kabar, however you seem to be more preaching your opinion and the bad facts than the great experiences one can have, if used in moderation, without causing serious permanent damage/schizophrenia/suicide. a friend of mine and all his buddies used to eat acid all the time, two or three times a week, when it was real popular here a few years ago. the only thing i heard from any of them and about anyone they knew were these wierd mind-expanding experiences, no negative physical effects, no flashbacks, no suicide attempts... sure they may come eventually but i also know people who get flashbacks and they enjoy them, regardless how 'scary' or 'freaky'. i guess if you react badly to a drug you shouldn't use it. much like prescriptions, no?

 

remember when the health textbooks said i could overdose on marijuana

[metallix]

oh yes those magnificient drug trips which are as big and bad as your paycheck is. no money? sucks you ain't gettin high.

 

self delusions people. it's not a real trip. you want a real trip? stop buying drugs, save your money and take a trip on a plane to africa. don't order alcohol on the plane either/.

[nang'eds!]

Drugs are so good yet so bad..

they get you so high, then so low...

they make you feel like a perfec person, then you wake up dead...

don't do drugs, don't die, just get violently pissed everynight!:p

[KaBar2]

Pittsburgh

 

You have your opinion, and you are welcome to it. I'm sure all your friends who took LSD several times a week with no negative effects will just have a wonderful life. Hope so, anyway. Me telling the truth as I see it, and expressing MY opinion is not "preaching," any more than you telling the truth as YOU see it is "preaching." It seems to me that YOU see anyone that contravenes the "just take whatever drugs you want, they can't possibly hurt you" view as some sort of moralistic party pooper.

 

I'm here to tell you the truth. I do not stand to gain a thing by admitting that I used drugs as a teenager, or that my girlfriend tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists with a razor blade while tripping, or that another close female friend became a hopeless heroin addict after years of drug abuse, alcohol abuse and profligate living. Another girl I knew in high school used LSD frerquently until her early 30's, and is now schizophrenic, to all outward appearances. She is known as "Wierd Old Lady Moreland" to the kids on her block. How does it help me to tell you the story of the guy who suffered a stroke while tripping? It's true, and even if it is extremely rare, once or twice is too often for me.

 

Using drugs, especially hallucinogens (LSD, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, etc.) is extremely dangerous. Even drugs like marijuana or nicotine have a long list of potential harmful consequences, including emphesema, cancer, heart disease, etc. Marijuana and hashish also are strongly suspected to cause both long term and short-term memory problems, emotional problems and retarded maturity of judgement. We see adult psychiatric patients who act and think like young teenagers all the time, and virtually all of them smoke marijuana.

 

A decision to use drugs should be made in light of the fact that the outcome could be negative. Like I said, I have a friend that spent 7-1/2 years locked up due to his foolish decisions to sell cocaine. Frankly, his emotional level is pretty low. Considering his very promising performance in high school and his excellent grade point average, I was surprised to hear that he wound up in prison instead of law school or engineering school. "Oh well." Each of us is responsible for ourselves and responsible for our own actions. If you make a bad choice, you get a bad consequence. I feel fortunate that I managed to somehow avoid the worst of it. Probably some of the more successful and prosperous acquaintances I knew in high school look at me and my life, shake their heads and say "He was so talented, what a waste. We lost a lot of good people to the Sixties." Maybe they would be correct. Drugs sure screwed up a lot of people that I knew, and they certainly didn't do me any good.

 

I overheard a couple of women at the 1989 high-school reunion of my class, talking about another guy. One of them said disdainfully to the other, "It's just so sad. I mean, he's still smoking marijuana, for Christ's sake." The ultimate put-down, when said about an irresponsible middle-aged man.

[some pittsburgh flavor]

please don't be condescending

 

so basically you had a bunch of emotionally fucked up friends who should not have taken drugs and did.

 

i had one of the coolest experiences of my life intoxicated on salvia and i just got back from running a 5:40 mile

 

also, i never said take whatever you want becasue they won't hurt you, if you read, i noted the physical effects as my main reason for sobering up. AKA i don't play that shit anymore. My childhood friend ODed two weeks ago on methadone and xanax. you think i don't know drugs kill? you think i don't understand how terrible they are?

 

and yet, "terrible" is relative. you cannot generalize and say that is the way everyone will react to the drugs and that they will definitely have negative effects.

[KaBar2]

Sorry if you thought I was being condescending, but you're responsible for your own feelings about what I say or don't say. I'm not going to change what I know to be the truth because you don't like my tone or whatever.

 

You should know clear as a bell, since your friend foolishly overdosed, that street drugs--ALL street drugs--are bad shit. There is no "Oh, I can handle it--if he got addicted, or OD'ed it's because he was emotionally fucked up." Anybody and everybody who uses illegal drugs is self medicating SOME sort of psychiatric problem, and if you wait and watch long enough, it will become obvious as to what he problem is.

 

The worst thing that can happen is for somebody who uses drugs to be clever enough to avoid the consequences for a long period of time. If that occurs, then the negative effects of using the drug(s) continue on into adulthood, and once they pass around 30 or so, they are not likely to change. I concede that probably my group of friends in high school gravitated towards one another because we were all dealing with distressing psychological problems. Most of us, looking back on it, probably were depressed and had low self esteem. We had a lot of shit to deal with---it was "the Sixties." Some of those people I knew back then went down the tubes, and some of them didn't. In virtually every case, those that managed to deal with life better were the people who quit using drugs and got a college education. Sorry to say, my friends who continued to use drugs have a pretty sad life as adults.

 

Make your own decisions--use, don't use, nobody else gives a shit. But the consequences of choosing to use street drugs to self-medicate psych problems instead of going to a doctor and seeking appropriate medical care can be severe. WTF, why am I telling you this? You already know it's true. For some reason or another, though, you seem to want to legitimize illegal drug use. Street drugs suck. But people have to find that shit out for themselves. I guess it's part of growing up, for those people that actually do grow up. Some people don't. Sucks to be them.

 

Of course, plenty of people would turn this right around on me and say "Yeah, that's why a 53-year old registered nurse spends this much time on a graffitti writer's message board and all his spare time in hobo jungles." Good point.

[freeque]

Originally posted by KaBar2

Anybody and everybody who uses illegal drugs is self medicating SOME sort of psychiatric problem, and if you wait and watch long enough, it will become obvious as to what he problem is.

 

Interesting... I've never thought about it like that before, but I guess that makes sense. It is like they are a remedy for insecurity which is only temporary - in the longrun I guess they just make you more insecure as you would begin to feel unable to function without them.

 

Food for thought... thank you.

[some pittsburgh flavor]

definitely the marijuana is a social outlet to meet new and potentially cool people. same with alcohol. i couldn't wait till friday night because that's when we'd all drink and i knew it would be this awesome bonding experience with hours of shenanigans and conversation. i'm not legitamizing anything, i'm giving my reasons. you've really got to know yourself before you attempt drug use. that's why most kids turn into potheads when they get all stoned their first time at 12 or 13 or whatever; they are still finding out who they are. i think only then should consciousness be altered with. lucid dreaming and exploring the subconscious are awesome; one could say lucid dreaming is an alternative to acid.

 

i know the skitzophrenic guys, the burnouts, the kids who fried themselves on ecstacy or acid... and i agree that long term use leads to nothing good, with anything, even ibuprofen. this week though, i have to break my clean-streak and eat some concerta because i have to get my portfolio done with much quickness - and the creativity just flows like you wouldn't believe. However, i know i will not continue to do that. i don't want to.

 

<3