Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being
Created | Updated Mar 3, 2005
First of all, apologies for not contributing the last two weeks. Various stuff was going on the first week, and the second was rag week at my college, so I was away from my computer for some time. However, I'm now back, and will continue from where I left off - drugs.
Before I go any further, I should warn you that this entry contains a lot of references to illegal substances. These data are being provided purely for the entertainment and information of readers. You are in no way encouraged to try anything discussed here. Most of the stuff which won't kill you is illegal anyway.
Drugs are a wonderful way to explore your mind. They stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and release endorphins, which occasionally spill over into the visual cortex and cause hallucinations. They may also venture into the aural sector and cause mysterious
voices, or screw up a person's hearing.
Andrew Weil believes that drugs are actually unnecessary; they merely cause changes in the nervous system which we are capable of bringing on ourselves. Timothy Leary alluded to this when he said that computers were 'The LSD of the 90s'. However, whether optional or not, there is little doubt that drugs provide the easiest way to alter your
consciousness.
All alcohols are quite potent mind changers. In sufficient quanitites, they can cause hallucinations that actually supercede those of LSD by seeming rational. The problem is that most of them will quickly make you blind, insane, and dead; plus they are highly addictive. Ethanol is the only relatively safe one, and even that is not particularly good for you. Ethanol's main effects are loss of inhibitions, slurred speech, loss of physical co-ordination, blurred thinking, and reduced sperm count. It can also cause severe memory
loss with frequent use, and so is not recommended for mental journeys. Neither is anything else that causes memory loss; as Grant Morrisson put it, 'Downing 500 peyoté mushrooms might loosen your astral sphincter, but that will be useless to you if you come back without any
memory of where you were'. Alcohols can also cause serious brain and liver damage, so there is little point in trying to use them.
Caffeine is another very legal, very popular drug, which causes a surge in energy soon after ingestion. This leads to a quick slump, generally around 10:00 or 11:00, which has given rise to the workplace ritual of a 'coffee break,' where corporate drones gather round
to replenish their energy. Caffeine may be a useful preparatory tool for a hallucination session, but by itself, it is pretty useless.
Tobacco is a drug that a surprising number of people actually like - so much so in fact that they see nothing wrong with filling whole buildings with its disgusting, dangerous smoke residue. The active ingredient, nicotine, is the most addictive drug known to humanity,
and has none of the useful side effects of caffeine. It causes severe problems in the lungs and blood vessels, as well as reducing the sperm count significantly. Should be avoided at all costs.
Marijuana is the most demonized drug ever. Not only is it non-addictive, the only way to suffer negative effects from it is to smoke 1,500 joints in fifteen minutes - and that is quite simply impossible. Every scientific study has, at worst, concluded that marijuana is harmless; at best, it is revealed to have yet another incredible medical property. However, the medical properties of marijuana are not what concerns us here. What we are concerned
about is the altered states brought on by its active ingredient, THC - and they are wonderful. Everyone who takes marijuana reports feeling generally good, and sometimes get fantastic visions. Marijuana does lower the sperm count, but to a lesser degree than tobacco and alcohols, plus it has no unpleasant hangover. It gives a much better high, and a
little bit of marijuana smoke can last for several hours. Indeed, a single joint can last a small group of people an entire night. It interferes with short term memory while the high lasts, but this effect wears off along with the THC. Quite simply, marijuana is brilliant.
I now seem to be running out of space, and so I will have to pick this up again next week.
Until we meet again, my friend, this is Hussassan, signing off.
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