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This is a first-person account from a psychiatry resident (me) enrolling in a clinical trial of psilocybin. Somewhere between a trip report, an overview of the pharmacology of psilocybin, and a review of the clinical evidence suggesting pronounced benefits for depression.
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I see people out there getting absolutely wasted on kratom, acting like lunatics, wasting huge amounts of money on it, not washing, being aggressive, getting in fights. Maybe drugs should be legal for people who are not idiots.
Kratom provides a kinda-sorta opiate-like buzz the very first few times its used that taper off pretty fast and generally stop around the 3rd-4th use. It is a fantastic pain reliever though, and a godsend for people with chronic pain who cant get medical pain management from a doctor. The pain relief doesn't go away with repeated use like the buzz does.
There is a predictable profile for the people we see who have problems with kratom (I volunteer at a local rehab). They are opiate addicts, usually heroin, pretty deep into it. They get off dope but are struggling with terrible withdrawal. They learn that in the cultures that kratom is native too people use it to get off dope, that it blunts the withdrawal symptoms. This is true, its great for this. Then, the first time they use it they get sorta opiate-like buzz and a lightbulb goes off in their heads: "I've found a loophole! I can keep getting high! I'll still pass my drug tests!" But as mentioned the psychoactive effects fade very fast. This can temporarily be countered by taking more, so they move from the capsules to the liquid extracts then the more concentrated extracts. Still by the end of the first week the buzz is entirely gone. It still offers relief from withdrawal but thats not why they're using it now. This stuff got them high once, why isn't it working anymore? This is where the huge amounts of money kick in. The individual bottles of the concentrated extract cost $20 each or so and they're taking 5-10 a day chasing that buzz that isn't coming back. Way more than they ever spent on heroin (which has been dirt cheap for a while now) Many go back to dope at this point. We see a lot of ODs at this point; having been clean for a while, even just 1 month sometimes, is enough to reset their opiate tolerance but they still dose based on their previous habit, which is now too much.
Kratom is a very effective treatment for pain. Its also very good as alleviating withdrawal, but those first few doses that provide a ersatz high for recovering addicts ruins this use case for some people leading to the observations in the above post.
Only ever saw one guy using it. Young guy, 20-something. A place where I worked part time, one of the temp workers loading the containers. He stank, literally stank so bad I could smell him - I have somewhat impaired sense of smell. Apparently he washed very rarely.. and this was summer.
Later I learned he was homeless, living in a tiny garden colony hut he broke into and even though he could have washed, he didn't. Everyone hated him because he acted aggressive, sometimes talked to himself, kept pacing all the time, was unreasonable... and stank. About every hour he'd mix a kratom drink using a lot of various powders he had there and then drink it. I guess because the labor force situation being what it is, he kept working there for several months.
Once caused a fire alarm because he lighted up a joint or cigarette in the toilets, but the place was so shoddily run they didn't know who was the culprit and he got away with it. Not sure what caused the company to blacklist him eventually.. probably got in a fight with someone.
I really don't think his was 'initial high'. As far as I know, he was persistently agitated this way, which, even more than the smell, caused others to hate him. Maybe he was mixing something else into those drinks though.
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Yeah same with alcohol bro. How many people die from drunk driving every year?
Alcohol is way too widespread to really ban, in addition relatively easy to make at home.
Cannabis is even easier tho...
It's pretty hard to beat, "I left some fruit (that I'm legally allowed to buy and have) in the cabinet for too long."
"I dropped some seeds in the bush someplace" isn't bad...
It's much harder to explain how you legally acquired said seeds. Especially with the effort that it takes to get the kind of cannabis people want (not talking any bullshit about roadside trash grass).
"Roadside trash grass" is about the equivalent of the Jungle Juice you are talking about -- making any kind of decent alcohol at home takes a lot more effort than growing good weed -- which is basically just gardening with extra steps.
Please elaborate on what you mean by "decent alcohol" and "good weed". I think there are some shenanigans with quality/potency/etc.
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