# Have you ever done "hard drugs?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 2, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633 "2011-11-02T15:40:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/101 "2011-11-09T19:30:07Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I tripped on LSD ~ 3-7 times per year from 1978 to circa 1994 and have never seen “trails” or “colors”. I don’t know from whence came the meme that acid tripping is about having visual hallucinations. I don’t think they are all that common. Actually I think _you_ might be in the minority on this one, unless this is perhaps a semantic issue. While they weren’t “true” hallucinations in the sense of seeing fully-formed objects or people that weren’t there, visual distortions were very much an element of the acid trips I (and everyone else I knew) took. This included trails swooping behind moving objects (e.g., your own hand waving in front of you), rapidly shifting colors, and the squirmy pattern effect you describe, among other things. Some people are probably expecting to find themselves in a room with three-dimensional dragons or giant lollipops or whatever, which (at least in my experience) acid doesn’t really provide. The “trail” effect (aka tracers) was something I’d see mainly during the peak, rather than during the entire trip. (For a fairly good facsimile of the effect, get in front of a webcam with a low frame rate and wave your arms around quickly.) ---
**Author:** ![may\_be\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@may\_be\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/may_be_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/102 "2011-11-09T19:57:40Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > I did really staggering amounts of LSD throughout the end of the eighties and on through most of the nineties. For most of that time I had a line on liquid and my routine for those years was to wait three days between trips, and then throw coins (two out of three) to determine whether or not I’d take acid that night. If the 2of3 favoured “heads,” I’d start with three drops in a glass of water, and flip again. For each time it came up heads, I’d add another drop, and stop at “tails.” > > LSD was definitely my favourite mind-altering substance. > > I have also used MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, 2CB, methamphetamine, ketamine, cocaine, PCP, mescaline, belladonna, amanita, opium, homebrew ayahuasca and god alone knows what one-off’s have slipped my mind. > > Of these, the only substances that really make me uneasy are meth and coke (for the potential of habituation, which was never a problem for me personally but which is a palpable risk) and belladonna and amanita for the ease of which you can check out permanently with them. Oh, that reminds me - I extracted the alkaloids from a datura plant and scarfed those back once, too. That was the night my brother dropped by to apologize for being out of touch for so long, and to express his natural fraternal concerns after hearing that I was getting a bit cavalier with my drug use. (This seemed quite natural at the time, in spite of the fact that he had died of a heroin overdose ten years previously.) > > Now that I am long-settled into a comfortable and responsible bourgeois existence, I do sometimes vaguely miss the days of plentiful and pluripotent LSD, and also the idle and irresponsible times in which I could be certain that there was nothing on the horizon for the next eight hours or so which demanded a clear head. I also sometimes miss those hours-long MDMA-fueled ruts. Those were good. I’m pretty sure that even (if it were legal, natch) and we could get a sitter, and I _could_ talk my lifelong pharmaphobic wife into it… it probably wouldn’t be the same. > > My middle-aged embrace of beer and wine is a more than adequate replacement for the rest. 🙂 jesus ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/103 "2011-11-09T20:05:53Z")
Hippie child of the 60s, I have hit LSD, mescaline and hash. Tried pot but it just makes me tired. I didn’t try glue because I heard if you tried it, you would stick with it. ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/104 "2011-11-09T20:47:32Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I had been offered synthetic mesc at a party, it looked like someone had taken one of the purplish red color pencils, peeled off the wood and carefully sectioned the ‘lead’ into tiny cylinders. I didn’t try it because hallucinogens never really appealed to me. I was never fond of the idea of taking random pills/capsules, sharing a joint/bong/line of coke with someone I know is one thing, but the possibility of getting something really _unexpected_ never interested me. If I didn’t like something, I didn’t do it again. > > So it would seem! I don’t doubt that people were calling it mescaline but mescaline, synthetic or not, requires a certain amount for an effective dose. Of course I don’t know just how small you’re talking but a dose the size of a tiny cylinder of pencil lead isn’t going to be nearly enough to do anything at all. Here’s the [link](http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mescaline/mescaline_info2.shtml) I posted earlier. A dose of mescaline that’s on the small side of normal would have to be about the size of the largest pill in that picture and that’s _before_ any pill binders are added. After the binders it would be even bigger than that or be inside a gelcap. If you weren’t interested in getting the surprise drug du jour, you did well to turn it down. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/105 "2011-11-09T22:51:31Z")
> [@Terraplane](#): > > I don’t doubt that people were calling it mescaline but mescaline, synthetic or not, requires a certain amount for an effective dose. Of course I don’t know just how small you’re talking but a dose the size of a tiny cylinder of pencil lead isn’t going to be nearly enough to do anything at all. Here’s the [link](http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mescaline/mescaline_info2.shtml) I posted earlier. A dose of mescaline that’s on the small side of normal would have to be about the size of the largest pill in that picture and that’s _before_ any pill binders are added. After the binders it would be even bigger than that or be inside a gelcap. > > If you weren’t interested in getting the surprise drug du jour, you did well to turn it down. It was the size of the microdot, just a redish purplish color. It may have actually been a slice of a colored pencil lead that someone was scamming with, it could have been homemade acid they were calling synthetic mescaline … I just didn’t want to get a drug pig in a poke 😛 I stopped doing weed mainly because I could get the same effect from alcohol, and it was legal for me to buy and drink alcohol, and I needed to get and maintain security clearances for work purposes. Why should I needlessly worry about losing a job just to get wasted when I can get wasted on alcohol legally? Not to mention in general alcohol was cheaper than weed. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/106 "2011-11-10T14:33:51Z")
Cocaine was interesting for me. I wouldn’t say cocaine made me “feel good” in the sense of happiness or euphoria or peacefulness. I did feel an overwhelming sense of _reward_. In psychology you hear talk of “reward” in the abstract, and we’re told that it ties into the dopamine system, but when I tried cocaine, I got it. I mean I. Got. It. Not happiness or joy… on the contrast I felt jittery and paranoid and a little scared, even. The bitter taste and stinging nose was no fun either. But the rush of the reward sensation… it’s sinking the 3-point shot at the buzzer, pumping your fist in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, being handed a big fat bag of cash, unhooking her bra with one hand, just winning, winning, winning, endlessly. And the thing about winning is that it can never stop, must never stop… and as long as you have coke, it never has to stop. Cocaine is money and money is cocaine. I only tried it once, 12 years ago. It’s a miracle I didn’t get hooked on it. At that time I was ready to cash in every single asset I had to convert it to an endless supply of cocaine. Even to this day all my senses go on alert when I see people doing it in movies, when somebody plays “White Lines”, when I see any conical pile of white powder. I actually start salivating. Sometimes I have dreams about snorting a giant, infinite mountain of the purest blow. I am just awed by the power of my psychological reward circuitry. I wonder if it got this way by playing Atari for tens of thousands of hours as a tween. ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/107 "2011-11-10T16:46:20Z")
That is interesting, and it puts in words what I have felt about it. I always just remember the greed bit. I have always said that if you want to understand true greed, then try it… but you should do it at night in a small town, as you REALLY shouldn’t have access to cash in large amounts. But yours does in fact explain Charlie Sheen, as well as a few other things. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![White\_Unicorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d26b3c/32.png) [@White\_Unicorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Unicorn)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/108 "2011-11-10T17:36:22Z")
I definitely had visual hallucinations when I took lsd- crabs and underwater sea creatures mixed with monsters you would see on Monster’s Inc. Bears lol (my friends got a kick out of this because my mother’s house is FULL of them). The best part though, and the reason I recommend acid, is the stars and galaxies I saw looking at the sky. Definitely accompanied by the feeling of who you are in the vast world. I too, didn’t feel tired at all the next few days. I forgot about taking salvia four times. The most unusual, and the one that stopped those outings, was when I took some blue and went schizo. A larger me was chasing the real me, a smaller me. And everything was covered in old Jaguar graphics that were moving constantly. When I came down, I had destroyed everything in my friend’s room. Felt pretty shitty about that. Too creepy for me. But did have an interesting winter wonderland experience and I was on a pirate ship once. Don’t know what’s up with me and hallucinating ocean things, but I turned into a fish the first time I took it. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/109 "2011-11-11T10:19:40Z")
> [@White\_Unicorn](#): > > Bears lol (my friends got a kick out of this because my mother’s house is FULL of them). Your mother’s house is full of bears? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/110 "2011-11-11T10:42:43Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Your mother’s house is full of bears? I’m sure it’s a typo, he probably meant “boars.” ---
**Author:** ![Ochiee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ad7895/32.png) [@Ochiee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ochiee)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/111 "2011-11-12T02:17:26Z")
> [@White\_Unicorn](#): > > Pot, of course. My old best friend is a dealer. Had to say goodbye when I gave it up. Got too paranoid, and honestly, I was smoking about 2 gs to an eigth every day for two years. Not a great moment when you realize you don’t remember much of the last 2 years. Plus I hate what it’s done to my dad. Paranoid (as it will to most everyone eventually, even if they don’t notice it) to complete denial now that he’s older. I’ve never been a big fan of pot, but have plenty of friends who are regular smokers (and have been for decades). I’ve not noticed any of them being unusually paranoid, so I’m wondering why you say that. Everyone eventually? Really? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633/112 "2011-11-12T08:44:18Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I’m sure it’s a typo, he probably meant “boars.” My God - it’s full of boars! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-hard-drugs/601633.md?page=5)