What would happen if someone let a gorilla smoke a joint or if someone gave an alligator cocaine or speed? Do drugs affect animals the same way as people and make them act crazy. I would hate to see an elephant or tiger on cocaine. Hopefully no one ever does that
We already know what can happen when you give a chimp Xanax.
Animals may or may not respond similarly to humans for any given drug. Do you go hyperactive when given catnip?
Many drugs do have similar or related effect on animals (many veterinary medications are the same as human ones) but this is not always the case. For example, ketamine is an effective tranquilizer for horses, but is poor for humans due to the dissociative effects. Also, the tolerance levels to some drugs make them harder to use on animals. Paracetamol, for example, is way too toxic on the liver to use on small animals, even if it was sufficiently effective.
Zoological veterinary science still involves a fair bit of trial and error round the edges, although good sedatives for most animal classes are available. Also, the further you get from warm blooded mammals, the less likely it is that drug pathways work in the same way.
LSD and Elephants…
Well it’s an improbable situation. One would have to have a few hundred dollars worth of cocaine on hand, one of these large dangerous animals available, and the stupidity to give it a try.
There are only so many gangsta rap stars out there.
I read a book written by Pat Derby called ‘The Lady and Her Tiger’; she ran a sanctuary for wild animals. She had a Siberian tiger named Rojo who was her personal favorite. Her stepdaughter was into drugs and along with some of her friends decided to get Rojo high on barbituates for the fun of it. When Pat found him in the morning, he was barely clinging to life, and died in her arms before the vet could get there.
There would not have been a safe place in the world for that stepdaughter to hide from me. Why anyone could stoop to that kind of cruelty is beyond me.
I reccomend that book to anyone who enjoys animals.
This reminds me of the episode of Wilfred (about a guy and his talking dog), where Wilfred (the dog), tries to kill Ryan (the guy) by poisoning him… with chocolate. 
Very perceptive! Next time you go to the zoo, look around the elephant and tiger displays. You will not see a single razor blade or mirror. The keepers are constantly on the lookout for items like that.
I gave an alligator some crack to get him hooked, but it was a waste of time because he didn’t have any money to pay for any more. I tried a gorilla too, but he just said no.
Years ago I saw some wildlife documentary.
It showed a certain area in Africa where some fruit (it was a long time ago and I don’t remember the details) would fall on the ground and ferment.
The animals of the area would go to feast on the fermented fruit and get drunk.
A poor giraffe could barely hold his head up with his neck swinging from side to side, and a chimp fell out of a tree.
All the animals were quite wobbly and they all mixed together as the predators weren’t in any shape to catch anything, and the prey wasn’t in any shape to run away.
Then they showed the poor animals the next morning.
The lion looked miserable, you knew by the look in his eyes he had to have a pounding head ache.
A monkey sat holding his head.
All of them looked like they were feeling pretty bad.
After the drunken spree, they recovered and got back to doing what animals do.
Bears have been known to get drunk by breaking into cabins and coolers and drinking the beer and liquor. They’ve also gotten into derailed boxcars that contained cargo that has fermented after being exposed to the elements for a period of time. They react similarly to humans getting drunk.
John C. Lilly was a dolphin researcher, popular among the public due to his writings but widely considered a nut-case among serious dolphin researchers, who was also a LSD guru second only to Timothy Leary. In one of his later books (I forget which one), he acknowledges that he gave LSD to some of his captive dolphins. But he didn’t say what visible effect, if any, that had on them. Lilly believed (if you take his books seriously) that dolphins already lived on a higher plane of cosmic consciousness anyway, or something like that. So it’s not clear what he thought he was trying to accomplish.
Tranquilizer drugs of various sorts are used on animals quite commonly – especially in the form of tranquilizer darts shot into wild animals when they need to be captured and transported, or pills given to domestic animals. The drug PCP (“Angel Dust”), which does really really weird shit to the brain (don’t try this at home, e.fred) was already well known as a horse tranquilizer. You might look into that for your pet alligator though.
Informative documentary on the effects of drugs on spiders…
The only datapoint I can offer is that I once had a cat (or the cat had me, your choice) who was afflicted with epilepsy. The veterinarian prescribed phenobarbitol for his ailment. That was a mellow cat.
I saw a dog who got into some discarded wine. He was wasted! Looked pretty hung-over the next day.
More Spiders On Drugs.
While some animals do have a propensity for alcohol, the doctor who made the link between alcohol and liver disease was using baboons, who refused to drink the stuff.
My dog is currently on a prescription of xanax for separation anxiety. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on him.
Our cat has a heart condition; he takes human drugs for it (atenolol and diltiazem), but only a part of a pill a day.
He also takes aspirin – a low-dose tablet every three days. Cats don’t metabolize aspirin well, but this dosage seems to work – he’s been on the regimen for 15 years.
The relevant scene from “Animals Are Beautiful People.” It has a very “The Gods Must Be Crazy” feel to it so I might question its authenticity. Still, I saw it recently and it is very fun to watch, as animal documentaries go.