Tag Archives: Ravelrie

DXM, Promethazine & Lil Wayne: An Observation

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First hit for “high on cough syrup” by the way.

Today, I wanted to present a small observation I found kind of interesting relating to, but not exactly about today’s #DFF on DXM/Cough Syrup. Cough syrup is used all over the world, with a varying degree of narcotic in them, depending on the specific laws surrounding opiates. For example, in France, you can get cough syrup with small amounts of pain killers in it. In the USA, the prescription strength cough syrup has both codeine (moderately potent opiate) & promethazine (sedative & weak anti-psychotic). Compare this to the active ingredient in over the counter cough syrup & the drug that many college kids experiment with, Dextromethorphan, an “antitussive,” or cough suppressant with mild sedative/dissociative properties.
This is why when you & your friends got fucked up cough syrup it felt like you were in a vomity K-hole, while Bieber, Lil Wayne & Soulja Boy are walking around, slurring their words & getting their “lean on.” The motivations for doing DXM include the psychedelic aspects & the hilarious lack of independent limb control at higher doses, though, that part of the drug is more entertaining for everyone around you. Sizzurp, or Purple Drank, has a very different effect, combining a weapons grade painkiller & sedative. If you ever wondered why the rap was so fluid & almost slurred, it’s because he is almost asleep. If you want to know why people consume this, the best way I’ve ever heard it described was from a case manager at a homeless shelter in the South Bronx. He reminded me that you can sip on sizzurp all day, quietly & slowly, and still be “more fucked up” than everyone at the party drinking Champagne or Hennessy or any alcohol. That meaning, you were intoxicated, but quickly, & cheaply, and remained at a low-level plateau all day. You didn’t ratchet up from buzzed to drunk to blacked out. Plus, you weren’t consuming alcohol, so you didn’t start fights/get violent which frequently got the cops called on parties. But this is where the funny part comes in. DXM does not provide the same effects of Purple Drank. But because of the explosion in popularity of Lil Wayne, & other rappers who embraced the cocktail, I wonder how many kids are out there unsure of the difference. I wonder how many Beliebers saw that he was drinking something that had cough syrup in it, then absolutely had to hit up a Walgreen’s on the way home. I definitely know kids who have “I swallowed 20 DXM gelcaps” stories. And, as we all know, those stories usually involve projectile vomit or descriptions of how their bookshelf turned into a pack of wolves. The other drug, definitely developed some cache, showing up on Instagram over and over, even getting repped in a Future rap video.

At the end of the day, DXM is not a particularly safe drug, as most cough syrup comes with other ingredients that are quite toxic in large doses. This means that if you consumed enough DXM to get fucked up, you’d probably make yourself sick from one of the other additives. Also, DXM addiction is real, and it sucks. When more than half users report flashbacks & general apathy, and 25% report nightmares and impaired memory for weeks after not doing the drug, just because it’s over the counter, doesn’t mean it won’t fuck you up. I have known people who lost summers & years to this, sipping on a cough syrup bottle. And they weren’t even rappers. For more safety info, or to swap stories, join Ravelrie, Stay Safe Seattle & NY DanceSafe at 4:30p/1:30p PST using #DXMFFCJ1LGEjVEAAc3Dd

MXE, Maxine or Mexxy: Ketamine’s (Legal Not For Consumption) Younger Sister

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8dJpCibMethoxetamine is a drug that started as a synthetic replacement for the popular recreational drug (Ketamine), but soon found a following all its own. When Ketamine became difficult to find, some peeps decided to buy still legal versions of it on the grey market. Lots of places online sell novel psychoactive substances, especially ones that haven’t been picked up or ingested by random users yet. In 2010 people started purchasing it as a cheaper alternative to the dodgy K that was going around at the time. It went from first described to formally identified by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs in 6 months. While it’s certainly not acid, the trips online of the intensity of the experience became legendary. People report intensely disassociative experiences, powerful psychedelic rides & huge problems moving and coordinating their limbs.  Continue reading →

Ayahuasca: Buckets, Diapers, Addiction & Trauma.

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LfMvhgNThis Drug Fact Friday is one of the big champions of the jungle ones folks. This is a concoction of different chemicals that some of your more groovy/hippie friends may have mentioned at a party once or twice. Ayahuasca (sometimes called yagé) is a powerful psychedelic brew. The brew is created because the DMT containing plant needs a vine that has what’s known as an MAO inhibitor in it. If anyone ever tells you Ayahuasca is one thing, hit them. This concoction of a couple of plants allows the DMT to survive what’s known as first pass metabolism and reach your bloodstream. Traditionally, shamans may also add other plants to the mixture, but the DMT & the MAOI are the two primary ingredients. These brews are traditionally consumed during tribal music & shamanistic ritual. It’s not something that has a lot of festival/club use, as many people report severe nausea, vomiting & diarrhea while on it. If you thought you were going to puke when you took shrooms and went to see Ratatat that one time, this blows that out of the chunky water. Some of my friends in San Francisco & NYC have lovingly referred to it as a “bucket & diaper” drug, for this exact reason. And yes, the purging properties the drug has are referred to as “la purga” (guess what that translates to) in shamanic tradition, so get with it.10628587_10205166622379969_5351340714662551154_nNow that I’ve sufficiently grossed out all the kids, let’s talk about how & why people take this stuff. “Ayahuasca” is a non-indigenous spelling, as the natives of Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru & Columbia may prefer ayawaska, and the cultural differences between taking it in the jungle & taking it in a loft in Brooklyn are as striking. Like all other psychedelic experiences, set, setting, goal, community & purpose can mean the difference between a transcendent journey or a nightmarish stumble. The ceremony associated with Ayahuasca helps align people to their goals and can have a tremendously therapeutic, possibly life-changing effect. The plants making the brew, importantly, are not illegal. The chemical, DMT, within the plant is illegal, but the plants from which the DMT is obtained are not scheduled. There are plenty of super positive experiences listed within the Erowid vaults but I’m not going to bore people with “I got so high I saw the galaxy” stories. It’s a much more sophisticated experience, as the research diagram below shows. Even the purging aspect of the drug has a purpose. It was administered traditionally at non-psychoactive doses to vacate parasites & worms from a digestive tract.AyahuascaThere’s been a continuing problem of recreational users doing powerful psychedelics in contexts that don’t require them, or in places where their use is very risky. Whether it’s taking the brew without knowing its potency, doing so because some cute girl is doing it, or even because you’re using it to escape from your life, there are plenty of risks involved with using Aya improperly. The most important is possibly an exacerbation of pre-existing heart conditions. With these hugely potent psychedelic experiences, significant increases in blood pressure & pulse rates have been reported. To stress, no one has died from Ayahuasca per se. The deaths associated with the brew may be due to complications because of medication regimens & the addition of problematic plants & other additives to it.  This VERY tongue in cheek video (oh my God, please don’t yell at me, plant teachers are important, I agree and there are a ton more serious videos on Aya here.) shows a lot of the dark sides of people calling themselves shamans & abusing powerful psychedelics without proper context or motivation. There have been reports of “shamans” exploiting drug tourists, there have been people who died because they didn’t disclose all of the prescriptions they’re taking during their consultations with the shaman.Burns TrippySo, I think it’s important to keep that in mind that what is known about the chemicals clinically is fundamentally different than what is experienced by the ingestion of the brew in a particular place & time. And it can help people in really tangible ways. Ayahuasca has been shown to fight addiction and has a growing following when it comes to its use in processing trauma.   A veteran by the name of Ryan LeCompte took a squad of veterans down to the jungle to have a real ceremony, with a real shaman, and work on some real problems. Not “my apartment doesn’t get enough southern light & my boyfriend can’t commit” level problems. Real veterans, who saw some shit, people who have dealt with things that would make the average basic cry. Lisa Ling from CNN went down to the jungle with them and saw what real healing, post-OIF/OEF looks like. There’s a lot of disputation about whether psychedelics can heal in the academic/ivory tower community. Among Ryan’s comrades in arms, I don’t think that’s an argument they’re having anymore. There is a real potential to help people using this brew, and there are wise people who will watch over you when you do it. If you can find them. This drug is hugely contentious for precisely this reason, so join ravelrie, NY DanceSafe Stay Safe Seattle & I at 4:30pm EST/1:30pm PST for #ayaFF on Twitter to learn more & join in the conversation about it. 

Adderall, Vyvanse & Brain Doping

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With 5.3%of college students currently prescribed ADHD medications, Adderall & its newer, “difficult to abuse” progeny, Vyvanse have just been used in massive quantities all over the country to get heads through finals. There’s a beautiful round up of how Adderall is used/discussed in digital spaces by Tazin Karim Daniels here. While plenty of people are going to hem and haw about it, if 47% of 12th graders say it would be “easy” to obtain this stuff, let’s take our heads out of the sand and try and understand why. Continue reading →

Nitrous Oxide: 215 Years, From Humphry Davy To Hippie Crack.

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largeNitrous oxide, also referred to as Laughing Gas has a particularly interesting history, being one of the only drugs beside cannabis & alcohol that people still use in similar forms/dosages to centuries ago. It’s on the WHO Model List of Essential medicines because of its use in surgery & dentistry, it’s what the NoS tanks in Fast & the Furious cars use for that video game style speed boosts & it’s been used recreationally by half a million people in the UK alone. Nitrous has been shown to be relatively harmless from a neurotoxicity perspective. The issue with most users developing hypoxia is related to their using “whippets” instead of medical grade Nitrous. While medical grade Nitrous has oxygen mixed into it, chargers do not. Hence the potential for harm if you’re getting the stuff you can get at Zabars instead of having it be administered by someone with medical or dental training. But here’s the crazy part, it started out just as a party drug for the British upper class & academia.
Nitrous 1830 Continue reading →

Khat, Cathinones & Culture: A Continuing Story

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In many cultures around the world, drugs are primarily consumed not by smoking or snorting, but chewing. Coca leaves in Latin America, Betel in Asia, and Khat in the Middle East and Africa. This process is the traditional method of psychotropic substance consumption, especially in places where only tobacco is frequently smoked. In Somalia-land, the Eastern regions of Africa & the Arabian peninsula, Khat is king. This cathinone has amphetamine-like effects, but is significantly less powerful than something like adderall or methamphetamine. However, just because it’s a plant, not a powder, doesn’t mean it’s not still potent & hugely popular in much of the world.

KhatFF graphicThis “herbal stimulant” has followed sub-Saharan migrant workers to Europe, while entrenching deeply within its native Somaliland (an independent autonomous region from Somalia). Approximately 20% of the government’s revenue comes from the sale of the plant. The drug has been seen as a problem for some, while an opportunity for others, and with the government encouraging the sale, a ban or restriction of any kind seems unlikely. The plant is  considered less potent & addictive than powder or pill based concentrates that have made it over to the Western world. Al Jazeera has a great pair of features about the plant and the migrant worker culture surrounding it.

While the West has a terrible history of using racism to make drugs illegal, only Missouri in the USA has made this specific plant illegal. The active substance, cathinone, has gone on to much infamy being associated with “bath salts.” Cathinones are internationally scheduled, but the Khat plant was made illegal in the UK after a long & bitter fight that seemed to occur along racial & class lines (as discussed in those dope Al-Jazeera articles), as the plant is chewed primarily by immigrants. Ravelrie, NY DanceSafe & Stay Safe Seattle will be joining me to talk about the effects, information on the addictive potential & the positive/negative effects of the plant. Use #khatFF to join in the slightly sped up fun!

 

 

Kratom, Stimulants & Withdrawal: A Developing Story

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This week, for #DFF we’re talking Kratom! You’ve probably not heard of it, but if you have, we’d love to hear from you! Ravelrie, NY DanceSafe & Stay Safe Seattle are joining me to talk about a substance that has both a long history and an entirely new global fanbase. In many places, like the USA, it’s actually still legal, though, as we’ve seen with a lot of gray-area drugs, that may not be the case for long.IMG_1784This drug has the very interesting side effect of essentially replacing methadone for opiate withdrawal. This is something that took me both a review of the research (summed up nicely in this Scientific American article) and a lengthy stay in r/kratom (that’s right, there’s a reddit community about it) to really believe. One of the differences between the article and the concreteness of the sub-reddit is immediately obvious. While the scientists are speculating and wondering about the effectiveness of the drug, there’s an entire underground of people already using it. Not only are they using it the way it’s traditionally used in Thailand, as the organic/natural analog to methamphetamine, similar to Khat & coca leaves in Africa & Latin America (respectively). But it also provides a much smoother withdrawal than when you try and stop using opiates. The only other drug I’ve ever encountered in my research that does this is Ibogaine, but that is a story for another day. This substance apparently replaces the opiate/pain medication usage, but when users try to quit this…they feel like they’ve got a caffeine headache.

The significantly reduced physical dependency potential & softer withdrawal symptoms have gotten people to use it to do what methodone, Narcotics Anonymous & a lifetime of DARE commercials couldn’t. Get them off drugs. Some succeed, a bunch fail, but in this case, they’ve got a leg-up, as dealing with caffeine withdrawal is a zillion (yea that’s a scientific term sure) times easier than weaning yourself off heroin. As any fan of Trainspotting could tell you. The drug isn’t actually scheduled in the USA, but the DEA is watching it like a hawk. There’s a chance that it could be used to help people, but I assume the usual suspects will shit all over that, but the fact that the community exists, is global, and has helped (admittedly self-report & confirmation bias not-withstanding) a lot of people, means there might be something here. Join us on Twitter at 4:30pm to help us figure it out.

Multi-Day Festivals & Safety

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2hxslecWhile there’s a whole lot of information out there about how to not die when the party lasts 4-8hrs, what the heck do you do when you want to go HAM over a weekend? Multi-day events are becoming the norm, as festival culture to continues to explode. To put this in context, there were over 800 festivals in North America, in 2013 alone. This stuff is the new normal, and they’re quite different from club nights.

IMG_1552My peeps ravelrie, NY DanceSafe & Stay Safe Seattle are going to focus on tips for the raver/festival attendee themselves, but I wanted to take this time to directly address fest producers & managers. I worked with the Electronic Music Alliance to develop this Event Safety guide for festival managers. There are a number of tips that most people haven’t thought of, but if ravers are aware of them, they can help mitigate the potential for a bad experience even when the festival is kind of a clusterfuck.

Some of the easiest take aways are:

  • Know where the water/crisis intervention/medical stations are before you have an emergency. This can literally make the difference between life & death.
  • Assume that the water stations will have heavy lines & no one will have extra ear plugs. Bring multiple pairs of those & more than one pair of sunglasses, especially for events with a heavy day component. There’s nothing worse than having your shades break on day one and squinting in 3 days worth of pictures.
  • Know the route from the stage(s) back to your tent in daylight & the dark without relying on too many landmarks. One of the biggest issues newbie Burning Man attendees have is the day after the Man burns, no one can find their way around because they were using “the man” as a guide post to locate themselves.
  • Start consuming gatorade & electrolytes after the 1st day. The water stations don’t take into account the fact that you’ve been sweating & pissing salts out for 24hrs, and the opposite of dehydration can kick on when you don’t have enough salts.
  • Pick up your garbage from your campsite gradually over the weekend, such that you don’t have a massive clean-up task when the event is over.
  • Have a plan to get there AND TO GET HOME. No one wants to be the guy who is hitching a ride away from the festival.

There’s a lot to talk about so join us at 4:30pm EST/1:30 PM PST for #FestFriday on Twitter!

MDMA, Molly & The Movie!

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unnamedThis afternoon with Ravelrie, NY DanceSafe & Stay Safe Seattle , I’m talking Molly, MDMA, the Love Drug, and all those wacky names Gen X’ers gave it back when you could still buy it at the bar. The name is short for 3, 4-methylenedixy-methamphetamine, so, yes, it’ll be referred to as MDMA. Not the pills you take, not the caps you got at a festival that one time, the actual drug. Because, as we’ve seen MDMA isn’t freaking pure. And when it’s pure, it’s incredibly strong. While pills used to be cut with filler, Stacker 2 or other fat burning over-the-counter faux stimulants (who remembers Dexatrim?!), now, the caps of “molly” or the baggies you see kids “dip” into at festivals have stuff that we can’t readily identify. This quote from the Miami PD explains the point better than I could.

“According to the Miami Police Department, methylone and mephedrone, along with another synthetic cathinone called 4-MEC, account for the vast bulk of the molly seized by narcotics cops in the area. A DEA spokesperson told me that in the first six months of 2013, the DEA’s Miami field office seized 106 consignments of molly, which contained 43 different substances, 19 of them so obscure even government chemists couldn’t identify them. So much for purity.” ~Playboy

To be clear, that means that not only are kids doing drugs that they can’t readily identify, they’re doing drugs chemists & VICE squads can’t readily identify. When dozens of new research chemicals come to light every year, the law can’t keep up. We’ve got MAPS doing as much as they can to get the word out, but they need help. So, to that end, the founder of DanceSafe would like to share with you his cinematic debut. This is going to be providing a fantastic history, overview and analysis of the drug, and the current effects it has on dance culture, its medical role in PTSD & harm reduction associated with it. For more info, check out the trailer below:

Fentanyl: Everything You Want From Heroin, Without All The Oxygen.

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This week, my peeps & I will be talking about Fentanyl on Twitter for Drug Fact Friday. Just in the last couple of days, another OD from powdered fentanyl laced heroin has popped up. This time in North Dakota. Most of the commentary misses the mark. This is not some new fad, or the product of kids looking to get new kicks in their opiate usage. This is a dangerous trend, stemming from one simple factor, decreased quality heroin being cut with fentanyl, resulting in respiratory arrest.

Here’s the thing about heroin. It’s a really, really old drug. Heroin has this generalized depressive effect on the nervous system that many (in fact, 100% of) people find pleasant at low doses. Fentanyl is a much newer, much more precise drug developed for pain management use during surgery. This drug has a much higher rate of respiratory arrest, but clinically this side effect doesn’t matter because a lot of the people who are getting it are usually under general anesthesia and hooked up to heart lung machines. This is a key point that I think most overlook. These users are going to keep using heroin, especially after they’ve become addicted to legal pain killers. That’s not going to stop happening. They can’t afford to go back to pills, and withdrawal sucks ass. So, even if you know it’s cut, you’re still going to use it. And therein lies the problem.

The drugs killing people are the bad pain killers and cut heroin, in this chart provided by DrugAbuse.gov (that’s right, even they can’t ignore the problem). This problem is caused, directly, by the use of legal pharmaceuticals to cut illegal drugs. I can qualitatively guarantee there are no groups of teens out there going “You know, I like everything about heroin, but I’m not getting enough respiratory distress.” There aren’t recreational fentanyl users. There are heavy heroin users who will start using more potent opiates, but no one is seeking this out. But because markets don’t care what drug laws say, people keep getting it. For more info, join #FENTAFF on Twitter, to chat with Ravelrie, NY DanceSafe & Stay Safe Seattle.

#FentanAFF