Vastness
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2006
- Messages
- 2,331
Was just replying to another thread about Ketamine and it occurred to me this topic might warrant it's own thread, so to begin I will just quote myself:
To be clear, I'm not trying to preach any kind of "drug elitism" here, I am a big fan of both classes of substances and I'm not trying to make any claims about one class being inherently safer or "better" than the other (although arguments could be made both ways for this, no doubt).
However, I think that both classes have quite different risks associated with them, are used in quite different ways, and the differences between the most commonly used examples of these classes (arylcyclohexylamines vs tryptamines and lysergamides, as I see it) are stark enough that the grouping of them together in the way that they currently are is potentially harmful - and not in line with the "harm reduction" ethos of Bluelight.
I understand why these substances have been grouped together historically, and I would not deny that there is a lot of overlap. However, dissociation is a distinct state to the headspace of classical psychedelics, just as empathogenesis is a different state from either of those. And just as the most commonly used empathogens (MDxx, basically) have quite distinct physiological dangers from other non-empathogen psychedelics, dissociative psychedelics have distinct physiological dangers which are not shared with non-dissociative psychedelics.
Just looking at the first page of this forum, there is a LOT of discussion of dissociatives, especially ketamine - but there is also a lot of re-hashing of the same discussions about arylcyclohexylamines and dangers relating to bladder toxicity, etc. I think that while people are becoming a lot more aware of SOME of the dangers due to media coverage, etc, generally speaking, for the drug naive, and even for some more informed drug users, the inclusion of dissociatives as just slightly unusual psychedelics can lull people into a false sense of security, due to the reputation that classical psychedelics have for being physiologically quite safe - a reputation that is not entirely undeserved, I will add, since many of them have anti-addictive properties - a property which dissociatives definitely do not share.
I will just quote another member from the thread I last responded, I hope they don't mind (to be clear I don't know if they actually agree with me or not, we haven't discussed anything independently, I just think this particular quote is particularly relevant):
This is probably partly to do with the fact that dissociatives are in many ways quite "new" drugs, in fact I'd venture to say it's possibly the class with the highest proportion of entirely new compounds with the fairly recent explosion of dissociative RCs, new ACH analogues and entirely novel compounds like the dissociative phenidines with essentially zero history of human use and completely unknown safety profiles. Regardless of the reason though, I think Bluelight could be instrumental in establishing some dissociative specific guidelines - and if anything the relative novelty of such a high proportion of the dissociative class just adds to the importance of doing so.
I really think a new forum would serve this purpose, although I'm not sure what the process would be of bringing about this kind of change, and I appreciate there might be some overhead in managing a whole new forum. For now though I'd just be interested to see how many people agree or disagree with this suggestion.
Looking at the current forum arrangements, I would say that "MDMA & Empathogenic Drugs" could easily have been grouped with psychedelics since there is a lot of overlap between psychedelics and empathogens. Although I think it is absolutely correct that they should have their own forum. Equally though I think it might be time for a "Ketamine & Dissociative Drugs" forum, to make clear that dissociation is a quite distinct state from classical psychedelia, and equally, that dissociative drugs are quite a distinct class from psychedelic drugs, with their own unique set of dangers.
To be clear, I'm not trying to preach any kind of "drug elitism" here, I am a big fan of both classes of substances and I'm not trying to make any claims about one class being inherently safer or "better" than the other (although arguments could be made both ways for this, no doubt).
However, I think that both classes have quite different risks associated with them, are used in quite different ways, and the differences between the most commonly used examples of these classes (arylcyclohexylamines vs tryptamines and lysergamides, as I see it) are stark enough that the grouping of them together in the way that they currently are is potentially harmful - and not in line with the "harm reduction" ethos of Bluelight.
I understand why these substances have been grouped together historically, and I would not deny that there is a lot of overlap. However, dissociation is a distinct state to the headspace of classical psychedelics, just as empathogenesis is a different state from either of those. And just as the most commonly used empathogens (MDxx, basically) have quite distinct physiological dangers from other non-empathogen psychedelics, dissociative psychedelics have distinct physiological dangers which are not shared with non-dissociative psychedelics.
Just looking at the first page of this forum, there is a LOT of discussion of dissociatives, especially ketamine - but there is also a lot of re-hashing of the same discussions about arylcyclohexylamines and dangers relating to bladder toxicity, etc. I think that while people are becoming a lot more aware of SOME of the dangers due to media coverage, etc, generally speaking, for the drug naive, and even for some more informed drug users, the inclusion of dissociatives as just slightly unusual psychedelics can lull people into a false sense of security, due to the reputation that classical psychedelics have for being physiologically quite safe - a reputation that is not entirely undeserved, I will add, since many of them have anti-addictive properties - a property which dissociatives definitely do not share.
I will just quote another member from the thread I last responded, I hope they don't mind (to be clear I don't know if they actually agree with me or not, we haven't discussed anything independently, I just think this particular quote is particularly relevant):
I have added for emphasis what I believe to be the most important point - without commenting on whether dissociatives are "as dangerous" as MDxx or not, as this is a quantitative measure which is hard to verify, although I would say it is quite possible - there is really no generally accepted understanding of what constitutes responsible use of dissociatives.LucidSDreamer said:I did not approach these drugs with the same caution given to MDMA and long term comedown.
These drugs need to be labeled as just as dangerous as MDMA within the drug using community, in my opinion. I think we are starting to see the first instances of that happening lately. As I dont recall "only use dissos once in a blue moon" rules existing ever. In fact regular talk of daily use and medicating depression as such is the norm during disso discussion. In contrast look at a thread where someone is doing MDMA daily and you'll have 20 people piling on calling said person responsible and warning of their assured demise.
This is probably partly to do with the fact that dissociatives are in many ways quite "new" drugs, in fact I'd venture to say it's possibly the class with the highest proportion of entirely new compounds with the fairly recent explosion of dissociative RCs, new ACH analogues and entirely novel compounds like the dissociative phenidines with essentially zero history of human use and completely unknown safety profiles. Regardless of the reason though, I think Bluelight could be instrumental in establishing some dissociative specific guidelines - and if anything the relative novelty of such a high proportion of the dissociative class just adds to the importance of doing so.
I really think a new forum would serve this purpose, although I'm not sure what the process would be of bringing about this kind of change, and I appreciate there might be some overhead in managing a whole new forum. For now though I'd just be interested to see how many people agree or disagree with this suggestion.