Good arguments for sticking only to natural drugs?

You see a lot of people in the world of drug users pay lip service to using 'only natural drugs', meaning only ones made by other living things. My first reaction is to reflect that three of my favorite drugs in the world -- LSD, ketamine, and MDMA -- are all man-made. Though their manufacture uses plant-derived precursors, there is no plant that secretes LSD or MDMA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe ketamine is synthesized from scratch entirely from nonliving sources.

The marijuana I enjoy above all is from a plant source, but like so many of our farm crops, has been shaped and molded genetically by servitude to humans, as to be arguably some part a man-made entity, the extent of whose current habitat is within human homes.

But I have to say, there is something 'nice' feeling about aspiring to use only natural drugs, since it helps us abide by a principle that has as its goal a decreased separation of ourselves from nature, whether or not this exact act materially contributes to this end. I don't personally aspire to this, since I have no intention of quitting anything I just mentioned for good. But I do get the attraction.

Can anyone think of any completely rational, practical reasons for wanting to stick only to natural drugs, though? Are there any that might not occur to most people, including many of the people who live by this rule?

None that I can think of. Almost without exception, natural drugs tend to be alkaloid "cocktails", often with more than one active alkaloid (to say nothing of the potential interactions between them). Also, given variability betwen individual plants, there is no such thing as an exact dose. Some things (such as psilocybin mushrooms) have a more reliable alkaloid content than others, but none are guaranteed. Also, as it is much more difficult to do clinical trials on natural drugs for the above reasons, the short and especially long-term effects are much less likely to be fully understood (even with substances with a history of use).

That being said, one big reason for using natural drugs is availability and ease of cultivation. it is much easier to grow Morning Glories than to synthesize LSD, and these plants are much less likely to be covered by the law. Another is price; often, natural drugs are cheaper than synthetics. Finally, some natural drugs, which contain the same alkaloids as more addictive substances may be less likely to cause dependence and overdose, based on the low levels of alkaloids and the ROA necessary to consume them (for eg. Coca Leaves).

However, on the grounds of health, I can't think of many reasons why natural drugs would be significantly healthier. I am sure that for many it is either a philosphical matter, or one of economy or availability. For example, I allow myself to use poppy pods and kratom in part because it is many times cheaper than almost any synthetic opioid you can name. I am sure this is true of many others as well.

I think that you have identified a problem in the idea that you can stick only to natural drugs, which is that what counts as 'natural' is far from self evident. In fact, your question strikes to the heart of a more general philosophical question, which is the question of the relationship between human beings and their environment, culture and nature. In trying to address this issue, I think any boundary we draw between man-made and natural is arbitrary, or rather, reflects more about the way we are used to thinking about 'nature' than it does about what is 'really natural.'

As you say, whilst weed is the first drug that comes to mind when we think of 'natural', the entire system of weed cultivation and distribution is far from natural in the usual sense. If we went to the extreme, we could say that if we wanted to only smoke 'natural' weed, then we should only smoke weed that we find growing wild, which is not something that most proponents of 'natural' weed would endorse. Also, the idea of 'the wild' is a human construction.

If we take the case of a drug that is certainly not 'natural', say methamphetamine, it raises the question of why we would say that something that certainly exists in nature is not natural. Usually the answer would be that it has been created by human beings using processes of synthesis which are not found naturally. However, this is equally problematic, since the synthesis of various chemicals and elements happens in nature all the time. The fact that this particular chemical hasn't been synthesised in the 'natural' environment that we are used to is more an accident of nature than an outcome of some objectively existing difference between natural and unnatural drugs.

So I don't think there are any practical reasons for wanting to stick only to natural drugs. Opium is closer to the ideal of 'nature' than MDMA, but the two drugs carry different risks and neither can be said to be objectively less risky or unhealthy than the other. Meth and oxycodone are both synthetic, and yet not the same in terms of the risks and what not. The decision to use a drug shouldn't be based on some arbitrary designation of what is 'natural', but rather on the drug itself and the likely effects that it's going to have on the user.

As with anything we ingest into our bodies, the more its processed, the less nutritional value it has. Same goes with drugs.

I'm going to simplify this here, as a comparison between pot and meth:

Pot grows from the ground, while meth requires poisonous chemicals.
Grow pot, the cops might kick in you door; cook meth, and you might blow yourself up.
Cannabinoids are naturally occurring in human hormones, while meth kills you.
One cannot OD on pot, while thousands every year from meth.

I suppose there's a psychological aspect to certain people only ingesting natural drugs, in relation to there thoughts on 'mans destructive nature', and wanting to separate themselves from that.

But i can't think of any practical reasons for it. That said, i personally do prefer drugs such as Mushrooms and DMT because i find the experience's from them to be emotionally deeper then say LSD. All have there place though.

Well, I suppose one could argue that, by some sort of Creation or intelligent design, the seeds of these psychoactive plants were sewn to signal to the human race a divine will that we use these tools to explore consciousness.

these things aren't meant to be used for sustenance. i don't buy that bullshit at all. also if your intake is at the level at which you begin to worry about whether it is natural or not, cut that shit back, yo.

you eat cake everyday?

A comparison between taking "synthetic"/pure compounds and vitamins/extracts can be made. The body isn't adapted to taking broccoli extracts, and isn't equivalent to eating broccoli. This thinking is grounded in the belief that humans have an evolved relationship between them and certain "natural" forms of drugs. I don't think it's so black and white but it can be a useful heuristic.

a spider web is made by a spider (a spide being a "natual" occurence)
is it unatural?

X is made by a human (another "natual" occurence)
is X unatural?

Okay, this is a great question, can't promise my answer will suffice, but here goes.

To me, it's all about trust. Do we trust the drug that we take? Well, that depends on where it comes from.

Man-made versus natural, or another way of looking at it, new versus old, modern versus traditional. Natural/traditional drugs have been around at least as long as we as a species have, so we have had our entire existence to come to a conclusion about whether they are good for us or bad for us, in the long-term. Modern/man-made drugs are a new thing, and despite being able to measure personal effects, we can't really know where they will take us, collectively, for a long time still.

Knowing that a drug has been around, evolving, doing its own thing independently of human existence, lends it credibility and stability. The fact that we get profound experiences from taking it affirms the ultimate connectedness of all life. Man-made drugs, by the nature of their existence, affirm man's power over life, rather than life's power over man, because they need us to exist.

It mirrors where people put their trust culturally, as most people tend to trust either what's new or what's old more than the other.

Do you trust decades of research, based upon hundreds of years of accumulated theory? Or do you trust hundreds of thousands of years of practice, articulated into thousands of years of accumulated wisdom? I lean towards the latter in many respects, so to me this would be the most rational reason.

If I limited myself to natural drugs, that is.

I'm in no way opposed to the concept of limiting yourself to 'natural' drugs. That's your perogative and there are certainly advantages to doing so. However, don't let that fool you--'natural' drugs can do just as much harm as anything cooked up in a lab.

I also find issue with the semantics of using the word 'natural.' This debate is raised in PD quite a bit and this quote kind of sums up my view on the issue:

PepperSocks said:

Oh dear; I dread this dichotomy. I consider synthetic psychedelics to be natural.

Are beaver dams natural? We as natural mammals create things. We as natural creatures create synthetic psychedelics. Does that make them unnatural?

Click to expand...

Here's the Main Natural vs. Chemical / Synthetic Psychedelics thread:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=129327

vegan said:

a spider web is made by a spider (a spide being a "natual" occurence)
is it unatural?

X is made by a human (another "natual" occurence)
is X unatural?

Click to expand...

Humans don't shit LSD, K, and meth. These things are made in a lab, with toxic chemicals. Webs come naturally from the spider's spinnerets.

If humans did shit LSD, I am not ashamed to admit, that most likely, I would definitely be a tripped out shiteater. But, since I'm not, your comparison does not stand to logic.

Humans don't shit psilocybin or datura either

capstone said:

Humans don't shit LSD, K, and meth. These things are made in a lab, with toxic chemicals. Webs come naturally from the spider's spinnerets.

If humans did shit LSD, I am not ashamed to admit, that most likely, I would definitely be a tripped out shiteater. But, since I'm not, your comparison does not stand to logic.

Click to expand...

So by your logic, concentrated hydrochloric acid is less harmful than Ketamine.

After all, HCL IS concentrated when it is made "naturally" by glands in the human body.

capstone said:

As with anything we ingest into our bodies, the more its processed, the less nutritional value it has. Same goes with drugs.

I'm going to simplify this here, as a comparison between pot and meth:

Pot grows from the ground, while meth requires poisonous chemicals.
Grow pot, the cops might kick in you door; cook meth, and you might blow yourself up.
Cannabinoids are naturally occurring in human hormones, while meth kills you.
One cannot OD on pot, while thousands every year from meth.

Click to expand...

I dont like this style of debate. I could just as easily say:

Make meth: the cops could kick down your door; Grow pot: you could burn your house down
Smoking cannabis causes lung cancer; smoke meth and you can do your whole week's chores in one day.

Why not compare pot to LSD? LSD is synthetic as is meth. It is non-poisonous and it would require a rediculously high dose to kill you.

Now compare LSD to morphine which is naturally occuring.

I dont consider natural drugs to be any safer than synthetic ones. Each chemical is different. There are drugs found in nature that are extremely toxic and deadly. Same could be said about synthetic compounds. There are synthetic chemicals that are generally benign physically and the same could be said about naturally occuring ones.

But to be fair I will acknowledge the fact that most of the naturally occuring psychoactives have a long and thorough history of use among humans, as opposed to reletively new compounds which we have invented.

^ +1 to you Bardo5, capstone's mind seems to be out

The only thing i've heard at all relating to this debate that I feel is worth debating is that when we try to create alkaloids from scratch as opposed to derive them from natural sources they apparently are not as stable or mesh quite as well together (i'm certainly not to knowledgeable when it comes to chemistry so my chosen words may not be quite right) I also heard this from someone who watched a documentary on it but did not see it for myself. Supposedly thc is alot more durable, stable, etc than marinol and psilocybin is alot more than 4 ho dmt.

I don't know what this particularly necessarily means but I imagine if these substances were ever to be attempted to utilize in medicine that a problem may arise from that. Making these compounds would also be vastly more efficient than having to grow them and extract them from their plant sources so I believe that's one reason why it's interesting as well.

Argument (pro-man-made): Where does one draw the line of human processing?

Example: The alkaloids in kava kava need to extract via water or alcohol (lets not argue which process is actually correct in order to stay on topic). Is kava kava extracted w/ water more natural than kava kava extracted with alcohol? Or are they equally natural? If they are equally natural due the the base being kava kava, then by that same rationale, depending on where one draws the line for human processing, heroin, which is derived from poppies, and cocaine, which is derived from coca leaves, should be considered natural.

Is it that using certain chemicals for processing or certain processing techniques more natural than others?

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Argument (pro-man-made): I agree with the above posters who write that natural drugs can be very unhealthy, due to a variable mix of unknown substances, including the unknown amount of the sought-after psycho-active component.

Example: The Aminita Muscaria. The psychoactive components in this mushroom species, muscimol and ibotenic acid, vary according to season, latitude, growing medium, and perhaps other factors.

Nature can be dangerously unpredictable, as are humans.

I mean if you get right down to it, everything in our collective state of existence is "natural".

i.e. Cars are not unnatural because cars are a byproduct of "natural" human behavior and action (to develop solutions to problems in society. In this case to make travel more expedient). Cars also all come from materials that exist in our universe and are of our universe. Hence, "natural".

Imo, not all, but a good portion of the people who pull the "I only do natural drugs" argument are at their base, simply afraid to progress to the exploration of synthetics.