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Study on Narcotics in animals?

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ShadyLuke

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Feb 13, 2018
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I'm curious, what has been some of the studies on Narcotics on animals? When I say Narcotics, I mean.



  • [*=left]Ecstasy ? MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine)
    [*=left]Methamphetamine ? crystal meth
    [*=left]Cocaine (as well as crack cocaine)
    [*=left]Amphetamine ? Adderall, etc.
    [*=left]Opiates ? Oxycontin, Vicodin, etc. (also Heroin too.)
    [*=left]Ketamine (and other dissocatives such as PCP)
    [*=left]LSD (and other potential hallucinogens)
    [*=left]Kratom (I know it's not an narcotic but hey!)
Mainly cats and dogs. I didn't register here solely to ask this but I just felt it was an good question and I'm honestly interested.​
 
Peta would have a stroke if they ever did that, they use rats for those kinds of studies.
 
I'll agree, but alot of people see rats as filthy, so they don't care, an animal is an animal says i.
 
I had a pet rat for years (RIP Bilirubin) and will personally attest until the day I die that they are as much animals as dogs and cats. Rats are wonderful creatures, SO smart, so engaging, so connected to their humans. My Bili got me through some dark years. He was an irreplaceable companion and I still miss him! I understand why studies are done on rats (they?re so biologically similar to humans, they?re easy to raise in a lab, they reproduce quickly, etc.) and why it is necessary, but the ethical oversight should be no less strict than I would hope it would be if we were doing research on humans. Rats are the most amazing creatures. Anyone fortunate enough to meet my little Bilirubin would agree!
 
ShadyLuke said:
I'm curious, what has been some of the studies on Narcotics on animals? When I say Narcotics, I mean.



  • [*=left]Ecstasy ? MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine)
    [*=left]Methamphetamine ? crystal meth
    [*=left]Cocaine (as well as crack cocaine)
    [*=left]Amphetamine ? Adderall, etc.
    [*=left]Opiates ? Oxycontin, Vicodin, etc. (also Heroin too.)
    [*=left]Ketamine (and other dissocatives such as PCP)
    [*=left]LSD (and other potential hallucinogens)
    [*=left]Kratom (I know it's not an narcotic but hey!)
Mainly cats and dogs. I didn't register here solely to ask this but I just felt it was an good question and I'm honestly interested.​
Click to expand...

Until recently, narcotic meant sleep inducing. So kratom would indeed be a narcotic while amphetamines wouldn't be.

But in recent years the word narcotic has come to loosely mean addictive controlled substance with no greater specific meaning.

On topic, pretty much all these drugs, the ones legally on the market anyway, either now or in the past, would have been tested on animals first before human testing started. Mainly mice and other similar mammals. Cats and dogs not so much. Not these days, in the west anyway.

Obviously rats are animals, so I'm assuming by animal we mean "one of the good ones" like cats and dogs. I like all animals so I'd agree with that. I hate the way humans play favorites with animals.

That said, animal testing plays a very important role in science. One I'm sure one day will be made obsolete by computer models, but for today is indispensable.
 
100% agree, JessFR. And of course we all (hopefully) know that rats are animals! I assumed we all meant, by ?animals?, ?one of the good ones?. Jesus, I hope nobody here is confused about whether or not rats are biologically classified as animals, haha!

Actually, not so fun fact, dog and monkey testing is still very much relevant in the pharmaceutical field. There are two huge pharmaceutical companies in the town where I live, and I know a handful of people who work at one or the other. Testing on more ?favorited? animals, like dogs, is definitely still done, but the ethical oversight on it is huge. The monkeys literally have televisions in their pens for entertainment. I?m not 100% for animal testing. I personally think testing on monkeys, as smart as they are, is cruel. But it is legal. And I?m sure it is still done outside of the US, probably with much fewer restrictions. I truly hope you?re right about the computer simulations. In a perfect world, no animal, rat, monkey or otherwise, would be kept in a cage and experimented on. Breaks my heart.
 
I have no idea when, but I'm sure one day if our species survives long enough that we will be able to forgo all this testing because our understanding of the biochemistry will be advance enough that we can make accurate predictions without needing animals. Like not needing canaries in coal mines because sensors can take their place for example.

As for the animal testing, I suppose it also matters a lot what kind of testing it is. I'm sure some tests would be humane enough to do on higher order mammals. Depends what it is.

By the way, if you're finding your apostrophes getting changed to question marks, if you're using an iPhone you can fix it by going to general settings, keyboard settings, and turning off smart punctuation. Similar features could cause the same problem with other devices but iphones are the only ones I know for sure that do it by default.
 
They appear to be gone. I had the same problem when I was using an iPhone. I waited a while to see of it got fixed, then I worked out how to fix it myself. That was months ago, so unfortunately it seems to be taking them a while to fix it.

There's a thread about the problem in the technical support subforum. So they know about the problem, it'll get fixed eventually. But till then it's handy to know how to fix in on your end.

Happy to help. :)
 
This thread doesn't really belong here,this forum being for recruiting for formal studies and the posting the results of those studies, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out where it does belong? Drug Culture? I'm going to ponder that a little more but if anyone has a suggestion...I'm all ears. Well, all ears plus the damn broken ankle.:\
 
Wish we could see them, but mainly they are done behind closed doors.

Cats on LSD would be afraid of their natural born prey, the mouse, instead of the other way around.
 
herbavore said:
This thread doesn't really belong here,this forum being for recruiting for formal studies and the posting the results of those studies, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out where it does belong? Drug Culture? I'm going to ponder that a little more but if anyone has a suggestion...I'm all ears. Well, all ears plus the damn broken ankle.:\
Click to expand...

Neuroscience and Pharmacology would be my read on the most appropriate forum for this thread.

This thread poses a question pertaining to practicing science related to drugs.

That puts it in N&P if you ask me.

From the N&P description...

Discussion of journal articles, drug science and other theoretical topics
Click to expand...

If say this falls under discussions about drug science.

Also I'd suspect the people over there would be some of the most likely on bluelight to be able to answer the question posed by this thread.
 
I'll second Jess, sekio and his cabal of great minds would be all over this I believe.
 
Its actually not too uncommon to see older studies using cats for neurophysiology studies, various old studies on the serotonergic and sleep system in particular I've seen use cats. Much of what we know about hearts originally came from dogs.

But I'm not too familiar with cats/dogs being used in "narcotics" studies, I think rats/mice are much cheaper and if they're looking for human relevance/applicability they're probably just going to use primates like squirrel monkeys.

Primates given LSD are known to stare at walls for long periods of time ;)

All mammalian brains are pretty similar and I don't think there would be any large benefit to use cats/dogs over rats/primates, things like metabolism/toxicity vulnerability can certainly differ among species but something like whether or not a drug is addicting/reinforcing will very likely remain steadfast from mammal to mammal.
 
There are plenty of evaluations of drugs and their activities on varying dogs, cats, rats and monkeys, but many of these tests today would be considered rather inhumane. Especially anything that results in the needless death of animals. So as a result most of the literature on "veterinary psychopharmaology" is limited to older papers, say 1970 and before. The rise of environmentalism, development of in vitro toxicity screening, and implementation of investigational review boards, finally made people realize that rubbing shampoo in bunny rabbits' eyes is neither a fulfilling job nor is it necessary. There are also debates about the quality of the data delivered from such research, after all, if you're studying the effects of LSD in, say, cats in a lab, you're limited to observing their behaviour and maybe taking a rectal temperature or measuring blood pressure, in a setting totally excluded from any sort of natural environment. You can't really do much except prove that LSD is indeed psychoactive, but it translates very poorly to how humans would feel given similar cases.



Poor cat :(
 
That's cruel ?. Yeah, acid is fun for humans who take it voluntarily. I can't imagine being a defenseless animal in a cage with no knowledge of hallucinogens and what they are, suddenly starting to trip and having no idea what's going on. Hell, if you stuck a human in a cage like that and gave them acid, they'd freak the fuck out too. Who wants to trip in a cage? I have a kitty and he is my baby. He helped get me through the worst of my addiction, sat with me through the darkest nights as a constant source of companionship and unconditional love, even when I felt the most unlovable. This video makes me physically ill and ashamed on behalf of humanity.
 
(That was not an attack on you, sekio, just the video. Nothing you said was cruel at all. Just to clarify.)
 
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