There's no such thing as a gateway drug. The term was made up by prohibitionists as a reason to keep cannabis illegal despite the fact that it's a safer drug than alcohol and regardless of the fact that cannabis is not carcinogenic the way tobacco is… sorry to nitpick; I just feel like that term is inaccurate and has hindered the progress of the the End Prohibition/End the Drug War movement overall & I cringe when I hear/see it.
Oh I don't know necessarily believe in gateway drugs either, it was just the only term I could use to describe my first use of "mind altering substances".
I do think it's possible for people to have a "gateway" drug, for example some one might try a drug, like it & then become curious what a different drug feels like. I'm sure that happens to people, but I don't believe there's any specific "gateway drug". But these people decided to make the choice to try a drug in the first place.
My first "true drug" in this case probably would've been sugar as a kid. The general public recognizes how addictive sugar is but nobody gives a fuck about it & it's in everything. Which is hilarious that society's like
"nah we're cool with obesity, diabetes, heart disease & everything else that comes from sugar addiction, but can't have those damn opioids running rampant in our perfect totally 'healthy' society". This level of hypocrisy is so absurd that all I can do is fuckin' cackle in my own mind & then sigh because I have to share oxygen with people who spread this insane hypocrisy every day.
I'll bet you had to pee constantly afterward
Definitely. lol It sucked cause I was also a person who hated peeing in public. Luckily my school was right across the street from my house. And we had "off campus lunch", which meant I could go home at noon, finally pee, smoke a bowl, smoke a cigarette & drink more coffee & then go back to school.
I still drink copious amounts of caffeine to this day, over 25 years later. Last year I developed a heart arrhythmia out of nowhere. I should probably quit caffeine, but it's actually pretty damn dependence-forming (for me anyway). I quit caffeine for 9 days last year after this heart shit started. It was easy the first day or two, but it got harder eventually. I felt waay more brain foggy & anxious than I normally would & couldn't even focus on driving to an appt, so I said "okay I have to have a little caffeine" and I just picked it right back up. Just another chemical that causes dependence/addiction that society is so nonchalant about.
Right on. It's weird how opiates can do that though. Years ago I used to pop Vicodins and it would somehow jolt me into cleaning the house and getting shit done for like three or four hours. Ultimately though I loathe the nausea, motion sickness, spins, and constipation that can come as unwanted side effects whenever I do opioids. It's kind of inconsistent for me and opioid tolerance builds too rapidly and drops back off far too slowly for my tastes. It's no wonder people become dependent.
This is exactly what tramadol & heroin was like for me.
In fact I'd blame working as to how I ended up dependent on opioids. Had a job at 19/20 years old at Pizza Hut. I was the main cook, put away truck, did all the prep. It was a lot of physical work some days. And my mom was prescribed tramadol (back when it was completely unscheduled). And a lot of it. And I noticed that if I took up to 400mg a day, my depression symptoms would just completely disappear. And I'd suddenly have so much motivation & energy. It was "clean" energy too, not like the forced jittery "energy" of stimulants. So I started working harder at my job, putting in more hours. Putting away that damn truck actually became fun instead of a painful miserable experience. And when I was at home, the tramadol made me want to get up & clean the house or take a super long walk. And now only did it make me wanna do these things, but I actually ENJOYED it while I was doing it. When normally I'd be like "fuck this" having to do some long tedious task like that.
But after a few months, I woke up one day & had run out of tramadol for the month. I felt incredibly bad. Can't even put it into words. I was only 19-20 years old at the time & didn't really know fuck all about opioids & dependence. But it finally occurred to me later in the day that it was tramadol withdrawal. So then I was miserable for a week or two but the next month would come around & I would have my mom refill that script, so that I could use it to manage my depression & work harder at my job.
So I basically went through tramadol withdrawal every month after that for 11 years. Five of those years I also used heroin as well & then eventually had to get on buprenorphine, because it got to a point where I just could not feel like a "normal" person at all without some kind of opioid in my system. And now I've been on buprenorphine for almost 10 years as well.
A lot of those unwanted side effects tend to disappear or become easier the longer you're on them. Hell, I still get constipation & nausea once in awhile from my bupe though.
They make me feel apathetic and it's interesting how it affects the experience of pain. I.e.: I still experience pain, I just don't care about it as much. I think there's a tendency to underrate the anxiolysis effect in opioids.
I agree! Most people aren't aware of it but opium & opioids were also used for psychiatry at one point. And they had great efficacy for things like depression & psychosis. Until the government started it's anti-narcotics campaign & then the pharmaceutical industry introduced it's "low serotonin" lie in order to cash in on prescribing SSRIs.
Hmmm. You ever had food poisoning? That's poisoning, lol. No but I'm with you and I don't like SSRIs either, but they seem to work for others and really help them out, so if they do that, I can't knock it…Different strokes & everything
I've actually never had food poisoning lol that I'm aware of anyway.
I agree that if some one says their SSRI/SNRI helps them, then have at it. I completely believe in bodily autonomy. But what I don't like is that there is literally zero evidence for the whole "depression is caused by low serotonin" theory. They have never done brain scans of depressed people to measure their serotonin & then compared it to after they've been on an SSRI or anything. Nor do most people who get put on SSRIs get their brains scanned or serotonin levels measured in any way before they start taking the drug. The last SNRI I was on, clomipramine, gave me serotonin-syndrome. I just woke up one night, started projectile vomiting all over my floor. I had hand tremors, they wouldn't stop shaking rapidly. My entire body & skin felt like it was on fire. Pouring sweat. I felt confused, agitated, delirious, but I knew it had to be serotonin syndrome. Might as well of been a type of "poisoning". Thankfully I knew from reading pharmacology that they normally reverse serotonin syndrome with benzos, so I immediately took my clonazepam & the symptoms became more mild over the course of an hour or two. Still went to the ER though to get some zofran for the nausea.
And that was after years of trying everything else, prozac, zoloft, effexor, etc.. etc.. So I finally said I'm done with this SSRI charade, cause none of them did fuck all for my depression. And when it wasn't giving my serotonin-syndrome-like symptoms, I was apathetic, severely nauseous... It felt like some one turned a light off in my brain & I didn't like it.
But yeah, if some one else can tolerate it & it helps them, then that's great. But unfortunately they treat depression treatment as a monolith (for the most part, sure you can go try ketamine infusions or something if you wanna pay 500 dollars out of pocket per session, which is a scam, cause no amount of dissociaitives or psychedelics have ever "cured" my depression, they only make it easier to deal with for a day or two after the trip, but these companies act like you'll be completely cured of your depression if you just give us all your money & take a few ketamine trips.... suuuureeee).
I'll leave this here for anyone interested -
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm
Well is the US its citizens or is the US its government? Who runs that government? Are they the US, or is it "We The People"? And if you're singling out the US and calling it "fucking gross", then what are some non-gross alternatives in your mind?
Well it's suppose to be both. The government is
suppose to work for the people, but we all know they work for their special interests & what lines their pockets, even if it's at the expense of "the people". And me, as one of those "people", have pretty much next to no power to change anything anyway. Especially with all the brainwashing & conditioning that's been done on the general public when it comes to drugs. I tell a random person I believe opioids should be completely legal & they probably assume I'm some crazy junkie (which I am), but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
And as for examples, let's see... Places like Mexico, Egypt, India & probably more, all have stuff like tramadol, codeine, tapentadol, benzos, etc.. over the counter.
Yet in the US, all of those drugs are controlled & you'd have to just land yourself a doctor willing to prescribe you any of those, especially for long term use. Are Mexico, Egypt & India perfect countries? Absolutely not. There's a lot in those countries that I probably wouldn't be able to stand either. But I just find it interesting that these countries that people tend to call "shitty" countries, actually allow their citizens to go buy some opioids & benzos without needing some artbitrary "script" or doctor's approval.
And then there's countries like Switzerland, Germany, etc.. who now have legal heroin maintenance programs. I think it's arbitrary though to make people come into a clinic & only give them 2-3 doses of heroin a day, I mean unless it's got great legs, you're gonna be in withdrawal by the middle of the night until you can go in the next day. But I still think it's better than just locking people up or doing nothing. It's a step in the right direction I guess.
Some of these countries also have more options for maintenance. Stuff like actual heroin, hydromorphone, levomethadone, extended release morphine, extended release tramadol, etc.. The US only offers either buprenorphine or methadone. And if you want on methadone, then you have to go to a clinic every single day & pee in a cup to even get your dose. Which is ridiculous. I'd love to switch to methadone but I can't even function or go to the store in the morning until I've taken my bupe, so how the hell am I gonna deal with getting up & driving to a clinic every day just to take my meds? Plus I'm pee shy & it takes me forever to pee on opioids, so having to pee in a cup every single day would probably be impossible for me anyway. So I'm basically forced to accept buprenorphine as my only option, since it can be dispensed for at home use.
And then there's places like BC, Canada where they have literal opioid-vending machines, where people can just go swipe their maintenace card & pick out whatever opioid they wanna use.
Portugal has decriminalization.
So those are several examples of what the US
could be doing, but instead we continue to let people die from fentanyl laced opioids. We lock people up & ruin their lives for being dependent on opioids (or any illicit drug for that matter). Trump loves to get on TV and talk about those "evil fentanyl dealers" & how bad opioids are, yet it was okay for him & his Whitehouse staff to drug themselves up when he was in there the last time -
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tr...ided-drugs-misused-funds-pentagon-2024-01-28/
And then the Democrats just sit by quietly & never say shit about the drug war. They'll bring up cannabis legalization once in awhile to sway votes their way, but of course the Republicans just block whatever measures they put forth anyway. Hell, in my state the people voted for legal cannabis, but we got medical & the Republicans here have continously tried to shut it down ever since.
When I was 22, I got busted for having 3 baby pot plants. And I was treated like a hardcore fucking danger to society because of it. They wanted to lock me up for "felony manufacturing" but thankfully the plants were just babies, so they didn't contain any THC or anything yet, so it got knocked down. But I still had to do a year of probation, 2 days in jail & pay about 10 grand in court costs & fines. Being as low income as I was, it took me close to a decade to pay that shit off every month.
I'd say that's pretty gross to destroy a 22 year old's life over some pot plants. But the US totally believes in that & supported it. And now here I am over 15 years later & I can legally go buy my weed at a big dispensary which is basically allowed to do what I was doing (that almost caught me a felony) but on a much larger scale & for much larger profit.
So those are my alternatives & my beliefs on what makes the US "gross". The US HATES drug users. I have seen rapists, child molestors & violent people get less time for their crimes than people who use or sell drugs. And that just blows my fuckin' mind.
How to get the US to try any of these alternatives is beyond me though. I just make sure to speak out everywhere & as often as I can. And I try to educate people on drugs & why they should be legalized. And I just hope that maybe if I educate & open the minds of enough people, eventually there will be a shift in public perception & people will start to think "hey maybe we shouldn't be enslaving people anymore just cause they like to get high". One can only hope though & I dunno if I'll get to see it in my lifetime.
I appreciate that. Much love right back to you, my G.
Thank you! I need all the love I can get today!
Depression is bad, body is sore, nothing feels enjoyable. And I have zero social life, so I get to enjoy & wallow in all of this by myself, day after day after day.
So there's not much else to get excited about in my world, except for the possibility of one day finding some brown again & feeling okay again, even if it's only temporary.
Hard agree.
The current classification of drugs was never based on objective facts about their relative harms, but on politics.
Here in the UK, a few years ago Dr. David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist, was fired from his government-appointed job on the ACMD (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs) for... doing his job. (He published a health-risk analysis of commonly consumed drugs and put alcohol and nicotine top of the list.)
Reminds me of the US's arbitrary "Schedule 1" section of controlled drugs.
"Cannabis, heroin, lsd, xtc, etc.." all considered to have "no medical value" whatsoever. Which anyone with 2 braincells knows is complete bullshit.
Yet fentanyl & methamphetamine are recognized as having "medical value". lol Just more blantant hypocrisy on display.
Nice to see you around still tho my friend!
I hope you've been well!
Some say the first psychotropic experience is when we get dizzy for the first time. Just say no to pirouettes, kids! 
