Yes absolutely. I'm one of the most educated drug addicts I know.
I manufactured speed, chloral hydrate, methcathinone and GHB at 17 self taught so I had a good sense of chemistry from a young age.
Now I'm 28 and know everything there is to know about most drug out there.
Pharmaceuticals
Street Drugs
Ethnobotanicals
Steroids
Designer Steroids
Homeopathy
General herbs/vitamins
Everyone in my family and every friend I know comes to me for advice on anything semi related to chemistry/meds/drugs.
But don't get me wrong I'm not even close to a genius. I've met people on this forum who could school me on things I never knew even existed. And theres also wayyy too many pharmaceuticals out there to actually know what every single one does.
After about 6 years ago I had realized that not a single doctor in this world knows me better than me, or knows how I'm likely to react to certain meds. I had told a dr way back when that I would not react well to Zoloft and he insisted on me taking it. This was prob like the 8th experience where a doctor had done something that made my condition worse. But I took the Zoloft and had some of the worst panic attacks of my life for a week, and that was pretty much the last straw for me.
Now EVERYTHING that goes into my body is something I prescribe myself lol. And something else its also helped me with is gaining control over compulsive behavoirs. Rather then go to a dr to get an ssri/snri/dri for paws, I'll be putting myself on effexor for 6 months to get through the worst part. After that I'll taper for 4 weeks and be done. I honestly DO NOT see the use of psychiatrists anymore in my life.
But obviously if I develop a serious health problem I'm not trying to treat myself for that. I'm smart enough to know when to draw the line.