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How does one make the transfer from drug use to Advanced Drug User

davidlynch

davidlynch

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Joined
Jul 19, 2010
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16
Alright well I've always considered myself a intelligent drug user but I want to go farther. I want to go beyond just being someone who does anything he can and researches everything about how they work, what they do, health and safety, dosage, ect.

I want to be a drug geek, I want to take it beyond just a hobby of doing, but a hobby of learning everything there is to know about drugs and there relationship with humans.

I know especially on this board there are quite a few if not a ton of intelligent drug users and I'm just curious how you took it to that point. What is a good starting point to learning the science behind it all. To learn about the 80% of drugs most people havent even heard of. Erowid only has so much information, even on popular drugs. Dxm is the one that I found the most complex FAQ on.

Where can I learn more?
 
1. Stop taking drugs (this is optional)
2. Hit the books. Textbooks, real books, journal papers, Wikipedia. Any good scholarly source of information. Read up especially on pharmacology and biochemistry.
 
I've been studying drugs for 9 years at this point. Its gotten to the point where i cant have a standard convocation about them. Constantly having to dumb down what i know in order to present it to my friends. I am a chemist by nature, ive been studying that for longer then ive had an interest in drugs. I attribute my love for chemistry to why i know so much, they aren't drugs but shapes atoms form that i like to read about.
 
szuko000 said:
Its gotten to the point where i cant have a standard convocation about them.
Click to expand...

Damn, I hate that. You have to convene a whole special convocation just to talk about drugs. I feel you. :)

I'm not sure there's any such thing as an "advanced drug user"... but books are the way forward, as Sekio says. I assume you've read PIHKAL and TIHKAL already?

What are your particular areas of interest - chemistry, pharmacology, social or scientific history..? What kinds of substances are you most interested in?

E.g., if you're interested in ketamine, Jansen's Ketamine: Dreams & Realities would be an obvious place to star. For amphetamines, Iversen's Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin: the Science of Amphetamines is a good read. Jay Stephen's Storming Heaven is a great social history of LSD...
 
I started with learning about the serotonine receptors on the wiki page and from that basic understand i could understand pubmed abstracts and from there i learned all the rest, never read any books and i dont think anyone needs them to get advanced knowledge.
 
Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. Especially the book recommendation I'll definitely check those out.

I guess I haven't really decided what area I want to learn about, everything I suppose. I guess i'll just start reading up on the different areas and stick with what interests me the most, maybe it will be all of them.

For those of you who (sekio) recommended journals, books, ect. ; do you have any specific recommendations of what books/journals to read, where to find these? Where do I start my search. Is erowid the most advanced drug website on the internet?

I'll take any recommendations I can get. Thanks.
 
Chemistry and pharmacology articles on Wikipedia tend to be pretty good by wiki standards, since its a pretty clear-cut, academic, and non-controversial topic, MDMA neurotoxicity debates notwithstanding. It definitely helps to have access to a university library that lets you view scientific papers online, as getting a subscription to most major journals can be extremely cost-prohibitive and the per-article pricing is some kind of cruel joke. I would recommend avoiding anything aimed at a popular audience; scientific journals and review articles are the best place to look and Google Scholar is your friend.

It also helps not to be too goal-oriented in the sense that you'll need to spend some time (a lot of time) studying things that aren't really related to recreational drugs but are important parts of the field, and to hopefully familiarize yourself with the basics of the field. Trying to understand the pharmacology and chemistry of a novel compound is a process that usually resembles more of a random walk than a directed search...
 
There is lots of information online... you only need to know what you are looking for.
 
I'm not sure what an "advanced drug user" is, exactly. I concur that the wiki articles are getting good. What I did is read all I could, went to undergrad in part in cognitive psychology...and now I can mostly get neurologically oriented journal articles (eg, Nichols' work, etc.). Going to school for biochem would be better.

Basically, become a geek and then read, converse, and write. :P

ebola
 
szuko000 said:
I've been studying drugs for 9 years at this point. Its gotten to the point where i cant have a standard convocation about them. Constantly having to dumb down what i know in order to present it to my friends. I am a chemist by nature, ive been studying that for longer then ive had an interest in drugs. I attribute my love for chemistry to why i know so much, they aren't drugs but shapes atoms form that i like to read about.
Click to expand...

This sounds identical to my situation. I started in organic chemistry. To practice mechanisms and synthesis in grad school, I chose various drugs to starts with. This lead to me reading other information about the individual drugs and from there my interest skyrocketed. Before that, I had always dreamed of making a drug that was legal and everyone enjoyed. Now that I have skills, knowledge, and desire that dream is now somewhat possible (or could be just a pipe dream).

If you are trying to be a drug geek, the best advice I can give you is to be very careful with what you say and who you say it to. Not everyone shares the same beliefs and hobbies as we do. Last thing you want is to get labeled the wrong way in the scientific community.

Reading is about the only way to gain the knowledge. But this takes time, The guy I quoted said 9 years, I'm at 7 years. The internet has more than enough info to keep you busy, books are next. but I soon found out the more I read the more I didn't know. Then I had to start reading in other fields just to keep up(pharm, biochem, neuro, ect). Then you get to the point where i'm at now, 7 years!?!? Is it worth it? it IS extremely fascinating but the legal and social consequences are extremely high. Having to make sure I cover all my tracks so someone doesn't suspect something is not fun. The world isn't black and white, but everyone seems to treat it that way
 
Yeah my adventure began 9 years ago when I first smoked weed and wondered about it's effects. The discovery of erowid and Internet forums fostered a growth in knowledge which is still left to be seen as a good or bad thing. From humble beginnings as an overly curious teenager to a present day chemist I always felt it wasn't the drugs but the need to know and understand why? Why does the universe opperate the way it does? I know I'll never stop asking those questions be it drugs or my girlfriends hair spray I always question what those atoms are doing. And that is how the road begins, there is no end only side streets.
 
drugs are very interesting to me and i enjoy knowing more about them then most people i go to school with.
 
I learned much as an autodidact..............but, as nuke wisely recommended, go to school. Even an arrogant a-hole like me can admit that "i got schooled" in med school (especially in year 4, that taught me to be humble). But undergrad is good too, learn your chemistry, biolology, microbiology etc. Combine this with self-led study, and you will learn a ton of functional information.

Read as much as possible......always.......people these days are reading adverse, but it is important exercise for the mind. When i was very young i had trouble sleeping, so i started to read our encyclopedias (not one book, many books, uncondensed). I started at A and over time i made it somewhere to the earlys "s" (i recall stopping at 'shogun'). I do not have 'total recall' but i remember much of what i read...........reading and comprehending non-fiction is the most powerful 'nootropic' I've found.

But go to school and read. If you cannot go to school, buy the books and exercise manuals and do them............
 
^ Ya i'd have to agree with this guy right here.

Take some basic courses in biology, chemistry, etc. The information you gained isnt' hugely specific to any drugs, but its very general knowledge and will help you understand many basic mechanisms and methods by which drugs interact (particularly in our bodies) and why they do so in our biological selves.

School will teach you much of what you are seeking to learn, so why not utilize it if able?
 
And if you cannot afford to buy textbooks you can often find digital copies of them for free. If you are familiar with bittorrent you should have no problem finding all the science textbooks you need to keep you busy. You can also find some of the more informative drug related books like Pihkal, Tihkal, Pharmacotheon etc... on bittorrent.
 
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pihkal and tihkal are not great books for learning about general drug pharmacology med-chemistry. And no offense, but I hate that nonsense he let his wife add, it is useless and thoroughly boring.......
 
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