• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

Lacing food with addictive drugs (link to story), does it work?

Y

yaesutom

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 15, 2000
Messages
1,777
This was in the news:

http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/chinese-restaurant-caught-putting-opium-in-their-food-1639341975

It got me thinking - Does the brain link good feelings to what you did previously, even if your not aware of it? If the amount of opium (or any other addictive drug, like kratom) was big enough to give a small buzz.. would the brain link this (maybe not consciously) to what you ate beforehand?

Or even sub-buzz doses.. like this guy seemed to be doing. If there is some dopamine release can that create habit in the brain?
 
Morphine and other poppy alkaloids are quite bitter (think of something like tonic water - even though it's sugared it's still bitter) and have relatively low b.a. orally (well, excluding codeine, but that's only 1/10 as strong as morphine). It would be pretty clear that something was in your food if it were that bitter.
 
sekio said:
Morphine and other poppy alkaloids are quite bitter (think of something like tonic water - even though it's sugared it's still bitter) and have relatively low b.a. orally (well, excluding codeine, but that's only 1/10 as strong as morphine). It would be pretty clear that something was in your food if it were that bitter.
Click to expand...

Oral morphine would still be fairly effective.
 
yaesutom said:
If there is some dopamine release can that create habit in the brain?
Click to expand...

Dopamine is almost single-handedly responsible for habit. So in theory - with the proper stimulus, and the lack of upregulation or continued motivation to commit an action because you found it pleasurable - is the habit. What causes you to crave that habit is when, all of a sudden - you stop. The neurons 'don't understand' (for lack of better description), and start sending signals to other parts of the brain telling you that something is wrong because that Dopamine release that you've now become accustom to - is no longer there. You realize this and start to wonder why you all of a sudden feel like shit.

Then you remember. 'Oh! That's right! It time to go smoke another cigarette!' so you go and do it. The cigarette is just an example. But this can be applied to anything that you causes you to feel pleasure.

------------------------------------

On the note of lacing foods with drugs. I remember reading an article from the late 60's telling women to be very wary of strange men offer to buy them drinks at a bar. Why was this? Well because at the time - the powerful sedative 'Chloral Hydrate' (which is GABA PAM just like Alcohol, Benzo's and Barbs) was available over the counter for anyone to buy. The worst thing about it was - it smelled, looked and tasted just like Alcohol. So nobody would know that their drinks had been laced with Chloral Hydrate until it was too late.
 
421 said:
Addictive drugs like sugar?
Click to expand...

I hate how people call 'sugar' a drug. It's not. In fact, just like water - you would die without external sources of sugar. It's when you overindulge yourself in sweets that you've developed a 'habit' of eating things filled with sugar. Yes - things high in sugar tend to be more pleasurable and reinforcing to eat. Why? Because your brain is hardwired to seek out foods that will give you more energy.

Primitive humans were mainly herbivores. Because so many plants can be eaten and provide you with nutrients. A good example of such a plant (where I live at least) is Rhubarb. It grows like a weed here in Minnesota. In fact, just looking outside and into my backyard - I can spot 10+ Rhubarb plants. These are mainly the kind of plants that early humans ate because they were everywhere, easy to find, and easy to eat. However, they're not all that nutritious to be honest. Very low in carbohydrates, not fat whatsoever, and very little sugar.

Apples, on the other hand, grow here. And you can find many random apple tree's where I live... but you have to look for it (this is where Dopamine comes into play). Unlike Rhubarb, Apples contain an enormous amount of sugar and therefore are much more pleasing to eat. Again why? Because the high content of sugar is able to power the body for a much longer period of time.

The problem we have now is not that sugar is addicting. Well... I guess you could say that our brains are 'hardwired' to be addicted to sugar. But with that aside - now we have things that are so high in sugar, that's all the brain wants. Once again, why? Because sugar = energy and energy = survival.
 
You go ketogenic if you stop eating sugar/carbohydrates, which certainly isn't dying, but is metabolically taxing & means you absolutely need to get your calories through fats and protiens. This is also commonly known as the Atkins diet. In this case your body makes its own glucose de novo 'cause it's in super fasting mode.

Sugar is a drug inasmuch that when consumed in certain contexts it produces discernable changes in mental state and physiology (I'm more coming at this from a perspective that low blood sugar makes you feel like shit, generally, so eating sugar in that case would change that...), but given that your body makes glucose, and also derives it from essentially all foods... most people don't consider it a drug. If you go that far, then e.g. butter is technically a drug too...
 
isn't that linking feelings with actions thing called conditioning or something in psychology

it makes some kind of sense. it's not that uncommon (i guess?) to develop some kind of needle fetish after shooting up. theoretically the brain would associate the needle with the rush and bam needles are good. i'm sure that while for some the needle is only a mean to an end, for some it also plays a role in their drug use, to some people almost equal to the drug itself...
 
Still most of that is kind of off-topic.

I wanted to know if putting an addictive drug, like lets say I own a restaurant and I secretly put some kratom in the food. Maybe enough to give a small buzz but to someone who doesn't use drugs maybe they wouldn't notice or just think they feel relaxed. Does their brain make a subconscious link to the food? Or maybe after a few times of eating that food?
 
No one would study that reaction specifically, so you have to reason by analogy. That said I think neurotic's post gets to the point.

Things in the environment at the time of the drug effect end up associated with the drug effect. That's why heroin addicts sometimes develop a fetish for needles, mice will hang around in the part of the cage where they've received cocaine in the past (conditioned place preference), and noodle lovers will have an unexplainable urge to keep coming back for the opium noodles.

That's assuming he actually put in enough opium to cause an effect, which may or may not be the case.
 
Last edited:
Weird I didn't see his post til after i posted that :). I wonder if the brain ends up linking anything that happened before the good feeling - i've had friends tell me they can't drive through Detroit anymore because it makes them want to score some heroin (but, they would consciously know they are going to get heroin while with the noodles the buzz might not kick in til they are out of the restaurant so it doesn't seem like they would consciously know what caused the good feeling).
 
This is theoretically similar to a conditioned place preference experiment in animals. That being said, it wouldn't be a very efficient way for a business to drum up business, because opium is so bitter that it would be add an effective dose to food and have it still be palatable. But I'm guessing that the opium had some effect, because it seems like the guy's driving was probably impaired. Otherwise why would they have tested him in the first place? Do the Chinese police routinely test people for drugs during traffic stops?
 
SwampFox56 said:
On the note of lacing foods with drugs. I remember reading an article from the late 60's telling women to be very wary of strange men offer to buy them drinks at a bar. Why was this? Well because at the time - the powerful sedative 'Chloral Hydrate' (which is GABA PAM just like Alcohol, Benzo's and Barbs) was available over the counter for anyone to buy. The worst thing about it was - it smelled, looked and tasted just like Alcohol. So nobody would know that their drinks had been laced with Chloral Hydrate until it was too late.
Click to expand...

Thanks, i'm off to the lab, then the bar.

Honk!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top