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Theophorine - Miracle cure for Addiction

jasoncrest

jasoncrest

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Sep 15, 2003
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In "Junky", William Burroughs goes in a addiction treatment center, and there a doctor gives him a drug, Theophorin.

Burroughs says that when he got this Theophorin injection, he thought it was Morphine. It gave him instant relief from Heroin withdrawal.

The doctor says it a new miracle cure for Opiate addiction. It cures Opiate addiction without replacing it by a new addiction. It's not a narcotic, it's an antihistamine, Theophorine.

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I would like to get more informations on Theophorine. Here are few synonyms:
Phenindamine, Thephorin, Nolahist...

What's its chemical formula?

Has anyone heard of it being used as an Opiate Addiction treatment in the '50s?

Can someone send me or post the "Phenindamine" entry in "Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference" and "Clarke's Analysis of Drugs and Poisons" please?
 
I've learned to treat a lot of what Burroughs said with a large pinch of salt. Maybe for some people an antihistamine would help, but I don't think it helped many. Burroughs also tried the now discredited apomorphine treatment. Apomorphine just makes you throw up AFAIK. I'm not saying the info is wrong, but when you reed the Burroughs letters you realize the guy was on another planet so many things he said were said out of pure craziness. I mean, the guy DIED an addict, on a daily methadone script. In all that time he never beat it.
 
Prozac was once heralded as the new miracle cure for depression.

Just the other day I read a Scientific America article on nootropics from 5 years ago that practically declared a new golden age had dawned in which healthy people would take pharmaceuticals to improve cognitive function (Hint, had your cup of coffee today?).

I even hear Enzyte is a miracle cure for low self-esteem, and margarine is a miracle substitute for butter.

I don't mean to be too harsh, but you don't really need to know anything more than what you've told us to be virtually certain it's not the miracle cure for anything.
 
Ive read The Naked Lunch, to me Burroughs is a genious, i love his matirial, its just facinating reading it. In the book he talks about morphine addiction,withdrawl, and treatment numours times, along with sodomy and other topics. On the whole its a very good book. I would recommend it to anyone who really wants to read something intersting and out of this world. I enjoyed it emmesly.
 
Oh, he's a great writer, lousy chemist. About the only thing he said about opiates that was novel at the time was that dihydro diacetyl morphine would be stronger than plain diamorphine. He was right.
 
I've tried reading The Naked Lunch a couple of times, but because I'm not interested in some really confusing descriptions of sodomy and other crazy stuff like that, I really don't like the book. There were a few pages I liked - in the beginning - but the rest of the book was just so "Blah.. do I really have to read this pseudo-intellectual crap?", that I really don't want to go back to that book again. Even if many people say "It's great! It's wonderful! Woot a genius!", it's not really entertaining - you see, entertaining - at least for me. I read books for entertainment and for knowledge, not to read someone's deliriotic bumbojumbo.
 
Yep I find Burroughs hard going as well. I tend to cringe a little when he starts trying to sound scientific aboit drugs (and frequently writing bollocks about them) as he just doesn't get that one aspect. I much prefer Hunter S Thompson as he rarely tries to touch on the technical/scientific, but goes for what he knows best - relating the weirdness of the drug state (although all the crap about adrenochrome he wrote about getting it from pineal glands of still living brains etc is obviously drug inspired lunacy & is highly entertaining).

If it worked, don't you think they'd be using it everywhere rather than giving out methadone prescriptions? If I remember correctly, phenindamine is an antihistamine with CNS stimulant properties rather than the usual sedative effects. Beyond that I don't think there's anything in any way special aboit it...
 
i love burroughs...but some of what he writes about heroin isn't true, at least it doesn't apply to most people.
from Junky:
"It takes at least three months' shooting up twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict."

from what i read on these boards most people seem to get WDs much more quickly than this, i know i did
 
"Shooting up twice a day" can bring on withdrawals in a single week. Borroughs is writing out of his ass.
 
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