In a more serious sense, if someone is new to drugs, I think it’s best to give them a walkthrough tour of the various drug categories and go from there.

STIMS: Cocaine, Adderall
They’re both ubiquitous and popular in the U.S., but one is illegal and the other a ℞ drug. Cocaine is a 5-HT/NE/DA reuptake inhibitor primarily, while Adderall—a blend of amphetamine salts—acts as a releasing agent on those three neurotransmitters. Meth is too heavy and crack is a waste of time, baking soda, and good coke.
I’m eschewing the phenidate-class stims, because, well, they suck.

BENZOS: Valium, Xanax, Etizolam
Start with the archetype itself, 10mg Valium. Wait 2+ days, then move into Xanax, and take note the dose is only .5mg compared to the 10mg of Valium. This is because of the triazolo ring and its potentiating effect in terms of pharmacodynamics.
Finally, Etizolam is nice to show someone because it has a short duration and fast half-life to elimination. Etizolam is a thienotriazolodiazepine, not technically having a six-member, heterocyclic benzene ring, the added sulfur atom to the seven-member ring makes it a thienodiazepine. What this means is: less cross-tolerance with other benzos, and less build-up of the drug’s metabolites in the nucleus accumbens in the brain, so thus: lower chance of developing dependency problems.

OPIOIDS: Vicodin (or Tapentadol), Percoset
Start mild and go with two opioids so commonplace they’ve become cliché rap lyrics in 2021.




CANNABIS: Sour Diesel, Grandaddy Purp
Sour D. is a quintessential sativa, but lemon haze would suffice just as well.
Meanwhile GDP represents the indicas with panache.


DISSOS: Ketamine, GHB
I was tempted to put down a PCP analogue here instead of GHB, but PCP scares the living shit outta people for some reason, so it’s probably wiser to showcase Special K and GHB.

TRIPS: Mushrooms, LSD, 2C-B
Mushrooms – au naturale. Hard to go wrong here. Shorter duration = good; tendency to get couch-locked while shrooming = great. Good introduction to the what psychedelics are really all about.
Then on to LSD, because it really is a miracle unicorn of a recreational, spiritual, enlightening drug. The way Dr. Hofmann discovered it is just mind-blowing on so many levels. But yeah, and don’t half-ass it. Trip balls. It’s fun.
Finally, 2C-B is a wonderful introduction to phenethylamine psychedelics, like Mescaline. So we covered all three forms of classic psychedelics: tryptamines, lysergamides, and phenthylamines.