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Why animals eat psychoactive plants

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Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#161

Post by derefr »

speeder wrote: post #123
derefr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances. Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooke…

I think I maybe have ADHD, (not just ADD), but medics REFUSE to even TRY to diagnose me, because of all the ADHD drugs abuse by students and obese people (in my country, Adderall actually entered the list of illegal drugs, because of its abuse to 'cure' obesity). Saturday, while trying to finish a task for my startup, I took LOADS of caffeine, and it didn't work. I suspected I might be addicted, and tried yesterday t…

I don't know what country, but pro-drugs like Vyvanse are the best thing to ever happen to people who suspect they have ADHD. "Pro-drug" basically means "no high possible" and therefore "no abuse potential", which further means "being interested in this drug is not drug-seeking behaviour." (It also means "not easily converted back into its active metabolite by anything other than the appropriate liver enzyme", and therefore "chemists can't do anything to concentrate it without a whole huge bioreactor setup.")

Any doctor aware that an ADHD pro-drug treatment exists will have no problem diagnosing people with ADHD any more, because it's no longer a risk they're taking of potentially giving some addict their fix, or giving some drug chemist the raw materials for their next batch of speed. It's an awareness problem at this point; most doctors don't know about these drugs, and still think ADHD treatment is a scary place they don't want to go near. Psychiatrists tend to be more up-to-speed (heh), but even then it can depend on the country.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#162

Post by SnacksOnAPlane »

The really interesting thing about this story, to me, is that many of the animals don't actually want to do the drugs unless they're put in situations that stress them out.

However, many humans seem to want to do drugs all the time.

Isn't this indicative that there's something fundamentally "wrong" about our society? We've set up a system where we constantly feel existential angst and want to numb ourselves to it.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#163

Post by runeks »

Don't forget wasps!

Here in Denmark, some time in the fall -- when all the apples have fallen off the apple trees, and have been lying on the ground for a while, fermenting -- wasps (that will die soon, because the winter is coming) gorge themselves on these half-rotten, alcohol-rich apple leftovers.

So they fly around, intoxicated by alcohol, bothering everyone, acting very aggressive, which is a real pain to humans since it kind of hurts getting stung by them. It is kind of funny though. Drunk wasps.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#164

Post by RogerL »

malka wrote: post #24
Terr_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you see it this way, it's hard to stand in line at Starbucks and think "I'm not an addict." Except "addict" is a loaded term, which implies... well, unequivocally maladaptive behavior. You seldom hear about people who lie to their loved ones about their hidden coffee stash, or steal from their child's piggybank to sustain their caffeine fix.

Because it is socially acceptable to be addicted to coffee. Plus you can buy coffee almost anywhere, and it is really inexpensive. In a situation where coffee would be banned, we would in all likeliness see a rise in coffee smuggling, a drop in quality of coffee, and coffee addicts would face problem due to the illegality of the stuff : imagine that one day, your dealer is all out of coffee. That would cause a withdr…

No. Lives are ruined by some drugs, and not ruined by others. No one has ever destroyed their lives with coffee, you don't read about people being mugged for coffee, and so on. Conversely, we have heard, countless times, of people with all the money and/or access to illegal drugs in the world (actors, doctors, drug dealers) absolutely destroying their lives with things like cocaine, meth, heroin. And not destroyed because they got caught (the illegal aspect), but because it became an all consuming pursuit coupled with grave health issues. I don't agree with our drug laws, but there is a reason we let children drink soda, and do what we can to keep them from injecting heroin. It's not just social acceptance (I happily stipulate that plays a role, but it is far from the main effect for many people).

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#165

Post by unprepare »

speeder wrote: post #123
derefr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more, I don't see addicts; I see people self-medicating for undiagnosed neurochemical imbalances. Alcoholics are frequently people who don't realize they have anxiety disorders, and think they need alcohol to be calm. People who drink cup after cup of coffee/soda because it helps them to "focus" and "be productive" might do well with being tested for ADD. People with undiagnosed clinical depression get hooke…

I think I maybe have ADHD, (not just ADD), but medics REFUSE to even TRY to diagnose me, because of all the ADHD drugs abuse by students and obese people (in my country, Adderall actually entered the list of illegal drugs, because of its abuse to 'cure' obesity). Saturday, while trying to finish a task for my startup, I took LOADS of caffeine, and it didn't work. I suspected I might be addicted, and tried yesterday t…

I'm not sure what country you are in, but I'm in the US and I used to take Strattera which is not an amphetamine as far as I know, and is not controlled like adderall/ritalin/concerta etc.

Another commenter mentioned vyvanse which i haven't tried but have heard good things about - though i do believe that is still an amphetamine and likely controlled.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#166

Post by unprepare »

derefr wrote: post #161
speeder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I maybe have ADHD, (not just ADD), but medics REFUSE to even TRY to diagnose me, because of all the ADHD drugs abuse by students and obese people (in my country, Adderall actually entered the list of illegal drugs, because of its abuse to 'cure' obesity). Saturday, while trying to finish a task for my startup, I took LOADS of caffeine, and it didn't work. I suspected I might be addicted, and tried yesterday t…

I don't know what country, but pro-drugs like Vyvanse are the best thing to ever happen to people who suspect they have ADHD. "Pro-drug" basically means "no high possible" and therefore "no abuse potential", which further means "being interested in this drug is not drug-seeking behaviour." (It also means "not easily converted back into its active metabolite by anything other than the appropriate liver enzyme", and th…

Strattera is the only ADHD treatment i have tried which i believe is not amphetamine based at all - It has been out for years and i'm not sure why it hasnt been as accepted as vyvanse.

Do you know if Vyvanse has different outcomes that typical adderall/ritalin? I know Strattera gives much different side effects for myself, but i have never tried vyvanse

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#167

Post by Amezarak »

derefr wrote: post #160
Amezarak wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who have been diagnosed with something, and then pursue alternative lines of therapy, usually manage to use those alternative therapies responsibly, because they are actually thinking of them using the mental framing of "treatment for condition" rather than "fun recreational substance I seem to enjoy even more than other people." Are you sure? Prescription drug abuse is rampant. And in my experience, most of…

As noted, some drugs do create genuine chemical dependence, even when you're trying to be responsible with them. Heroin is the default example, and is now mostly considered a recreational drug because of this (i.e. it is no longer considered safe to prescribe at any dose), but that recreational "market" grew out of what was originally prescription drug abuse. The benzodiazepine class of drugs also has a chemical depe…

> In the modern day, just prescribing the drug instead of the treatment program as a whole is medically irresponsible.

In that case, there are a lot of medically irresponsible doctors. I have never seen nor heard of a doctor that does that. And the problem is truly rampant from what I see here. Maybe people are doctor-shopping, I don't know. I do know that most of my non-professional acquaintances have prescriptions for something and nearly all of them abuse it. And to clarify, I don't mean "oh, I'm going to take an extra one because I'm feeling really anxious/in pain today", I mean "I'm gonna take six and get fucked up."

> to ensure you never encounter the "I can't get my dose this month, but I'm at the height of treatment and addicted so I have to do something else" problem.

FWIW, I pretty much never see this. They always find a way to afford their dose that month[1]...the problem is they run through it in 1-2 weeks. Then they either suffer, ask their friends for help, or more rarely find something more extreme.

[1] Fortunately there seems to be cheap generics available for most of them. I know a month's worth of kolonopin runs about $15-20; my ex was on it and she didn't have insurance.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#168

Post by evincarofautumn »

bornhuetter wrote: post #118
wingerlang wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandwich isn't necessarily a hamburger though. Also, doesn't a hot dog refer to the whole package? That'd make it different from a sausage.

Americans consider hamburgers to be a type of sandwich. It can be confusing to people from other countries who don't consider meat in a bun (as opposed to meat between slices of bread) to be a a sandwich.

Sorry to keep doing this, but I would say a bun is bread, too: “A bun is a small, sometimes sweet, bread or bread roll,” quoth Wikipedia.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#169

Post by Natsu »

marincounty wrote: post #159
Natsu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking is losing a lot of its social acceptance lately and for alcohol, well, I think we all know what happened during the years it lost its acceptance.

I think alcohol is a horrid drug on the body, and I look back at the Prohibition Era and it looks like the average person breaking the law was just looking for a good time, but I have a feeling a lot where self medicating at the time? Alcohol is a weird drug that affects so many parts of the brain; I don't think it's just coincidence that it's the drug of choice for so many people who have mental disorders? I know fo…

There are definitely some real issues surrounding what we can do for psychiatric conditions, but there are no easy answers.

Regarding 'self medicating', I'd say that it's more like palliative care. That is, it makes people feel better to some degree, but does not treat (and may actually worsen) underlying conditions.

While I can certainly understand the attraction of palliative care, I wish there was more that we could do for the underlying issues.

Re: Why animals eat psychoactive plants

#170

Post by filoeleven »

atom_enger wrote: post #13
PaulAJ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing this out; I've never heard that idea before. But I don't think it holds water. The ability to talk and invent happens across our whole species regardless of recreational drug use. That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not psychochemistry.

> That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not psychochemistry. Right, the point here is that perhaps the psychoactive substances aided our ancestors in making decisions or enlightening them(or straight up enhancing their senses) to withstand the test of evolution. I'm not saying it gave them superpowers, but perhaps it enabled them to look at a particular challenge in a different perspe…

In fact, one of the data points that McKenna uses to base his theory on is that magic mushrooms increase visual acuity, making edges and outlines "stick out" more. This is a positive effect that could give some survival advantage to a primarily tree-dwelling creature that, due to desertification, must spend an increased amount of time on the savannah potentially being stalked by big cats, and could explain one reason why the apes would have sought them out.

It's a very interesting idea in which he invested a lot of time exploring. In the talk that I listened to, he opens by giving a disclaimer of sorts: he recognized that it's a far-out idea, but it is not an unsound one even though it lies pretty far away from the established narrative. He had a bunch of these "psychedelic ideas" and thought that it was important for people to keep coming up with them because they expand our understanding of what is possible. Sort of like psychedelics themselves, which is probably why he used the term.

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