(My app doesn’t allow marking posts as NSFW. I don’t know whether this should be considered NSFW or not, but I can’t mark it anyway. I’ll sign in on desktop later, if need be. An admin can also do the courtesy of marking it for me. Thank you, regardless.)
Sorry if this is all a little disorganised.
2025 has been a good year for me, despite everything. I’ve made my first attempts to meet new people, thanks to guidance from people on this very platform, and things are finally looking up. I feel productive and somewhat healthy. I feel like I’m in a position to help others, even though things look bleak for all of us.
Except for one problem.
I use drugs more than any of my friends. I’m the only one who’s done DXM, for instance, and I constantly read about new things to try. I’d do opium, even, given the chance. So, that’s the problem, then. I do drugs.
No. No, it isn’t, actually.
The actual problem is that I put so much effort into research, so much effort into considering what’s actually safe to use, so much effort into making sure I don’t overuse them, so much effort into considering doses, so much effort to make sure it doesn’t impact others negatively, so much effort. That’s despite their history of being upset towards me, and nobody cares. My friends constantly pester me for taking a “dark path”, and every argument I make to try to object to that results in me being called some form of disabled, or immature, or stupid. One outlier online even called me multiple slurs, claiming my actual mental disorders are also completely fake.
Here’s a good question that should be pretty easy to answer. Which one’s hurting me more? The drugs, or the people? Because the problem certainly isn’t the one that actually keeps me in a good, level-headed, sane headspace, that I use with care–and absolutely the one causing me all this mental turmoil in the first place.
Drugs are a human right. I have a right to determine what goes in my body, and I’ve been exceptionally careful, thanks to the help I was never given. I helped myself. I was suicidal, I pursued DIY psychedelic therapy, and now I find myself on a journey that I couldn’t be happier with.
Yet none of that is enough.
Perhaps more science than I’ve provided already will be enough. Maybe the two week break I’m on will satisfy them. Maybe I should spell it out–their drugphobia, and unwillingness to accept different viewpoints, or consider my history, strongly mirrors homophobia and transphobia.
Let me make a point. They all drink alcohol. Alcohol is more addictive, and harmful to the user and others (in the form of drunk driving), and is considerably more dangerous than heroin. Yet, they’ll criticise me for using poppers, despite the fact that poppers are considered safer, according to Drug Science, than any other drug they looked in to. That’s safer than magic mushrooms, possibly the safest drug in existence, arguably. It’s the most widely accepted risk index in the world. Mind you, some of these friends have also used nicotine, too. Also far more dangerous than what I do. I have as well, of course, but I’m considering not using nicotine or alcoholic products ever, not even on occasion. That’s in contrast to them. Alcohol hurts the body, and drinking less simply slows the process. None of the drugs I use have such a long-term negative effect.
I’m also the only one that estimates my BAC with a calculator every time, but whatever. Thanks for that suggestion, S.
They have no right to criticise me for the very same thing they do on a regular basis. We even smoke weed, and nobody has a problem with it. Probably because it’s not taboo enough… anymore.
It’s hypocrisy, because I’ve actually been safer than them, despite using a wider variety of substances.
I have a small handful of people who’ve been actually supportive, including someone I had just met. They applaud me for the effort I’ve put in to stay safe, and I’m glad to have those kind of people in my life. Some of them have been through incredibly rough patches (it seems like these types are the few with empathy, anymore). Some of them are just open minded. Regardless of their background, though, it’s clear that they’re far more empathetic than some of the people in my primary friend group.
I’m angry, and it’s caused by the very people claiming to “help” me. They aren’t helping. They’re outright berating and slandering me, and at this point, I’m considering simply dropping them. However, I’m a productive person, and simply walking away from my problems is unacceptable by my standards. There’s a peaceful resolution to this, and I intend to find it.
I’m not wrong, am I? As much as I’ve been gaslit over the years, I still think I can see through it all–through all the self doubt, all the people who claimed I’d never be enough. Despite all of that, I’m not suicidal, or even depressed.
So please tell me I’m right. Thanks for reading all this, if you did.
Drug use is supposed to be celebratory. If your doing them just because you are missing the point. This is where a fun thing becomes an addiction that becomes an excuse to keep trying something different.
Wishing for altered states is natural, it opens the mind and expands consciousness. At a certain point though it becomes a negative feedback loop. You have already passed this point.
That sounds awfully one-sided. End-all-be-all.
Not at all, it is just my informed opinion on the matter and you can take it with a grain of salt.
On the other hand everything you said I have heard many times before. I would be remiss if I didn’t call it as it is. You have the opportunity to “check yourself before you wreck yourself” so please take care. It sounds like you have become toxic and that is probably due to your environment.
I do agree with a lot of what you said. I wish you the best of luck and I encourage you to take a step back and talk with people who care about you for another perspective.
For the record, I am spiritual, and do pursue psychedelics for the sake of healing. As far as enjoyment goes, the only drug I use regularly is cannabis, which has genuinely positive effects on the body. I use others intermittently, on a case by case basis. Then, there’s simple curiosity, which is all encompassing when it comes to this part of me.
I also have a better argument now, which occurred in a random revelation today. Did Steve Irwin’s hobby need to be completely safe? He died doing what he enjoyed, yet nobody (except PETA) criticises him for said hobby. Do the thrill seekers, who walk between skyscrapers, who climb Mount Everest, who swim with sharks, who jump from planes, who all have the same safety precautions that I do–are they wrong for pursuing a hobby with risks associated?
…I’m more laid back. All in all, I’m not the first to have gone down this path. I certainly won’t be the last… given the planet doesn’t end within our lifetimes. None of it has kept me from my job, and paying bills, and doing chores.
I’m also merely a descendant of the hippie movement–the same movement that put human rights in the spotlight, and Martin Luther King Jr. before thousands upon thousands of people. Drugs are human rights as well, as much as that’s been forgotten.
I have no way of separating myself from the others, whose claims that they “know what they’re doing” are mostly hollow. All I can say is that Dominic Milton Trott is an inspiration, and ignoring his warnings would be doing him a great disservice. I promise to be safe.
I’m also making amends with my friends, which goes too deep and personal to explain. You aren’t wrong about me being toxic… there’s some information I’ve held back.
You might consider you are a bit too invested in this part of your life tho?
I once got asked by a friend about her older brother (in his 40s, has a family and child and fully functioning) about him starting smoking a lot of weed. I was asked because I used to have a serious addiction. And so I asked some questions, because doing drugs is not necessarily a sign of anything.
I explained to her that what to watch out for is trying to find a good reason why drugs are not the problem while continuously having problems in relation to them, caused by others or yourself is irrelevant. For example, trying to set up schedules for how much should technically be okay. Maybe glossing over miscalculations and bad experiences, trying the same things in different ways over and over. Basically, trying to really, really control something so much it takes up a very large part of your thoughts and time.
Now look I don’t know you but from your post, you spend a lot of time thinking about drugs. If you do them often or not right now is not the question, how much time revolves around drugs and how important are they to you?
A two week break is no break and doesn’t prove anything btw, and your friends being unsafe drinkers is not making anything you may or may not do better. Sure they are probably hypocrites and it doesn’t sound like anything they are saying to you is helpful in any way, I agree on that. But maybe if one of them spent this much energy thinking about alcohol they would probably be called alcoholics?
I’m autistic and hyperfixate. I’m too invested in everything. I do a lot of reading, but not nearly as much actual doing. Research is what takes up a majority of my time.
Drugs have not disrupted my life. I come in to work every day, and I’m rarely ever drained, and it’s never been a problem if I was–it’s worth noting I don’t drink caffeine at all. What is disrupting, however, is being told I’m not an adult enough to manage myself. It’s mentally degrading, and, if anything, encourages higher use. Despite that, my use is currently at zero.
I’m working on a scheduling system to manage what days I can use specific drugs, how often they should be used, and what not to take for a safe time afterward (see DXM and MAOIs, which are extremely harmful in conjunction, and both stay in the system for a long time). This ensures sensible consumption, rather than going by feeling. I use PsychonautWiki’s Journal app to log usage and experience as well.
Alright, I am also autistic so I can understand your argument. I do the same but I also do my best these days to remember to “breathe” mentally so I don’t get too invested in things and get isolated.
I am not saying you have a problem, I don’t know you :) I just know that addiction generally is not only about how much you take and a lot about how you relate to and think about something. Of course, this is for psychological addictions, not physical. I experienced both and physical is way more terrifying, but just be aware that too many miscalculations can land you in physical addiction.
What let me keep using so long was that I was organized about it, so while friends died in overdoses or lost it and got arrested and attention which forced them stopping in some cases I didn’t until a very long time in, at which point all the schedules and management in the world were not enough anymore and I lost it too. So just keep in mind that being so organized is good but you are betting a lot on your ability to make the correct calculations and if they are wrong that is a big bet to lose.
Still you do you, it is your body after all and you do what you want with yourself!
One of my favourite resources!
I don’t have much to say then, you are all good, as long as you make your research and respect yourself, drug are an experience and experience are temporary. Be careful with yourself buddy, i would hate it if those experiement end up being permanent for you.
Be open with your friends, they might not know what you are talking about, but they are talking about your wellbeing which mean they care about you, maybe it’s not the kind of care you want.
Obviously peer pressure =/= caring
Haha, you are right and you know it. You need validation, and you’ll get it here.
I think you might be neurodivergent, but your friends are not. You’re an independent thinker , quite logical, & you stick to your principles. You have to have it right. Self doubt & seeing through bullshit are also giveaways.
Drug use is reasonable because you can reason so. Those who arrived at ‘drugs bad’ arrived because of social conditioning, not because they reasoned into that position. Therefore, you can’t reason them out of that position.
Stop trying to convince your ‘friends’ and do what your independent intelligence & gut instincts tell you.
Yeah, this isn’t an “am I the asshole?” post. I’m also fully aware I’m neurodivergent. I avoid medication, though, for obvious reasons. I’ve found other solutions that don’t involve dependence, which is why I’m grateful to have gone on this side quest.
I’m honestly bad at arguing. It might be a reason they distrust me. I often respond progressively angrier over time, which stems from a long history of finding myself in the wrong spaces, justifying myself to people who simply do not care.
I’ve become extremely defensive because of it.
The only thing that matters is that I’m not suicidal, depressed, or even addicted–in the face of a hard life, a world bordering on collapse, and other internal issues like gender dysphoria and plurality. By all means, I’m strong as fuck, and I use that maturity to stand for people who aren’t so fortunate.
Even if they never agree, my actions will always be a better judge of character.
Your anger & defensiveness are understandable & valid. I’ve come to accept that I can’t convince most neurotypical people of jack shit because they are too hard wired into their individual and lack self-awareness / intelligence / will / curiosity to see things clearly. And they have no issue attacking your character if you question their opinion or ask them to reflect / reason.
Im a legalization of victimless crimes type so I believe it should legal but heavily so much so that in most cases I feel folks should not be allowed to be under the influence unless at a private residence or at a business licensed for it or in a conveyance licensed for it. I also hate how much advertising is allowed with most legalization where I feel adult things should only be allowed in adult establishments (including adult websites) and not on outside billboards or regular media and such. None of that helps with your thing though so sorry your post just wanted me to share. I guess basically if your being a productive member of society and are not under the influence in public spaces it would be fine to me honestly. Ugh just to mention another pet peeve I hate most uses of the nsfw mark anyway. Perusing any social media at work to me is like masturbating at work (to take it down a notch like watching a movie or tv show when you should be working). Probably not a good idea. I mean if its specific to your business or maybe business in general like linkedin or even slashdot if your in tech or facebook if your in marketing. Of if you need a background video then something talking about coding or ITIL or something. Then like yeah. otherwise though. common. If your not at work and the community is not specifically for kids then it should only be used for massively pornographic or graphically violent things as to me these are adult areas. If someone can’t handle tough things like drug use or suicide talk even for a bit to then close the convo or such. I dunno if they should be online at all. Even spoilers I think if some writes a spoiler is coming in their post then the person should have enough time to back off because they are reading that its coming down the line.
I’m okay with people using drugs in public as long as they aren’t a nuisance. That means:
- No smoking, vaping is fine as long as it’s low volume (try a ball vape or less strong herbs that produce minimal vapour, like damiana and salvia). I especially hate the littering from cigarettes.
- If you choose to do psychedelics, or strong edibles, or such, you accept responsibility for your actions if you become a disturbance.
- Just make sure it’s for a good reason, beyond just needing to be high to be in public.
- Don’t make a habit out of it.
My first time on mushrooms was in a restaurant. I don’t think anyone noticed. I also kind of didn’t know we were going to one. I was level headed enough to be fine with it, it wasn’t a strong dose. Never again, though. If you want to do mushrooms on a nature trail, on the other hand, all the power to you.
I agree with the NSFW argument. I just wanted to be safe.
yeah thats more how I would like society to deal with it. you under the influence in public and and get caught and you can expect to get ticketed. likely there is going to be some but it should be enough that the streets aren’t filled with douches and folks will be trying to hide it and be on best behaviour.
You’re basically me in my early 20’s.
I’ve been making the exact same points for twenty years. Literally.
All it’s managed to get me is social isolation.
People are extremely hypocritical, and cowardly. I went to an evening college once in my twenties and the teacher of psychology & religion complained about me to the headmaster, lol.
The teacher once said, after class, silently to me, that “you can’t talk about such things, there are minors in the class”. (This is before he complained about me to the hm.) I pointed out to him that in the next classroom (history) kids are being taught about Nazis. Like I had to point out to a supposedly professional “academic” in a sense and he didn’t even understand the idea. Like so strong is the anti-drug propaganda that he’s literally afraid to even talk about drugs, even though they’re a massive part of both psychology and religion.
It’s not an easy road to walk this.
I tried literally all the drugs in my twenties, didn’t shoot up though, but like I’ve inhaled sketchy stimulants off of foil. I’ve never recreationally done opiates but I have received fentanyl and have popped Oxys when I broke an arm.
Now now I haven’t done anything except weed for years. Well, anything illegal. I would like to buy laughing gas, but that and LSD got a bit out of hand when I was 27 and that’s pretty much my only ever where my drug use genuinely got out of hand, but it was due to a work burn-out and not receiving any fucking care even though I went to see several doctors.
So self-medication can be a bit more risky than assigned medication, but it can also be much better if the doctors are shit.
I’ve never had an addiction to anything except weed and beer. Well laughing gas, arguably the worst, but it goes away as fast as it comes on. It’s called hippy crack for a reason though. It’s pretty safe to abuse for an evening or two every few months, but doing it very regularly and in high doses and you’ll ruin your central nervous system. So as long as you don’t polish off a few boxes a day for weeks on row without (or even with really) B-vitamin supplementation, it’s safe as houses, pharmacologically. Probably biggest risk is burns you’ll get from the cold capsules when chaining them.
I’ve also been on benzos for years now, but I have literally zero addiction to them. Many people develop horrible addictions to benzos, but me? Nothing. I might run out and I don’t even notice until the next time I eat something which doesn’t agree with me and the continued discomfort usually makes me take one. I know what addiction feels like and I don’t have any craving whatsoever to those.
The ambien is a bit different, I do like the effect. (Actually it’s past midnight and I have a doctor’s tomorrow so that’s good enough an excuse to pop a half. Mmm, Ambien.
But yeah no you’re definitely not wrong at all. Responsible and reliable non-risky non-addicted recreational drug users do exist. But most of them are cowards and would never admit publicly to using drugs. Like I’d say definitely all heads of State in Europe have seen illegal drug use without saying shit and most have probably indulged at one point or another. Elon is abusing ketamine, openly fucking tripping balls at the inauguration.
Literally all bank notes have traces of cocaine on them, pretty much. A vast majority, that’s for absolute certainty.
I have my own version of McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory (don’t look at the joe rogan ones that’s crass and reductive when they talk about it, listen to the one from actually Terence McKenna from some talks he did in the 90’s. Just youtube and pick your bit there’s shorter ones and longer ones.
But yeah, we face hard discrimination. But I think I got banned from Reddit for even daring to bring up the fact that it really makes no difference if I suck a cock or a bong in the privacy of my own house, and the latter is legal to do around here.
Then it’s “oh but you’re destroying your brain” even if that was the case (and with my usage it’s not and never was aside from that month in 2016), we have several sports in which the aim is to affect your opponent in a way to render them unconscious, by either a blow or by cutting off blood to their brain. And that’s completely legal.
There literally isn’t a single argument that supports the prohibition of drugs. I have maintained for more than 15 years (took me a while to grow out of my weed only legal position) that all types of drugs need to be made available legally to responsible users.
And the amount of problems that would fucking fix is literally incredible to most people. As in the literally will not believe even when hard facts are brought to the table.
It’s a massive fucking global market that’s going completely untaxed, and literally funding violent crime because those are the only things any conflicts in the trades can be solved; hard violence.
If it was legal, no fucking need, use the courts.
Imagine what South-America would look like if it had zero cartels and instead it provided legally all the world’s cocaine. It would be a booming business economy, and without any of the fucking criminals, because pretty much all crime is connected with drug crime. If some criminal organisation does robberies, they would definitely be selling drugs on the side. Robberies are a fuck lot riskier.
Gang crime? All of that is basically just motivated for “turf wars” and shit and it’s all funded by drugs.
Cut off funding to practically all criminals in the world.
And I really think everyone should go to an electronic music event at least once in their life on ecstasy or serotonergic substance of their own choosing. I genuinely believe that annual therapy with a strong serotonergic substance might have been what enabled humanity.
My theory is that you’d have your group of 50-100 people or so but since inbreeding is bad, once a year at midsummer you go to the same place to meet loads of other groups. And because humans are sort of averse to strangers in a natural state, you take mushrooms, which enable empathy and prosociality.
And since you go back there every year, might as well build shit there. And when you had built quite a lot there might be one dude who is left to tend to the party place during the year when everyone else is out. And so then you’d like to grow some plants maybe because you won’t need to go far from the party place. That’s how humanity started settlements, in my belief. And there is quite a lot of proof that we settled down before the invention of agriculture instead of the other way around. Well not proof. Good theories.
And if you’ve ever visited like a large party where literally everyone is on ecstasy or an equivalent. Uh, so peaceful and feels so safe that I once walked up to a guy in those full body spandex suits. I looked him where his eyes would be, and then very gently gave his testicles a little “honk honk”. He then, very calmly, did the exact same thing to me. I bid him a fine evening and continued on, feeling very respected.
Big guys who are clearly on roids run into you and start profusely apologising and seeing whether you’re okay.
Unlike in a normal nightclub, where the same guy would probably instantly start a fight, drunk as fuck and high on speed /cocaine (which are dopaminergic, meaning they’re sort of “colder” drugs because they don’t affect serotonin, just dopamine.)
I hope you manage to keep your friends.
Maybe make like an info package showing that your take is the future. And also remind them of me telling you that it just seems you’re in your research and experimentation phase, which I had in my teens and early twenties. But now I’ve grown out of it. I would like to go to like Germany and see the clubscene and would prolly do some stimulants. But I haven’t in years.
You just can’t pretend the propaganda is real. You have empathy and intelligence and curiosity and you’ve discovered what utter utter anti-humanist bullshit this global war on drugs is.
We as a society would be so much better off if we has a wider selection of substances than just alcohol and nicotine. And to remind you, alcohol is literally only legal because the prohibition failed so hard. Organised crime, more drinking, harder drinking. Now there’s no Al Capone running around shooting people with Tommy guns, because there’s a more or less reputable system for regulating alcohol. Just the fact that you know what you take and how much, as you always know the strength and volume of a given drink, roughly. You can’t do that, currently, with powders for example. I mean an experienced person will know roughly how strong something is and how much to take. But imagine how hard it would be to use alcohol safely if “going for one” might mean that you end up with a tiny glass of some almost alcohol free ale, or you get a pint of moonshine. Of course with booze it’s pretty easy to tell between moonshine and a low alc beer, but it’s less so with pills of ecstasy for instance. You just pop a half and trust its somewhat okay. Using ecstasy is still pretty damn safe, but if we keep the comparison with alcohol, if alcohol was like that, you’d have people passing out mid speech due to having taken way too strong a drink and probably die of alcohol poisoning, whereas the worst is dehydration on ecstasy while rolling too hard, which might cause a very unpleasant few hours as you get cooled down. Serotonin syndrome really isn’t in any sort of way a statistically significant risk. And it’s only slightly statistically significant for people with SSRI, honestly, as people still think some people are using an older type of mood medication, MAOi, which would put you at a significantly increased risk of overdose and serotonin syndrome. People don’t really use those anymore, so SSRI’s just sort of mute the effects a little bit, although not the side effects.
I ramble and reached the char limit right about hereeeeeeeeeeee
But ramblings aside you are correct and there’s too few of us.
You might lose your regular friends, unless you manage to pretend to believe in prohibition again.
Of course your terminology will develop. For instance I used to like provoking people a little bit with this sometimes (I am an arsehole pretty often), saying “all drugs need to be legalised” whereas what I’m actually trying to communicate is “we must radically and globally reform laws concerning illicit recreational substances.”
If someone doesn’t agree with that statement then they are either ignorant of the subject or directly profiting off of the industry.
Like our chief of police in Finland who’s now sitting a ten stretch or something for his massive nationwide hash import empire. I remember that hash and it was good. Butthash, we called it, because it was in swallowable sized pieces and came out more or less like a turds. 10g pieces Imo. Like if you had bad constipation thats about what dem looked like, but smooth.
Anyways that was just an example of the hypocrisy of people supposedly “dealing with the problem”.
Sorry I got a little rambly but eh, yours was long as well so tit for tat I guess
Listen to this guy. The whole video is good but I linked that to show his mission statement basically which he says at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_TV4GuXFoA&t=715
“Since I’ve left the police, I’ve written a memoir and that’s called “Good Cop, Bad War”. My position is the position of my organisation, which is the Law-enforcement Action Partnership; we advocate for the full regulation of all the drug markets to take control away from organised crime. And increasingly, we’re becoming the most importance voices for reform.”
