[TOPIC] Drugs

Just the thread I was looking for :)

I was wondering what are some good resources on substance abuse. In particular, I'm looking for information regarding long term health effects.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

What kind of drugs in particular are you looking at? There's some differences between different types of substance abuse, whether it's opiates, amphetamines, etc.

I had a feeling my question would be too vague and all encompassing. I can't really say what kind of drug I'm looking at, but maybe I can tell you what I'm looking for and why I'm looking for it.

Basically, one of my characters falls seriously ill after years of doing drugs. This is a catalyst for the plot, rather than the main plot itself, and I haven't figured out the details of it yet. I know the most common health hazards of drugs ie, smoking can cause lung cancer, drinking can cause liver damage, and I know about some of the effects of ODing/mixing drugs. But I have a feeling there's a lot more info than the basics, and even though this isn't the main plot, I'd still like to be as realistic as possible. So I guess what I'm looking for is maybe an overview as to what illnesses are linked to what drugs. If this is too much information to explain, links would be just as helpful.

And if it helps any, the character is a female in her early 40s.

Meth is pretty damaging in the long run. I've never really had any experience with it myself, but it's one of the most horrible things you can put in your body, and the most damaging. I don't really have any info on it, but if you check out this page, there's a ton of information about it and other drugs.

I can offer information on ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine, acid, mushrooms, heroin, and salvia. I'm most 'experienced' with ecstasy, marijuana, and to a lesser extent, heroin. I can also offer information on alcohol. Feel free to Nanomail me if you need! :)

Excellent! Just the thread I need. At least... I think I need.

I have a uni student (or something - he goes to an Ivy League place) who starts off just doing some party drugs, shows up to class high (or stoned) a few times. After some things in his relationships go wrong (ie. family issues, love issues) he starts to take them more heavily and gets to the point where he's ill. he leaves school to come "clean" again.

So what kind of drugs would an average uni student do? And then would he just increase the amount, or take harder drugs, or what? Sorry if this isn't the thread!!! But I would appreciate any ideas of what he'd be taking, etc. :D I can do the research on the actual drugs, but if I don't know what he'd be likely to take...

Thanks!! :D

[img src="http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k302/my-moongrass/NotUsingYou.png"]

I think that the most common drug on campuses is marijuana. In terms of going to harder drugs, cocaine or prescription pain killers are easy enough to get hold of.

2007
Untitled - 78,526 (Abandoned post-NaNo)

If the student gets into needle drugs, it would be easy to catch Hepatitis from sharing needles or having sex with an addict that has Hep. Symptoms are extreme tiredness and the whites of your eyes turn yellow. It damages your liver and can kill you if left untreated, especially Hep C. Hep B is easy to recover from--the main treatment being stopping drug use, eating healthy (something drug addicts neglect) and getting lots of rest. Hep C requires a year-long chemo type treatment. Some people recover, some die but most live for several years before they die, if they stop doing drugs.

Janice

JaniceWD
2007 Winner: Kin Keeper
2008: Gossiping With Dead Folks

The easiest drug to find on a campus would most definitely be weed. At an Ivy League school, with a lot of pressure on students to perform, I'd guess that there's probably a lot of Adderall floating around. It's an ADD/ADHD drug that people can take to get super focused on their work, and burn through a lot of hard stuff in one sitting.

As far as party drugs, depending on the party, they'd be able to find stuff like coke and speed fairly easily, and depending on the crowd they associate with maybe ecstasy. Really hard drugs like heroin, crack and meth are going to be pretty much non-existant.

I would say cocaine, especially if he's really stressed for time. I know a lot of university students who also work as servers (coke's big with servers and bartenders in certain areas), and a lot of them do coke just to keep up and be able to keep going through all the long hours. The recovery from coke versus weed use might be more interesting to write about, too. As far as drugs go, I think weed's pretty boring. I have a bunch of friends that smoked daily but could go clean for up to three months at a time with out THAT much difficulty.

Mmm this could be very helpful. I appreciate that you're willing to help others with this.

My main question would be about the psychadelics.. What drugs would you category into that? What sort of fictonal people would you say you would get it from?

And also, about weed. In general, how long do the highs last? And for most people, does it tend to just do the whole, mellow you out, but not anything crazy, bit?

Thanks :)

Psychadelics is the category, and it has drugs like acid, shrooms, and mescaline which are the big three.

Generally if your character smokes weed, their dealer would either have or know of someone who has acid or shrooms. Just saying something like "Hey, I was looking to trip this weekend. Do you have any acid on you that you can sell?" will work.

Weed highs usually last around 2-3 hours. There's usually a pretty strong peak from around 10 to 30 or so minutes after smoking. It varies for everyone, but for me personally, I get kind of floored and just like to sit and talk to people. Weed definitely mellows you out, but depending on the strain (think "name brands") it could have a different effect.

Without going into too much detail, there's two basic types of weed: cannabis sativa and cannabis indica. Sativa strains are usually more uplifting and have a head high. After people smoke them, they're usually more active. It's a less mellowing body high, and a more "cerebral" thinking/I want to go do something high. Indicas are a big, mellowing body high where you want to do nothing but sit around, munch and watch tv. People call it "couch lock." There's also blends which can have one of the types dominant or be a 50/50 blend, and there's a mix of the effects.

I tried to keep the last part simple because I could write pages about the different strains and their effects. If you want any more info, just let me know and I'll be glad to help.

Hmm. I've never even heard of mescaline. Would you mind elaborating on that?

Would you mind going more in depth with cannabis sativa?

This is very helpful already, thank-you

I've never had any experience with mescaline personally. It's one of the most rare drugs you can look for, and it's probably most available in the southwest United States (Like Arizona/New Mexico area). What I can tell you is that it comes from a cactus and is naturally occuring, kind of like shrooms. You can either extract it from the cactus or eat the cactus itself. If you eat the cactus, you have to eat a lot of it to get the effects.

A good site to check out for mescaline is Erowid. It's a giant vault of information about every drug known to man. Look in the experience vaults and read around and you'll get a pretty good idea of what the effects are.

As far as sativa goes, it's generally more rare than indicas. Some popular strains are Strawberry Cough, Sour Diesel, Trainwreck, and Jack Herer. I can't really think of anything specifically to say about it. Did you have any more specific questions? I could probably help you out a little better if I knew what kind of info you were looking for about it.

How about endocarditis from IV drug abuse?

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/endocarditis/DS00409
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/TOPIC164.HTM

Monotreme

I have a few questions regarding cocaine.

1. What is the market price for cocaine? I'm not worried about bulk, but instead end user prices.
2. What is a typical, middle-of-the-road dosage for recreational use?
3. Are there any popular cocaine+pharmaceutical combos? What are the additional effects of these cocktails?
4. Aside from ODing, are there any other ways to utilize cocaine in killing a person? I'm looking for adverse chemical reactions and/or procedures that elude preliminary forensic investigations.

Thanks?

Where will NaNoWriMo take us?

Generally, from what I've heard, it's around $100 dollars for a gram of cocaine. It can be less, but it really depends on how good of a relationship your character would have with his dealer. There's also deals when the weight goes up, and the first price break is probably around an "eight ball" (3.5 grams, 1/8 ounce). As far as dosages, there's no one really goes "Hey, let's do these perfect 50 milligram lines!" An eight ball should last a few people a good night.

As far as #3 goes, most pharmaceutical drugs are downers (opiates, barbituates, benzos, etc), and are really dangerous when mixed with uppers like coke. You can do it, but it's a dangerous thing. It's called speedballing. For #4, I don't think you'd really be able to swing it. Cocaine is one of the NIDA 5 drugs which means that it's tested for on even the most basic drug tests. Any sort of autopsy would reveal cocaine use if it was within the past 3-5 days. The time might change for a dead body, so don't hold me to that. Overdose is generally the most common way of dying from coke, but I'm sure if your character had a weak heart, or mixed uppers and uppers they could suffer from a heart attack. Or maybe even have them die from speedballing (which is pretty common as well).

Thanks Avalloney.

My plan is to have the MC murder a cocaine addict and make it look like a routine OD case. The victim has quite a cocaine habit, so speedballing sounds like the way to go. Can you give some insight regarding specific drug brands that are popular for speedballing in the United States?

Where will NaNoWriMo take us?

Regarding the different types of marijuana and types of highs you get with them, this medical marijuana web site describes many of the different strains and effects:

http://www.patientswithouttime.com/patientresources.html

Scroll down to the bottom for the tables.

I have a drug question! I need a drug for my story that could be made at home with relatively innocuous ingredients, that would cause hallucinations in the users. For said drug- what would the long term effects be? The users in my character's family have been using for about 30 years without killing themselves, but it's going to be used as a religious aid for a cult, so it would probably not be used on a daily basis. What behavior would the users display? Thanks so much!

"Cogito cogito ergo
cogito sum; I think
I think, therefore I
think I am."
-- A. Bierce

formerly coldrevolution, aka Kat
08: Finding Violet, 00%

"Cogito cogito ergo
cogito sum; I think
I think, therefore I
think I am."
-- A. Bierce

formerly coldrevolution, aka Kat

Just the thread I need.
I have a question concerning the cost of different types of drugs.
My characters are all 17/18 year olds finishing school and 'going off the rails'. Throughout my story they take Marijuana, Cocaine, Exticy, LSD and Heroine.
So how much would those kind of drugs cost them?
They are all upperclass and so money isn't really a problem for them and they would tend to buy good quality stuff.
Thanks for your help!

You can live with me in this house I've built out of Writer's Blocks - Pete Wentz

Hallucinogens generally aren't something you can make or find around your home. Shrooms you could grow at home, but it's a big process.

The only chemical you can find in your house that will make you trip, that I can think of, is Diphenhydramine Hydrochloride (DPH). It's the active ingredient in stuff like Benadryl, Unisom and that sort of thing. It's an anti-histamine that causes delerium and strong hallucinations.

It's not really something that would be used for cult activities because the effects are pretty random. I'd suggest making a drug up that fits your specifications. Readers won't necessarily require that your drug be grounded in reality, just that it look authentic. Read some trip reports on erowid.org for some different hallucinogens like shrooms, acid, DPH, DOB/DOI, 2C-B, and 2C-I. They're probably the most common modern drugs that will make you hallucinate. Tailor make your own drug from those and it should be passable.

Marijuana: 20 dollars for a twomp/twenty (1/16 oz), 40 dollars for a bag (1/8 oz), 80 dollars for a quarter (1/4 oz). People down in the lower 48 buy nickel bags (5) or dime bags (10) apparently but up here people don't. You'd be hard pressed to find even someone selling 20 dollar's worth; it's just seen as not being worth peoples' time.
Ecstasy: 20 or 25 for one, depending on what type of pill. I've seen some for 10 or 15 but that's usually between friends. You can also buy a ten pack, which is 10 pills for usually about 12-18 per pill.
Heroin: 50 dollars for a nifty (roughly a large match head, looks like a balled up thing of resin like substance)

I don't remember much else.. Hope it helps!

For weed, it's usually sold by grams, eighths (1/8 oz.), quarters (1/4 oz), half ounces and ounces, with the first three as the most popular. I can get grams for anywhere between 15 and 20 dollars, eighths for 45-60, and quarters for 80-100. Those are prices for medical marijuana from clubs, but from before I had a card and now, it seems like the prices are about the same on the street.

Cocaine is usually about $90-100 for a gram, and maybe $250-300 for an eighth (called an "eight ball").

Ecstasy varies depending on where you get it. I can get pills of pretty good quality for about 10 each, but the price doesn't go down with bulk like most other drugs. If I want 5, it's $50, if I want 10, it's $100. If your characters are buying them at a rave or party, the price can go up significantly. You can get pills on the cheap, like $5 at a rave, but they're probably horrible quality. Decent pills can cost up to $30 at a rave because of supply & demand/risk the dealer's taking. There's also capsules with pure MDMA (pure stuff can't be bound into a pill on its own, it come in rocks or precrushed in gelcaps), they're called Mollies and usually cost around $20 per dose (120-150mg of MDMA). You can get grams of Molly for around $120.

LSD is usually $10 a hit, for whatever quality. Your characters might be able to find it for $5 a hit, but unless they're good friends with the connect, it's probably kind of shitty acid.

I have no idea about heroin, roborabbit's answer is probably more accurate than anything I'd be able to tell you.

Just a note, though, going from drugs like weed, ecstasy and acid to heroin is a big jump. Coke's more a party drug, so it's easier to go from those drugs to it. But, at least from my view, heroin is a completely different thing from any of those.

Alaska has such terrible pricing. It's total slaughter, haha!

Regarding the jump, I went from ecstasy to weed to acid to shrooms to coke, and did heroin like 2 years later. I didn't drop one and move to another though; I dabbled in all. That's just what I tried in order. (Sorry if it doesn't make sense, way tired right now X_x)

EDIT: Also, a nifty is good enough for two people shooting it, but if you're smoking it, you would want to have two nifties.

I have two questions about drugs:

What sort of birth defects could result from smoking pot and/or taking pills during pregnancy, particularly if the mother was a teenager and not taking care of herself? Could a learning disability result?

What are the long term effects of marijuana use? My character in question isn't a heavy user - I was thinking maybe one joint or less once a week for a little over 25 years.

Any help is much appreciated! :D

Marijuana generally won't harm the baby. It's still not a good idea, ingesting any chemicals while pregnant is just asking for trouble. What kind of pills are you looking at? I would say things like pharmacological stuff (painkillers, adderall, etc.) wouldn't be as bad for the baby as ecstasy. Ecstasy could probably have a strong effect on the baby's mental state, as would any pharm drugs. The baby might not necessarily come out physically deformed, but as it grew up, it might start to display some signs of learning disabilities.

There are no real longterm effects from smoking weed. One joint a week is not very much, so they won't suffer from things like temporary short term memory loss or any of that unless it's while they are high.

Avalloney - Yeah I get what you mean about Heroine being a big jump from Marijuana ect. I totally agree. The Heroin is there to cause more strife for my MC. Poor guy.
Avalloney and Roborabbit - thanks heaps for your help. Topic threads are totally one of the best things about Nano :)

You can live with me in this house I've built out of Writer's Blocks - Pete Wentz

Thanks again for the help! :D

Ecstasy was just starting to be produced for recreation around the time your novel is set, and then it was mostly centered in Texas. At that time, however, it was still legal, and easy to obtain. You could probably stretch it to be avaliable when you're story is set.

There's an analogue of the MDMA molecule, MDA, that provides similar effects, it's just a little bit speedier and has mild hallucinations associated with it. It's been around since the 60s, so it's an alternative to MDMA if you're looking into that.

All ecstasy your character would get around that time would be in the pure form of rocks or powder. Back then there was nothing cutting the stuff, and it was pure MDMA or MDA.