What Are Recreational Drugs and What Do I Use?
Smoking Caterpillar November 24 2024 06:00:00 AM
I suppose a reasonable definition of recreational drugs is any drug that you don't need to take for medical purposes. You take it because it feels good. I find that the morality of taking drugs is complicated and highly problematic. But I'm not going to talk about that now. The purpose of this post is to explore the types of substances that are available and my acceptance or rejection of certain substances. It isn't a case of me saying that these are good or bad choices. Just that there are choices. I try to explain my way of thinking about them. For better or worse.Examples that I'll consider are coffee, alcohol, nicotine, heroin, solvents, mushrooms, LSD, cannabis.
All of these are drugs that humans take for recreational purposes. They vary in their effects and legality, but they all have their different risks, rewards and consequences. What I'll do below is describe the characteristics of each one of the drugs listed. This is really intended for people like me who have decided to use recreational drugs. Before taking any drug, I like to conduct a bit of a personal risk assessment. - it took me quite a while to work which drugs to use, where to get them and how to consume them. There are, of course, many more drugs than the ones I've listed. I'll add to them when and if I try them.
Coffee
I like coffee. A few years ago, I took an interest in espresso coffee and decided that I was going to make it at home. A La Pavoni Euro Piccolo bought second-hand on eBay (about £150, as I recall) and a Barazza grinder plus some Lavazza beans were acquired and fast forward to today. Caffeine seems to have little effect on me - by that I mean that it neither makes me hyper (I can drink espresso at night without affecting my sleep) nor so I get upset if I don't get a daily dose. I guess this is possibly down to genetics - it seams reasonable that one's genetic make-up is an important factor in determining whether something is individually addictive.
Nicotine
Like many of my contemporaries, I started smoking in the mid-60s or so. At that time, a majority of males smoked and smoking tobacco was deeply embedded in general society. My peers at school smoked; to smoke was therefore partly or even mostly an effort to be included in the 'in' crowd. Smoking was, naturally, against the school rules, but apart from one incident, I don't recall ever being disciplined for smoking. Once I left school, the habit stayed with me, as is to be expected, and I didn't manage to kick the habit until i was nearly 30, I reckon. The negative effects of tobacco smoking on the smoker and nearby people became more widely understood and the only reasonable course of action was to quit. Though it did take a few attempts. Interestingly, though I have on occasion had a few rips from a spliff, it's not kick started a renewed craving for tobacco.
Alcohol
As a young man in the seventies, I fell into regular alcohol consumption like many of my peers. It wasn't a conscious choice, I think, it was really because everyone in my social circles did it. I never drank by myself - drinking alcohol for me was usually triggered by social circumstances. Once my social circumstances changed, my consumption fell away and today I will only drink alcohol on an occasion basis and never more than one or two units at a time. The risks of alcohol consumption are getting clearer by the day and I'm glad that I don't have any problems with it. On a side note, drinks manufacturers seem to have cracked the taste problem with zero alcohol beers. The range of low and zero alcohol beers is pretty extensive and they're much improved from the original Kaliber (remember that?) and many of them are a perfectly good replacement for traditional alcoholic beers. Wine and cider, however, have a long way to go yet in my opinion.
Heroin
Definitely a no-no to me at the moment, However, this is a sort of bucket list item for me. If I'm ever in the situation where I know that have a few months to live, I'll probably take a shot at this. I mean, why not?
Cocaine
Like heroin, this is a final bucket list item. Again, why not?
Solvents
These don't do anything for me. They're probably better referred to as VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds and include delicious things things like nail polish remover, glue and correction fluids. I think my dislike might hark back to my seagoing days. I spent quite a lot of time on a supertanker, the 6th largest ship in the world at the time. We carried 226,000 tonnes of crude oil from Ras Tanura to Europort in the Netherlands, going around the Cape of Good Hope - we were way too big for the Suez Canal. Crude oil contains all sorts of really nasty solvents and has a particular smell not easily forgotten.
Mushrooms
Ah. Now these are interesting. The thing about these is that they're just organisms. You just eat them. I have a lot of sympathy for magic mushrooms - they've been around for millions of years developing psilocybin only for us to say that eating them is illegal. What I'm interested by is the evolutionary pressures that led to them secreting psilocybin. Was it a defence mechanism of sorts or was it the opposite? To make them more attractive? More on these later.
LSD
Wow. Just wow. I'll expand on this later. For the moment, though, consider LSD as mushrooms on steroids when it comes to the experience.
Cannabis
Although I'm on the face of it a good candidate for cannabis use, I never got into it in my younger days. I was born in the early 50s so by the time Woodstock came around, I was just about an adult, legally speaking, if not in terms of maturity. In the merchant navy, drug taking (and here, I'm talking about cannabis only) was theoretically forbidden, In practice, though, as with many things in life, quite severe breaches of the rules were common. Essentially, as long as you weren't indulging either obviously or to the detriment of your duties, it was tolerated. However, there was a fairly distinct dividing line - cannabis use was much more common among 'below decks' seafarers and I only rarely saw it amongst the officers (I was a navigating officer). The crew quarters often has the unique aroma of weed hanging in the air, but as far as I know, no-one was ever disciplined for it. I remember one occasion when we were berthed in an African port (I forget which one) and a few of us bought some cannabis. We smoked it while sitting on the poop deck is plain view of anyone who cared to look - happily no-one was curious. I'd be a lot more circumspect nowadays. I don't remember any particular stoned effect - this may have been mainly because of the quality of the weed. I have a memory of it being enough to fill a half-pint glass and it containing seeds, leaves and stalks and probably insects - but not flower. The THC level was probably quite low too. After that, I didn't really try anything until a music festival in 2022, when I was nearly 70 years old. Now that was a thing...
MDMA
So. three of us, all family, decide that we're going to a music festival in the shadow of Jodrell Bank. The deal was that I provided a motorhome and others would would provide all the recreational substances apart from alcohol. We had spliff ingredients and some MDMA. It was an absolutely brilliant experience. I want to be clear about this. In my opinion, recreational drugs are brilliant if the circumstances are right. One was an experienced consumer, the other had tried many but wasn't a regular user and I was, relatively speaking, a novice. I had half a tab of MDMA (my first experience of this drug), had a few rips from a spliff, then went out to the music. Came back, has some more spliff, then went to sleep. It didn't really have a great deal of effect on me. The next morning, without a trace of grogginess, we chilled out till the afternoon, then took one full tab each, with plenty of spliff rips. For me, subjectively (and that is the important point) it was fantastic. It was as though my existing world view had dissolved and been replaced by . . . I really can't describe it. A visceral euphoria. Looking into a marble and seeing a whole universe. Cuddling a pillow and thinking it was the most amazing texture in the world. Finding the most inane subjects completely hilarious. Anyone who takes recreational drugs knows that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to put your experience into words. And the best thing? Next morning, a clear head, no upset stomach. I'll be clear about my opinion on this. If your life is measured in your experiences, this is an experience you should consider. It's not without risks, though, and these posts are an attempt to show how I approached the risks...
Just to be clear, I'm not encouraging the use of recreational drugs. But I'm also not trying to discourage them. What I am attempting to do is to lay out in an even-handed way the background, the way in which I conduct risk assessments and my experiences with recreational drugs. I will be opinionated, wrong, right, annoying, stupid and brilliant in hugely varying proportions. Consuming recreational drugs is risky in many ways but that in itself isn't a reason not to consider using them.
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