WHAT IS A HALLUCINOGEN?

WHAT IS A HALLUCINOGEN?

Hallucinogens are drugs that change one's thought processes, mood, and perceptions. The word itself is derived from the Latin word cducinare, which means "to wander in mind, talk idly, or prate." At high doses, these drugs cause people to perceive an experience as actually happening when, in fact, it is not. At lower dose levels, they cause milder disturbances of perception, thought, and emotion, but not the complete fabrication of unreal events.

Hallucinogens have often been called psychotomimetics or psychedel­ics. All of these names suggest that these drugs induce or mimic mental illness, but they are wrong to varying degrees. Hallucinogens do not really mimic psychosis or mental illness. Although they can trigger a psy­chotic experience in a vulnerable person, the drug experience itself is probably quite different. For example, the hallucinations caused by most of these drugs are usually seen, whereas the hallucinations of schizophre­nia are usually heard. However, there is some overlap in effects, and recent research with psilocybin has found similarities between hallucinogen effects and some aspects of psychosis, especially feelings of detachment from one's surroundings and feelings of universal understanding. The term psychedelic developed in the late 1950s to describe drugs that were "mind-expanding," a vague term that was popular at the time but not very descriptive. A similar term used to describe these drugs is entheo­genie, which conveys the idea of finding "the god within." None of these terms is completely adequate. The diversity of terminology to describe these drugs almost certainly results from the tremendous variation in the experiences that people have had with them.

This chapter describes three broad categories of hallucinogens. The most familiar is the LSD- or serotonin-like group. The prototype of this group is lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Dealers most often package LSD by plac­ing drops of solution onto a piece of absorbent paper (blotter paper) or a sugar cube, although it can also appear in pill form, Psilocybin mushrooms and peyote cacti are also in this category. Psilocybin mushrooms contain the active compounds psilocin and psilocybin, which roughly resemble LSD in the effects they produce. The peyote cactus contains mescaline. Mushrooms containing psilocybin and cactus buttons containing mesca­line are usually consumed as the dried plant, and look like it. There are many other hallucinogens that resemble LSD in their actions, including dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and bufotenine. There is also a group of amphetamine derivatives—including DOM (2, 5 dimethoxy-4-methyl­phenylisopropylamine), also known as STP; TMA (trimethoxyamphet­amine); and DMA (dimethoxyamphetamine)—that resemble mescaline in their actions. Many variations exist and new versions seem to rise and fall in popularity. Other members of this alphabet soup you may encounter are 2C-B (^4-bromo^-2,^5-dimethoxyphenethylamine) and its variants. Many of these hallucinogens appear in pill form, and the actual content of the pills often differs from what the dealer has described. An herbal tea called aya­huasca, containing a combination of DMT and harmala alkaloids, has migrated from South America to the United States.

The second major group of hallucinogens we will discuss are the bella­donna alkaloids. These have been used medically for thousands of years, and ritually for even longer. However, their recreational abuse is just now becoming popular. Belladonna alkaloids in the United States are most often obtained either through prescription medication that contains them or from tea prepared from the leaves of the wild-growing Jimsonweed (Datum stramonium).

The dissociative anesthetics, or "horse tranquilizers," phencyclidine (PCP) and ketamine are the last category. Ketamine is an anesthetic used primarily in children and in veterinary practices. It appears as a solution for injection (that has been diverted from medical use) or as a powder (made from dried-out solution). People usually inject or ingest the solution and snort the powder. PCP appears in several different forms: pills, a pow­der for snorting, or "rocks" that can be smoked or, more rarely, dissolved for injection. Sometimes tobacco, marijuana, or parsley leaves are coated with PCP solution. These produce a bizarre, dissociative state that comes the closest to resembling psychosis of all the hallucinations. Finally, there are two hallucinogens that have unique mechanisms of action, Dextro­methorphan, the main ingredient in many cough syrups, causes a unique, dissociative state at doses higher than those used for cough suppression. Salvia divinorum is a plant hallucinogen that causes an intense, brief, and usually unpleasant hallucinatory experience when users smoke the leaves