{"id":1406,"date":"2016-12-14T13:53:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T18:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1406"},"modified":"2016-12-14T13:53:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T18:53:19","slug":"trip-or-trap-lsd-the-sober-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1406","title":{"rendered":"Trip or Trap? LSD: the sober truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Julia Fox
\n<\/strong>The\u00a0Tower
\nGrosse Pointe South HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 1, News Writing
\nEnvironmental, Health or Science<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first time Josh Landon* \u201916 considered trying LSD, he was per-suaded by the allure of what his friends told him was a mind-opening experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started hanging out with a couple people who were like, \u2018This is acid. It\u2019s mind-opening, it\u2019s really cool, and it\u2019s an experience that I think you should have. You\u2019d enjoy it,\u2019\u201d Landon said. \u201cSo I was like, alright, I\u2019ll do it in a place that I deem safe. What\u2019s the worst thing that could happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Landon has used lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), more commonly known as acid, since this past summer, he said. He is part of the 3 percent of high school seniors participating in recreational use of LSD, according to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and one of 250,000 Americans 12 years or above who participated in it approximately once per month according to the same survey conducted in 2013.<\/p>\n

LSD is a Schedule One hallucinogen, illegal in the United States, according to www.drugabuse.gov. Consumption alters the user\u2019s neural function, predominantly affecting mood and perception. LSD typically causes the user to see, hear or feel things that are not there. Experiencing these effects is commonly called tripping.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (users of LSD) get severe hallucinations,\u201d Dr. Tricia Nouhan of St. John Hospital and Medical Center said. \u201cPatients will come in and get various hallucinations. And sometimes those can be frightening. They can be pleasant. They can be creative. But there are visual hallucinations that are the trademark for LSD.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drug is usually administered through thin papers that dissolve on the tongue, called tabs, Landon said. How-ever, it can also be taken in liquid form or in small gel capsules.<\/p>\n

It is common for marijuana to act as a gateway drug to other harder drugs like molly and LSD, school social worker Doug Roby said. A gateway drug is a less dangerous drug that one typically tries before deciding to move on to other more dangerous drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on my experience, if someone is taking LSD, they\u2019ve used other drugs prior to that because something got them to that point,\u201d Roby said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like first time use of drugs is going to be, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s take some LSD.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Landon said he started out smoking marijuana during his freshman year of high school, before moving onto molly, the purest form of the recreational drug ecstasy, Landon said. When he began realizing the negative effects molly had, he decided to move on to a different drug.<\/p>\n

Landon said he was nervous the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had heard a lot of things about it like, \u2018Oh, you might have a bad trip. This might happen. That might happen. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to see,\u2019\u201d Landon said. \u201cBut everything that you hear about acid ends up just not being true, like, \u2018Every time you do it you\u2019re going to have a bad trip.\u2019 I\u2019ve never had a bad trip, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Landon has never had a bad trip, Roby said they are not as uncommon as they sound. There are significant risks associated with any drug consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, what is it going to do to you?\u201d Roby said. \u201cThat\u2019s always an inherent risk. Especially if you\u2019ve never done it. I\u2019ve heard of people having total panic attacks where they have to go to the ER because they have no idea what\u2019s going on with them. It\u2019s kind of beyond their self-control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the risks, Landon continues to use it, he said. Since the first time he tried LSD, he has used it approximately 20 times. When he first began using it, he took it once each week. Since then he has slowed to taking it once each month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you first start, it\u2019s like when you were little and you got a new toy and you wanted to play with it all the time,\u201d Landon said. \u201cBut then, once you understand that it\u2019s just a toy, you start to only play with it once in awhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tripping on LSD is unlike the experience Landon has had while taking any other recreational drugs, he said. \u201cThe first thing that you tend to notice is that things will start to look a little more vibrant,\u201d Landon said. \u201cThen after about 45 minutes, you\u2019ll know that you\u2019re tripping. What will start to happen is things will start to look kind of wavy, and then everything that moves will have a bit of a trail behind it. It\u2019s kind of like looking at different frames of a video.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next part, he said, is up to the imagination. It takes practice, but once one understands how, he said, they can \u2018see\u2019 their imagination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like if you were to have a third eye, what you would do is you would transport\u00a0to your third eye and look at your current life through a different perspective,\u201d Landon said. \u201cYou suddenly realize that we need to be more understanding people, or \u2018I need to be more kind to my mother\u2019 or \u2018when I\u2019m in social situations, why do I feel like I need to jump in front, why can\u2019t I just sit back?\u2019 You just examine things that you do, and you have this very awkward, odd thought process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with this abstract way of thinking comes a sense of something bigger, the existence of other beings, or something more than humanity, he said. This and other interesting effects are all due to what he believes to be an expansion of the mind due to the drug.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember one of the first times I tripped really, really hard I was at a concert, and I was walking around, and I thought that I was in a river, but I thought the river was gray,\u201d Landon said. \u201cEverybody around me looked like they were river water and fish, but they were gray, too. I turned this corner, and on this pathway I saw two of my greatest friends in the world, covered in tie dye and making out. They were just this vibrant sun of awesomeness. Around them was this gray water, and then it was just them.\u201d<\/p>\n

This specific hallucination may have been a visual manifestation of his subconscious, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater that night I was talking to my friend about it, and he was like, \u2018Well, that means something,\u2019 and we were trying to figure out what it meant,\u201d Landon said. \u201cWhat it meant was that I was at a point in my life where I really wanted love. It was what I really needed, what I really wanted. So it was really something that just showed my emotions visually. It was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting effects that LSD has had on him is what he describes as an ability to taste color, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the first time I ever tasted colors I was drinking a Gatorade,\u201d Landon said. \u201cIt was an orange Gatorade, and I swear to God it tasted blue. I tasted it and the thing that just came to my mind was blue. I didn\u2019t know why. And then I was eating a bagel, and it tasted brown. For the rest of the trip and a bunch of trips after, I could taste colors. Taste the rainbow was never truer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite all these effects, Landon said the most prominent was the change in his outlook on life. Before he started using acid, he was depressed and seeing a therapist for help. Now he finds himself valuing his life and the lives of people around him more than he ever previously did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in kind of a bad place about six months ago and now I\u2019ve never been happier in my entire life,\u201d Landon said. \u201cThings are going very well for me. I think that has a lot to do with acid. I think it does because my state of mind and state of thinking shifted a little bit towards the positive. It could definitely start to be attributed to psychedelics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, he believes it has affected his political views in a positive way, as well, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore this I was somebody who was very rash with the things that I believed in and no matter what I was going to stand up for them,\u201d Landon said. \u201cAfter I started I was like, these people have a point. What they\u2019re talking about has a reason and yeah, I might think differently but the things that they say, politically, are right. And yeah it might suck for me, it might hurt me, but we have to share. We\u2019re on this planet together and we can\u2019t just take from everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite all the positive effects Landon experiences, LSD can cause a multitude of negative effects such as psychosis, fear and paranoia, loss of depth and time perception, trip flashbacks, insomnia, chills and tremors, dry mouth, and rapid emotional shifts, according to the Foundation for a Drug Free World.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re using a drug that gives you visual effects, number one you can have persistent effects of those hallucinations that are horrible,\u201d Nouhan said. \u201cThose can stay with you even after they stop using the drug. Number two, when you\u2019re having the hallucinations, people do very dangerous things. They can walk out in traffic and not even know. Or they could get into a vehicle. Or they will use the drugs in combination with other drugs and the effects are significant to their cardiac and respiratory systems. They can have an abnormal heartbeats or stop breathing like with heroin or other narcotic drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Effects from LSD can then follow the user around for the rest of their life, Nouhan said. The user can experience significant issues with cognitive function including memory loss.<\/p>\n

These \u201ctrips\u201d can happen once or they may happen on mul-tiple occasions, even multiple occasions per day, causing hallucinogen-induced persistent perception disorder, according to LSDaddiction.us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they actually know what triggers that. It\u2019s kind of like a memory or some type of electrical or chemical circuit that gets triggered in the future after you use the drug,\u201d Nouhan said. \u201cYou could get these flashbacks at anytime. Nobody really knows what causes them to occur or comeback, so again, that\u2019s something that\u2019s very dangerous depending on what the actual hallucination was.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no confirmed reason for these flashbacks, but scientists believe LSD may damage the brain and change the way it perceives information, or it may be stored in the body or brain after use, only to be released again later, according to LS-Daddiction.us.<\/p>\n

There are serious risks associated with the use of LSD, Roby said. One of the biggest concerns is the effect it has on the brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a Harvard speaker who has been studying marijuana use in kids, and the makeup of the brain for a 16-year-old using marijuana regularly is very similar to the makeup of the brain of someone with schizophrenia,\u201d Roby said. \u201cSo the real question is what is LSD doing to the brain if marijuana is doing that?\u201d<\/p>\n

These are not the only effects that experimenting with LSD can have. The possession of LSD is a federal felony in the United States, possession for personal use can result in one to three years in prison and a $1000 to $25,000 fine. Possession with intent to sell can result in three to 15 years in prison and a $2000 to $300,000 fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequences are significantly different from marijuana,\u201d Roby said. \u201cThe penalties are super harsh. Because of where it\u2019s classified, it immediately has more consequences related to the law than say a substance like marijuana. It\u2019s Schedule 1, so it\u2019s a felony. You\u2019re not dealing with a misdemeanor like if it was possession of marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his continual use, Landon said he does not believe that LSD should be legalized, rather it should be consid-ered for medicinal use and lowered from a Schedule One drug.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if it were completely legalized, it would be a bad situation,\u201d Landon said. \u201cWe can\u2019t have people tripping on a regular basis, all the time.\u201d In addition, Roby said students need to evaluate the risk factor of the drug. \u201cThe biggest thing people need to think about if they\u2019re contemplating trying it, is there is no predictability,\u201d Roby said. \u201cThere are charts on alcohol where if you weigh 140 and you consume this amount of alcohol, it\u2019ll tell you what your blood alcohol will be. There\u2019s no science like that at all with LSD. That\u2019s the biggest risk. What is it going to do to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Nouhan said that LSD is risky and can lead to long-term damages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other ways, non-drug-re-lated ways, to be creative,\u201d Nouhan said. \u201cJust use your imagination. You don\u2019t need those drugs and chemicals that could have such a bad outcome. It\u2019s not worth doing something that\u2019s potentially permanent and that could affect your well-being, your memory and potential for having a visual hallucination. It\u2019s not something worth risking that for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Julia Fox The\u00a0Tower Grosse Pointe South HS 1st Place Division 1, News Writing Environmental, Health or Science<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65,4],"tags":[135,20],"class_list":["post-1406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-environmentalhealthorscience-nw","category-nw","tag-2015-16","tag-division1","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jaimie Bozack","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=7"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-mG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}