Such a drug is an impossibility.
If the drug had any effect whatsoever on the mental state of the user it would have damaging side effects, since it would produce mental states that would cause the him to percieve things differently.
The mental landscape of the user would alter to something that would not be in sync with reality, and this can cause problems.
Take cannabis, for example. There are no indicatons that this drug has any physical health risks (other than on the lungs if smoked), and there are no indications that it causes dependency.
What it does, on the other hand, is create a "vacuum" between the user and real life, it alters the mindset of the user enabeling a detatchment that is bound to catch up on the person
And if the hypothesized drug didn't alter the mental state there would be no point in taking it.
Well, yes -- you're right, there would be detrimental emotional effects from such a hypothetical drug as you point out. I only meant to say that the drug would not have some detrimental physical effects. Now it is potentially debatable whether or not an emotional change constitutes a physical change in the neural organization of one's brain, but let us disregard that possibility.
Cyracuz, your comments are inline with the types of questions I was intending to discuss. You basically are saying that to use the drug, you are necessarily causing yourself to be emotionally detached from other people in your life, and that this itself is a bad thing.
That depends on the extent that you use it though, doesn't it? Using it in a small amount does not have to cause significant detachment. Cigarette smokers use cigarettes a whole lot, yet they still have friends. There should be a balancing point with such a drug, at which point the negative social effects would be equal to the positive effects of the drug.
Mind you, I am referring to the net effects to the happiness of your life, weighted by the time that you are on the drug and off the drug. That is, if you are on the drug 40% of the time, then you would have to multiply your happiness on the drug by .4, and multiply your avg happiness off the drug by .6 This may not be the best heuristic measure but it'll do for a simple example of how one might compare.
Stuh
Sorry for the late reply. Lately there are almost too many threads to keep track of...
But anyway, if the drug had no detrimental physical effects, and would not cause significant emotional and cognitive problems, I see no reason to not take the drug if one wanted to kick back.
But there is always the issue of psychological addiction. I think that the drug would be used as an escape every time the user felt the pressures of everyday life too strong. Then the threshold of what constitutes "too strong" would get gradually lower until the user would take the drug to relieve himself at even the slightest bump in the road.
Thing is, cannabis is such a drug as the one we're discussing, and from personal experience I can say that this is the way it would go. I smoked that shyt for a long time. I had a job, friends, girlfriend and a social life, and all that was no problem. But the drug made me weak. Not physically, but emotionally. I couldn't handle stress in the end, and if I was subjected to it I had to smoke or I'd become angry or just despair.
Now I don't smoke at all anymore, and my life is infinetly better for it.
And as for your 40% of the time vs 60%... Try eight years of 100% of my waking hours in a cloud of hashish smoke... :wink: In the end I was miserable, and I almost couldn't see it. I thought I was happy. Only now, no longer smoking, do I know how wrong I was.
I want a new drug
One that wont make me sick
One that wont make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick
I want a new drug
One that wont hurt my head
One that wont make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red
One that wont make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when Im with you
When Im alone with you
I want a new drug
One that wont spill
One that dont cost too much
Or come in a pill
I want a new drug
One that wont go away
One that wont keep me up all night
One that wont make me sleep all day
One that wont make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when Im with you
When Im alone with you
Im alone with you baby
I want a new drug
One that does what it should
One that wont make me feel too bad
One that wont make me feel too good
I want a new drug
One with no doubt
One that wont make me talk too much
Or make my face break out
One that wont make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when Im with you
When Im alone with you
Yeah, you're right Cyracuz...Cannabis is pretty much the perfect drug. Seems to be a cure-all, too. I've definitely enjoyed the stuff in the past, but never allowed it to interfere with my life, so thanks for sharing your perspective.
My pleasure Stuh.
Btw, I read once that the human brain has THC "receptors" ( for those who do not know, THC is the stuff in cannabis that makes you high), and unlike all other drugs, cannabis doesn't poison the body, like alcohol or amphetamine or whatever. Without these "receptors" in our brains the stuff would do nothing for us.
But I do not know if any of this is true. If anyone does know please speak up
The interesting thing about receptors are that if you block them for long enough, they quit working. What would probably happen is, the THC in the cannibis would act on the receptors, blocking out whatever was supposed to bind to it, and eventually one of two things would likely happen: those being that either the receptors would quit working (this commonly happens in the body...its one reason why they tell you not to use inhalers more than X times a day, it will block all the receptors and they will not work anymore), or they will just be blocked all the time. Thats probably why as person doesnt necessarily get hurt by smoking a lot, but they would probably get addicted in a way that they would have trouble being happy (sort of like the psychological addiction mentioned earlier) (that article ^ said that it was sort of like a "bliss" receptor) without smoking. When you quit, eventually the THC leaves your system and you go back to normal.
Just my take on it. I could be wrong, but based on what ive learned in my classes, that is probably the way it works.
That might be so, wraith.
I know that other drugs can really mess up things. Amphetamine, for instance, destroys the body's dopamine production, and after using the drug long enough quitting becomes very hard, since the body doesn't produce dopamine anymore, so everything becomes dreary.
I do not know if the effects are irreversable though.
I heard somewhere that EXTREME prolonged use can have permanent effects. But I believe the place I read that mentioned that the "extreme" being like, years and years of smoking every day multiple times a day. it was a pretty ridiculous number. I dont think they had studies backing that up, either.
How about six years, every day, all day. Not several times a day, but one ongoing session that lasted from morning to evening.
That's what I did, but I quit, and now I'm fine.
An antidepressant doesn't neccessarily cause happiness; they simply end depression, allowing the person to feel the whole gamut of emotions.
when my girlfriend was 15 she was taking coke, not regularly, but enough to have killed her. when i found out i was shocked and dissapointed, but i thank God that she is alive. drugs are bad. whether it's a cigarette or heroin. avoid it!
Would you be just as disapointed if she was using a vapourizor with marajuana instead of coke?
