What are hallucinogens?

What are hallucinogens?

Hallucinogens are a diverse group of drugs that alter perception (awareness of surrounding objects and conditions), thoughts, and feelings. They cause hallucinations, or sensations and images that seem real though they are not. Hallucinogens can be found in some plants and mushrooms (or their extracts) or can be human-made. People have used hallucinogens for centuries, mostly for religious rituals. Common hallucinogens include the following:

Photo by DEA
Blotter sheet of LSD-soaked paper squares that users take by mouth

• Ayahuasca is a tea made from one of several Amazonian plants containingdimethyltryptamine(DMT), the primary mind-altering ingredient. Ayahuasca is also known as Hoasca, Aya, and Yagé.
• DMT is a powerful chemical found in some Amazonian plants. Manufacturers can also make DMT in a lab. The drug is usually a white crystalline powder. A popular name for DMT is Dimitri.
• D-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is one of the most powerful mood-changing chemicals. It is a clear or white odorless material made from lysergic acid, which is found in a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. LSD has many other names, including Acid, Blotter, Dots, and Yellow Sunshine.
• Peyote (mescaline) is a small, spineless cactus with mescaline as its main ingredient. Peyote can also be synthetic. Buttons, Cactus, and Mesc are common names for peyote.
• 4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine(psilocybin) comes from certain types of mushrooms found in tropical and subtropical regions of South America, Mexico, and the United States. Other names for psilocybin include Little Smoke, Magic Mushrooms, Purple Passion, and Shrooms.

Some hallucinogens also cause users to feel out of control or disconnected from their body and environment. Common examples include the following:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/CC0
Ketamine

• Dextromethorphan(DXM) is a cough suppressant and mucus-clearing ingredient in some over-the-counter cold and cough medicines (syrups, tablets, and gel capsules). Robo is another popular name for DXM.
• Ketamine is used as a surgery anesthetic for humans and animals. Much of the ketamine sold on the streets comes from veterinary offices. While available as an injectable liquid, manufacturers mostly sell it as a powder or as pills. Other names for ketamine include K, Special K, or Cat Valium.
• Phencyclidine (PCP) was developed in the 1950s as a general anesthetic for surgery. It’s no longer used for this purpose due to serious side effects. While PCP can be found in a variety of forms, including tablets or capsules, liquid and white crystal powder are the most common forms. PCP has various other names, such as Angel Dust, Hog, Love Boat, and Peace Pill.
• Salvia divinorum (salvia) is a plant common to southern Mexico and Central and South America. Other names for salvia are Diviner's Sage, Maria Pastora, Sally-D, and Magic Mint.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/CC0
Salvia

How do people use hallucinogens?

People use hallucinogens in a wide variety of ways, as shown in the following chart:

Text Description of Chart

How do hallucinogens affect the brain?

Research suggests that hallucinogens work at least partially by temporarily disrupting communication between brain chemical systems throughout the brain and spinal cord. Some hallucinogens interfere with the action of the brain chemical serotonin, which regulates:

• mood
• sensory perception
• sleep
• hunger
• body temperature
• sexual behavior
• muscle control

Other hallucinogens interfere with the action of the brain chemical glutamate, which regulates:

• pain perception
• responses to the environment
• emotion
• learning and memory

Short-Term Effects

The effects of hallucinogens can begin within 20 to 90 minutes and can last as long as 6 to 12 hours. Salvia's effects are more short-lived, appearing in less than 1 minute and lasting less than 30 minutes. Hallucinogen users refer to the experiences brought on by these drugs as "trips," calling the unpleasant experiences "bad trips."

Along with hallucinations, other short-term general effects include:

• increased heart rate
• nausea
• intensified feelings and sensory experiences
• changes in sense of time (for example, time passing by slowly)

Specific short-term effects of some hallucinogens include:

• increased blood pressure, breathing rate, or body temperature
• loss of appetite
• dry mouth
• sleep problems
• mixed senses (such as "seeing" sounds or "hearing" colors)
• spiritual experiences
• feelings of relaxation or detachment from self/environment
• uncoordinated movements
• excessive sweating
• panic
• paranoia—extreme and unreasonable distrust of others
• psychosis—disordered thinking detached from reality

Long-Term Effects

Little is known about the long-term effects of hallucinogens. Researchers do know that ketamine users may develop symptoms that include ulcers in the bladder, kidney problems, and poor memory. Repeated use of PCP can result in long-term effects that may continue for a year or more after use stops, such as:

• speech problems
• memory loss
• weight loss
• anxiety
• depression and suicidal thoughts

Hallucinogens can cause severe visual disturbances.
Photo by Steve Johnson/CC BY/

Though rare, long-term effects of some hallucinogens include the following:

• Persistent psychosis—a series of continuing mental problems, including:
  • visual disturbances
  • disorganized thinking
  • paranoia
  • mood changes
• Flashbacks—recurrences of certain drug experiences. They often happen without warning and may occur within a few days or more than a year after drug use. In some users, flashbacks can persist and affect daily functioning, a condition known as hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder (HPPD). These people continue to have hallucinations and other visual disturbances, such as seeing trails attached to moving objects.
• Symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for other disorders, such as stroke or a brain tumor

What are other risks of hallucinogens?

Other risks or health effects of many hallucinogens remain unclear and need more research. Known risks include the following:

• Some psilocybin users risk poisoning and possibly death from using a poisonous mushroom by mistake.
• High doses of PCP can cause seizures, coma, and death, though death more often results from accidental injury or suicide during PCP intoxication. Interactions between PCP and depressants such as alcohol and benzodiazepines (prescribed to relieve anxiety or promote sleep—alprazolam [Xanax®], for instance) can also lead to coma.
• Some bizarre behaviors resulting from hallucinogens that users display in public places may prompt public health or law enforcement personnel intervention.
• While hallucinogens' effects on the developing fetus are unknown, researchers do know that mescaline in peyote may affect the fetus of a pregnant woman using the drug.

Are hallucinogens addictive?

Evidence indicates that certain hallucinogens can be addictive or that people can develop a tolerance to them. Use of some hallucinogens also produces tolerance to other similar drugs.

For example, LSD is not considered an addictive drug because it doesn't cause uncontrollable drug-seeking behavior. However, LSD does produce tolerance, so some users who take the drug repeatedly must take higher doses to achieve the same effect. This is an extremely dangerous practice, given the unpredictability of the drug. In addition, LSD produces tolerance to other hallucinogens, including psilocybin.

On the other hand, PCP is a hallucinogen that can be addictive. People who stop repeated use of PCP experience drug cravings, headaches, and sweating as common withdrawal symptoms.

Scientists need more research into the tolerance or addiction potential of hallucinogens.

How can people get treatment for addiction to hallucinogens?

There are no government-approved medications to treat addiction to hallucinogens. While inpatient and/or behavioral treatments can be helpful for patients with a variety of addictions, scientists need more research to find out if behavioral therapies are effective for addiction to hallucinogens.

Points to Remember

• Hallucinogens are a diverse group of drugs that alter perception, thoughts, and feelings. They causehallucinations, or sensations and images that seem real though they are not. Some hallucinogens also cause users to feel out of control or disconnected from their body and environment.
• People use hallucinogens in a wide variety of ways, including smoking, snorting, and absorbing through the lining in the mouth.
• Hallucinogens interfere with actions of brain chemicals responsible for functions that include:
  • mood
  • sensory perception
  • sleep
  • body temperature
  • muscle control
  • pain perception
  • memory
• The effects of hallucinogens can begin within 20 to 90 minutes and can last as long as 6 to 12 hours.
• Along with hallucinations, other short-term general effects of hallucinogens include:
  • increased heart rate
  • nausea
  • intensified feelings and sensory experiences
  • changes in sense of time
• Persistent psychosis and flashbacks are two long-term effects associated with some hallucinogens.
• Evidence indicates that certain hallucinogens can be addictive or that people can develop a tolerance to them.
• There are no government-approved medications to treat addiction to hallucinogens. Scientists need more research to find out if behavioral therapies are effective for addiction to hallucinogens.

Learn More

For more information about hallucinogens, please visit:

www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/hallucinogens

www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/commonly-abused-drugs-charts

This publication is available for your use and may be reproduced in its entirety without permission from NIDA. Citation of the source is appreciated, using the following language: Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This page was last updated January 2016

Consciousness may be the product of carefully balanced chaos

from sciencemag.org

from sciencemag.org


By David ShultzJan. 26, 2016

Is my yellow the same as your yellow? Does your pain feel like my pain? The question of whether the human consciousness is subjective or objective is largely philosophical. But the line between consciousness and unconsciousness is a bit easier to measure. In a new study of how anesthetic drugs affect the brain, researchers suggest that our experience of reality is the product of a delicate balance of connectivity between neurons—too much or too little and consciousness slips away.

“It’s a very nice study,” says neuroscientist Melanie Boly at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the work. “The conclusions that they draw are justified.”

Previous studies of the brain have revealed the importance of “cortical integration” in maintaining consciousness, meaning that the brain must process and combine multiple inputs from different senses at once. Our experience of an orange, for example, is made up of sight, smell, taste, touch, and the recollection of our previous experiences with the fruit. The brain merges all of  these inputs—photons, aromatic molecules, etc.—into our subjective experience of the object in that moment.

“There is new meaning created by the interaction of things,” says Enzo Tagliazucchi, a physicist at the Institute for Medical Psychology in Kiel, Germany. Consciousness ascribes meaning to the pattern of photons hitting your retina, thus differentiating you from a digital camera. Although the brain still receives these data when we lose consciousness, no coherent sense of reality can be assembled.

In order to look for the signature of consciousness in the brain, Tagliazucchi and his colleagues used a drug called propofol—an anesthetic drug used in surgery—to induce loss of consciousness in participants while they were inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine’s scanner. fMRI works by tracking blood flow in the brain, which can be used as a real-time proxy for electrical activity when neurons fire. The team recorded data from 12 participants in states of wakefulness, ongoing sedation, unconsciousness, and recovery.

The results, published online today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, show thatbrain activity varies widely between conscious and unconscious states. The difference may come down to how the brain “explores the space of its own possible configurations,” Tagliazucchi says.

During wakeful consciousness, participants’ brains generated “a flurry of ever-changing activity,” and the fMRI showed a multitude of overlapping networks activating as the brain integrated its surroundings and generated a moment to moment “flow of consciousness.” After the propofol kicked in, brain networks had reduced connectivity and much less variability over time. The brain seemed to be stuck in a rut—using the same pathways over and over again.

The results suggest that, in the brain, there is an optimal level of connectivity between neurons that creates the maximum number of possible pathways. If each neuron can be thought of as a node in the network, consciousness might result from exploring the network as thoroughly as possible. But the most diverse networks—the ones with the largest possible number of arrangements—don’t necessarily have the maximum amount of neuronal connectivity.

If every neuron in the brain were directly connected to every other neuron, however, the brain would become too homogenous, and one signal would become indistinguishable from the next, Tagliazucchi explains. “They all fire or they all stay quiet.” Instead, consciousness might emerge from a careful balancing that causes the brain to “explore” the maximum number of unique pathways to generate meaning, he says. The researchers call this balance point “a critical point.”

“[It’s] like cars exploring the streets of the city,” Tagliazucchi says. “If the cars move always in the same restrictive manner, if they move from point A to point B and back, at the end of the day you don’t really understand the city. But if the cars are thorough explorers and go through all possible parts of the city, you get a map that’s very close to the actual map of the city. At the critical point, the cars are exploring the streets in the optimal way.”

Unlike cars, though, the flow of electricity through our brains is not driven by some sentient force with will or intent. And, in fact, what causes the brain to move between states of consciousness and unconsciousness—to and from the critical point—remains unknown. “If you’re in a critical point, the brain is really chaotic,” Boly says. “If you’re far from there, it’s too monotonous or stable.”

That stability could explain what makes it hard to wake people from a coma. Tagliazucchi hopes that by understanding where the critical points lie, and how they’re maintained, we might eventually rouse coma patients from unconscious states, coaxing the brain to begin exploring its streets in just the right way. 

Posted in:

• Brain & Behavior

DOI: 10.1126/science.aae0275

The Psychoactive Opioid Kratom Can Force a Broader Drug Legalization Debate

from inverse.com


The leafy green drug's Xanax-like high has officials itching to ban it, but it has the potential to treat addiction to more serious drugs.


Yasmin TayagDecember 4, 2015

As the pot debate rages on, kratom, a psychoactive drug made from the leaves of a Southeast Asian tree, is quietly flooding the online recreational drug market. Its Xanax-like high, rumored side effects, and addictive potential have some state drug enforcers itching to ban it. But, as physicians at a Wisconsin hearing pointed out on Tuesday, it’s a lot less dangerous than the prescription opioids that have almost 9 million Americans in their grip. It might even offer a way to help.

Is kratom fated to undergo unnecessary criminalization, following in the steps of its now widely accepted and medically beneficial green predecessor? The answer to that question is relevant not only for users, but for precedent.

The scientific data needed to make a reasoned decision is lacking, but history provides the necessary framework. In Thailand, the leaves were traditionally chewed by field laborers seeking an extra boost, much like coca leaves in Peru. Planting the kratom-producing Mitragyna speciosa tree became illegal in 1943 — but not necessarily for safety reasons: Some officials have argued that the ban was enacted because kratom offered a way out of opium addiction at a time when the opium industry was raking in profits. Despite the ban, which wasalmost overturned in 2013 to help wean addicts off harder drugs like meth, kratom tea still remains popular, most often cut with cough syrup and Coca Cola to make a cocktail known locally as “4x100.”

America’s relationship with the drug is still in its early stages. The DEA classifies it as a “drug of concern” but hasn’t banned it outright. Kratom’s major psychoactive substance, an alkaloid called mytraginine, has opioid-like effects — stimulation and pain relief at low doses, sedation at high doses, and euphoria at even higher ones. Different varieties (stateside, our relationship with kratom is still in its early stages) — “Bali” for euphoria, “Green Vein Kali” for painkilling and stimulation — are comically easy to buy online.

In Thailand, kratom tea is mixed with cough syrup and Coca Cola to make a narcotic cocktail known as "4x100."

Different varieties promise different highs — “Bali” for euphoria, “Green Vein Kali” for painkilling and stimulation — thanks to compounds that also trigger serotonergic and adrenergic activity.

These effects can be fun: Kratom can provide everything from relaxation to a boost in sex drive to stress relief. Because kratom can trick the brain into feeling like it’s on morphine, its effects can also be helpful. This is specifically true in regards to opioid addicts, a not inconsiderable American population. Those concerned with their or other’s prescription drug abuse have used it as substitute for physically addictive opioids like hydrocodone, documenting their experiences on message boards all over the internet.

Which is all to say that kratom is undoubtedly a drug and doubtedly a dangerous one. Its arrival on the U.S. market and adoption as a psychoactive aperitif would have, in the past, put drug enforcement agencies in the Caesarian position of giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. Inaction would be the more radical action. But, in the wake of states legalizing marijuana, the law-and-order default no longer represents political self inoculation. Unnecessary drug bans — and all drug bans are considered unnecessary to some — are politically unpopular and often heaped in medical and scientific scorn. Kratom is unlikely to become part of the mainstream drug debate, but its positive effects could make it a martyr if a ban is instituted.

That’s not to say that kratom doesn’t have negative effects or addictive potential.Withdrawal causes hostility, aggression, and diminishment of emotional control. And the lack of sound data on its effects make self-medication a risky endeavor. The supply chain is also questionable at best. Buying drugs off the internet, though common practice, is generally more dangerous than not buying drugs off the internet. But, like weed, kratom seems to strike a rare balance: It offers noticeable effects but appears to be (pending study) relatively benign.

There is plenty of reason for the government to finance or conduct research on kratom but little reason to ban it without reproducible results. That, of course, augurs nothing unless drug agencies confirmation bias has diminished in strength or changed vector.

Kratom is the drug to watch. It could represent the frothy front of a coming wave of commercially available psychoactive remedies and it could represent nothing but itself, the prunings of a non-native species.

Photos via Getty

Yasmin Tayag@yeahyeahyasmin

Yasmin Tayag is a writer and former biologist living in New York City. A Toronto girl at heart, her writing also appears in The Last Magazine and SciArt in America, and you might recognize her as a former host of Scientific American's YouTube series Instant Egghead.