Primary care doc here. I have seen quite a few of these drugs started in acutely psychotic patients, post-operative trauma patients, chronic pain patients, etc, etc. These portraits strike me more as visual expressions of the preconceptions a layperson has about a variety of meds. People come in with all sorts of preconceptions about what they're going to get out of a prescription. Part of my job is getting them from where their preconceptions are to where they need to be.
Have I taken all these drugs? No. I've taken a few ambien on trans-Pacific flights, I've had some opioids after surgery. I've dealt with patients taking them or seeking them. Some were sick. Some of them, really sick. Some are 20-year-old grocery store cashiers with low cut shirts and miniskirts, all dolled up, trying to score some xanax on a Saturday for the next rave, pissed when I disappoint them.
My favorite is cephalexin. It's an antibiotic. Most of the side effects are associated with the molecular biology of bactericide. That one verges on pure farce.
Another one that makes my spidy-sense go off is the wild divergence between representations in response to opioids. They're just not that different, especially when compared to the differences with other classes psychotropics in the set.
If some random stranger came up to me on the street and said they had a plan like this, I'd probably say "It's a free country. If you're asking for medical advice, come to my clinic."
If my kids came to me with this plan I'd probably say "You are taking non-zero risks with your one-and-only brain, liver, body in general, and you will learn nothing the world doesn't already know. If anything, you'll cloud the picture. I strongly urge you to avoid drugs unless they are medically indicated.
"If you want to get high, come to Del Mar with me on Sunday at 8 am and we can swim with the dolphins. Or run to the top of Black Mountain or run from the Noe Valley to the top of Twin Peaks. Or go rock climbing, or ride a bicycle from Ramona to Borrego Springs and we can stop for apple pie in Santa Ysabel. These drugs are a pale comparison."
Have you actually done any of the drugs Saunders did? If you had, you wouldn't write:
"[R]ide a bicycle from Ramona to Borrego Springs and we can stop for apple pie
in Santa Ysabel. These drugs are a pale comparison."
I'm all for some early morning bike riding and... well, I'm paleo, so kinda oppose the apple pie thing... but I have no idea how you can suggest that: getting away with the wife for the weekend at a spa... with some Ecstasy... is a "pale comparison" to some early morning bike riding...
... you will learn nothing the world doesn't already know.
The world doesn't know what's going on in my head (or why was Wil Wheaton's post on depression so highly regarded?). Drugs [used 1-2 times per year] have helped me understand what's going on in my head. Therefore, I have learned something the world doesn't know and your statement is false. [Of course, you could argue that drugs only confused me into thinking I knew myself better, but... meh.]
If anything, you'll cloud the picture.
My drug use has done anything but cloud the picture. Unfortunately, I did know people (particularly in college) for whom picture clouding occurred.
It is more likely to that these drawings we're done after the artist came down off the drugs (but most likely just after reading about them. These pictures are clearly a conscious drawing of how people think about the drugs, not the product of a brain and hand under the influence).
On nitrous, he wouldn't have the muscle control to draw the picture.
Compare to the famous set of pictures drawn by an artist on LSD.
Have I taken all these drugs? No. I've taken a few ambien on trans-Pacific flights, I've had some opioids after surgery. I've dealt with patients taking them or seeking them. Some were sick. Some of them, really sick. Some are 20-year-old grocery store cashiers with low cut shirts and miniskirts, all dolled up, trying to score some xanax on a Saturday for the next rave, pissed when I disappoint them.
My favorite is cephalexin. It's an antibiotic. Most of the side effects are associated with the molecular biology of bactericide. That one verges on pure farce.
Another one that makes my spidy-sense go off is the wild divergence between representations in response to opioids. They're just not that different, especially when compared to the differences with other classes psychotropics in the set.
If some random stranger came up to me on the street and said they had a plan like this, I'd probably say "It's a free country. If you're asking for medical advice, come to my clinic."
If my kids came to me with this plan I'd probably say "You are taking non-zero risks with your one-and-only brain, liver, body in general, and you will learn nothing the world doesn't already know. If anything, you'll cloud the picture. I strongly urge you to avoid drugs unless they are medically indicated.
"If you want to get high, come to Del Mar with me on Sunday at 8 am and we can swim with the dolphins. Or run to the top of Black Mountain or run from the Noe Valley to the top of Twin Peaks. Or go rock climbing, or ride a bicycle from Ramona to Borrego Springs and we can stop for apple pie in Santa Ysabel. These drugs are a pale comparison."