P S Y C H E D E L I C S:
LSD
What is it? LSD stands for "Lysergic acid diethylamide," but it's commonly known as "acid," "sugar," "window pane," "blotter," and "barrel." It's made in laboratories and swallowed. First developed in the 1940's as a possible cure for schizophrenia (an extreme mental illness), LSD is an amazingly powerful drug. Doses as low as 25 one millionths of a gram can cause changes in your brain! (That's like a speck of dust!)
How does it make you feel? All psychedelics have a strong effect on the user's mood and emotions. Because of this, users are just as likely to feel very happy on the drug as they are to feel very frightened. Psychedelics can also make the user feel nauseous, anxious, depressed, and trapped in a world gone out of control. Users can never predict what they will experience while taking LSD because it effects so many pathways in the brain.
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What does it do to your body? Like amphetamines, LSD can increase heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and sweating. It overloads the sensory switchboard of the brain so that the user is bombarded with all kind of visual stimuli and doesn't know how to sort things out. |
Hallucinations (seeing things that aren't there) is a common effect of LSD use. Some of them, like faces of friends changing into awful looking creatures, can be really scary. When this is happening, users have absolutely no control over what they are seeing. They are also very likely to have trouble convincing themselves that what they see is not real. It sure looks real at the time. |
How easy is it to become "used to" the drug? All drugs are poison to your body. But because your body is so amazingly devoted to keeping you alive, it can become "tolerant" to having poison in it. LSD is such a powerful drug that the smallest dose can produce effects. Long term heavy users can lose a permanent grip on reality.
What is an overdose? Because of the power of the drug, it's impossible to know how much is "too much." Any LSD user can, at any time, become overwhelmed by feelings. This is called a "bad trip." Symptoms can include extreme feelings of paranoia (fear and mistrust of everyone and everything) and anxiety. LSD exaggerates the mood and mental state of the user. That means a bad trip can also be triggered by the user starting out in a bad emotional place or an environment that doesn't feel safe. People on bad trips feel like they are going crazy, and it is extremely frightening for them. It can take 8 to 12 hours for the body to neutralize the drug and for the bad trip to be over.
What's withdrawal like? Normally when the body has metabolized (burned off/neutralized) the LSD, the effects of the drug disappear. This can take from 8 to 12 hours. But if the user is not an emotionally stable person to begin with, a couple of things can happen. LSD can push them over the edge into a severe depression, or a mental breakdown. Also, a "flashback" (a vivid re-experiencing of a bad trip) can be triggered months or years after the person has taken the drug. If a flashback happens when someone is driving a car, for example, it could be very dangerous.
Is it legal? No.
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