metabolic need for it. If you can’t get cocaine you eat, you go to sleep and forget it. I have talked with people who used cocaine for years, then were suddenly cut off from their supply. None of them experienced any withdrawal symptoms. Indeed it is difficult to see how a front brain stimulant could be addicting. Addiction seems to be a monopoly of sedatives.
Continued use of cocaine leads to nervousness, depression, sometimes drug psychosis with paranoid hallucinations. The nervousness and depression resulting from cocaine use are not alleviated by more cocaine. They are effectively relieved by morphine. The use of cocaine by a morphine addict always leads to larger and more frequent injections of morphine.
The use of marijuana varies greatly with the individual. Some smoke it constantly, some occasionally, not a few dislike it intensely. It seems to be especially unpopular with confirmed morphine addicts, many of whom take a puritanical view of marijuana smoking. The ill effects of marijuana have been grossly exaggerated in the U.S. Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror. Anyone given to these alien vices deserves the complete ruin of his mind and body. People believe what they want to believe without regard for the facts. Marijuana is not habit forming. I have never seen evidence of any ill effects from moderate use. Drug psychosis may result from prolonged and excessive use. Barbiturates. – The barbiturates are definitely addicting if taken in large quantities over any period of time (about a gramme a day will cause addiction.) Withdrawal syndrome is more dangerous than morphine withdrawal, consisting of hallucinations with epilepsy type convulsions. Addicts often injure themselves flopping about on concrete floors (concrete floors being a usual corollary of abrupt withdrawal). Morphine addicts often take barbiturates to potentiate inadequate morphine rations. Some of them become barbiturate addicts as well. I once took two nembutal capsules (one and half grains each) every night for four months and suffered no withdrawal symptoms. Barbiturate addiction is a question of quantity. It is probably not a metabolic addiction like morphine, but a mechanical reaction from excessive front brain sedation. The barbiturate addict presents a shocking spectacle. He can not coordinate, he staggers, falls off bar stools, goes to sleep in the middle of a sentence, drops food out of his mouth. He is confused, quarrelsome and stupid. And he almost always uses other drugs, anything he can lay hands on: alcohol, benzedrine, opiates, marijuana. Barbiturate users are looked down on in addict society. 123
'Goof ball bums. They got no class to them.' The next step down is coal gas and milk, or sniffing ammonia in a bucket – 'The scrub woman’s kick'
It seems to me that barbiturates cause the worst possible form of addiction, unsightly, deteriorating, difficult to treat.
Benzedrine. – This is a cerebral stimulant like cocaine. Large doses cause prolonged sleeplessness with feelings of exhilaration. The period of euphoria is followed by a horrible depression. The drug tends to increase anxiety. It causes indigestion and loss of appetite. I know of only one case where definite symptoms followed the withdrawal of benzedrine. This was a woman of my acquaintance who used incredible quantities of benzedrine for six months.
.During this period she developed a drug psychosis and was hospitalized for ten days. She continued the use of benzedrine, but was suddenly cut off. She suffered an asthma type seizure. She could not get her breath and turned blue. I gave her a dose of antihistamine (thepherene) which afforded immediate relief. The symptoms did not return.
Peyote (mescaline). This is undoubtedly a stimulant. It dilates the pupils, keeps one awake. Peyote is extremely nauseating. Users experience difficulty keeping it down long enough to realize the effect, which is similar, in some respects, to marijuana. There is increased sensitivity to impression, especially to colours. Peyote intoxication causes a peculiar vegetable consciousness or identification with the plant. Everything looks like a peyote plant. It is easy to understand why the Indians believe there is a resident spirit in the peyote cactus.
Overdose of peyote may lead to respiratory paralysis and death. I know of one case. There is no reason to believe that peyote is addicting.
Yage or Ayuahuaska (the most commonly used Indian names for Bannisteria Caapi) is a hallucinating narcotic that produces a profound derangement of the senses. In overdose it is a convulsant poison. The antidote is a barbiturate or other strong, anti-convulsant sedative. Anyone taking Yage for the first time should have a sedative ready in the event of an overdose. The hallucinating properties of Yage have led to its use by Medicine Men to potentiate their powers. They also use it as a cure-all in the treatment of various illnesses. Yage lowers the body temperature and consequently is of some use in the treatment of fever. It is a powerful antihelminthic, indicated for the treatment of stomach or intestinal worms. Yage induces a state of conscious anaesthesia, and is used in rites where the initiates must undergo a painful ordeal like whipping with knotted vines, or exposer to the sting of ants.
So far as I could discover only the fresh cut vine is active. I found no way to dry, extract or preserve the active principal. No tinctures proved active. The dried vine is completely inert. The pharmacology of yage requires laboratory research. Since the crude extract is such a powerful, 124
hallucinating narcotic, perphaps even more spectacular results could be obtained with synthetic variations. Certainly the matter warrants further research*
