Urban legends about drugs

Urban Legends about LSD

Various urban legends exist about LSD. The aura of mystique popularly associated with the drug, and a great deal of misinformation issued and propagated by anti-drug groups, particularly in United States anti-drug education programs in schools, provide fertile ground for misconceptions to take hold. Such misinformation may be propagated due to simple ignorance, or through deliberate attempts to frighten students away from LSD usage through scare tactics.

Bad LSD

The most widespread misinformation about LSD, is that it is possible for LSD to be tainted, and bad, or adulterated. While it is possible that a pill sold with the claim that it contains LSD actually contains something else, there are few substances as potent as LSD and also psychoactive that can be ingested in blotter or droplet form; most are effective only in doses too high for such administration. (The only possible exceptions are various psychedelic amphetamines including DOB, which produce LSD-like effects but would require larger pieces of blotter paper and is noticeably more bitter in taste, and Salvinorin-A, a drug with a very different side effects profile.) The most famous example of this legend spreading was at Woodstock, where there was an announcement from the stage not to use a certain variety of blotter. Expecting an LSD trip to be bad (due to concerns about contamination, or any other reason) is likely to cause the trip to be bad, perhaps reinforcing the legend. Contamination is a concern with certain other drugs.

Blue Star Tattoos

One popular meme is the blue star tattoo legend. This meme frequently surfaces in American elementary and middle schools in the form of a flyer that has been photocopied through many generations, which is distributed to parents by concerned school officials. It has also become popular on Internet mailing lists and websites. This legend states that a temporary lick-and-stick tattoo soaked in LSD and made in the form of a blue star, or of popular children's cartoon characters, is being distributed to children in the area in order to get them addicted to LSD. The flyer lists an inaccurate description of the effects of LSD, some attribution (typically to a well-regarded hospital or a vaguely specified "adviser to the president"), and instructs parents to contact police if they come across the blue star tattoos. No actual cases of LSD distribution to children in this manner have ever been documented (also, LSD is not addictive and unlikely to be enjoyed by an unwitting user, so there is no motivation for a dealer to do this). The legend is debunked at Snopes. As a final note, even if this or a similar legend were true, propogating a warning about a specific tattoo design would be unlikely to help matters, since those responsible could simply switch designs.

Retention of LSD in Spinal Fluid

A meme with particular appeal to anti-drug educators who wish to instill a fear of the potential long-term effects of LSD in their pupils, and also among casual high school age LSD users, is that the body stores crystallized LSD in spinal fluid or in fat cells, which at some point dislodges and causes horrific flashbacks, perhaps years later. Although the body does store some toxins in fat tissue, and residues of some drugs and toxins can be found in spinal fluid, LSD is not among these. It breaks down entirely within the body in hours, and its metabolites are excreted within days.

"Flashbacks" are themselves a dubious phenomenon. Most LSD users never experience flashbacks in the sense popularly described -- a resurgence of the drug effect months or years after last having taken it. However, the small number of people who experience severely traumatic bad trips may have a similar effect to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Different Types of LSD

A popular meme with high school and college age users is that there are different "types" of LSD, which produce different types of trips. The types are usually associated with a particular blotter paper design or other dosage form (e.g. sugarcube or geltab), and the resultant trips associated with each dosage form are typically described in terms such as that "blue pyramids [a blotter paper design] give body trips" (a trip of mainly physical sensations with not much mental effect) or a "head trip" (the reverse, mainly mental effects with little physical sensations) or "great visuals" (hallucinations).

While there is no actual physical variation in the LSD molecules carried on different substrates, this meme is self-reinforcing insofar as a user taking LSD who strongly expects to have a particular type of experience due to ingesting a particular substrate is thus much more likely to actually have that particular kind of experience. The only substantial differences could be the amount of micrograms per "dose".

Banana Peel Synthesis

Another popular theme among naïve LSD users is that it is possible to synthesize LSD from banana peels or other common household foods and chemicals, or that the synthesis of LSD can be easily accomplished in a bathtub. Variants of this legend often circulate on the Internet, and were popular on 'underground' BBSes run by high schoolers before the advent of widespread home Internet access. This myth is sometimes related in a way so as to bolster social standing within a drug-using social group through association with the purported chemist, e.g. "My boyfriend/cousin/friend/roommate makes LSD in the bathtub from banana peels". The actual synthesis requires university training in organic chemistry and requires both expensive laboratory equipment and expensive, carefully controlled precursor chemicals. A possible explanation for this particular urban legend is that it orginated from a pun; to 'trip' on a banana peel could easily become a joke at the expense of the ignorant.

Strychnine

Anti-drug educators frequently tell their students some variant on the theme of inevitable strychnine poisoning through LSD use, for example, that strychnine is commonly sold as a cheaper substitute for LSD by unscrupulous drug dealers; that strychnine is a byproduct of LSD synthesis; that the body produces strychnine as a result of LSD metabolism; or that strychnine is somehow necessary to bond LSD to blotter paper. None of these are true. These memes may even be believed and propagated by drug users themselves. Occasionally, LSD users themselves assume that the minor aches and fatigue associated with "coming down" off the drug are the result of strychnine. In reality, most hallucinogens cause some degree of mental or physical discomfort after the "trip" is over. This is a direct effect of the drug, not strychnine or any other adulterant. Additionally, strychnine itself is one of the most bitter substances known. The bitter taste can be detected at 1 part per million, which is well below the toxic level. Finally, the dangerous dose of strychnine is too high to be contained in a blotter square, even if the entire square were composed of the poison.

Strychnine has indeed rarely been discovered mixed with LSD and other drugs in a few samples recovered by law enforcement agencies, but these were all found in murder or attempted murder investigations where someone was being specifically targeted for poisoning, and not associated with recreational LSD use.

A related myth is that a new type of gang initiation requires the initiate to put a mixture of LSD and strychnine on the buttons of as many payphones as possible.

Fruit Juice Synergy

Several legends claim that drinking some specific type of fruit juice (varying from legend to legend) will intensify an LSD trip. While there is no specific physical evidence supporting this claim, if a person under the influence of LSD does something that they believe will intensify their trip, then it is likely to do so. Note that grapefruit juice does interfere with the metabolism of some drugs; it has not been tested in conjunction with LSD.

It is, however, true that mixing a juice containing citric acid (lemon juice, orange juice) may help extract the alkaloids from other drugs such as mushrooms. When making mushroom tea, the addition of citric acid will help make the psilocybin a salt (psilocybin citrate). Salt forms of alkaloids are more soluable in water. This myth may be a mutated form of this technique. It also may help the bioavailability of an oral drug.

It is also believed by some that ingestion of citric fruit juice can reduce the length of a trip if things have "gone bad".

Legally Psychotic

There is an urban legend that a person who has used LSD more than seven times (or ten times, depending on the version of this legend) is automatically legally declared psychotic. The same is often suggested with large doses, the difference being that the person is considered psychotic for the duration of the trip. This is nonsensical because there is no exact definition of "legally psychotic" and no links between LSD use and psychosis have been suggested by studies.

Various Atypical Psychotic Reactions

Anecdotal legends retell the stories of LSD users who:

• believed they could fly and jumped out of a high window (the comedian Bill Hicks noted that more intelligent users would probably try to take off from the ground first);
• jumped off of the balcony at a Phil and Friends Warfield show in San Francisco, endangering themselves and those below them
• believed themselves immortal and walked onto a highway, only to be hit by a car
• stared at the sun (or "had a religious conversation with the sun", depending on the version of this legend) and thus went blind;
• thought that they were oranges and locked themselves in a closet for hours for fear of being peeled (or, more gruesomely, tried to peel themselves with a knife)
• had a sheet of acid in their back pocket, sat on a wet bench, and now they are in a mental hospital
• someone "never came down" and now they think they are a glass of orange juice, constantly fearful of being "tipped" over and spilled, etc.

Altered or Varient Ecstacy

There is a very common misconception that ecstasy (MDMA) is often found on the street in an impure form. It is often thought to be cut with other drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamines, or a variety of designer drugs. This then gave way to the classification of "molly", a pure form of MDMA, which is supposedly the pure form of ecstacy. This is, of course, based on the assumption that all ecstacy found in tablet form is lacking in purity. The idea that most pills of ecstasy are less than pure in their content is not true, mostly because MDMA is one of the least expensive drugs by weight to manufacture. Any drug that it was mixed with would have a higher monetary value than ecstacy. Though it can be found in powder or gelcap, it's consistancy is usually the same. There are times when things other than MDMA are sold as ecstasy, but it is much rarer than has been accused. Although there is well-established documentation of one of these reactions (although this is disputed [1]), they are generally held to be rare and atypical; however, there is insufficient statistical data to warrant any precise claim. Ill-informed anti-drug educators sometimes present these reactions as common, possibly to warn students away from LSD by any means necessary. Delusions such as these are more common among LSD users with existing pre-psychotic mental illness. Some other drugs with hallucinogenic effects, such as DXM, have stronger tendencies to lead to such delusions (but DXM in high doses tends to interfere with physical coordination, in the same way alcohol does, which would make carrying out some of the above misadventures difficult).

Urban Legends about Mescaline

The primary urban legend about mescaline, claims of people to have taken, found, or bought pure extracted mescaline, as opposed to buying it synthesised from "scratch". All evidence seems to show that mescaline has never been extracted in any large quantities and distributed. Most often alleged users have instead ingested another phenethylamine or LSD.

Urban Legends about PCP

PCP is almost always described in pop culture in ways that are incompatible with its status as a dissociative anesthetic very similar to DXM and Ketamine. PCP is said to cause extremely powerful hallucinations, of the kind found in deliriants like Dramamine, but non-mundane.

Several drugs, such as PCP, crack, methamphetamine, etc. are said to cause superhuman strength, such that 10 strong and well trained policemen are needed to control an unarmed and untrained user of those drugs. This myth was promulgated in part by the movie "The Terminator", where Arnold Schwarzenegger's robotic character is mistakenly believed by police to be a man on PCP, because of his superior strength and violence.

This myth sometime results in unnecessary restraining violence against users of drugs. However, there is a modicum of truth in this, since it is hard to fight off an attacker who is under the influence of an anesthetic due to their diminished capacity to feel pain; or who is experiencing a possibly PCP-induced and adrenaline-enhanced rage. In either case, it may take a lot more force to bring someone down, contributing to the myth of super-human strength.

Urban Legends about Methamphetamine

Perhaps the most well known of the meth legends refers to people who heat/melt and then inhale crystal methamphetamine smoke. The legend states that the drug, once inhaled, will re-crystallize in large amounts inside the lungs, damaging them in the process. While inhaling meth fumes is likely to damage the lungs in some way, it isn't by crystallization. Street meth is usually in the form of methamphetamine hydrochloride, which is highly soluble in water. Human lungs are coated with a watery mucus, so any smoke inhaled will immediately dissolve in it, without any crystallization occurring.