-Caveat Lector-
Someone in usenet asked this question and my response turned into
something that I wanted to share here.
Someone asked:
> Does anyone know what the interactions are between pot and psychiatric
> drugs, such as Ritalin or Prozac?
I can't tell you how they react with each other, but I can tell you the
difference in how they make you feel.
When I was high everything *looked* different. That's not to say I was
seeing different things, but my perception was different so that I could
see and perceive more details, noticing things I had never noticed
before. Being high made me more comfortable in reality, as if
"everything is okay" which I think accounts for much of the feeling of
deeper friendship among friends. My thinking was sharper. Ideas came
more smoothly and with more clarity, though when I tried to express
them, sometimes I would get lost during the explanation and eventually
stop talking altogether. :-) That was part of the fun of it, too,
because even though you might get lost and trail off, you know that
you're not losing your mind. Coming down from a high is like being
gently settled onto a pillow. There's no withdrawal and there's no
craving for more weed unless you just want to do it.
As for antipsychotic drugs, I've never had Ritalin or Prozac, but I have
been given Risperdal and Chloropromazine (Thorazine). The effects are
the exact opposite of what weed does. Where weed takes you to a
peaceful and serene mode of existence, Risperdal, Chloropromazine and I
suspect other anti-psychotics take you into a black hole of existence,
where you're barely able to form thoughts, and even when you manage to,
there's no inner dialog. It's like talking to someone, but getting no
response—just a blank stare that doesn't even acknowledge your
existence.
When I was doped up on Risperdal or Thorazine either one, I was so out
of it that I did anything I was told if for no other reason to avoid
conflict. It seemed to make me weaker and at times I felt like I was in
one of those nightmares where you're threatened somehow and it drains
your very energy so that in a conflict you know you can't possibly offer
any resistance. When you feel that way while on medication, and at
regular intervals someone is shoving a pill cup in your face to make you
take more, it is the lowest form of degradation there is, especially if
you know you don't need the stuff. I wanted to think. But the medicine
they wanted me to take prevented it.
What's more, the most embarrassing moment of my life came when I
literally could not talk within two days after they gave me Risperdal.
They upped my dose to about three milligrams and about an hour and a
half later I was called in to talk to the panel of psychiatrists. It
started out okay, but I suddenly found that whenever I would try to
talk, the muscle in my tongue pushed upward and I couldn't get my tongue
off the roof of my mouth while I was talking. When I stopped, it
dropped down. As a person who has never had trouble talking, and who
always makes it a point to speak clearly to be understood, this was a
situation that just made me crumble with shame because I did not have
the power to bring myself under control. The side-effects of the
medicine had me and I hated them all for giving it to me.
Another person who I had met at the mental hospital from which we had
been transferred was also given Risperdal. The effect on him was more
horrid. He was outside and suddenly he was bent over forward and his
neck went into a spasm that turned his head damned near all the way
around. Nobody was touching him, yet he couldn't get out of that
position. One of the staff members had to run in and get another pill
to nullify the side-effects. Within 15 minutes he was okay.
So my experience is one that wonders what the reasoning is behind
keeping marijuana illegal. Marijuana never did these things to me.
Marijuana never locked up my tongue. It never caused me to lose control
of my muscles so that I was knotted up like a pretzel. Yet it's
perfectly okay for psychiatrists to prescribe this garbage to people
which turns them into mindless zombies.
My roommate is a shining example. He was given Zoloft along with a host
of other drugs when he was admitted to a mental hospital after having
several delusions about UFO's, Witch Mountain (from the movie _Escape to
Witch Mountain_), conspiracies, the secret government, God and Satan.
The result was a person who walked with his lower arms and hands out in
front of him at all times and he took little baby steps.
So when you go to Alcoholics Anonymous they talk about self-medicating.
In drug rehab I was forced to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings even
though I hated alcohol and I didn't even drink. Even so, I knew where a
Narcotics Anonymous meeting was at so I went there whenever I could,
though mostly because it got me out of the place in which I was locked
up. I only went into this place because it was either that or live on
the street at that point in time. Anyway, while marijuana might be
self-medicating, it certainly offers a pleasant effect, while the
effects of prescribed mental drugs offers a nightmare of total mental
silence which often resulted in increased dreaming. This should raise a
huge flag in itself. We dream to allow the mind to resolve issues. If
you can't think in the daytime, you can't resolve issues, therefore your
mind does it at night on auto-pilot. Cannabis is typically a dream
inhibitor. Being high is much like a dream, but a calm dream in which
you know nothing bad can happen. Your most pressing issues are
resolved, hence the decreased dreaming.
Being high is a good feeling. It's a feeling that *everything* is fine
and the world is full of friends. But when you're high and happy, then
suddenly someone who disapproves finds out that you're stoned, and they
start yelling at you, suddenly it's like you're plunged into a
nightmare. Your peaceful reality has been invaded by a tyrant who will
stop at nothing to make sure you never smoke weed again.
So we have the age old question: Who started it? Who caused the
problems? The weed smoker was perfectly content, happy and carefree.
Then someone comes in and starts yelling in disapproval. When someone
starts yelling, therein lies the problem. I can't imagine the horror of
some stoner friends sitting around, minding their own business, when all
of a sudden, a gang of ten cops coming busting in the door, screaming at
everybody and waving guns and rifles around. And cops (and people who
watch COPS) are often amazed that people could smoke weed. I mean, look
at how confused they are. Well, if I was in a happy time with my
friends and we were giddy and laughing at our own humor, I would be
confused to if suddenly there was a gun shoved up my nose by someone who
is supposed to protect life. I wasn't a threat to anyone. I was
minding my own business.
It all works well to keep marijuana in the dark and in the underground.
But chemically speaking, is it really dangerous? My experience says no,
especially in comparison to anti-psychotic drugs such as Risperdol and
Thorazine. Cannabis makes you feel light and alive. Anti-psychotics
make you feel dead and submissive. Conspiracy theorists would like that
one. It's easier to control a population of dead-heads and submissives
than it is to control a population of light-hearted stoners who are
doing no wrong.
It's not that stoners are defiant. In fact, if a stoner knows a good
time can be had by going along, he will likely do it. But a stoner's
perceptions are keen, too. They can smell deception a mile away.
Conspiracy theorists like that one, too. If for some reason the
government has reasons to deceive Americans, they certainly wouldn't
want us smoking something which would make us keen to their deception,
would they? They want us off marijuana. And they want people who have
never tried it to hate it or be scared of it. And they want to tell
kids that it's bad before they even hit the third grade because they're
very impressionable when they're that young and it's good to get "the
right ideas" in their minds in those impressionable years.
Damon
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