Mind Altering vs Physical Altering

[khrma]

First, I want to apologize for putting this is the wrong section. I do not know where it is suppose to go.

Second, I want to know the name of, if there is a name for, A) drugs like pyschadelics and dissociatives that alter your mind B) drugs like meth, coke, heroin, etc (and even alchohol I would say) that primarily alter your body.

Third, I would like to know how one would go about getting some one away from these "body drugs", which I would believe to be far more harmful than "mind drugs".

I would then like to produce virtual gold to any genie, god, or shaman who presents answers to these three wishes. Begin!

[Mint boi]

eh? can you really break drugs into two catagories like that?

[TMM]

I'd say the vast majority of drugs used recreationally are primarily 'mind altering', including things such as MDMA and cocaine. As implied above, I don't think it's a very useful method of categorisation.

[khrma]

Yeah, I understand generally what you are saying but I think cocaine or heroin makes you just less intelligent and more weak; where as ketamine or mescaline gives you insight and opens your mind a bit.

[Mint boi]

in all fairness that just a personal opinion, and has no real basis!! are you saying that heroin in a long term way makes you less intelligent? cos thats just not true at all. diamorphine has no negative effects bar addiction and tolerance

[psyche]

Yeah, I understand generally what you are saying but I think cocaine or heroin makes you just less intelligent and more weak; where as ketamine or mescaline gives you insight and opens your mind a bit.

Wouldn't making 'less intelligent' count for a psychoactive effect, and in addition ofcourse there is the jollyness and peace of mind. Anything affecting the CNS, the brain behind tight barriers, is considered psychoactive in my opinion. Cocaine doesn't make many people weak, and it actually helps perform mentally faster and in the short-term, better.

[khrma]

Wow, way to be open-minded.

All I was saying was that they are generally not drugs that you do that open your mind up. They are just "feel good" type drugs. Not to say that you feel bad whilst on them, o rthat you can't feel good whilst on the others; simply that it was general. I only thoguht that there should be a name for them each, as I and not I alone, have discussed that there is indeed a signifigant difference between cocaine/heroin/meth and dissociatives/pyschedelics. So rather than being pompous, you could merely humor me in seeing the difference, or helping me see the likeness; I do not see any reason to be rude and point to either bad description or poor explanation.

[Mint boi]

there already are catagories for drugs, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens ect. its not possible to lump everything into two catagories, there's too much diversity.

[JDreaming]

Although SWIM is a psychedelic explorer who is strongly distrustful of most of the more supposedly "physical" drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, every psychoactive SWIM has ever sampled had a mixture of strong physical and mental effects. Even the most supposedly psychological and psychedelic drugs have strong physical components- like the warming, softening body high psilocybin mushrooms gives along with the visuals. Or the physical sensations of movement 5-MeO-DMT induces, where one's body seems to suddenly shift about sixteen miles off to a random direction. In fact if someone was determined enough not to learn anything in the process of using a psychedelic, they could easily get so wrapped up in the physicalities as to pay attention only to them for the duration of the experience. Is it really that different if one chemical stimulates the eyes to cause the illusion of movement and color, while another stimulates the skin to create the illusion of pleasure? Is one of those things really automatically mind-enhancing while the other will rot one's brain?

Although I understand what you're saying about how certain drugs tend not to open up the mind- and SWIM avoids euphoric stimulants, euphoric depressants and classic opiates because he doubts they would be productive or educational for him- some people do seem to have had their minds changed or even enlarged by all sorts of drugs, even those that are regarded by some as purely hedonistic. I would never touch heroin, but the mix of ultimate pleasure and ultimate pain that it opens up has certainly inspired many great creative minds. And all these chemicals act on different receptors in the brain, whether it's LSD or heroin... but since the brain controls the body, most of what happens inside the brain is felt by various parts of the body as well.

[khrma]

Jdreaming, thank you for your more enlightening post, it was far more useful than those previous to it. I would almost like to draw a line around certain drugs that are positive enough in the majority of the people that use them (as I had called them "mind altering") so that to say they are not nessacarily unable to be legalized (a far stretch, no doubt, but imagine rec centers that give you a controlled but fun enviroment to take LSD with paid "sitters"). I of coarse am not ignorant to the mental effects of cocaine or heroin, but they are generally just not anything other than a few feelings that are always produced by the drug because of the state that it puts you in. I would be more inclined to call them something like "vice drugs", as they are (like alchohol) the sort of drug that one would look to in time of sin (ie. depression, etc). Now I am not saying anything in absolutes nor in every circumstance; just generalities. I think that other drugs however, could be used in fun/enlightening experiances; as in the example I gave with acid. Of coarse there would/could still be abuse of any of said drugs. I still say it is far more likely for drug users to abuse heroin or cocaine to "get f#%ked up" than it is for the regular users of lsd or mushrooms to; and vice versa with searching for enlightening experiances.

[psyche]

Jdreaming put it well, I didn't have enough energy to post lengthy post at the time of my posting. I wasn't meaning to be rude, but merely express my viewpoint of how unspesific and overlapping is the bordering between drugs acting on mind and those that act on body. In addition SWIM found, to my surprise too, that amphetamine really had great intellectual effect that has aroused his interest. He hasn't taken full-blown dose, however. Before he thought it's just about feeling good and it's relatively dangerous, so he thought there's not much of interest in there.

I of coarse am not ignorant to the mental effects of cocaine or heroin, but they are generally just not anything other than a few feelings that are always produced by the drug because of the state that it puts you in.

Can't help picking this up, since in my view psychedelics too, no matter how godly glorious they are by subjective measures, produce the effects and feelings just because of the state they put you in. Ofcourse the psychedelic experience varies a lot from time to time, but that's what happening with other drugs, but not that much. Yes, I can see how that is grounds for classification to two different gategories, but in my opinion that is overly generalized. Since even such simiral things than mushrooms and LSD have enormous differences, seeing dissociatives and psychedelics lump into the same category upsets me since they act so differently. Dissociatives merely block signals from outside (and inside) to let more power to sub-conscious and are more harmful than psychedelics.

Ok, I understand that this sort of division could be made. It is broad, but it holds. But I don't see the point of it. And these abovementioned things bother me so much I'd prefer the classification based on pharmacological action. Anyways I'm starting to suspect I have OCPD. Those little details that don't match bug me.

Third, I would like to know how one would go about getting some one away from these "body drugs", which I would believe to be far more harmful than "mind drugs".

Then you'd have to remove the dissociatives from the mind-drugs, since there are some very black sheep in their reservoir.

[khrma]

True point, dissociatives are indeed more harmful than more hallucinagins are, I believe, mainly though I would like to convine SWIM's girlfriend to drop her seldom yet destructive habits with cocaine and methadone; so that she could switch completely to dissociatives and pyschedelics (which was my main reason for starting this thread, though I had thought it would be a thread worth more if it had a topic larger than a personal problem). I feel that if she were to drop those habits for the "better" drugs I have been rambling on about, that she would be better off in the long run in her health, not to mention in her wallet too..

And I apologize to you pysche, and fully retract my previous stament about you being rude, I was merely frustrated.