Hallucinogens

- Animism is a common theme in the world's religions:
* The belief that animals, plants, rocks, and other natural features derive their special characteristics from a spirit contained within the object.
* If a plant contains a spirit, then eating the plant transfers this spirit to the person who consumes it, possibly giving that person special powers or insights.

Fact:
- Psychoactive plants that alter perceptions have been important both in medicine and in the development of spiritual and religious traditions and folklore.

- Phantastica: drugs that create a world of fantasy in our minds.
- Psychedelic: "mind-viewing", a term that controversially implies a beneficial, visionary type of effect.
- Psychotomimetic: "mimicking psychosis" - by producing hallucinations and some altered sense of reality, these drugs produce a state that could be described as psychotic.

- Entheogens: substances that create spiritual or religious experiences.
- Entactogens: substances that enhance feelings of empathy.
- Hallucinogens: (a more descriptive and less prejudiced term) a drug that produces profound alterations in perception, including unusual visual sensations and often changes in the perception of one's own body.

- Chemical Structure
- Known pharmacological properties
- How much loss of awareness they cause
- How dangerous they are

- Classical phantastica: alter perceptions while allowing the user to remain in communication with the present world.

- Deliriants: produce more mental confusion, greater clouding of consciousness, and a loss of touch with reality

- Drugs that have the indole structure also found in the neurotransmitter serotonin.

- Examples: LSD, psilocybin

- Drugs that have the catechol nucleus that forms the basic structure of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine.

- Examples: mescaline, MDMA (ecstasy)

- LSD is not found in nature; it is synthesized from alkaloids extracted from the ergot fungus Claviceps purpurea.

- Eating grain infected with this mold causs an illness called ergotism.

- The extremely high potency of the drug attracted attention - a very small dose produces effects - typically 25 ug. Comparable effects from mescaline would require 4,000 times the dose.

- Between the early 1950s and 1970s, there was a tremendous amount of research performed with LSD.

* In psychotherapy, to help patients bring up repressed memories and motives.
* Dr Hofmann believed that LSD was a valuble psychedelic tool and could be used to enhance human's understanding of their place in nature.
* Most research on LSD was found to contribute little to our understanding of the effects of the drug.
* Most reserach since 1975 has been conducted on animals in an effort to understand the drug's action at th neural level.
* Various militaries, including the US military, experimented extensively with LSD and other hallucinogens.
* Between the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of soldiers and civilians were unwittingly given doses of the drug.
* Subjects believed they were losing their minds.
* Some suffered psychiatric disorders and others had difficulties adjusting to their usual lives.

- Psychologist Timothy Leary:
* His research came under increasing criticism due to charges that he was being less than rigorous and was using ethically questionable methods.

- 1966: Leary started a religion, the League of Spiritual Discovery, with LSD as the sacrament.

- LSD is odorless, colorless, tasteless, and one of the most potent psychochemicals known.

- LSD is a sympathomimetic agent:
* Autonomic signs appear quickly following administration
* Dilated pupils, elevated temperature and blood pressure, increased salivation

- LSD is usually taken orally

- The LSD molecule resembles the chemical structure of serotonin provided a clue that the drug might act on serotonin receptors to produce its effects.

- Best evidence indicates that LSD acts by stimulating the serotonin-2A subtype of receptor

LSD facts
- Trips typically last six to nine hours
* Autonomic responses occur over the first 20 minutes
* Alterations in mood, perception, and sensation begin in the next 30 to 40 minutes
* Full intoxication occurs within one hour (loss of self-awareness and loss of control of behavior may occur)