LSD - Between Good and Bad Trip

Few years back, I got a frantic phone call from a friend. It was 4 AM so between my annoyance being woken up before dawn, I asked him what the hell happened. He told me he was on this party and they did some drugs. At that moment, I just knew this wouldn’t be a nice phone call. He said he took some ‘acid’ and now he didn’t feel well. Everything around him seemed distorted. He was ‘seeing sounds’ and ‘hearing colours’. When I told him to go to the hospital, he fearfully told me he couldn’t because the medics would turn him in.

He had a good point, though ... the laws concerning narcotics in Indonesia is pretty strict. So out of desperation, I told him to find himself a green coconut water somewhere. What else could I do? His friends left him when he got too ‘high’. They just dumped him back at his place and left. So much for good friends.

Some of you might heard about LSD or ‘Acid’. They usually looked like stamps and people put them on their tongue. It was known as drugs used by hippies, besides marijuana. There is even a song about it, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. There are several positive ‘reviews’ on how LSD influence arts and society. Many said it was an enlightning experience, getting high on acid. However, I’m going to write a little bit about LSD and its effect.

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Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a classic hallucinogen drug. It worked by binding to the serotonin receptors in human brain, that mediates the hallucinogenic effect by activating the frontal cortex glutamate transmission. It mimics the effect of the chemicals on your brain called ‘glutamate’, causing an increasing activity of the part of your brain – the sensory and cognitive processing. LSD also binds the adrenergic and dopaminergic receptions, which is not the case for other classic serotogenic hallucinogens.

On a studies using validated psychometric scale on 2017, the subjective effects of LSD were predominantly positive in controlled settings. However at the dose of 200 μg negative effects also reported. LSD at this dose also used in LSD-assisted psychotherapy in Switzerland.

 

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The picture showed us which part of the brain activity is increasing after LSD exposure (right). This lasts for about eight hours. The hallucination or ‘psychadelic’ effect, was said to be a result of the increasing visual cortex communication with the other areas of the brain. This was similar to the psilocybin or ‘magic mushroom’. There was also a reduce in blood flow, so the neurons that normally act together lost its synchronization. Some volunteers in the experiment said that they feel themselves ‘becoming less a singular entity and melded with people and things around them’. However, the ‘good’ effects are vary. Some reported effects include : flashbacks, euphoria, anxiety and paranoid. 

LSD is relatively safe when used in medical settings and according to safety guidelines. However in unsupervised settings LSD could causes harm to the users. Acute adverse effects up to 10–24 hours after LSD administration included difficulty concentrating, headache, dizziness, lack of appetite, dry mouth, nausea, imbalance, and feeling exhausted. Headaches and exhaustion may last up to 72 hours. In my friend’s case, he said he’s not feeling well for good three days afterwards.

A case report on 2015 wrote that the user of LSD experience feelings of ‘trapped’, increasing heart rate, hallucinations and the subject was driven to the point of attempted suicide. The LSD was ‘25I-NBOMe’ a hallucinogen synthesized for research purposes. It has even higher affinity in the receptor. Thus, the ffects are also stronger. Most common adverse reaction is an acute episode of anxiety or panic (“bad trip”) that resolves with reassurance and the use of benzodiazepines. This NBOMes also caused tachycardia, palpitations, clonus, pyrexia, elevated creatine kinase, severe agitation, delirium, tonic-clonic seizures, renal failure, fatal overdoses and traumatic deaths.

There isn’t any ‘directions’ on the drugs one get form the street. The risks of overdose are pretty high, because one cannot measure the dose alone. We also can never tell which one is the real LSD and which one is not, as well as when will we get the good or the bad ‘trip’. The NBOMes is one of the drugs that difficult to detect, due to the high potency and small dose ingested. In conclusion, when one wishes to get high or hallucinating using the ‘acid’ they get from the street, they must remember that (1) the careless way the maker might use to make it and (2) one should not use it alone without a sober ‘friend’ and last but not least (3) the narcotics law.

Further reading : 

Cormier, Z., 2016. Nature.com. [Online]

Available at: https://www.nature.com/news/brain-scans-reveal-how-lsd-affects-consciousness-1.19727 [Diakses 14 July 2019].

Liechti, M. E., 2017. Modern clinical research on LSD. Neuropsychopharmacology, XLII(11).

Suzuki, J., Poklis, J. L. & Poklis, A., 2015. My friend said it was good LSD : a suicide attempt following analytically confirmed 25l-NBOMe I

Bali Raw - Paradise with Dire Price

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This is one of the best book I’ve ever read. I don’t know why there are so many bad reviews about this. I’m glad I ignored the comments on goodreads and carry on with my curiosity. Since page one, my journey throughout the underbelly of Bali was a series of roller coaster ride. The book began with a near-death experience by the author’s brother, due to a love triangle with a lady escort. This book is published in 2012, I hope several things had changed in Bali but however, it saddens me when people who wanted to help the author’s brother at first refused because he didn’t want to get into trouble.

The thing is, in Indonesia, there’s still some people who pushed other people around especially when they were in larger groups. When you wanted to help someone in trouble, sometimes you became the second victim yourself because other people accuse you as the culprit. Or if you arrive at the hospital, some people might accuse you and will turn you in to the police. Then, there’s ‘street justice’ where people who don’t even know the trouble start bashing you just to let out their anger.

Speaking of street justice, this book tells us a lot about it. It’s the survival of the fittest in the underbelly of Bali. You need to have lots of strength, knows a lot of ‘strong people’ and have a lot of money if you want to survive. One of them might help you to some point, but the chances of surviving long time is pretty low. It’s pretty much like other place such as Java or Sumatera. It’s okay if you just want to go with the tourism flow, like the beautiful colourful brochures. Visits the beautiful temples or lakes and then have a good rest. However if you want to blend with the locals and their lives, or try ‘to live a little dangerously’, it’s another story.

Not all people could be your friend – it’s obvious. Be careful of whom you called your friends. Sometimes they just wanna rob you dry and leave you once you have nothing. Bali Raw tells us how people who thought they find a family in Bali got their money taken from them even when they don’t realize. They got treated as a family but comes with a price. They paid for some of the family’s expenses.

This also the same with intimate relationship between tourists and locals. You might have heard about the ‘Cowboys in Paradise’ documentary, where some Bali surfers also work as gentlemen escorts for the Western and Japanese ladies. They have several reasons behind it, from earning for their families and just want to get easy money. You might also see a lot of foreign tourist walking around with their local spouses. Some of them were officially married, but some of them not.

Mind you, back when I was just graduated from high school and went to Bali for a holiday, I was walking down Kuta beach enjoying sunset when a local guy said hello. He told me I was pretty. He spoke to me in English and surprised (disappointed?) when he knew I was from Indonesia. I was 19 at that time. I thought he’s just a nice local / surfing instructor who took a shine on me. He told me he was a guide and gave me his name card, telling me to call him an he’ll show me around. I lost the card shortly due to my clumsiness ... but turned out it might just as well. I saw someone similar to him on the documentary. If it was him, what he meant, probably the other kind of guide. Well, his offer might do better on other tourists with the same ‘guide’ meaning as he is.

Like the 40 years old Western woman who got a lot of boyfriends there. She slept with different guy every night and then she went home to play wife and mum. Well, that’s just the life of some people, I suppose. Sometimes, this kind of relationship escalate into more commited one. The tourists who fall in love with the escorts try to pay the brothel keeper, so the escorts could be free from their jobs. Afterwards, the escorts will be theirs but they often get back to their old jobs. Or cheat on them once they fly back to their countries.

In Bali, you might get a lot of stuffs easily from pirated DVDs to drugs. The writer’s friend drank fifteen pills (yes, you read it right, fifteen pills) of ephedrine as if they were M&Ms and ended up having erectile dysfunction – which is quite light overdose effect compare to respiratory failure to me. However, they also came in dire consequences. You might read further about how your holiday could easily turn into a long term nightmare in Snowing in Bali and Hotel K by Kathryn Bonella. Bali is indeed the island of paradise. Tourists often came to let out their fatigue and frustration of daily life. They want to fulfill their bucket lists and not aware of the consequences.

According to Constitution number 35 year 2009 about Narcotics the penalty were different for the user, seller or courier. The progress of what might seem to be a ‘recreational drug’ act is lengthy and penalty could be rehabilitation, jail or even death (Like the Bali 9 case). So for your own sake, do think about the impact of every actions you make in holiday destination. Even if you do something as ‘harmless’ as drinking, remember to do it responsibly. The author’s friend involved in a tragic accident because he drank a lot of beer and then ride a motorcycle, wearing only cheap plastic helmet that breaks easily.

For me this is an amazing book. People should read this before going for a holiday abroad as a warning about what might happen. What might seem like endless paradise can turn into a nightmare in a matter of seconds. Make sure you know the law on that country, as well as browse the warnings from people who already been there.

Because in this world, paradise often comes with dire price.