Michael Pollan thinks the War on Drugs is just about over. And, the Drugs won. Many states have de-crimalized marijuana, others have legalized it for “recreational” use. In This is Your Mind on Plants, Pollan writes about his experiences with opioids, caffeine, and mescaline (and other psychedelic drugs).
I first used opioids after my first total knee replacement surgery. I was prescribed hydrocodone and it did its magic in helping me manage the post-surgery pain and physical therapy during my Rehab. The addictive aspects of the drug were well known so I careful regulated my dosage and slowly tapered off. Some of the other patients in Rehab didn’t and got “hooked.”
Pollan shows how to grow your own supply of opium in your garden. Opium has a long history and it can be helpful in medicine…and it can be dangerous.
Jeff Meyerson, in his comment yesterday, wondered: “I don’t get how people drink that stuff all day every day.” As Pollan points out, caffeine is addictive (but not as addictive as opioids). When coffee drinkers stop drinking coffee, all the withdrawal symptoms kick in: headaches, fatigue, lethargy, nausea, body aches, difficulty concentrating, decreased motivation, and irritability. On the plus side, having a coffee addition improves focus, motivation, and productivity. Other health aspects like protecting against certain cancers, diabetes, and Parkinson’s factor in, too.
One of Deb’s favorite writers, Honore de Balzac, wrote about the effect drinking coffee had on his writing: “From that moment on, everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop, the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and carriages; on imagination’s orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters read up; the paper is read with ink…” (p. 113)
While I use opioids and caffeine, I have never used psychedelic drugs like mescaline (or LSD or psilocybin). Pollan describes his “trip” on mescaline. I’m wary of mind-altering drugs like psychedelics. I like my mind just fine as it is.
If you’re interested in the history and future of opioids, caffeine and mescaline, I encourage to take a look at Pollan’s This Is Your Mind on Plants. There’s a lot to consider here. What do you think of opioids, caffeine, and psychedelics? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION — 1
OPIUM — 13
Prologue — 15
“Opium, Made Easy” — 21
Epilogue — 83
CAFFEINE — 89
MESCALINE — 161
- The Door in the Wall –163
- The Orphan Psychedelic — 166
- In Which We Meet the Cacti — 174
- The Birth of a New Religion — 187
- Peeking Inside the Tepee — 199
- An Interlude: On Mescaline — 214
- Learning from San Pedro — 223
- Drunk at the Wheel — 228
- Plan C — 230
Acknowledgements — 249
Selected Bibliography — 253
Index — 259
I take a sleeping pill every night so I am not drug-free. I could take Benadryl instead and I may be forced to when I meet my new doctor next month. I have never been able to tolerate the pain medications. Too hard on my stomach. Have never smoked pot or did hallucinatory drugs. Never drank coffee, just tea. I have had insomnia since second grade.
Patti, I never tried sleeping pills. About once a month I fall asleep just fine, but after my bathroom break I can’t get back to sleep. That’s when I take a hydrocodone and that puts me to sleep for four more hours.
I have been, at various times, addicted to alcohol, coffee, cigars, and Hagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. When my Doctor said too much caffeine would make me irritable, I screamed at him, “It’s a damn lie!” but I recently cut back on the coffee and it helped my heart noticeably. Been off booze 36 years now and replaced cigars with a pipe.
The lesson I bring back from this is that I don’t worry about sharing the road with a driver who’s had one too man y scoops of Hagen Dazs
Dan, I share your addition of Hagen Daz (and other brands of ice cream)! Congratulations on 36 years of sobriety!
I smoked cigarettes from the mid-Sixties until the late Nineties and quit because my doctor threatened me with a heart attack. And I guess the war on smoking had something to do with it. In just a few years we went from a world where it seemed that nearly everyone smoked to one where smokers were treated as pariahs. From the early Seventies to the late Nineties I also smoked a significant amount of pot, very pleasurable stuff that I gave up because it was getting difficult to obtain, not to mention expensive as hell. I was also hooked on caffeine for years until I tapered off after I retired. That doesn’t leave much else. Never tried LSD or any other hallucinogens–they seemed dangerous, and I stayed away. Same with coke. That leaves opioids, which I’m in no danger of getting hooked on. I was prescribed one of them a few years ago for kidney stone pain. Not only did they not do anything for the pain, they made me extremely hyper and unable to sleep. I’m told that it’s not an uncommon reaction to them.
Michael, I had a friend who used LSD and other hallucinogens for years. He developed Parkinson’s. I don’t know if there’s any connection…but I’m wary of psychedelics. Patrick was put on opioids after his Wisdom teeth were pulled. He became hyper and didn’t sleep for THREE DAYS!
My coffee comment yesterday was meant as a reference to people like your friend who drank 14 cups a day, rather than a regular drinker. Personally, I drink less than Jackie does. She has two cups for breakfast, I have one or 1 1/2, depending. Then we usually make another pot in the afternoon (around 3:00) and I have a cup and she has two. In the summer, I switch to iced coffee in the afternoon, while she usually has hot. Before the pandemic, we were going to Starbucks most afternoons. Again, she had two supercharged cups of their coffee and I had one, or iced in the warmer weather. I guess we’ll have to see this winter in Florida if we get back into the Starbucks habit or continue making our own.
Jackie was totally paranoid about opiods after her knee replacement. Like you, she took the oxy, but she was very worried about addiction and careful how much she took. The quack in the rehab – his first question to her was “so how’s the hip doing?” – handed me SHEETS (literally) of pills for her when we checked out. Jackie threw most of them away.
Jeff, there are a lot of “pill pushers” out there. Plenty of people got addicted after using opioids. The Pharmaceutical companies hyped the “safety” of opioids. We found out they were lying.
They weren’t lying. IF USED AS DIRECTED AND ONLY AS DIRECTED, and use stopped when the medical situation no longer required their use, they are effective and useful. The problem with all drugs is MISUSE. Where pain is concerned, they’re a blessing.
Rick, I totally agree! I could not have endured two total knee replacement surgeries without opioids. But, people abuse and misuse drugs of all sorts.
People from Michael Moorcock to my librarian friend Nancy have actual chronic pain issues that such opioids actually help, and the abuses encouraged by the manufacturers and others and the overreaction has left them up creeks…and then there are people such as my father, who when given a normal (more or less) dose of morphine for post-op pain, hallucinated for the next two days+. After outpatient surgery, I tried upon medical recommendation Tylenol 3, and my father’s sensitivity was inherited…I had repetitive and very unpleasant nightmares after my only dose…straight ibuprofen worked better for me, and without side-effects (it used to make me sleepy, but less so in recent decades).
Todd, my only reaction to ibuprofen is occasional nose-bleeds. I don’t use ibuprofen very often. Tylenol even less.
I had a similar experience as Todd with some muscle relaxers (Tizanidine) I was prescribed for the pinched nerve in my back: I was having extremely vivid dreams, often if an ominous or nightmarish variety. I could only take them at night because they made me so loopy during the day, but then I’d spend all night in Inception-like reality. No thanks. Once the pain was tolerable, it was prescription-strength naproxen. I used to have severe migraines (a hormonal thing—no longer an issue, thank God) and was prescribed Imitrex—which also gave me vivid dreams & nightmares, but nightmares were preferable to migraines!
Deb, just reading about the side-effects of Tizanidine and Imitrex and naproxen are enough to keep me from trying any psychedelic drugs. My dreams are vivid enough! I rarely have nightmares, but I do have dreams about signing up for a College class…and then forgetting to attend it!
FWIW, naproxen (sodium) (Aleve) is an NSAID, like ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and aspirin, so possibly a nosebleed for you, George…not so much an unfortunate set of dreams or hallucinations. Ibuprofen still works better for me than aspirin or naproxen sodium, and better than the non-NSAID acetaminophen (Tylenol). Tylenol-3 is acetaminophen mixed with the opiate codeine, and that for me is No Good.
Yikes, Deb. Sorry for all That Fun, and glad you’re mostly done with it. I’ve had more than a few sinus headaches through the decades, but never a migraine…knock skull that I never do pick up that malady (Alice never gets sinus headaches. I won’t trade with her).
Back to caffeine. I’ve never really felt it had much effect on me, but Jackie has definitely noticed symptoms – mainly a headache – if she is not able to have coffee for some reason (medical tests, etc.). I’ve known people (my aunt was one) who claim that if they have caffeine after noon (say), it keeps them up all night, but I’ve never bought that either.
Jackie has insomnia of the “hard to fall asleep” variety, but lately it has been more from leg or foot pain that anything else. She does take pills at night to help her sleep – decongestant, Tylenol, etc. I’ve always slept well. For a while I was taking some medication at night (Benadryl was one, cough syrup another), but lately I have been so much better that I rarely if ever take anything. And since my surgery I no longer wake up once or twice a night to go to the bathroom, so that helps.
Jackie never liked alcohol or drugs either. She always said she has an addictive personality, though food is her main issue. I am not addictive, can generally take or leave things.
Jeff, my main addictions are books, CDs, and Blu-rays! I take medications but I’m always concerned about side-effects. Recently I developed dry mouth at night after being switched to Jardiance. Annoying! And some of my medications make me urinate frequently. It’s a trade-off.
I think Balzac drank 40 cups of coffee a day—which explains perhaps how he was able to write 50-plus novels, in addition to short stories, novellas, and plays, before he died at 51! I’m not a coffee drinker (although I love the smell of coffee, the taste is too bitter without copious quantities of cream & sugar—in which case, I might as well drink coffee ice cream). I read somewhere that caffeine is the most popular mood-altering substance on the planet.
Despite my Disco Dolly youth, I never was much of a drug user—I always preferred to maintain a razor-sharp mind (ha!)—not to mention, drugs are expensive and I’ve always been frugal. My cheapness is probably the reason why—despite growing up in a world where almost every adult (including both my parents) smoked—I never smoked. As for opiates, I’m allergic to anything ending in “deine” or “done,” so I can’t take codeine or hydrocodone. I also hate the way other prescription painkillers make me feel—like I have “balloon head,” the same feeling I get when I take antihistamines.
As for hallucinogens, I’ve never been interested in using them. As the late, great Robertson Davies said, drugs might alter your mind, but expanding your mind, on the other hand, is hard work and does not come via a needle, pill, mushroom, or something you snort up your nose. Plus, life in these United States is hallucinatory enough these days without resorting to drugs to intensify it!
Deb, that always reminds me of one of my favorite bits from Lily Tomlin’s THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. She talked about the first Moon landing (“They played golf! The jumped around like they were stoned.”) – “Is this happening or is it the hash?”
My parents both smoked too. My father started as a teenager and was smoking two packs a day for 40 years. When we were engaged, Jackie was working for the Director of Public Health at New York Hospital in the summer. She brought home a book showing people with emphysema smoking through the hole in their neck. She gave it to my father and he quit smoking overnight (yes, literally overnight). He lived another 45 years. He had COPD but it turned out that it wasn’t from smoking but rather the chemicals he inhaled when he worked for my grandfather , who was a fur dyer. My mother was a more casual smoker. I smoked occasionally and Jackie definitely smoked when we were young. Luckily, we all stopped a long time ago.
When my Dad (who had been smoking since his teens) was 48, he was finally driven to see a doctor after he started coughing up blood. The doctor took an X-ray of my Dad’s lungs and showed it to him, saying, “Do you see those spots? That’s emphysema—and if you want to see your next birthday, you’ll quit smoking today.” My Dad never smoked again and lived another 34 years. My mom was never as chronic a smoker as my Dad but she quit a couple of years after him. Six months after quitting, my mom had the curtains replaced, the carpet pulled up, and the furniture reupholstered. She said, “I never believed you when you said the house always smelled like cigarettes. Now I can smell it everywhere!” Oddly, my Dad was never diagnosed with COPD, but a couple of years before she died, my Mom was. Her lung scans also showed she had old scaring from TB—which apparently went undiagnosed in her WWII-era English working-class childhood.
Deb, there needs to be more research into “Second-hand Smoke.” We have a lot of friends who lost one of their parents who never smoked, but had been exposed to a smoker–spouse, relative, or child.
Jeff, I’m glad I grew up in a non-smoking family. My father would smoke an occasional cigar (if someone gave it to him because of a new-borne, typically). My father’s best friend was a pipe-smoker and died in his early 50s.
Deb, I love that Roberson Davies quote! So true! I never smoked: too many allergies. You’re right about caffeine being the most popular mood-altering (and subtly addictive!) substances on the planet! Balzac certainly used coffee to fuel his writing sessions!
Jackie said the woman she worked with at the Physical Therapy place after she got out of rehab told her to stop taking the oxy and switch to Tylenol and it worked for her. (Granted, this was after a couple of months, probably.)
Jeff, some people can’t tolerate Tylenol, others can’t tolerate ibuprofen. Pain management is a balancing act.
I seem to have a high tolerance for some drugs. I was given hydrocodone at one time for back problems. It didn’t do anything for me. Also was given Amvien to help me sleep. It didn’t do anything for me either. I have tried most drugs at one time or another. Mostly during my misspent youth. Never heroin. Never had any addiction problems. Except for a mild addiction problem with caffeine which I get through diet pop.
Steve, some soft drinks amp up the caffeine. We had a local product called JOLT that advertised: TWICE THE CAFFEINE AND TWICE THE SUGAR!
Jolt Cola was actually national for a while…I think it hangs around in a few markets still. Certainly Monster and Reign sodas, Reign spun off from Monster which was bought from the Hansen’s company by Coca-Cola, are seeking that customer base these years. (I’m too fond of Reign apple, which Coke has decided won’t sell around here, and Monster orange.)
https://www.joltcola.com/
Todd, JOLT got a lot of buzz around here for awhile. Thanks for the link!
If they ever stop making Diet Coke, I’m done for. I also love beer but it’s often NOT in the house because I’m too lazy to go get it or forgot it when I was getting groceries. Tomorrow is another day.
I smoked for about 10 years, then quit when my doctor told me I’d get cancer. I still got cancer but never felt the need to return to cigarettes.
I am a big fan of drugs. If it wasn’t for drugs, I wouldn’t be here. I hate pain so I will quickly grab the Tylenol bottle for two (2) capsules when I feel the twinges of something coming on. That being said, my use of hydrocodone is very sporadic.
I’m allergic to aspirin and ibuprofen so Tylenol (hard on the liver) and opioids are my options. Right now CBD products are some of my favorites.
Beth, a lot of my friends are using CBD products since they’re now legal in NY State. Like you, I only use hydrocodone sporadically, usually about once a month when I can’t fall back to sleep. Works great!!!
In college I experimented, smoked weed and hash, tried LSD. It was fine, I guess, but no big deal. I take the drugs needed for continued health, as prescribed, Insulin, Keppra, some vitamins, Advil for sore muscles. Two cups of black coffee most mornings, in Summer iced tea, mostly I drink water, quite a lot of it.
The problem with drugs is MISUSE. I have no allergies, so can take what’s needed. I’ve never taken – or needed – anything to sleep.
Rick, many of our friends have sleeping problems. A couple are struggling with CPAP machines and masks after recently being diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I try to advise them (since I’ve been using a CPAP since 1995) but both of our friends are resisting. They don’t like the machine, they don’t like the masks, and they don’t like the whole idea of getting Old.
Me, neither, but we soldier on.
Well, given the alternative…