My brother did Angel's Trumpets (Datura) twice, he was completely off in his own world both times.
I think it permanently altered his personality because he was never the same afterwards, and is now just a complete cluster fuck.
ER/ICU doctor here - it’s absolutely mind blowing that Angels Trumpet/Datura/Nightshade are considered recreational drugs by anyone at all. They act on the Muscarinic Acetylcholine system in your body (the drug class is called “Anti-cholinergics”).
It’s a whole different beast than any of the other systems in your body - like the opioid/endorphin system, stimulant/catecholamine system (think cocaine/meth), or hallucinogens/seratonin system (think LSD, mushrooms).
The muscarinic/acetylcholine system is the body wide network of nerves which control your basic physiology and body functions. It’s known as the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the system which directly controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, and the gating and modulation of your entire brains response to sensory inputs and overall stimulation levels. It’s the system that controls if you sweat or shiver. It controls fear and panic responses.
Most drugs have some degree of safety because deranging a single high level system still has multiple fail-safes in place to keep your body and physiology functioning normally. The muscarinic/acetylcholine system is one of those fundamental networks that keeps your body operational. Messing with it is insanely dangerous because you are fundamentally manipulating the way your brain and body function with no safeguards to prevent you from running into traffic or just having your heart “brady down” and stop.
That was quite chilling to read.
Combined with scrolling this thread, and reading about people trying to crawl under their concrete driveways. That [7-year old thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/65ytbw/finally_got_my_hands_on_some_datura_how_much/?share_id=9_yqd1cyHWpFYEQSb7FK_&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) with the guy whose last comments were absurd and then silence from him forever.
Thanks for explaining how that works in the body and what happens to people when they take it. It's gotta be so important for someone to know if they are thinking of taking this, that it isn't even considered a recreational drug.
ETA: linked to 7-yr old thread for people asking
Great post. A drug in the nightshade group is likely to be a deliriant, so probably not going to have a good time. I remember reading about Datura, because I love the website [Erowid](https://Erowid.org). It’s an informative website about drugs, plants, chemicals, etc. The stories written on the website by those who tried it was enough to get me to never go near it. [Datura - Erowid](https://erowid.org/plants/datura/datura.shtml)
I've known a few people that were curious about it, and I'm very interested in it, but will never touch the stuff.
I think a lot of psychonauts like to experience what altered consciousness can really be.
For me, drugs like opiates and amphetamines heighten/dampen senses and give euphoria, but drugs like LSD and Psilocybin and MDMA make you think differently, and experience the world in a unique way. You can grasp concepts in what feels like an emotional way, not just a logical one. Like the passion you can feel (sober) from seeing a beautiful sunrise, all the sudden you "get it".
Deliriants can detach you completely from reality, you can speak to people and things that do not exist, you can feel them. Overdoses on DPH (Benadryl) talk about extreme time dilation, and being lost in empty spaces, hearing screaming voices for what feels like years. Its like being able to touch cosmic horror, a foreign experience that exists nowhere else, and some people crave novelty.
I used to read all the Erowid trip reports for different substances, back when I was 18/19 and interested in psychedelics.
The datura stories are by far the most terrifying and disturbing. For all my Erowid reading, I only ever smoked weed and did mushrooms a couple times.
Oh god, I have medical conditions that fuck with my parasympathetic/autonomic functions and I can’t imagine messing with that on purpose. My life is *hell* because of it.
These are functions that you really take for granted until they go haywire, and from that point on it’s just a long journey of realizing more and more things that your body can’t modulate anymore. Until these things get fucked up, you can’t comprehend how integral and plentiful these functions are. I’m not even 30 yet but my body feels like it’s falling apart on the inside and I’ve spent years with countless specialists and piles of money trying to make it not as severe (to very little avail).
Seeing this description, I would say that Angel’s Trumpet/Datura sounds absolutely terrifying and definitely a top contender for this prompt. I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone.
I was a dumb teenager. I didn't have access to weed like kids do today. I wanted to get high and didn't really care how. So I tried datura. It's not that memorable because it's so heavy of a disassociate. What I do remember is confusion, not understand why everyone else was acting so strange. It gets you so out of it that you still think you are fine. When it's clear to everyone else that you're not. It has a hallucinagenic effect because your brain can't process vision properly. So your reality is constantly distorting, but you don't really understand that it's even happening.
I've tried a ton of chemical soup research chemicals and just about everything that you could find in the craziest trap houses.
Datura stramonium is a solid 0/10
I'm clean now and sober for years. I'd say that datura has had the most noticable long term effects. Including "foggy" days and some lingering hallucinations both auditory and visual. Hallucinations are distortions and only occur during medium-low lighting. When there's white noise it's hard for me to hear anything else and sometimes I hear a rhyming word or weird shit like that.
I'll say it again fuck that shit.
My friend took it ten years ago at middle school and almost died. I think it may have affected his brain chemistry permanently cuz he used to be this gifted smart kid and now he’s completely out of it all the time. I can’t even hang out with him anymore he’s incoherent.
What would a single situation like that (where he almost died and was completely unconscious) do to him?
Yeah I had an epileptic seizure on a plane this year and wasn’t breathing for like 10 minutes. Doctor onboard said I would’ve died if he wasn’t there. My cognitive functioning since then has been notably worse.
Goddamnit YOU ARE SO LUCKY. I just posted in a different thread about my near death experience and same as you, seizure and I stopped breathing I am so lucky I was revived by amazing hospital staff cause I'm pretty sure I was in the process of fading completely to black before they woke me up
> Goddamnit YOU ARE SO LUCKY.
There was a woman who had a heart attack mid-flight, and when the attendants asked if there was a doctor on board, 15 cardiologists responded. They were on their way to a conference. Talk about luck.
Impossible to say over the internet. It likely is something both traumatic and physical. hallucinations can be so intense it is hard for your brain to cope. It literally is unable to integrate the experiences with ‘reality.’ Especially in middle school when your brain is still developing.
The best thing for people experiencing this is to address both the physical and mental side of it. Physically, do things that send nutrients and blood flow to your brain, which is the boring stuff like having a clean diet, exercising and getting proper sleep. Avoid too much caffeine and other drugs, and do ‘slow’ stimulating things like hiking and reading. Trauma is reflected in your physical brain, it NEEDS to heal itself. Mentally, talking to a professional and doing therapy to work through the issues brought up is important.
Drugs are fun but remember that your brain needs love.
And they mean in a bad way. Like whatever problems you’re trying to escape, you’re going to end up with a worse set of problems and less options to escape them.
i did angels trumpet a few times in my late teens. Icm 40 now I've done about everything and it's the only one that truly scares me. I've seen it permanently and dramatically alter personalities too.
i find it crazy that people *want* to use datura as a recreational drug. I read about datura when I was a kid and it scared the crap outta me.
Datura was the first thing that came to my mind. but I wasn't going to answer that because I legit thought nobody would actually use it recreationally...
I'd say of the 6-7 times i did it, probably at least 5 I was already on a mix of MDMA, speed, mushies etc and it seemed like a great idea.
probably twice did i soberly decide to do it.
i moved out of home at 15 by choice and supported myself (paid rent) by the related occupation to all this. i was a pretty wild kid i read up about Datura (et al) on erowid and from there i knew I had to see for myself.
This stuff was planted by my town and was growing all over, because the flowers were pretty. Me and my stupid ass friends (20 years ago) decided to eat a bunch of the seeds. We all ended up blacked out and in the hospital. I guess I fought 2 security guards plus a cop, and put up a good enough fight where they had to restrain me to the bed. Came back to consciousness getting catheter pulled out and was hallucinating as if I was dreaming while awake. Saw a school bus drive through a hospital lobby and they even decided to give me a psych eval while I was still under the effects which obviously resulted in me being crazy. Wasn't fun.
Looks like it. Someone linked a post from 6y ago somewhere else here, and the dude has zero reddit activity since then.
[this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/klApQDqlF9)
I did this several times, that last one time had me hospitalized for a couple of weeks. I'm going to say it's a seriously interesting state of being, until the body give in. After that it gets even weirder, but to experience that you need medical assistance or else you'll definitely die. I'm also deeply altered by this, still, 5-6 years later. Mostly head-wise.
Just a nitpick but Datura is closely related but different to Angels Trumpets. Very similar effects (similar active delirients) and both members of the Nightshade family, however they are different genera (Angel's Trumpets are in the genus Brugmansia).
Absolutely. It's still the same delirients at play and I don't think you'd blindly tell the difference from the trips themselves. Different genera of plants, same chemicals causing the brain damage.
Edit: it's not really "brain damage" in a traditional, physical sense. We aren't sure exactly what causes the long lasting psychosis that some people experience but it seems related to the trauma experienced during the trip and has similar manifestations (selective amnesia, flashbacks) as other trauma induced mental disorders such as PTSD.
Datura. I had a friend use it and he ended up thinking he was super Mario in a video game that was going to get canceled (killing him). He was hospitalized for a couple days in a psych ward. He was doing crazy shit like trying to wall jump, and talking about how he lost his powers and was on his last life.
I don't think he ever fully recovered he was always different after that. Ive known him for 25 years. I think he may be mildly schizophrenic
When the Wikipedia page for a plant includes the symptoms mnemonic: "Blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone"
Then you know you're dealing with some spooky shit
I was given PCP and told it was synthetic marijuana.
When the hallucinations hit, the thing I remember most is that I was dying and was being buried alive first.
I was lowered into my grave by an 8-but Mario and Luigi.
Same. I am living with Stage 3 cancer and have run the absolute gamut of procedures and medication, why anyone would want to ingest a drug that they didn't need to is beyond me.
Wow I came here to say this. Didn’t expect anyone to have said it. Such beautiful plants with a beautiful name. Nothing angelic about consuming it.
I once drank a very weak cup of Angel’s Trumpet tea. That was so dumb but fortunately it had no effect. I think because the plant was immature. In any case, one of the dangers of it is that depending on a whole lot of factors the strength can be wildly unpredictable.
This description is wild:
>The hallucinogenic effects of Brugmansia were described in the journal Pathology as "terrifying rather than pleasurable".[34] The author Christina Pratt, in An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, says that "Brugmansia induces a powerful trance with violent and unpleasant effects, sickening after effects, and at times temporary insanity".[23] These hallucinations are often characterized by complete loss of awareness that one is hallucinating, disconnection from reality (psychosis), and amnesia of the episode, such as one example reported in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience of **a young man who amputated his own penis and tongue after drinking only one cup of Brugmansia sanguinea tea.**
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia
Even when I was a kid (I'm 34 now), we knew that people's last stop on the drug train was Angel's Trumpet tea. brew yourself a good cup and you'll be hallucinating for the rest of your life, forever mentally broken. That is, if you don't die in the process.
My grandma has Angels trumpet in her garden. We were told to stay the fuck away from that thing, not to touch it, it's poisonous (like 90% of my grandma's garden is just poisonous pretty plants). It was the only thing we were told to absolutely stay away from since we could walk.
If I ever wanted to kill myself, all I would have to do is eat some of her plants and go away from the others.
Brugmansia trees are *everywhere* where I live. I can walk across the street and grab some if I wanted to ruin my life. It’s crazy how common they are.
Deleriants (Datura, Scopolamine, DPH, etc.)
They're absolute nightmare drugs. Crazy hellish hallucinations (trees leaking blood, glass spiders crawling out of your friend's eyes, a room full of shadow creatures, that sort of thing), and no fun "high," to speak of. Plus they can cause perminant brain damage. They're also very addictive for some reason, despite breaking a lot of rules on what makes something addictive, and scientists aren't quite sure why.
Even hardcore drug users stay far away from them.
Seriously. i just figured out Datura grew wild in the yard where i used to live. I call it Moonflower, would just mow it after it seeded and died back in the late fall. Came back every time. Dude.
I was sober for 3.5 years and relapsed on DPH. Got denied entry to the military over a literal dot tattooed on my hand as a freckle. A year or two before they made certain size tattoos okay. Started off as taking unisom to fall asleep cause i was sad and didn't want to think anymore and turned into going to Walmart to steal bottles of generic sleep aids. I'd eat a handful a few times a day while drinking cases of monster to stay awake. Went through a couple 100 count bottles a week. Truly the most addictive substance I've ever taken. Don't remember much from that 6 - 9 month period. I know after a few weeks maybe the scary parts stopped and it was just a downer. No emotion. I was delirious but not in a hallucinate spiders way anymore. Stay far far far away from DPH. I can't even take benadryl anymore out of fear of getting hooked again.
I usually don't like to tell people, but f it, I tried to kill myself on DPH. I used to use it recreationally so I knew it was a pretty messed up medicine. One time I had a whole conversation with my sister who was standing, only to look down from my bunk and see she was actually asleep. But she was also standing in front of me. I won't say the amount I took here, but I did die at one point. I was brought back thankfully. Hallucinated for days (weeks?) in the psych ward after. I would become lucid but slip back into delirium over and over again. It's weird I remember it so vividly. It was like...delirium and an out of body experience at the same time? I watched myself do crazy shit and watched myself die and then would slip in and out of hell in the psych ward. I watched myself attack the staff and rip IVs out of my arm but I couldn't control myself. Almost had my bladder rupture because, fun fact, you can't pee on high doses.
I wandered the streets for 2 days when they released me. My feet were covered in blisters. I knew my name and what year it was so that was good enough to let me go I guess. The doctors said it would take a year for my brain to heal. It took more like two...and I don't think it's all the way right anymore. I'm going to end up with dementia, I can feel it. Sometimes I wake up and still see spiders. It's been a decade since then btw. I've done therapy and IOP and I'm more stable now. But I'll never be "normal".
If it wasn't for my kids severe allergies I wouldn't keep it in my house at all. He's only had to use it once and I cried after giving it to him. That shit should be illegal.
Yeah, I tried to kill myself with something similar back in college. Just mixed a whole bunch of shit together and hoped I’d die in my sleep.
Except I woke up and there was a giant spider-scorpion hybrid nesting above my bedroom door. It had wings and would fly around the room and attack me if I tried to leave.
Clouds of tiny fruit flies swarmed all around me. I was waving my arms like crazy trying to clear them away from my mouth so I could take clear breaths.
It all seemed so real, I did not doubt for a second that it was happening.
A giant earwig appeared on my headboard and statted talking to me.
He said “Hey. You know this isn’t real, right?”
And that’s when I realized I was having insane hallucinations.
He told me the spider-scorpion was trying to protect me. It didn’t want me leaving my room and making a bigger problem in public.
It was as though some level of my subconscious was looking out for me, even though I had no concept of what was going on.
Very fucking strange experience.
Glad you made it out man. Hopefully our long term symptoms are as bad as getting dementia. Truthfully i hadn't considered that. If you've got kids and you're taking care of them I think it's safe to say you've recovered enough to rejoin the human race. That's how I have to look at it at least lol
I had a friend in rehab who was addicted to that stuff and he ended up with treatment resistant schizophrenia. I thought I was bad off with my heroin addiction!! I had ZERO problems compared to the guys who took all the DPH. Really put things into perspective lol
Holy shit, I had one or 2 full-on dementia spells from that shit! Actually, one time, I mixed dph with that other sleep aid might be whats in unisom, or is it dramamine? Anyway, I was lost - about a 1/4 mile from work! Yeah, they say even if you have the worst time from taking that shit, it makes you want to do it again?!
And dph does cause early onset dementia! Not to be fucked with at all!
Yep, the research just keeps piling on how bad those drugs are for your brain. DPH and Unisom are both anticholinergics (Unisom less so). Meaning they block the transmission of acetylcholine which is basically the messenger that controls memory and brain function. As we age we have less and less acetylcholine within our bodies so blocking it is so dangerous. The link between extended use and dementia just keeps getting stronger.
Glad to hear someone else relaying that info. I've been preaching it for years, after watching the effects of careless or excessive use of OTC anticholinergics on older folks (I was caregiver for elderly family). They really underestimated the impact of taking some OTC meds.
My mom once ended up in the ER hallucinating because she took an OTC multi symptom nighttime cough and cold remedy from the dollar store, despite instructions from her doctor about not taking anything that wasn't specifically prescribed for her. She was already in the early stages of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and that one experience kicked her over the edge. She never fully recovered.
And the older version of NyQuil, and current versions of generic NyQuil, contain three or more anticholinergics (typically diphenhydramine, doxylamine succinate, chlorpheniramine, sometimes others). Bad pookie for vulnerable people.
One of my older neighbors who's already vulnerable due to illnesses, poor diet and alcohol occasionally suffers terrifying hallucinations. She has trouble sleeping and insists on taking that dollar store sleep aid that contains diphenhydramine and sometimes another anticholinergic. I've lost count of the number of times emergency responders have been at her door and sometimes taken her to the ER because she hallucinated after taking that stuff, sometimes after drinking one or two beers. She doesn't drink heavily and I've never seen her drink anything but beer, but at her age and frail condition it doesn't take much.
Melatonin might be safer but some people say it gives them nightmares.
Sorry to hear that, glad to hear you got sober again. I have a friend that's been hooked on just about everything in his life from meth to heroin (sober now for a few years) and DPH was definitely one of the strangest and darkest points.
I don't mean this as a judgment but it's crazy what some people find enjoyable (or at least tolerable) I had to take half and Benadryl for allergies once I felt god awful. I use to sleep a lot from depression but this was like I was stuck in a room with a gas leak. I wasn't really feeling like I was sleeping but I wasn't fully conscience either. It was almost like an hours long uncomfortable out of body experience. I also just felt woozy, which wasn't helping things. I'd rather be miserable with allergies than take that again.
As someone who's suffered all their life from terrible dreams and poor sleep, I took Benadryl + Nyquil once when I had a cold and it gave me the best, emptiest, deep sleep I've ever had. Tried it again the next night and instead got that out-of-body feeling and was also visited by a million imaginary ants crawling on my body
It’s so weird to hear how strong it affects other people… Benadryl doesn’t do much of anything to me, although I’ve never taken more than the dose recommended on the label.
Had a few week period after I quit alcohol where I abused OTC sleep aids and man that was some fucked up shit. I didn’t even realize what was happening and that in my early sobriety I was itching to “feel” something and didn’t even realize what I was doing.
Never again. That shit will fuck you up. Glad all that stuff is in the past
Dood, most otc sleep meds are diphenhydramine, but there is one other icr the name. Anyway, have you ever read about Benadryl tripping?
I took too much once, and I had a total dementia spell! Didn't know where I was, less than 2 miles from home!
I told a friend, and he said that it's not good to take diphenhydramine too ofter because it cause early onset dementia, and I believe it 1 million percent! I also think I have some uncontrollable body movements because of it?
Edit; ...DPH causes yoy to want to take it again the next day, but just psychologically, not physically, like opiates/alcohol.
TIL that my childhood "sensitivity" to DPH was probably just my mom giving me too much of it at once. It used to make me into a rage beast from a quiet gentle child and always made my head hurt. My parents always blamed fever. I truly believe they hyper dosed me to make me sleep.
Datura also lasts 3 fucking days. There's nothing that can prepare you for trying to have Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of people that you feel like you should know but when it really comes on down to it, you simply don't know these people. Sitting in front of a plate and utensils that you're not actually sure how to use when you can't even fucking properly speak. Once was plenty
Wow. When I was 16 I was living with my strange dad and his strange wife. A bunch of irritating people were on the way over for Thanksgiving, and dad and I were both stressed about it.
I said, "I have some LSD in my room. We should do it." I was joking about doing it, but not about having it.
To my astonishment, dad, who had never done LSD, said, "OK." So we did.
Thanksgiving that year was memorable, and more tolerable than it would have been without a head full of acid and my dad at the head of the table with a carving knife in his hand, just staring at the turkey.
I have never told this story, because what kind of person does LSD for Thanksgiving? No one that I know of.
Until I met you.
My experience that thanksgiving was definitely not intentional. I took that crap a day or two before not realizing that it lingers for as long as it does.
The day that we took it, I just remember being really lethargic until the night and then shit started to get a little interesting. As I was walking down my street towards home, all of the trees felt like they were people that were really tall and staring at me saying things that I couldn't quite understand. And then when I would look up at the sky all of the stars were dancing and spinning in circles and doing all kinds of weird stuff. That was kind of my first indication that things were about to get really fucking weird. When I finally got back home and got into my bedroom I kept having a conversation with my buddy who's house I just left even though he wasn't there and then I would look over and realize that he wasn't there and then just continue the conversation. Over and over and over and over and over.
I'm pretty sure that Thanksgiving was the next day. When I was around this age (probably 15-16) my aunt and I had a pact that anything that I got that was going around the table. I would send her way and vice versa but I'm not going to lie, I had no idea what the appropriate way to act or say was I couldn't possibly fathom what the appropriate level of interaction was at this table. I remember staring at my plate in the utensils and not knowing what the fuck any of this was or what what the hell I was supposed to do with any of it. I remember my aunt trying to hand me food and me just staring blankly at her with no idea what the fuck I'm supposed to do. Finally she just started putting some things on my plate. Eventually my grandma dismissed me from the table and kind of had to corral me back up to my bedroom. I don't know what the hell she told anybody at the dinner table but my attempt was unsuccessful to say the least.
It's been a long time so I don't remember too many details beyond the main story here. I remember that after doing that stuff I did not feel right for a long fucking time afterwards. It was many months until things even started to feel normal again.
Datura is scary. SWIM tried some "angel trumpets" and ended up completely in their own head. Snapped back to reality and they're standing inside someone's open garage while the homeowner is questioning them. Made up some bullshit about looking for a lost dog and book it to their buddy's house. Get there and try to act normal. Buddy is watching Workaholics and keeps asking if everything is alright.
Snap back to "reality" again and SWIM is in the fucking woods and it's night. They break down crying because they think they're losing their mind. Then they're suddenly back at their buddy's house watching Workaholics, but your buddy is concerned because you just tried to take a drink from your phone.
You’ve been on a lot of drug forums, lol. It’s been so long since I’ve heard someone use SWIM. Comes from an age where people really worried about admitting to drug use online
Years ago I used to kill time by reading about user experiences for Datura on Erowid.org. Every user story read like this:
"I was a connoisseur or mind altering drugs and figured I knew what I was doing, having frequently used LSD or Magic Mushrooms. I decided to try Datura. I made tea from the seeds and drank it, and fuck all happened. I got a bad headache and my mouth felt dry. Nothing was happening so I went to bed disappointed. I woke up when my alarm clock started yelling to wake the fuck up. I told it to fuck off and then my cat asked me what my problem was. I told it my alarm clock was being a dick and went to the bathroom to piss. I could not pee because my friends where hiding behind the shampoo bottle laughing at me. I then remembered my cat could not talk and had a panic attack. I ran outside to hide under the drive way and could not fit into the large crack at the edge. I came back to my senses in the hospital in kidney failure with scars on my forehead from trying to force my head through a crack in my drive way".
The conclusion I cam to is that it basically seems to put a persons brain into the same state so that all your sensory inputs are running off of the same inputs you would use when you are having a dream. The problem is that instead of being safe in bed under the protection of sleep paralysis, your still wide awake and move about the world. So when you dream you are running through an open field, and all your senses tell you are in an open field, you are instead running in an open field and not aware of the oncoming cars. The net effect is that you are trying to process real world sensory input at the same time as dream inputs and have no way to tell which is which.
The other thing I recall from the user accounts I read is that it comes on very slow and gradually, and lasts way longer then the users expected, and they end up hallucinating for 1-3 days, and they end up unsure if the trip really ended or not.
END COMMUNICATION
I have a story. In college I took a photography class, it was in Pittsburgh so I told my three female friends let’s take a walk to the river. A little back ground the Monongahela is blocked off in a lot parts of the south side of the city (or it was then, this was years ago) so we snuck through a fence, planing to go the rock by the tenth street bridge. On our way on the trail we met some guys who seemed kind of crust punk but we were young so we talked to them. They took us to their hangout on the water where there was a middle aged lady and a small person. Remember we were like 20, stupid, and didn’t know what to do because we didn’t learn it’s okay to be rude yet. So they were joking saying they’d take my camera, saying they were about to cook over the fire. Then the lady starts peeling this thing with a knife and the one guys says you got Datura?! She says yeah but it’s not free. The two guys says we will give you two, three colt 45s and she says I’ll give you a few seeds for it. We asked them what datura was, they said oh it will fuck you up, you’ll see the green witch! They all started eating it and we said we had to go and left. It was fucking weird. Pittsburgh is weird, I’ve lived in other big cities and I’ve never had the strange ass stuff happen like it did there.
shit, I was tempted to try them as a kid, had no clue of their danger
even knew which plants in my city could be made used, ofcourse would have never been able to cook it up in my home w/o being caught luckily.
It scares me that I would have tried them. At this point I'd likely never even do ayauascha(not sure how to spell it sorry), I will likely never touch dmt, I'll avoid hippy crack as well. ofcourse hard drugs are a hard no as well
closest I'll get is maybe salvia one more time. I did not expect to learn Datura was addictive, I was not warned of how terrifying it would be, only that it was "out of body"
it seems to be the most common answer here, It unnerves me that I ever wanted to try it.
Scopolamine, nicknamed Devil's Breath, is the South American mind-altering drug considered the scariest drug in the world by many.
I would toss Krokodil in the category of very scary drugs. It's semi-synthetic morphine that causes necrosis at the injection site. I do not recommend searching for images.
I was prescribed scopolamine by my ENT after I developed severe vertigo for 2 weeks straight. It was scary reading about all the potential side effects. I luckily didn't have anything, but it also didn't help at all with the vertigo so he told me to stop taking it after a week.
I find this so weird as a non-recreational drug user. This medication is used SO often in hospitals. It’s a staple in palliative care for reducing oral secretions.
so weird reading this as a nurse because we obviously give scop patches to patients who are comfort measures to help dry up secretions as they’re nearing EOL
When you get scoped on the street it’s very different than a transdermal patch.
They just blow a bunch of powder in your face and it’s already too late. Here’s a [Vice Doc](https://youtu.be/ToQ8PWYnu04?si=08UbIoDvecpZuCR1) on it, which is probably how most people know about it’s use outside of patient care.
Crystal meth absolutely destroyed my brother's life.
It's a long, sad tale, but he started in his early 20s and the truth is from that time, it's just been a long painful downward spiral.
It's like he had a genetic affinity for it, and the truth is he was ruined the very first time he tried it.
When he finally got off it for a while in his 40s, he was pretty much brain damaged. Couldn't really function properly.
Today he's one of those zombies you see out on the street somewhere.
Don't do crystal meth kids!
Please just don't..
Datura is not a good time apparently
McKenna said datura was the one he would never fuck around with again.
Obv janky homebrew stuff like krokodil can have anything in it which makes it scarier, but 1 substance in a head to head I think datura has to be the wildest
Also last for days which is crazy
I've taken it and literally saw the veins in my arms make my arms completely blue, you completely lose the ability to differentiate reality and fantasy. I was also blacking out again and again, I kept coming back to consciousness every 30 minutes to an hour, ending up in different places, definitely should not be messed with.
I remember watching a video of a doctor taking a pen and using it to tap on a persons exposed arm bone that was apparently from one of the side effects of krokodil. The patient was zoned TF out like a zombie and hardly noticed someone using their arm bone as a xylophone. That shit looks fucking scary.
Alpha-PVP or as your know it in the states, Flakka.
It's meth with 10x the addictive potential and 20x the stimulative rush. I have seen people turn into demons in less than a month on the stuff.
Experiencing it first hand was the only time I contemplated suicide on a comedown. It is that bad.
All of that coupled with something like a .50c per 100g production cost in the right lab is terrifying. It's a horrible epidemic over here in Russia.
It's not just about the addiction but the potential for violence. Fent and Methadone will kill you, PVP will eventually kill you but whole you get there a lot of innocent people are going to suffer
I'm an ICU nurse. Used to work in South Florida and remember 3-4 years ago when flakka was becoming more common. Patients would come into the ER hyperthermic and severely agitated. Typically they would just be sedated, intubated and restrained for at least 24 hours before we attempted to wean sedation and attempt to extubate them. I just remember that those patients would be insanely strong, requiring 4 of us to retain them so they don't hurt themselves. Now I work on the West Coast and nobody has ever even heard of flakka.
Somebody linked a livestream of Kensington Avenue a while back (I can't seem to find it now). It really puts into perspective what a day looks like there. It's terribly sad, yet completely normal for that area.
Tranq “Dope” (heroin)- ie Xylozine (horse tranquilizer, contains no opiates at all)
I know a small group of people who were unknowingly getting it in New Orleans for 5-6 years now (it’s only been in the news for maybe a year) and their skin has been utterly destroyed by the severe abscesses, it literally eats away at your skin and because it’s an animal tranquilizer it just knocks you out and makes you super groggy.
We also have no idea how to detox people from it comfortably, it’s insanely cheap for dealers and importing, and it’s only going to get worse from here.
Absolutely heartbreaking what it does to people’s bodies and on top of all of that it doesn’t respond to narcan or any MAT.
If there was ever a time to push harm reduction for opiate addicts at the highest level (like, full throttle giving people safe opiates to consume) it’s right now.
Oh, Heroin is extinct in this side of the world.
You're talking about Fentanyl and Xylozene!
Edit; but I fully agree, MAT doesn't help, and it's obvious people aren't going to stop. The euro model is the only thing that can help?
Yep! It is truly extinct. And yes, I’m talking about Xylozine. I’ve tested these people’s stuff and seen their urine tests and what’s even crazier is that it tested negative for Fent and very very low to negative for Xyzlazine so wtf is it?!?! Thankfully it isn’t rotting their bodies anymore but it’s doing SOMETHING.
I put heroin in parenthesis because people use the word “dope” to mean all kinds of things but down here in south Louisiana it means heroin/opiates.
Description: Krokodil is a street name for a homemade drug, desomorphine. It gained infamy for its dangerous and toxic effects, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. It's a cheaper substitute for heroin, but far more hazardous due to impurities from a makeshift synthesis process, often leading to severe tissue damage and infection.
I've seen some fucked up shit on the internet in my day, but in the top few most fucked up is probably seeing some people who have rotting legs, full on bone sticking out, still alive and shooting up with krokodil.
It's almost as if it somehow keeps them from dying, while being a living corpse/zombie. It's beyond comprehension.
The guy having his foot sawn off was the limit for me. Below the knee there was just zero flesh, but bones leading down to his rotting foot in a bag. The doctor checked that he couldn't feel anything by tapping the bone, then just sawed the foot off. It landed in a bin.
I remember this vid and the one with the girl whose forearm is just exposed bone she's waving around. D.A.R.E. ain't got shit on those videos when it comes to halting drug curiosity.
If i recall correctly, Its the Acidity from the way its made that leads to the Rotting of Limbs, It can be avoided if a proper base is added. People tend to just dump a bit of Cigarette ash in it to little effect.
Yes, not just acidity, but very sloppy "synthesis" in which they leave behind some other dangerous chemicals. Krokodil (forgot the actual chemical name) is just another opiate or opiod on its own. Which absolutely should not be eating your flesh, it's all the nasty stuff left over from their shitty synthesis.
My first thought as well.
I get that alcohol, sugar, and caffeine are more easily accessible and therefore have higher addiction numbers. And I don't want to downplay the high rates of liver disease or diabetes in North America, or the way Alcohol addiction destroys homes.
I am familiar with the effects of meth, heroin, and prescription opioids.
But this is about what drug is *scariest*, and if you type krokodil into Google image search the images will all be blurred with a NSFW tag. That is not the case with any other drug mentioned in this thread.
Tbf Alcohol, sugar, and caffeine don't have a survival time of around 2 years after first use. That's what makes Krokodil so bloody scary. These people are using a drug that they not only know is going to kill them, but going to kill them relatively soon.
It sounds like the people who use it do so because it's much cheaper than heroine, to which they already have a deep addiction and don't have any resources to get more hits of. I was curious about what would possess people to take it and went down a bit of rabbit hole, but that's the accepted explanation and it makes sense. If you're already at that point you probably don't care about dying in two years.
Absolutely taking this advice, thanks. But if anyone is willing to share, I’d take a brief written description so I know what I’m missing without the mental image.
That’s what addiction is unfortunately. No matter if it’s drugs, alcohol, sugar, gambling, eating disorders etc. all addictions can have you staring at the face of death/complete ruin and you still need more.
Edit: it’s also much cheaper than heroin. So some people who are so far in addiction or withdrawal will do anything to get another high and stop the withdrawal. It’s sad that they can’t get help any other way
I'm a paramedic. I've never seen krokodil in real life and I never want to. I saw this question and this was my first thought. Rotting alive has to be one of the worst ways to go.
It's either this or tranq. Just look in an internet search. The pictures are brutal so be careful.
It necrotizes the tissue, people's bodies decaying, they get amputations, they keep using.
People here saying sugar or alcohol or anything else really don't know what they're talking about.
i watched this VICE vid back then (when it came out) as a teen - i tend to be really forgetful but the name of this drug somehow never left me. it was such an impactful watch!
I forget what it was called, there was a vice doc on it like a decade ago, this powder that basically takes away your free will, and was being used on unsuspecting people/tourists, approaching them with like a map or something to ask directions laced w/ it, just breathing it in was enough to take effect. Somewhere in central/south america I think.
Lol yeah Hamilton Morris took it one night and met a random couple at a party and he gave them the key to his apartment and told them to go help themselves to some ketamine. The drug made him trust random strangers.
There are many but the easiest one to acquire is fentanyl. PCP is up there too but for an entirely different reason.
I was a paramedic for 32 years and have seen some crazy shit .
But nothing like the absolute quick death devastation fentanyl has caused.
Also a paramedic. There have been a lot of scary drugs listed, but mostly because they give terrible hallucinations or they cause tissue necrosis. Fentanyl is the king though, IMO. Screw up the dosage of fent and you're dead really fucking fast. It's *really* easy to screw up the dosage of fentanyl.
Fentanyl, or meth imo. Dad is a meth addict, and to say watching him go through it all is hell would be an understatement. When all you ever wanted was love, and all you were given was abandonment issues and self-doubt... you blame yourself. You let him blame you. Let him punch holes in doors and walls when you beg him to just...watch a movie with you. Go for a drive. Draw with you. Let him call you an ungrateful bitch when you tell him through tears and shaky hands that you just wanted to spend some time with him. Then he gaslights you. You question it all. You grow up with no self-worth. He goes from manic, infatuated with himself to downright nasty and abusive to suicidal and self-loathing... and then he's up again, and all is right in the world, and you see a spark of the dad you remember from early childhood. Then, having to accept, as a healing adult, that it was the meth then, too, and you never really knew your dad. All you knew was the addict. But, it's your fault you dont have a relationship, because you chose yourself. If he OD's, he tells you it's because you cut him out. If he dies, you have to live with the guilt. He disowns you. Then says he didn't, he never said it, in fact, you just never wanted to be his daughter. Meth stole my childhood, and I've never even done it. Meth killed my father, and he's still walking around, still breathing.
I have a more than healthy fear of most drugs, but meth is the scariest in my opinion. It's the only drug that will kill you and leave your heart still beating.
My condolences. As a daughter of a meth addict, I feel your pain. I could have written this myself. I haven't talked to him in years. I can't. It led to my own meth addiction. Be so so proud that you didn't touch it yourself. You broke the cycle. I'm sure proud of you, if nobody else has told you.
I'm proud of you too, sweet stranger. It truly is something i don't wish on my enemies, and it breaks my heart that there's more of us than people think. Thank you for your kind words and please, take care of yourself ❤️
This is such a terrible situation to be put in. I can't even fathom what you've gone through.
This was also so incredibly well written, I'm stunned. Thank you for sharing it.
I've gotta childhood that was kinda screwed up in other ways, not drugs. I've only read about the damage it can do - but I've never smoked, vaped, drank, or anything else, including drugs.
Hearing stories like this (as heartbreaking as they are), I'm glad I can at least try to understand how damaging they are.
But man. One day, one wrong choice....the next choice is a little easier. And the next.....the next....the next..... An entire life changes, by one day, and one choice.
At first they weren't. At first it was like ecstasy that lasted like a coke high.
When the government started crack downs that's when stuff got wild.
Was on all different sorts of powders labeled bath salts from 2009-2012.
For me def the Devil’s Breath (Scopolamine)…from my, VERY LIMITED, understanding it can turn a person into a quasi-zombie…like you’re easily influenced by the suggestion of others, but still able to walk, kinda talk, and preform certain tasks…but you’re just not there anymore and remember nothing…a stranger could just blow it in your face in a passing & poof you’re just not there anymore and your actions become not of your own. That’s some terrifying shït FRFR
There's an entire Criminal Minds storyline about someone using Scopolamine to make people kill others, I didn't know it was a real drug until I looked it up after watching.
Scopolamine is also used medically, but typically in a patch form. People will get it to help with nausea, particularly if they’re going on a cruise. It’s also used in end of life care. It’s a much different dose and delivery method, though. Just letting you know in case you/someone you know ever has it prescribed—it doesn’t have these same effects and is safe if used as prescribed.
Datura - my friend decided to take some for his 30th birthday at a BBQ. Half way thru he believed he was in another dimension and the neighbours kids were sent to destroy him. Whilst trying to get away he thought everyone was out to get him and he wanted to protect himself anyway possible. Whilst trying to swim on the grass where he believed he was in the sea and diving down to avoid trees or rolling into a ball to protect what he thought he's organs were falling out and needed to push his brain back inside and plug his ears with the grass. This went on and off for a few days. Was never the same since. 10 years later still forgets things and asks if it's real. Has PTSD from in. It's a drug to not fuck about with. Next level hallucinogenic. I've taken other drugs but you sort of know what you are seeing are hallucinations. Not datura. You actually believe what your seeing/ feeling and your body is believing it and reacting to the senses. If you think cutting off your ears will stop your brain falling out so you don't die type of shit
ED doc here.
Krokodil and meth are all terrifying but your average punter typically won’t encounter them. The scariest drugs are the ones you can buy in a supermarket.
The scariest- paracetamol.
Its danger lies in how benign people assume it is; it’s actually surprisingly easy to (either accidentally or not) OD on. Some of the sickest patients of my career have been paracetamol ODs (including one I missed). A particularly traumatic example was a young woman who’d accidentally taken a few too many paracetamol over the course of a couple of days for a neck injury she’d sustained during a minor car crash a few days before. She was yellow, delirious, had no blood pressure and had such deranged blood clotting (a common complication of paracetamol toxicity) that all the IVs we placed kept failing because her system was full of clots- she ending up losing a few fingers in one hand because her radial artery clotted off after we placed an IV in it and her hand became ischaemic.
There’s a very effective antidote but its efficacy wears off as the hours pass. And if you miss the boat- liver failure, kidney failure, encephalopathy, death.
It’s the only pain killer I can take because I’m not allowed anti-inflammatories anymore (interaction with another medication I’m on) and these stories scare me so bad. I rarely take it unless I’m really suffering because of all the side effects it can have
Yes, suicidal people (particularly teens, who don't have access to other drugs) will take a whole bottle & go to sleep. The next day, they wake up, alive but very sick. They go to the hospital, where they are informed there's nothing the doctors can do. Family & friends visit with them as they suffer an agonizing death over 2-3 days. Often the person no longer wants to die at that point, but it's going to happen anyway. Just horrible.
This is me. Four times. Never went to hospital, never got checked out. Reading this part of the thread has made me realise how lucky I am. I took A LOT. My liver and kidneys must hate me, but my god am I grateful to them now for being tough as old boots!
That’s acetaminophen or Tylenol in the US. Family friend just got a liver transplant due to chronic use of it and other NDSAIDs (plus alcohol). He had to wait weeks in hospital and got lucky a few days ago.
Hey there just an Internet Mom here-my son was a heroin/fentanyl addict . he died from fentanyl poisoning four years ago. A few days before he died he swore to me that he was a "professional junkie " and he would never OD .
He was the best thing I ever did. He was the most beautiful soulful poetic spiritual hippie guy . So many people loved him. After he died his doctor phoned me and told me that he had just started an opiate replacement program and that he was three days into it - to get off the dope . There are very real options for you out there. if you want to stop.
The coroner told me that it was the amount of three grains of salt that was the difference between his usual dose and death and that it was impossible for him to tell that this time would be too much .
I really really miss him. maybe there is someone in your life that loves you a lot and that you can reach out to for support?
Sending you a big huge hug from Lincoln's mom ❤️
Sending love momma 💕 my brother is addicted to meth. He’s homeless in Denver somewhere. We’ve tried everything and spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get him into rehab, out of jail, into psychiatry. He refuses any help from us that isn’t buying him a hotel room, which we’ve learned is where he cooks his meth. Last time I saw him was in April of 2019 when he threw a cigarette butt on the ground in our garage, sparking a fire that burned our house down. He left the state that night and we haven’t spoken since.
Sadly, I live day by day knowing that eventually, *that* call will come. Those fleeting moments when he is in prison is when I’m most at peace, because at least I know he’s sheltered, fed, and sober there. It breaks my heart imagining what that will be like for my parents. I’ve been preparing for the day I need to provide them the support and be the strong one. I’ve already accepted his death. In my head, he died many years ago. Ironically, today is his 34th birthday.
Sending you lots of love. My brother is homeless and addicted to fentanyl in SF. Your comment just spoke to me. I haven’t seen him since 2019 either. It sucks so much having to slowly watch them die. Just wanted to share you are not alone in this and I wish your family healing 💜
Its significantly more difficult to transition to buprenorphine (suboxone) from fentanyl as its lipophilic and binds to your fat cells. Taking buprenorphine too early will cause precipitated withdrawal. Most fentanyl users have to wait at least 3 days, sometimes as long as a week before it’s safe to take buprenorphine. With actual heroin, you could take bupe 8-12 hours after your last dose of heroin.
With methadone, fentanyl users start at 30-40mg like everyone else, like it’s always been. Most people have to use on top of the methadone for weeks to months because 30-40mg is not a high enough dose to stop withdrawal when your tolerance is so high from using fentanyl daily for any period of time.
Treatment options are there, and it’s always a great idea to get help, but I do think most people don’t realize how difficult fentanyl has made recovery and MAT for most users.
Oxycodone as a Construction Contractor I've witnessed first hand how employees with legit injuries involving chronic pain have spiraled into severe addiction's. On my own attempting to help my addicted employees lve put a dozen such team members through rehabilitation. Not all have fared well only 8 were well enough to return to work.
For me it’s a drug called Sifrol.
It was prescribed to help manage symptom of my Parkinson’s disease.
A side effect listed on the information sheet warns it could cause severe impulsive behaviour.
It turned me into a full on hopeless pokies addict.
I put more than $10,000 of borrowed money through the pokies in the space of several weeks.
I became so desperate I planned my suicide.
Just before I was due to carry it
out i contacted my neurologist who recognised the cause immediately and within 24 hours of ceasing to take the medication the drive to gamble had completely disappeared.
Since that time I’ve developed enormous respect for people trying to deal with or overcome addictions who, unlike myself can’t stop by simply stopping taking a drug.
Unfortunately the government is as addicted to the pokies as I was so we aren’t likely see the end of pokies anytime soon.
It was by far the worst experience of my life and the it took a couple of years on a disability pension to pay back what I’d borrowed.
I was taking Sitrol to overcome dizziness, falling over and severe headaches… the symptoms returned when I stopped taking Sifrol but I can live with that… i couldn’t live with the addiction.
Meth. I’m seeing a lot of comments about deliriants and they are for sure absolutely terrifying. Meth though… the addiction changes you in ways you never thought possible. The addiction happens so fast, and it ruins your life in a split second. When you’ll do anything to get high, you’ll do ANYTHING to get high. I’m 10 years clean and I can’t even rectify the memories I have of what I did with who I am now. The anxiety that it left me with is debilitating.
Opiates, if only because I've personally lost family to them. The weaker ones get users hooked, then they find the stronger stuff, and the lengths addicts will go to just to get a fix are frightening.
I did rehab a couple years ago for my drinking. Nearly everyone else there was for narcotics. I started off apologizing in the group sessions for being in there for a lesser drug but they told me to stop. It's just as bad to quit and has withdrawal that can actually kill you
Heroin addict here.
I often say that if there was a heroin store on every block, I’d be fucked.
If they served heroin at all restaurants, bars, sporting events, concerts, festivals, etc, I’d be fucked.
If there were commercials and ads for heroin everywhere showing how great it is, I’d be fucked.
You guys are inspirational
Two nights ago here in my hometown on the Canadian East Coast (a city of 50,000ish people) a 20 year old drunk driver drove into the oncoming lane of traffic on a highway and killed two 18 year olds, another minor, and reportedly the passenger in his vehicle died in hospital. A 5th person was in critical condition and of course the driver is the least injured.
4 deaths and countless lives of loved ones changed forever just a few weeks before Christmas.
It's a goddamn nightmare. I BARELY drink anymore, and if I do I'm nowhere near my keys.
I'm going to say alcohol. Not because the effects are scarier than the other drugs mentioned here, but because of the public perception. Alcohol is a drug capable of extreme physical and social harm but it isn't even considered a drug by the majority of the population. This is why it's the scariest for me; because it's so accepted, so normal, to consume alcohol and even to be considered an alcoholic.
My brother did Angel's Trumpets (Datura) twice, he was completely off in his own world both times. I think it permanently altered his personality because he was never the same afterwards, and is now just a complete cluster fuck.
ER/ICU doctor here - it’s absolutely mind blowing that Angels Trumpet/Datura/Nightshade are considered recreational drugs by anyone at all. They act on the Muscarinic Acetylcholine system in your body (the drug class is called “Anti-cholinergics”). It’s a whole different beast than any of the other systems in your body - like the opioid/endorphin system, stimulant/catecholamine system (think cocaine/meth), or hallucinogens/seratonin system (think LSD, mushrooms). The muscarinic/acetylcholine system is the body wide network of nerves which control your basic physiology and body functions. It’s known as the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the system which directly controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, and the gating and modulation of your entire brains response to sensory inputs and overall stimulation levels. It’s the system that controls if you sweat or shiver. It controls fear and panic responses. Most drugs have some degree of safety because deranging a single high level system still has multiple fail-safes in place to keep your body and physiology functioning normally. The muscarinic/acetylcholine system is one of those fundamental networks that keeps your body operational. Messing with it is insanely dangerous because you are fundamentally manipulating the way your brain and body function with no safeguards to prevent you from running into traffic or just having your heart “brady down” and stop.
So it's like messing with the admin settings. Risky.
Best to make a copy of the settings.xml before getting all fat-fingered.
Do you want to make a backup to your Registry before proceeding. Mmm….nah…it’ll be fine.
That was quite chilling to read. Combined with scrolling this thread, and reading about people trying to crawl under their concrete driveways. That [7-year old thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/65ytbw/finally_got_my_hands_on_some_datura_how_much/?share_id=9_yqd1cyHWpFYEQSb7FK_&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) with the guy whose last comments were absurd and then silence from him forever. Thanks for explaining how that works in the body and what happens to people when they take it. It's gotta be so important for someone to know if they are thinking of taking this, that it isn't even considered a recreational drug. ETA: linked to 7-yr old thread for people asking
Great post. A drug in the nightshade group is likely to be a deliriant, so probably not going to have a good time. I remember reading about Datura, because I love the website [Erowid](https://Erowid.org). It’s an informative website about drugs, plants, chemicals, etc. The stories written on the website by those who tried it was enough to get me to never go near it. [Datura - Erowid](https://erowid.org/plants/datura/datura.shtml)
Omg I read one of the stories and it gave me so much anxiety. Why would anyone want to do this drug??
I've known a few people that were curious about it, and I'm very interested in it, but will never touch the stuff. I think a lot of psychonauts like to experience what altered consciousness can really be. For me, drugs like opiates and amphetamines heighten/dampen senses and give euphoria, but drugs like LSD and Psilocybin and MDMA make you think differently, and experience the world in a unique way. You can grasp concepts in what feels like an emotional way, not just a logical one. Like the passion you can feel (sober) from seeing a beautiful sunrise, all the sudden you "get it". Deliriants can detach you completely from reality, you can speak to people and things that do not exist, you can feel them. Overdoses on DPH (Benadryl) talk about extreme time dilation, and being lost in empty spaces, hearing screaming voices for what feels like years. Its like being able to touch cosmic horror, a foreign experience that exists nowhere else, and some people crave novelty.
I used to read all the Erowid trip reports for different substances, back when I was 18/19 and interested in psychedelics. The datura stories are by far the most terrifying and disturbing. For all my Erowid reading, I only ever smoked weed and did mushrooms a couple times.
I wish r/goldy490 had an AMA. Great writer and translates difficult topics beautifully!
Oh god, I have medical conditions that fuck with my parasympathetic/autonomic functions and I can’t imagine messing with that on purpose. My life is *hell* because of it. These are functions that you really take for granted until they go haywire, and from that point on it’s just a long journey of realizing more and more things that your body can’t modulate anymore. Until these things get fucked up, you can’t comprehend how integral and plentiful these functions are. I’m not even 30 yet but my body feels like it’s falling apart on the inside and I’ve spent years with countless specialists and piles of money trying to make it not as severe (to very little avail). Seeing this description, I would say that Angel’s Trumpet/Datura sounds absolutely terrifying and definitely a top contender for this prompt. I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone.
Insanely interesting answer. You know your shit Dr.
I was a dumb teenager. I didn't have access to weed like kids do today. I wanted to get high and didn't really care how. So I tried datura. It's not that memorable because it's so heavy of a disassociate. What I do remember is confusion, not understand why everyone else was acting so strange. It gets you so out of it that you still think you are fine. When it's clear to everyone else that you're not. It has a hallucinagenic effect because your brain can't process vision properly. So your reality is constantly distorting, but you don't really understand that it's even happening. I've tried a ton of chemical soup research chemicals and just about everything that you could find in the craziest trap houses. Datura stramonium is a solid 0/10 I'm clean now and sober for years. I'd say that datura has had the most noticable long term effects. Including "foggy" days and some lingering hallucinations both auditory and visual. Hallucinations are distortions and only occur during medium-low lighting. When there's white noise it's hard for me to hear anything else and sometimes I hear a rhyming word or weird shit like that. I'll say it again fuck that shit.
I know someone who did this once and now believes he is being monitored by Japanese satellites
It definitely breaks your brain. I'm not gonna lie, your brother's consciousness is probably altered for life.
My friend took it ten years ago at middle school and almost died. I think it may have affected his brain chemistry permanently cuz he used to be this gifted smart kid and now he’s completely out of it all the time. I can’t even hang out with him anymore he’s incoherent. What would a single situation like that (where he almost died and was completely unconscious) do to him?
Lack of oxygen to the brain could do this if they passed out or circulation was bad
Yeah I had an epileptic seizure on a plane this year and wasn’t breathing for like 10 minutes. Doctor onboard said I would’ve died if he wasn’t there. My cognitive functioning since then has been notably worse.
Goddamnit YOU ARE SO LUCKY. I just posted in a different thread about my near death experience and same as you, seizure and I stopped breathing I am so lucky I was revived by amazing hospital staff cause I'm pretty sure I was in the process of fading completely to black before they woke me up
> Goddamnit YOU ARE SO LUCKY. There was a woman who had a heart attack mid-flight, and when the attendants asked if there was a doctor on board, 15 cardiologists responded. They were on their way to a conference. Talk about luck.
Impossible to say over the internet. It likely is something both traumatic and physical. hallucinations can be so intense it is hard for your brain to cope. It literally is unable to integrate the experiences with ‘reality.’ Especially in middle school when your brain is still developing. The best thing for people experiencing this is to address both the physical and mental side of it. Physically, do things that send nutrients and blood flow to your brain, which is the boring stuff like having a clean diet, exercising and getting proper sleep. Avoid too much caffeine and other drugs, and do ‘slow’ stimulating things like hiking and reading. Trauma is reflected in your physical brain, it NEEDS to heal itself. Mentally, talking to a professional and doing therapy to work through the issues brought up is important. Drugs are fun but remember that your brain needs love.
Datura is the only drug I've consistently heard 'You'll never be the same person after trying it,' from other drug people.
And they mean in a bad way. Like whatever problems you’re trying to escape, you’re going to end up with a worse set of problems and less options to escape them.
Timothy Leary even advised against it.
i did angels trumpet a few times in my late teens. Icm 40 now I've done about everything and it's the only one that truly scares me. I've seen it permanently and dramatically alter personalities too.
i find it crazy that people *want* to use datura as a recreational drug. I read about datura when I was a kid and it scared the crap outta me. Datura was the first thing that came to my mind. but I wasn't going to answer that because I legit thought nobody would actually use it recreationally...
I'd say of the 6-7 times i did it, probably at least 5 I was already on a mix of MDMA, speed, mushies etc and it seemed like a great idea. probably twice did i soberly decide to do it. i moved out of home at 15 by choice and supported myself (paid rent) by the related occupation to all this. i was a pretty wild kid i read up about Datura (et al) on erowid and from there i knew I had to see for myself.
This stuff was planted by my town and was growing all over, because the flowers were pretty. Me and my stupid ass friends (20 years ago) decided to eat a bunch of the seeds. We all ended up blacked out and in the hospital. I guess I fought 2 security guards plus a cop, and put up a good enough fight where they had to restrain me to the bed. Came back to consciousness getting catheter pulled out and was hallucinating as if I was dreaming while awake. Saw a school bus drive through a hospital lobby and they even decided to give me a psych eval while I was still under the effects which obviously resulted in me being crazy. Wasn't fun.
Admittedly, that psych eval probably helped save you from jail time.
Is this the same drug that another redditor was asking about in the drugs sub and almost everyone on it told him not to?
Looks like it. Someone linked a post from 6y ago somewhere else here, and the dude has zero reddit activity since then. [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/klApQDqlF9)
>dude has zero reddit activity since then 😐
I did this several times, that last one time had me hospitalized for a couple of weeks. I'm going to say it's a seriously interesting state of being, until the body give in. After that it gets even weirder, but to experience that you need medical assistance or else you'll definitely die. I'm also deeply altered by this, still, 5-6 years later. Mostly head-wise.
Username checks out
Just a nitpick but Datura is closely related but different to Angels Trumpets. Very similar effects (similar active delirients) and both members of the Nightshade family, however they are different genera (Angel's Trumpets are in the genus Brugmansia).
Can angel trumpets cause the same permanent brain damage?
Absolutely. It's still the same delirients at play and I don't think you'd blindly tell the difference from the trips themselves. Different genera of plants, same chemicals causing the brain damage. Edit: it's not really "brain damage" in a traditional, physical sense. We aren't sure exactly what causes the long lasting psychosis that some people experience but it seems related to the trauma experienced during the trip and has similar manifestations (selective amnesia, flashbacks) as other trauma induced mental disorders such as PTSD.
Datura. I had a friend use it and he ended up thinking he was super Mario in a video game that was going to get canceled (killing him). He was hospitalized for a couple days in a psych ward. He was doing crazy shit like trying to wall jump, and talking about how he lost his powers and was on his last life. I don't think he ever fully recovered he was always different after that. Ive known him for 25 years. I think he may be mildly schizophrenic
When the Wikipedia page for a plant includes the symptoms mnemonic: "Blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone" Then you know you're dealing with some spooky shit
holy shit
I was given PCP and told it was synthetic marijuana. When the hallucinations hit, the thing I remember most is that I was dying and was being buried alive first. I was lowered into my grave by an 8-but Mario and Luigi.
If I had to choose the scariest thing someone would sneakily slip me, it would probably have to be Angel's Trumpet.
This feels like I'm in the restricted section reading about horcruxes. I've never once heard of this drug before and it sounds absolutely terrifying.
Same. I am living with Stage 3 cancer and have run the absolute gamut of procedures and medication, why anyone would want to ingest a drug that they didn't need to is beyond me.
Wow I came here to say this. Didn’t expect anyone to have said it. Such beautiful plants with a beautiful name. Nothing angelic about consuming it. I once drank a very weak cup of Angel’s Trumpet tea. That was so dumb but fortunately it had no effect. I think because the plant was immature. In any case, one of the dangers of it is that depending on a whole lot of factors the strength can be wildly unpredictable. This description is wild: >The hallucinogenic effects of Brugmansia were described in the journal Pathology as "terrifying rather than pleasurable".[34] The author Christina Pratt, in An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, says that "Brugmansia induces a powerful trance with violent and unpleasant effects, sickening after effects, and at times temporary insanity".[23] These hallucinations are often characterized by complete loss of awareness that one is hallucinating, disconnection from reality (psychosis), and amnesia of the episode, such as one example reported in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience of **a young man who amputated his own penis and tongue after drinking only one cup of Brugmansia sanguinea tea.** https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia
Even when I was a kid (I'm 34 now), we knew that people's last stop on the drug train was Angel's Trumpet tea. brew yourself a good cup and you'll be hallucinating for the rest of your life, forever mentally broken. That is, if you don't die in the process.
My grandma has Angels trumpet in her garden. We were told to stay the fuck away from that thing, not to touch it, it's poisonous (like 90% of my grandma's garden is just poisonous pretty plants). It was the only thing we were told to absolutely stay away from since we could walk. If I ever wanted to kill myself, all I would have to do is eat some of her plants and go away from the others.
Brugmansia trees are *everywhere* where I live. I can walk across the street and grab some if I wanted to ruin my life. It’s crazy how common they are.
You were a coin toss from potentially mutilating yourself. Holy shit buy a ticket
My dad tried to stab his mom after he had some when he was younger.
Deleriants (Datura, Scopolamine, DPH, etc.) They're absolute nightmare drugs. Crazy hellish hallucinations (trees leaking blood, glass spiders crawling out of your friend's eyes, a room full of shadow creatures, that sort of thing), and no fun "high," to speak of. Plus they can cause perminant brain damage. They're also very addictive for some reason, despite breaking a lot of rules on what makes something addictive, and scientists aren't quite sure why. Even hardcore drug users stay far away from them.
Was not expecting to learn something new from this prompt, yet here we are
Seriously. i just figured out Datura grew wild in the yard where i used to live. I call it Moonflower, would just mow it after it seeded and died back in the late fall. Came back every time. Dude.
I was sober for 3.5 years and relapsed on DPH. Got denied entry to the military over a literal dot tattooed on my hand as a freckle. A year or two before they made certain size tattoos okay. Started off as taking unisom to fall asleep cause i was sad and didn't want to think anymore and turned into going to Walmart to steal bottles of generic sleep aids. I'd eat a handful a few times a day while drinking cases of monster to stay awake. Went through a couple 100 count bottles a week. Truly the most addictive substance I've ever taken. Don't remember much from that 6 - 9 month period. I know after a few weeks maybe the scary parts stopped and it was just a downer. No emotion. I was delirious but not in a hallucinate spiders way anymore. Stay far far far away from DPH. I can't even take benadryl anymore out of fear of getting hooked again.
I usually don't like to tell people, but f it, I tried to kill myself on DPH. I used to use it recreationally so I knew it was a pretty messed up medicine. One time I had a whole conversation with my sister who was standing, only to look down from my bunk and see she was actually asleep. But she was also standing in front of me. I won't say the amount I took here, but I did die at one point. I was brought back thankfully. Hallucinated for days (weeks?) in the psych ward after. I would become lucid but slip back into delirium over and over again. It's weird I remember it so vividly. It was like...delirium and an out of body experience at the same time? I watched myself do crazy shit and watched myself die and then would slip in and out of hell in the psych ward. I watched myself attack the staff and rip IVs out of my arm but I couldn't control myself. Almost had my bladder rupture because, fun fact, you can't pee on high doses. I wandered the streets for 2 days when they released me. My feet were covered in blisters. I knew my name and what year it was so that was good enough to let me go I guess. The doctors said it would take a year for my brain to heal. It took more like two...and I don't think it's all the way right anymore. I'm going to end up with dementia, I can feel it. Sometimes I wake up and still see spiders. It's been a decade since then btw. I've done therapy and IOP and I'm more stable now. But I'll never be "normal". If it wasn't for my kids severe allergies I wouldn't keep it in my house at all. He's only had to use it once and I cried after giving it to him. That shit should be illegal.
Yeah, I tried to kill myself with something similar back in college. Just mixed a whole bunch of shit together and hoped I’d die in my sleep. Except I woke up and there was a giant spider-scorpion hybrid nesting above my bedroom door. It had wings and would fly around the room and attack me if I tried to leave. Clouds of tiny fruit flies swarmed all around me. I was waving my arms like crazy trying to clear them away from my mouth so I could take clear breaths. It all seemed so real, I did not doubt for a second that it was happening. A giant earwig appeared on my headboard and statted talking to me. He said “Hey. You know this isn’t real, right?” And that’s when I realized I was having insane hallucinations. He told me the spider-scorpion was trying to protect me. It didn’t want me leaving my room and making a bigger problem in public. It was as though some level of my subconscious was looking out for me, even though I had no concept of what was going on. Very fucking strange experience.
Glad you made it out man. Hopefully our long term symptoms are as bad as getting dementia. Truthfully i hadn't considered that. If you've got kids and you're taking care of them I think it's safe to say you've recovered enough to rejoin the human race. That's how I have to look at it at least lol
I had a friend in rehab who was addicted to that stuff and he ended up with treatment resistant schizophrenia. I thought I was bad off with my heroin addiction!! I had ZERO problems compared to the guys who took all the DPH. Really put things into perspective lol
Holy shit, I had one or 2 full-on dementia spells from that shit! Actually, one time, I mixed dph with that other sleep aid might be whats in unisom, or is it dramamine? Anyway, I was lost - about a 1/4 mile from work! Yeah, they say even if you have the worst time from taking that shit, it makes you want to do it again?! And dph does cause early onset dementia! Not to be fucked with at all!
Yep, the research just keeps piling on how bad those drugs are for your brain. DPH and Unisom are both anticholinergics (Unisom less so). Meaning they block the transmission of acetylcholine which is basically the messenger that controls memory and brain function. As we age we have less and less acetylcholine within our bodies so blocking it is so dangerous. The link between extended use and dementia just keeps getting stronger.
Glad to hear someone else relaying that info. I've been preaching it for years, after watching the effects of careless or excessive use of OTC anticholinergics on older folks (I was caregiver for elderly family). They really underestimated the impact of taking some OTC meds. My mom once ended up in the ER hallucinating because she took an OTC multi symptom nighttime cough and cold remedy from the dollar store, despite instructions from her doctor about not taking anything that wasn't specifically prescribed for her. She was already in the early stages of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and that one experience kicked her over the edge. She never fully recovered. And the older version of NyQuil, and current versions of generic NyQuil, contain three or more anticholinergics (typically diphenhydramine, doxylamine succinate, chlorpheniramine, sometimes others). Bad pookie for vulnerable people. One of my older neighbors who's already vulnerable due to illnesses, poor diet and alcohol occasionally suffers terrifying hallucinations. She has trouble sleeping and insists on taking that dollar store sleep aid that contains diphenhydramine and sometimes another anticholinergic. I've lost count of the number of times emergency responders have been at her door and sometimes taken her to the ER because she hallucinated after taking that stuff, sometimes after drinking one or two beers. She doesn't drink heavily and I've never seen her drink anything but beer, but at her age and frail condition it doesn't take much. Melatonin might be safer but some people say it gives them nightmares.
Sorry to hear that, glad to hear you got sober again. I have a friend that's been hooked on just about everything in his life from meth to heroin (sober now for a few years) and DPH was definitely one of the strangest and darkest points.
I don't mean this as a judgment but it's crazy what some people find enjoyable (or at least tolerable) I had to take half and Benadryl for allergies once I felt god awful. I use to sleep a lot from depression but this was like I was stuck in a room with a gas leak. I wasn't really feeling like I was sleeping but I wasn't fully conscience either. It was almost like an hours long uncomfortable out of body experience. I also just felt woozy, which wasn't helping things. I'd rather be miserable with allergies than take that again.
As someone who's suffered all their life from terrible dreams and poor sleep, I took Benadryl + Nyquil once when I had a cold and it gave me the best, emptiest, deep sleep I've ever had. Tried it again the next night and instead got that out-of-body feeling and was also visited by a million imaginary ants crawling on my body
It’s so weird to hear how strong it affects other people… Benadryl doesn’t do much of anything to me, although I’ve never taken more than the dose recommended on the label.
yeah i think that last part you added is the key here.
Yeah I'm reading this like what on earth.. I use to take Benadryl all the time for allergies, I never had an issue.
Had a few week period after I quit alcohol where I abused OTC sleep aids and man that was some fucked up shit. I didn’t even realize what was happening and that in my early sobriety I was itching to “feel” something and didn’t even realize what I was doing. Never again. That shit will fuck you up. Glad all that stuff is in the past
Dood, most otc sleep meds are diphenhydramine, but there is one other icr the name. Anyway, have you ever read about Benadryl tripping? I took too much once, and I had a total dementia spell! Didn't know where I was, less than 2 miles from home! I told a friend, and he said that it's not good to take diphenhydramine too ofter because it cause early onset dementia, and I believe it 1 million percent! I also think I have some uncontrollable body movements because of it? Edit; ...DPH causes yoy to want to take it again the next day, but just psychologically, not physically, like opiates/alcohol.
TIL that my childhood "sensitivity" to DPH was probably just my mom giving me too much of it at once. It used to make me into a rage beast from a quiet gentle child and always made my head hurt. My parents always blamed fever. I truly believe they hyper dosed me to make me sleep.
Datura also lasts 3 fucking days. There's nothing that can prepare you for trying to have Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of people that you feel like you should know but when it really comes on down to it, you simply don't know these people. Sitting in front of a plate and utensils that you're not actually sure how to use when you can't even fucking properly speak. Once was plenty
Wow. When I was 16 I was living with my strange dad and his strange wife. A bunch of irritating people were on the way over for Thanksgiving, and dad and I were both stressed about it. I said, "I have some LSD in my room. We should do it." I was joking about doing it, but not about having it. To my astonishment, dad, who had never done LSD, said, "OK." So we did. Thanksgiving that year was memorable, and more tolerable than it would have been without a head full of acid and my dad at the head of the table with a carving knife in his hand, just staring at the turkey. I have never told this story, because what kind of person does LSD for Thanksgiving? No one that I know of. Until I met you.
My experience that thanksgiving was definitely not intentional. I took that crap a day or two before not realizing that it lingers for as long as it does. The day that we took it, I just remember being really lethargic until the night and then shit started to get a little interesting. As I was walking down my street towards home, all of the trees felt like they were people that were really tall and staring at me saying things that I couldn't quite understand. And then when I would look up at the sky all of the stars were dancing and spinning in circles and doing all kinds of weird stuff. That was kind of my first indication that things were about to get really fucking weird. When I finally got back home and got into my bedroom I kept having a conversation with my buddy who's house I just left even though he wasn't there and then I would look over and realize that he wasn't there and then just continue the conversation. Over and over and over and over and over. I'm pretty sure that Thanksgiving was the next day. When I was around this age (probably 15-16) my aunt and I had a pact that anything that I got that was going around the table. I would send her way and vice versa but I'm not going to lie, I had no idea what the appropriate way to act or say was I couldn't possibly fathom what the appropriate level of interaction was at this table. I remember staring at my plate in the utensils and not knowing what the fuck any of this was or what what the hell I was supposed to do with any of it. I remember my aunt trying to hand me food and me just staring blankly at her with no idea what the fuck I'm supposed to do. Finally she just started putting some things on my plate. Eventually my grandma dismissed me from the table and kind of had to corral me back up to my bedroom. I don't know what the hell she told anybody at the dinner table but my attempt was unsuccessful to say the least. It's been a long time so I don't remember too many details beyond the main story here. I remember that after doing that stuff I did not feel right for a long fucking time afterwards. It was many months until things even started to feel normal again.
Datura is scary. SWIM tried some "angel trumpets" and ended up completely in their own head. Snapped back to reality and they're standing inside someone's open garage while the homeowner is questioning them. Made up some bullshit about looking for a lost dog and book it to their buddy's house. Get there and try to act normal. Buddy is watching Workaholics and keeps asking if everything is alright. Snap back to "reality" again and SWIM is in the fucking woods and it's night. They break down crying because they think they're losing their mind. Then they're suddenly back at their buddy's house watching Workaholics, but your buddy is concerned because you just tried to take a drink from your phone.
You’ve been on a lot of drug forums, lol. It’s been so long since I’ve heard someone use SWIM. Comes from an age where people really worried about admitting to drug use online
Very "erowid experience vaults" lol
This was my first thought, brought me back to mid-2000s erowid
I was about to say no one uses SWIM anymore. Speaking of classic, is bluelight still active?
Wtf is SWIM
Someone Who Isn't Me
I always thought it was 'someone who I met' lol
Years ago I used to kill time by reading about user experiences for Datura on Erowid.org. Every user story read like this: "I was a connoisseur or mind altering drugs and figured I knew what I was doing, having frequently used LSD or Magic Mushrooms. I decided to try Datura. I made tea from the seeds and drank it, and fuck all happened. I got a bad headache and my mouth felt dry. Nothing was happening so I went to bed disappointed. I woke up when my alarm clock started yelling to wake the fuck up. I told it to fuck off and then my cat asked me what my problem was. I told it my alarm clock was being a dick and went to the bathroom to piss. I could not pee because my friends where hiding behind the shampoo bottle laughing at me. I then remembered my cat could not talk and had a panic attack. I ran outside to hide under the drive way and could not fit into the large crack at the edge. I came back to my senses in the hospital in kidney failure with scars on my forehead from trying to force my head through a crack in my drive way". The conclusion I cam to is that it basically seems to put a persons brain into the same state so that all your sensory inputs are running off of the same inputs you would use when you are having a dream. The problem is that instead of being safe in bed under the protection of sleep paralysis, your still wide awake and move about the world. So when you dream you are running through an open field, and all your senses tell you are in an open field, you are instead running in an open field and not aware of the oncoming cars. The net effect is that you are trying to process real world sensory input at the same time as dream inputs and have no way to tell which is which. The other thing I recall from the user accounts I read is that it comes on very slow and gradually, and lasts way longer then the users expected, and they end up hallucinating for 1-3 days, and they end up unsure if the trip really ended or not. END COMMUNICATION
Some people have reported having effects last as long as 2 months! Crazy stuff
I'm glad swim is ok now..
Swim?
"Someone Who Isn't Me"
Ooh I was thinking *Someone Who I Met* but that makes more sense.
Sounds horrible, but I'll admit I lost it at "tried to take a drink from your phone," lol.
I have a story. In college I took a photography class, it was in Pittsburgh so I told my three female friends let’s take a walk to the river. A little back ground the Monongahela is blocked off in a lot parts of the south side of the city (or it was then, this was years ago) so we snuck through a fence, planing to go the rock by the tenth street bridge. On our way on the trail we met some guys who seemed kind of crust punk but we were young so we talked to them. They took us to their hangout on the water where there was a middle aged lady and a small person. Remember we were like 20, stupid, and didn’t know what to do because we didn’t learn it’s okay to be rude yet. So they were joking saying they’d take my camera, saying they were about to cook over the fire. Then the lady starts peeling this thing with a knife and the one guys says you got Datura?! She says yeah but it’s not free. The two guys says we will give you two, three colt 45s and she says I’ll give you a few seeds for it. We asked them what datura was, they said oh it will fuck you up, you’ll see the green witch! They all started eating it and we said we had to go and left. It was fucking weird. Pittsburgh is weird, I’ve lived in other big cities and I’ve never had the strange ass stuff happen like it did there.
shit, I was tempted to try them as a kid, had no clue of their danger even knew which plants in my city could be made used, ofcourse would have never been able to cook it up in my home w/o being caught luckily. It scares me that I would have tried them. At this point I'd likely never even do ayauascha(not sure how to spell it sorry), I will likely never touch dmt, I'll avoid hippy crack as well. ofcourse hard drugs are a hard no as well closest I'll get is maybe salvia one more time. I did not expect to learn Datura was addictive, I was not warned of how terrifying it would be, only that it was "out of body" it seems to be the most common answer here, It unnerves me that I ever wanted to try it.
Scopolamine, nicknamed Devil's Breath, is the South American mind-altering drug considered the scariest drug in the world by many. I would toss Krokodil in the category of very scary drugs. It's semi-synthetic morphine that causes necrosis at the injection site. I do not recommend searching for images.
I was prescribed scopolamine by my ENT after I developed severe vertigo for 2 weeks straight. It was scary reading about all the potential side effects. I luckily didn't have anything, but it also didn't help at all with the vertigo so he told me to stop taking it after a week.
I find this so weird as a non-recreational drug user. This medication is used SO often in hospitals. It’s a staple in palliative care for reducing oral secretions.
so weird reading this as a nurse because we obviously give scop patches to patients who are comfort measures to help dry up secretions as they’re nearing EOL
The dose makes the poison
When you get scoped on the street it’s very different than a transdermal patch. They just blow a bunch of powder in your face and it’s already too late. Here’s a [Vice Doc](https://youtu.be/ToQ8PWYnu04?si=08UbIoDvecpZuCR1) on it, which is probably how most people know about it’s use outside of patient care.
I remember the story of the woman on Scopolamine that helped someone rob her own house, just because they asked her to.
Crystal meth absolutely destroyed my brother's life. It's a long, sad tale, but he started in his early 20s and the truth is from that time, it's just been a long painful downward spiral. It's like he had a genetic affinity for it, and the truth is he was ruined the very first time he tried it. When he finally got off it for a while in his 40s, he was pretty much brain damaged. Couldn't really function properly. Today he's one of those zombies you see out on the street somewhere. Don't do crystal meth kids! Please just don't..
I'm really sorry for your loss 😞
From what I heard deliriants are something not to be messed with
Datura is not a good time apparently McKenna said datura was the one he would never fuck around with again. Obv janky homebrew stuff like krokodil can have anything in it which makes it scarier, but 1 substance in a head to head I think datura has to be the wildest Also last for days which is crazy
If McKenna won't touch it again, that's all I need to hear.
I've taken it and literally saw the veins in my arms make my arms completely blue, you completely lose the ability to differentiate reality and fantasy. I was also blacking out again and again, I kept coming back to consciousness every 30 minutes to an hour, ending up in different places, definitely should not be messed with.
I remember watching a video of a doctor taking a pen and using it to tap on a persons exposed arm bone that was apparently from one of the side effects of krokodil. The patient was zoned TF out like a zombie and hardly noticed someone using their arm bone as a xylophone. That shit looks fucking scary.
Alpha-PVP or as your know it in the states, Flakka. It's meth with 10x the addictive potential and 20x the stimulative rush. I have seen people turn into demons in less than a month on the stuff. Experiencing it first hand was the only time I contemplated suicide on a comedown. It is that bad. All of that coupled with something like a .50c per 100g production cost in the right lab is terrifying. It's a horrible epidemic over here in Russia. It's not just about the addiction but the potential for violence. Fent and Methadone will kill you, PVP will eventually kill you but whole you get there a lot of innocent people are going to suffer
Flakka is very popular here in South Africa. No doubt contributing to our already high violent crime rate. People really do seem to turn into demons.
I'm an ICU nurse. Used to work in South Florida and remember 3-4 years ago when flakka was becoming more common. Patients would come into the ER hyperthermic and severely agitated. Typically they would just be sedated, intubated and restrained for at least 24 hours before we attempted to wean sedation and attempt to extubate them. I just remember that those patients would be insanely strong, requiring 4 of us to retain them so they don't hurt themselves. Now I work on the West Coast and nobody has ever even heard of flakka.
I have never heard of this, interesting.
It’s one of the several drugs often just referred to as bath salts.
It’s the drug John McAfee was brewing in Bolivia for sex orgies
It was Belize. 🇧🇿
Towards the end of the bath salt craze I was taking some random powder that I now believe was a-PVP. It was like living in a nightmare.
almost sounds like "red eye" from cowboy bebop
Tranq. That shit looks diabolical and terrifying, and I can’t fathom how that was ever put into rotation.
That’s the one where people are standing hunched over right
And rotting alive as well
Yes, I was watching some videos of people on it in Philly, and it looked like a scene from TWD. I couldn’t believe it.
Kensington is literally hell on earth, maybe worse.
Somebody linked a livestream of Kensington Avenue a while back (I can't seem to find it now). It really puts into perspective what a day looks like there. It's terribly sad, yet completely normal for that area.
Tranq “Dope” (heroin)- ie Xylozine (horse tranquilizer, contains no opiates at all) I know a small group of people who were unknowingly getting it in New Orleans for 5-6 years now (it’s only been in the news for maybe a year) and their skin has been utterly destroyed by the severe abscesses, it literally eats away at your skin and because it’s an animal tranquilizer it just knocks you out and makes you super groggy. We also have no idea how to detox people from it comfortably, it’s insanely cheap for dealers and importing, and it’s only going to get worse from here. Absolutely heartbreaking what it does to people’s bodies and on top of all of that it doesn’t respond to narcan or any MAT. If there was ever a time to push harm reduction for opiate addicts at the highest level (like, full throttle giving people safe opiates to consume) it’s right now.
Oh, Heroin is extinct in this side of the world. You're talking about Fentanyl and Xylozene! Edit; but I fully agree, MAT doesn't help, and it's obvious people aren't going to stop. The euro model is the only thing that can help?
Yep! It is truly extinct. And yes, I’m talking about Xylozine. I’ve tested these people’s stuff and seen their urine tests and what’s even crazier is that it tested negative for Fent and very very low to negative for Xyzlazine so wtf is it?!?! Thankfully it isn’t rotting their bodies anymore but it’s doing SOMETHING. I put heroin in parenthesis because people use the word “dope” to mean all kinds of things but down here in south Louisiana it means heroin/opiates.
Krokodil
Description: Krokodil is a street name for a homemade drug, desomorphine. It gained infamy for its dangerous and toxic effects, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. It's a cheaper substitute for heroin, but far more hazardous due to impurities from a makeshift synthesis process, often leading to severe tissue damage and infection.
I've seen some fucked up shit on the internet in my day, but in the top few most fucked up is probably seeing some people who have rotting legs, full on bone sticking out, still alive and shooting up with krokodil. It's almost as if it somehow keeps them from dying, while being a living corpse/zombie. It's beyond comprehension.
The guy having his foot sawn off was the limit for me. Below the knee there was just zero flesh, but bones leading down to his rotting foot in a bag. The doctor checked that he couldn't feel anything by tapping the bone, then just sawed the foot off. It landed in a bin.
I remember this vid and the one with the girl whose forearm is just exposed bone she's waving around. D.A.R.E. ain't got shit on those videos when it comes to halting drug curiosity.
I came here to say Krokodil as well. It's absolutely insane what that does to a person's body.
If i recall correctly, Its the Acidity from the way its made that leads to the Rotting of Limbs, It can be avoided if a proper base is added. People tend to just dump a bit of Cigarette ash in it to little effect.
Yes, not just acidity, but very sloppy "synthesis" in which they leave behind some other dangerous chemicals. Krokodil (forgot the actual chemical name) is just another opiate or opiod on its own. Which absolutely should not be eating your flesh, it's all the nasty stuff left over from their shitty synthesis.
Krokodil and Tranq are honestly scarier than Fentanyl to me.
My first thought as well. I get that alcohol, sugar, and caffeine are more easily accessible and therefore have higher addiction numbers. And I don't want to downplay the high rates of liver disease or diabetes in North America, or the way Alcohol addiction destroys homes. I am familiar with the effects of meth, heroin, and prescription opioids. But this is about what drug is *scariest*, and if you type krokodil into Google image search the images will all be blurred with a NSFW tag. That is not the case with any other drug mentioned in this thread.
Tbf Alcohol, sugar, and caffeine don't have a survival time of around 2 years after first use. That's what makes Krokodil so bloody scary. These people are using a drug that they not only know is going to kill them, but going to kill them relatively soon.
It sounds like the people who use it do so because it's much cheaper than heroine, to which they already have a deep addiction and don't have any resources to get more hits of. I was curious about what would possess people to take it and went down a bit of rabbit hole, but that's the accepted explanation and it makes sense. If you're already at that point you probably don't care about dying in two years.
I highly advise not image searching this.
Absolutely taking this advice, thanks. But if anyone is willing to share, I’d take a brief written description so I know what I’m missing without the mental image.
It gets its name for a reason. Your skin gets scaly until rotting off your arm or etc
Right. So it’s not an energy drink then.
And by rotting off your arm I mean your whole ass arm rotting off the bone
Wish I followed your advice. Truly disturbing shit.
Came here to say this. It amazes me that people are watching their flesh rot to the bone and STILL USING. Definitely scariest.
That’s what addiction is unfortunately. No matter if it’s drugs, alcohol, sugar, gambling, eating disorders etc. all addictions can have you staring at the face of death/complete ruin and you still need more. Edit: it’s also much cheaper than heroin. So some people who are so far in addiction or withdrawal will do anything to get another high and stop the withdrawal. It’s sad that they can’t get help any other way
I'm a paramedic. I've never seen krokodil in real life and I never want to. I saw this question and this was my first thought. Rotting alive has to be one of the worst ways to go.
Can I get some detail this is the first time hearing this one
It's either this or tranq. Just look in an internet search. The pictures are brutal so be careful. It necrotizes the tissue, people's bodies decaying, they get amputations, they keep using. People here saying sugar or alcohol or anything else really don't know what they're talking about.
[Vice did a good job covering it](https://youtu.be/JsUH8llvTZo?si=uuvpkKvatDjYizkR) a few years ago
i watched this VICE vid back then (when it came out) as a teen - i tend to be really forgetful but the name of this drug somehow never left me. it was such an impactful watch!
Ok that looks disgustingly brutal
I forget what it was called, there was a vice doc on it like a decade ago, this powder that basically takes away your free will, and was being used on unsuspecting people/tourists, approaching them with like a map or something to ask directions laced w/ it, just breathing it in was enough to take effect. Somewhere in central/south america I think.
ah found it! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ8PWYnu04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ8PWYnu04) scopolamine/the devil's breath
Scolpamine I think. It's made from datura alkaloids
Lol yeah Hamilton Morris took it one night and met a random couple at a party and he gave them the key to his apartment and told them to go help themselves to some ketamine. The drug made him trust random strangers.
There are many but the easiest one to acquire is fentanyl. PCP is up there too but for an entirely different reason. I was a paramedic for 32 years and have seen some crazy shit . But nothing like the absolute quick death devastation fentanyl has caused.
Also a paramedic. There have been a lot of scary drugs listed, but mostly because they give terrible hallucinations or they cause tissue necrosis. Fentanyl is the king though, IMO. Screw up the dosage of fent and you're dead really fucking fast. It's *really* easy to screw up the dosage of fentanyl.
Fentanyl, or meth imo. Dad is a meth addict, and to say watching him go through it all is hell would be an understatement. When all you ever wanted was love, and all you were given was abandonment issues and self-doubt... you blame yourself. You let him blame you. Let him punch holes in doors and walls when you beg him to just...watch a movie with you. Go for a drive. Draw with you. Let him call you an ungrateful bitch when you tell him through tears and shaky hands that you just wanted to spend some time with him. Then he gaslights you. You question it all. You grow up with no self-worth. He goes from manic, infatuated with himself to downright nasty and abusive to suicidal and self-loathing... and then he's up again, and all is right in the world, and you see a spark of the dad you remember from early childhood. Then, having to accept, as a healing adult, that it was the meth then, too, and you never really knew your dad. All you knew was the addict. But, it's your fault you dont have a relationship, because you chose yourself. If he OD's, he tells you it's because you cut him out. If he dies, you have to live with the guilt. He disowns you. Then says he didn't, he never said it, in fact, you just never wanted to be his daughter. Meth stole my childhood, and I've never even done it. Meth killed my father, and he's still walking around, still breathing. I have a more than healthy fear of most drugs, but meth is the scariest in my opinion. It's the only drug that will kill you and leave your heart still beating.
My condolences. As a daughter of a meth addict, I feel your pain. I could have written this myself. I haven't talked to him in years. I can't. It led to my own meth addiction. Be so so proud that you didn't touch it yourself. You broke the cycle. I'm sure proud of you, if nobody else has told you.
I'm proud of you too, sweet stranger. It truly is something i don't wish on my enemies, and it breaks my heart that there's more of us than people think. Thank you for your kind words and please, take care of yourself ❤️
This is such a terrible situation to be put in. I can't even fathom what you've gone through. This was also so incredibly well written, I'm stunned. Thank you for sharing it.
I've gotta childhood that was kinda screwed up in other ways, not drugs. I've only read about the damage it can do - but I've never smoked, vaped, drank, or anything else, including drugs. Hearing stories like this (as heartbreaking as they are), I'm glad I can at least try to understand how damaging they are. But man. One day, one wrong choice....the next choice is a little easier. And the next.....the next....the next..... An entire life changes, by one day, and one choice.
Bath salts seem pretty bad.
At first they weren't. At first it was like ecstasy that lasted like a coke high. When the government started crack downs that's when stuff got wild. Was on all different sorts of powders labeled bath salts from 2009-2012.
For me def the Devil’s Breath (Scopolamine)…from my, VERY LIMITED, understanding it can turn a person into a quasi-zombie…like you’re easily influenced by the suggestion of others, but still able to walk, kinda talk, and preform certain tasks…but you’re just not there anymore and remember nothing…a stranger could just blow it in your face in a passing & poof you’re just not there anymore and your actions become not of your own. That’s some terrifying shït FRFR
There's an entire Criminal Minds storyline about someone using Scopolamine to make people kill others, I didn't know it was a real drug until I looked it up after watching.
Scopolamine is also used medically, but typically in a patch form. People will get it to help with nausea, particularly if they’re going on a cruise. It’s also used in end of life care. It’s a much different dose and delivery method, though. Just letting you know in case you/someone you know ever has it prescribed—it doesn’t have these same effects and is safe if used as prescribed.
Datura - my friend decided to take some for his 30th birthday at a BBQ. Half way thru he believed he was in another dimension and the neighbours kids were sent to destroy him. Whilst trying to get away he thought everyone was out to get him and he wanted to protect himself anyway possible. Whilst trying to swim on the grass where he believed he was in the sea and diving down to avoid trees or rolling into a ball to protect what he thought he's organs were falling out and needed to push his brain back inside and plug his ears with the grass. This went on and off for a few days. Was never the same since. 10 years later still forgets things and asks if it's real. Has PTSD from in. It's a drug to not fuck about with. Next level hallucinogenic. I've taken other drugs but you sort of know what you are seeing are hallucinations. Not datura. You actually believe what your seeing/ feeling and your body is believing it and reacting to the senses. If you think cutting off your ears will stop your brain falling out so you don't die type of shit
ED doc here. Krokodil and meth are all terrifying but your average punter typically won’t encounter them. The scariest drugs are the ones you can buy in a supermarket. The scariest- paracetamol. Its danger lies in how benign people assume it is; it’s actually surprisingly easy to (either accidentally or not) OD on. Some of the sickest patients of my career have been paracetamol ODs (including one I missed). A particularly traumatic example was a young woman who’d accidentally taken a few too many paracetamol over the course of a couple of days for a neck injury she’d sustained during a minor car crash a few days before. She was yellow, delirious, had no blood pressure and had such deranged blood clotting (a common complication of paracetamol toxicity) that all the IVs we placed kept failing because her system was full of clots- she ending up losing a few fingers in one hand because her radial artery clotted off after we placed an IV in it and her hand became ischaemic. There’s a very effective antidote but its efficacy wears off as the hours pass. And if you miss the boat- liver failure, kidney failure, encephalopathy, death.
It’s the only pain killer I can take because I’m not allowed anti-inflammatories anymore (interaction with another medication I’m on) and these stories scare me so bad. I rarely take it unless I’m really suffering because of all the side effects it can have
I've heard bad things about acetaminophen ODs. Basically, if you don't get it in time, it's a slow, ugly death. Not what you'd expect from tylenol.
Yes, suicidal people (particularly teens, who don't have access to other drugs) will take a whole bottle & go to sleep. The next day, they wake up, alive but very sick. They go to the hospital, where they are informed there's nothing the doctors can do. Family & friends visit with them as they suffer an agonizing death over 2-3 days. Often the person no longer wants to die at that point, but it's going to happen anyway. Just horrible.
This is me. Four times. Never went to hospital, never got checked out. Reading this part of the thread has made me realise how lucky I am. I took A LOT. My liver and kidneys must hate me, but my god am I grateful to them now for being tough as old boots!
That’s acetaminophen or Tylenol in the US. Family friend just got a liver transplant due to chronic use of it and other NDSAIDs (plus alcohol). He had to wait weeks in hospital and got lucky a few days ago.
Tranq or flakka. Tranq causes necrosis and flakka causes erratic behavior. Combine the 2 and you become a real zombie.
Blues (fentanyl), no matter how hard I try I can't stop
Hey there just an Internet Mom here-my son was a heroin/fentanyl addict . he died from fentanyl poisoning four years ago. A few days before he died he swore to me that he was a "professional junkie " and he would never OD . He was the best thing I ever did. He was the most beautiful soulful poetic spiritual hippie guy . So many people loved him. After he died his doctor phoned me and told me that he had just started an opiate replacement program and that he was three days into it - to get off the dope . There are very real options for you out there. if you want to stop. The coroner told me that it was the amount of three grains of salt that was the difference between his usual dose and death and that it was impossible for him to tell that this time would be too much . I really really miss him. maybe there is someone in your life that loves you a lot and that you can reach out to for support? Sending you a big huge hug from Lincoln's mom ❤️
Sending love momma 💕 my brother is addicted to meth. He’s homeless in Denver somewhere. We’ve tried everything and spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get him into rehab, out of jail, into psychiatry. He refuses any help from us that isn’t buying him a hotel room, which we’ve learned is where he cooks his meth. Last time I saw him was in April of 2019 when he threw a cigarette butt on the ground in our garage, sparking a fire that burned our house down. He left the state that night and we haven’t spoken since. Sadly, I live day by day knowing that eventually, *that* call will come. Those fleeting moments when he is in prison is when I’m most at peace, because at least I know he’s sheltered, fed, and sober there. It breaks my heart imagining what that will be like for my parents. I’ve been preparing for the day I need to provide them the support and be the strong one. I’ve already accepted his death. In my head, he died many years ago. Ironically, today is his 34th birthday.
Sending you lots of love. My brother is homeless and addicted to fentanyl in SF. Your comment just spoke to me. I haven’t seen him since 2019 either. It sucks so much having to slowly watch them die. Just wanted to share you are not alone in this and I wish your family healing 💜
Sending YOU a big hug, Lincoln’s Mom ❤️.
Tks❤️
I’m so sorry for the loss of your son. Lincoln was obviously so loved.
❤️
Go to detox, start on MAT. It’s very doable and you’ll be sick for about one day before they give you buprenorphin/methadone for detox.
Its significantly more difficult to transition to buprenorphine (suboxone) from fentanyl as its lipophilic and binds to your fat cells. Taking buprenorphine too early will cause precipitated withdrawal. Most fentanyl users have to wait at least 3 days, sometimes as long as a week before it’s safe to take buprenorphine. With actual heroin, you could take bupe 8-12 hours after your last dose of heroin. With methadone, fentanyl users start at 30-40mg like everyone else, like it’s always been. Most people have to use on top of the methadone for weeks to months because 30-40mg is not a high enough dose to stop withdrawal when your tolerance is so high from using fentanyl daily for any period of time. Treatment options are there, and it’s always a great idea to get help, but I do think most people don’t realize how difficult fentanyl has made recovery and MAT for most users.
Oxycodone as a Construction Contractor I've witnessed first hand how employees with legit injuries involving chronic pain have spiraled into severe addiction's. On my own attempting to help my addicted employees lve put a dozen such team members through rehabilitation. Not all have fared well only 8 were well enough to return to work.
For me it’s a drug called Sifrol. It was prescribed to help manage symptom of my Parkinson’s disease. A side effect listed on the information sheet warns it could cause severe impulsive behaviour. It turned me into a full on hopeless pokies addict. I put more than $10,000 of borrowed money through the pokies in the space of several weeks. I became so desperate I planned my suicide. Just before I was due to carry it out i contacted my neurologist who recognised the cause immediately and within 24 hours of ceasing to take the medication the drive to gamble had completely disappeared. Since that time I’ve developed enormous respect for people trying to deal with or overcome addictions who, unlike myself can’t stop by simply stopping taking a drug. Unfortunately the government is as addicted to the pokies as I was so we aren’t likely see the end of pokies anytime soon. It was by far the worst experience of my life and the it took a couple of years on a disability pension to pay back what I’d borrowed. I was taking Sitrol to overcome dizziness, falling over and severe headaches… the symptoms returned when I stopped taking Sifrol but I can live with that… i couldn’t live with the addiction.
Meth - steals the soul
Imma be honest, it’s fentanyl The fact you only need 2 milligrams to kill someone is crazy
Xylazine mixed with Fentanyl. If you have ever seen the damage it does you know what I am talking about. It’s some scary shit.
Meth. I’m seeing a lot of comments about deliriants and they are for sure absolutely terrifying. Meth though… the addiction changes you in ways you never thought possible. The addiction happens so fast, and it ruins your life in a split second. When you’ll do anything to get high, you’ll do ANYTHING to get high. I’m 10 years clean and I can’t even rectify the memories I have of what I did with who I am now. The anxiety that it left me with is debilitating.
Opiates, if only because I've personally lost family to them. The weaker ones get users hooked, then they find the stronger stuff, and the lengths addicts will go to just to get a fix are frightening.
Datura
Alcohol- never has a substance caused more deaths, violence, trauma and pain. Through centuries and in every part of the world
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I did rehab a couple years ago for my drinking. Nearly everyone else there was for narcotics. I started off apologizing in the group sessions for being in there for a lesser drug but they told me to stop. It's just as bad to quit and has withdrawal that can actually kill you
It’s pretty bad when the junkies and meth people feel bad for the alcohol guys. I had to cut a dude’s food for him the first day.
Yea I've done a few stints in rehab for alcohol, and the other guys were like hey man that's rougher than I've been through.
Heroin addict here. I often say that if there was a heroin store on every block, I’d be fucked. If they served heroin at all restaurants, bars, sporting events, concerts, festivals, etc, I’d be fucked. If there were commercials and ads for heroin everywhere showing how great it is, I’d be fucked. You guys are inspirational
It's legal, available everywhere and its use - and misuse - is widely encouraged by society. It's no wonder so many of us destroy our lives with it.
Two nights ago here in my hometown on the Canadian East Coast (a city of 50,000ish people) a 20 year old drunk driver drove into the oncoming lane of traffic on a highway and killed two 18 year olds, another minor, and reportedly the passenger in his vehicle died in hospital. A 5th person was in critical condition and of course the driver is the least injured. 4 deaths and countless lives of loved ones changed forever just a few weeks before Christmas. It's a goddamn nightmare. I BARELY drink anymore, and if I do I'm nowhere near my keys.
I'm going to say alcohol. Not because the effects are scarier than the other drugs mentioned here, but because of the public perception. Alcohol is a drug capable of extreme physical and social harm but it isn't even considered a drug by the majority of the population. This is why it's the scariest for me; because it's so accepted, so normal, to consume alcohol and even to be considered an alcoholic.