#Methamphetamine (stimulant)

[caffeinatedopossum]

"Adhd meds are LITERALLY meth!" *strangles you with my lab coat*

[opiatediaries]

An incredibly raw, and disturbing look at addiction. Happy to have had the opportunity to take and share these photographs with yall!

As heartbreaking as it is, it's something the WORLD needs to WAKE UP TO!!!

All photos taken & edited by me...

[militaryintelligenceagency]

Ecstacy as a narcotic

Ecstacy as a stimulant

Green smoke as marijuana

Green smoke as cannabis

Green smoke as delta 8

Green smoke as cbd

Green smoke mind control

[bl0ndeanddumb]

This is my ultimate list of medications wich can help you with loosing weight<3

———————————<3————————————  1. Stimulants:

Methylphenidate, Adrall, Methamphetamine , Dexamphetamine, Lisdexamphetamine, Dexmethylphenidate: Stimulants prescribed for adhd, leading to an significant decrease of appetite, especially in the first months.

Bupropion: A stimulant prescribed for depression. Same effects as the other stimulants I mentioned at 1.

Modafinil: A stimulant prescribed for narkolepsy. Same effect as the stimulants i mentioned above.

Ephedrine: A stimulant prescribed for narkolepsy and hypotonia. Same effect as the stimulants i mentioned above.

Norephedrine: A stimulant prescribed for hypotonia. Same effect as the stimulants i mentioned above.

Pseudoephedrine: Used for nasal congestion, cold and allergy treatment. You can find it in many over the counter medications :)))

(Misusage of stimulants can lead to addiction)

———————————<3————————————

2. Others:

Atomoxetine: A non stimulant prescribed for adhd. The effect of decreased appetite is often not that strong in comparison to stimulants.

Fluoxetine: Also known as Prozac, is an SSRI- antidepressant. Leads to an decrease of appetite, unfortunately only in the beginning few weeks to months of medication.

L-Thyroxine: Prescribed for hypothyroidism. Leads to an decreased appetite in the first week. (I don’t recommend it, the side effects are not worth it, the effect on your appetite isn’t that big)

Topiramate: Prescribed for epilepsy. Leads to a decrease of appetite. (Just don’t!)

———————————<3———————————— However I actually do not recommend you to use medications to suppress appetite. Misusage of medications can be really harmful and dangerous. If you really want to, please inform yourself about side effects and dosage. I also do not recommend you to use any of these medications long term. Always think about if it is worth it.

————————————<3———————————

3. Laxatives:

Stop trying to reduce your calorie intake with laxatives. It won’t work. Ts can get really damaging for your health and won’t even help you lose weight. Only thing that can work is sodium sulfate with lots of water. All of the other ones will only create an illusion of you losing weight while in reality the only thing you lose is a lot of poop and water. It imbalances your electrolytes which can be really dangerous, especially when you use them regularly.

———————————<3————————————

[effy-writes]

Addict (Blitz x Reader) Chapter Links

(cross posted on ao3 and wattpad. some will be blank as im transporting the chapters from there to here <3)

summery: You've been living out on the streets and with no place to go you decided to visit your old friend again, Blitz. Right whenever he first created I.M.P., he brought you along to steal Stolas' book, and let's just say you're in that transaction as well. Blitz is trying to prevent you from leaving again, so he's being rough on you about your past/current addiction.

Blitzø

The Book (Smut)

Pilot: Pill

Murder Family: Twisted

Loo Loo Land: Best Frens 4 Ever

Spring Broken: Craxk

CHERUB: Wack The Hell Out Of ‘Em

Harvest Moon Festival: Stimulants

Truth Seekers: The Complete Truth (+ Smut)

Ozzie’s/Queen Bee: Methamphetamine

The Circus: The Addiction

Intervention

Seeing Stars: Feelings or Daddy Issues?

Witch (Smut)

Exes and Oohs: Fucking Crack House

Western Energy

Unhappy Campers: A Year Ago

Greed

Oops: Addict

Parents

Mammon: Trust

Talking

The Full Moon: What The FUCK

Apology Tour: Congratu-Fucking-Lations

[writers-potion]

i was wondering if you could give some points and tips on writing about a character who is suffering from DRUG ABUSE

Writing A Drug Addict Character

Know Your Drugs

Was the drug invented? A scene using insulin set in 1820 is problematic since this treatment wasn’t discovered until the 1900s. Fentanyl shouldn’t be used in a 1930s scene since it wasn’t available for use until the 1960s—opium or morphine would be more accurate choices.

Was the method invented? Since insulin must be given as a shot, that scene is even less authentic as the hypodermic needle wasn’t invented until the mid-1800s. Older historical fiction could involve the use of poultices and mustard packs, while skin drug patches (transdermal patches) are only appropriate in more modern scenes.

The most common drugs abused by gangs are: Marijuana, Methamphetamine, Heroin, Cocaine

Or, it can be prescription drugs

Although many medications can be abused, the following three classes are most commonly abused:

Opioids—usually prescribed to treat pain;

Central nervous system (CNS) depressants—used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders; and

Stimulants—most often prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). (common example? caffeine)

Write In Stages

Stage 1: First Use

Some people use a substance for the first time out of curiosity, while others use substances due to peer pressure. People may also be prescribed medication, such as opioids, by their doctor. Individuals may view their first use as a one-time occurrence, but this opens the door for future use. Some people try a substance one time and never use it again. 

You character will feel:

Angry and/or desperate

Miserable

Lonely

Trying to run away from a certain problem

Persuaded into doing drug

Guilty

Stage 2: Regular Use

If a person uses a substance and enjoys how it makes them feel or believes it will improve their life, they may start to use the substance regularly. They may use drugs or drink alcohol on the weekends while at parties or hanging out with friends. Occasional use may become a regular occurrence. It might become a part of a person’s routine.

Your character:

Will start getting in careless activities while doing drugs

Will probably be violent

Won’t think he has any issue whatsoever and shrug it off

Start associating themselves with harder drug users

Have a false sense of security that they’re able to quit whenever they want.

Stage 3: Risky Use

The next stage after regular use is risky use. A person will continue to use a substance despite the physical, mental, legal or social consequences. Their use likely started as a way to escape or have fun with peers but has now taken priority over other aspects of their life.

Your Character will feel:

uncomfortable around family members/friends who start to notice

Exhibit more reckless behavior

Driving under influence, stealing money to finance substance use, etc.

Underperforming at work or school

Experience tension in personal relationships

Stage 4: Dependence

The next stage is a physical, mental and emotional reliance on the substance. The individual is no longer using the substance for medical or recreational purposes. When a person doesn’t use the substance, their body will exhibit withdrawal symptoms, such as tremors, headaches, nausea, anxiety and muscle cramps.

Your Chracter Will:

Develop a sort of rountine/typical place where they abuse

Believe that the substance is essential for survival

Use substance even when it's unnecessary

Stage 5: Substance Use Disorder

While some people use dependency and substance use disorder interchangeably, they’re very different. Once a person develops a substance use disorder, substance misuse becomes a compulsion rather than a conscious choice. They’ll also experience severe physical and mental side effects, depending on the substance they’re using.

Your Character:

Has noe developed a chronic disease with the risk of relapse

Is now incapable of quitting on their own

Feel like life is impossible to deal with without the substance.

Lose their job, fail out of school, become isolated from friends and family or give up their passions or hobbies.

Research the Trends

Medical knowledge changes over time and with it the drugs prescribed. This then impacts the type of prescription drugs available on the streets.

late 1800s: chloral hydrate used for anxiety and insomnia > bromides > 1920s: barbiturates, barbital > benzodiazepines ("benzos") > early 2000s: opiod drugs > opiod drug bans led to growth of black markets: ilicit fentanyl > and so on...

Different countries/locations will have varying trends of drug abuse (depending on laws, availability, costs, etc.)

Research the Slag

look for "[drug name] trip report" on YouTube, etc. to get first-hand accounts of how drug addicts behave.

The main focus should always be to use the words your characters would use in ways that suit the world you have created.

The slang for certain drugs is a difficult vocabulary to maintain as it is ever-changing and varies based on country, region, town, even by streets. Some writers use what they know or have heard locally, others invent their own.

Resources

FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and DEA online databases and drug resources

Social networking groups focusing on related specialty writing topics, such as trauma or emergency medicine

Newspaper articles and medical journals are great places to find real cases.

The US national poison center 

Helpful Vocab:

Addled - sense of confusion + complete lack of mental awareness

Crazed - emotional anguish experienced by the addict

Desperate

Despondent

Erratic

Fidgety

Hopeless

Impressionable

Struggling

[allthecanadianpolitics]

As overdoses in Edmonton reach record-high levels, users can visit a free drug-checking site that will analyze substances to determine what is in them and whether they've been cut with high-potency materials.

The Spectrum drug testing program, which operates Monday and Friday afternoons at 105th Street and Jasper Avenue, uses a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer to analyze stimulants, including cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA, and opioids like heroin and fentanyl.

Spectrum, launched last week by the Queer and Trans Health Collective, is the first physical site in Edmonton to offer a drug-checking service. 

"We know that people are going to use substances whether we like it or not," Jess Murray, the collective's harm-reduction manager, said in an interview last week.

"We just want to make sure that if they are using substances, they know what's in the substances, they're able to get supplies for their substances to use them more safely." 

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @abpoli

[somecunttookmyurl]

your posts today are how i found out if i ever went to japan i wouldn't be able to take my medication even with a letter (adderall)

the controlled substances list for japan is hysterical and bizarre and only gets funnier the longer you look at it

-there are only FOUR substances on planet earth that are straight up prohibited like cannot bring them in legally even with the correct paperwork

-they are heroin, methamphetamine, amphetamine (adderall).... and cannabis

-there are 3 laws that collectively deal with substances. the narcotics & psychotropics law, the stimulants & stimulants raw materials law.... and the cannabis law

-the latter 2 were clearly drafted later because the only things defined as "stimulants" are methamphetamine, amphetamine, and lisdexamphetamine. that's not a stimulants law that's an amphetamine law

-this means cocaine and MDMA are classed as narcotics not stimulants

-this means that technically, hypothetically, you could import cocaine easier than adderall

-THC is not defined as a cannabis product

-You can bring in THC as long as it is not derived from cannabis. Unsure how you prove that

-cannabidiol (CBD) is not on there at all

-so you can bring in CBD and THC but not cannabis

-flatpack cannabis. some assembly required.

-the result of this list is that cannabis is more illegal than cocaine, morphine, barbituates, MDMA, LSD, GHB, and fentanyl

-adderall is also more illegal than any of those

-dexamfetamine, which is the same drug as lisdexamfetamine but shorter acting (the body converts lisdexamfetamine into dexamfetamine that's why it's slower release) is not on the list at all

-on a legal technicality i will not be arguing at the border i could bring in dexamfetamine without any paperwork at all because they forgot it existed

-levoamphetamine also is not on the list

-lisdexamfetamine is the only thing labelled as a "stimulants raw material" the two actual stimulants raw materials (ie, component parts of amphetamine) are not on the list. lisdexamfetamine is not a component part of adderall, it's an altered version of a component part.

-technically you can make DIY adderall on the other side of the gate

-it would still be easier to get in with cocaine

[mythserene]

DRUGS COST MONEY (MARK LEWISOHN, DRUG BUDDY)

I'm late, but I'm here, and this is something I've thought about since I read Tune In the first time.

First of all, Lewisohn's definition and description of what Preludin was is wildly underplayed and misleading, so I have to just get out a few quick Preludin facts. They're helpful.

Lewisohn:

Preludin was an appetite suppressant, an anorectic drug introduced into West German society in 1954, when commercial pressures were making women become more image-conscious. Users maintained an appetite but quickly felt full when eating, and the reduced intake brought about weight loss. Preludin’s primary ingredient, phenmetrazine, was not an amphetamine but an upper, giving the user a euphoric buzz. It was soon sold internationally and used recreationally, and though available in Germany only with a doctor’s prescription...

- “Tune In” - Chapter 19; Piedels on Prellies

(Oh, those women and their obsession with weight.)

I know Lewisohn's not a chemist and I don't expect him to have done extensive study before writing “not an amphetamine but an upper”—which, first of all is just a weird, grade school sounding statement about any stimulant in general that no scientist would ever say or write—but also he makes it sound like it's a fizzy little pill that gives you the sillies.

But definitely not an amphetamine or anything bad like that.

Look, even Wikipedia says right at the top, “[i]ts structure incorporates the backbone of amphetamine,” and although I didn't spend more than a few seconds there, I saw it because it came up first in the search like Wikipedia always does. Just saying it's basically impossible to miss.

And whether he was trying to hide the ball or not, since he wrote so much about them I am going to quickly set the "not amphetamine" record straight before I go on.

“Methamphetamine hydrochloride (Desoxyn) and phenmetrazine hydrochloride (Preludin) are two variants of the amphetamine structure.”

- “Amphetamine Abuse”, Sidney Cohen, MD, JAMA

“The experience in Sweden seems to indicate that phenmetrazine (e.g. Preludin) has the highest potency, and the greatest risk of psycho-toxic, acute and chronic effects (Rylander 1966). Amphetamines and methylphenidate seem to show less dependence-producing and psycho-toxic effects than phenmetrazine.”

- (United Nations Bulletin; Vol XX, No. 2)

Basically, Preludin was synthesized by taking an amphetamine skeleton and boosting tf out of it by adding a very common sort of chemical scaffolding to it called a morpholine ring, allowing them to tweak it by sticking on a nitrogen group. But morpholine rings by themselves also increase potency and usually bioavailability.

So in the narrowest technical sense, Phenmetrazine (Preludin) is classified as a morpholine instead of an amphetamine, but in every way it is an amphetamine on speed. (And every description of it anywhere says so right up front.) It was Amphetamine Plus. The little added synthetic kicker the pharmaceutical company figured out how to attach to the amphetamine made it stronger—gave it the Preludin "kick"—made the high feel better in general (according to all this crap I spent way too much time reading) and also made it way more addictive. It increased dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake, and the compound itself displayed “some entactogen properties more similar to MDMA." It made Preludin far more psychoactive than straight amphetamines. Made smells stronger, sensations more intense, and made you horny and "increased performance." It was taken off the market in 1980 because it was so hyper-addictive and the “psycho-toxicity” was so extreme. People reported doing things they barely remembered, including to a kind of freakish degree, like a lot of users committing crimes for the very first time in their lives. And so the company tried to replace it with a similar drug called Prelu-2, which is apparently still available but also almost never prescribed because even that was excessively addictive compared to non-boosted amphetamines.

And also, it made you feel body odors?

"...perfumes and flowers get a stronger smell, and body odours are felt more strongly than under normal conditions."

- (United Nations Bulletin; Vol XX, No. 2)

What are normal conditions? Maybe my normal conditions are different from everyone else's because I don't normally feel body odors?? But tbh I would literally try this drug just to see if I could.

Okay.

So... John was feeling some serious body odors because my man took a lot of them. Usually with lots of booze.

And apparently they made him more awesome.

George spoke graphically of how they would be “frothing at the mouth … we used to be up there foaming, stomping away.” John, as always, dived straight in, wholeheartedly grabbing another new experience with an open mouth and no thought of tomorrow. The Beatles called them “pep pills”—the commonly used British term of the period—and also “Prellies.”

...Two pills a night were more than enough for most but John frequently took four or five, and in conjunction with hour after hour of booze he became wired, a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity.

- “Tune In” - Chapter 19; Piedels on Prellies

Yeah, he sounds like a blast. Good thing you got a quote there, my guy. I'm sure the first description that would’ve come to his roommates’ minds would be “hilarity.” Or second, after “hero.” (Sorry, I don't want to be hard on John. I have a lot of bandwidth and patience for drug indulgences, especially in a situation like this, but Lewisohn is unbelievable.)

Ruth Lallemannd, a St. Pauli barmaid who knew the Beatles from 1960, recalls an occasion when “They crushed ten Prellies to powder, put them in a bottle of Cola and shared it between them. They were always wound up.”

Drugs cost money

Amazingly enough though, these prescription-only pills didn't just magically get from people with nice doctors to John’s hands. Someone sold them to someone else and they ended up with “the toilet lady,” Tante Rosa, who sold them.

They looked like little white sweets … but these were no mint drops.

- Chapter 19

So cute!

Preludin small-print advised against its being taken less than six hours before bedtime, in case of sleep disorders.

- Chapter 19

So if Lewisohn is reading the small print of a drug that was discontinued 44 years ago he did not miss the Wikipedia page and must know that “not an amphetamine but an upper” is wildly misleading. Technically true in the chemical classification sense, but not in the medical or pharmacological sense. And true in the same way that “fentanyl isn't morphine” is true.

But that's not my point.

My point is that these “little white sweets” were strong, had wild “psycho-toxic” effects, John took a lot of them, and they weren't free.

Because drugs cost money.

Paul slept fine on just the one pill, John and George didn’t. George would recall “lying in bed, sweating from Preludin, thinking, ‘Why aren’t I sleeping?’ ” John simply took more: “You could work almost endlessly until the pill wore off, then you’d have to have another … You’d have two hours’ sleep and wake up to take a pill and get on stage, and it would go on and on and on. When you didn’t even get a day off you’d begin to go out of your mind with tiredness.”

Or, put another way, John was “a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity.” And Paul did uncool stuff like sleeping.

Also, what in the...

Tony, George, Paul, John and Pete, along with Rosi and perhaps some stray females, would stagger wearily and noisily up three long flights of wooden stairs...

“Stray females”??? Is he talking about cats? Don't call human beings “strays,” you self-important oddity.

THE GROWNUP

John was never much into paying for stuff. Like rent, for instance. But that's what friends are for.

John was blessed with a particular talent for frittering away his funds (the council grant designed to provide his working materials) and was rarely in a position to pay [rent]. As Rod remembers, “During the week I’d go and have a pint with him and he’d always have money for a beer, but when it came to the day to pay the rent he was always hard up. ‘Could I owe it to you?’ ‘Would you like this jacket?’ One time he paid me with a Mounties-type Canadian jacket he’d probably nicked from someone else.”

- “Tune In” - Chapter 13; “Hi-Yo, Hi-Yo, Silver–Away!”

He paid rent with a jacket? Landlords take those?

I'm not gonna lie, the only real issue I've ever had with Paul—the things I have the most confusion and hesitancy about—are when he seems inexplicably cheap. Like paying the Wings band so little for so long. There's only a few cases that come to mind, but they're my weak point with him.

Still, having done my share of experimenting—as well as dating a guy who became a high-functioning addict before becoming a non-functioning addict before becoming an ex who died of an overdose—I know very well how it feels to see money flow through your hands like water and into someone else's bloodstream. And what happens then is you either both starve or you are the only one eating. In the end, someone has to have money to live, and the more drugs my ex took the more I was forced into being a walking, talking, pissed off safety net.

Stu supposedly got in a fight with Paul because Stu owed Paul money. (Although that doesn't explain attacking Paul out of nowhere on stage half as well as a three-days-awake-Prellie-binge psycho-toxicity does.)

It does, however, mean that at least one guy in the band who was taking Preludin was running out of money between paychecks.

And there's no way that if Stu was running out of funds that John wasn't too. And faster. And according to Lewisohn, George was eating a lot of Preludin, too. Because he was also cool.

That leaves Paul.

John was notoriously bad with money even when he had a lot, and when everyone is living and working together it's almost impossible to be the only guy eating or the only guy smoking. But at the same time if you know you can't do anything to stop your friends from going hard and never thinking at all, it tends to make you more careful. Because you're all you've got and all they've got. You didn't ask for the job, but you drew the short straw. So you hide some cigarettes and share too many, and get increasingly sick of it and resentful, but there's no good answer.

John heaped a ton of spice into the mix by suddenly moving back into Mendips. He’s unlikely to have told Mimi of the Gambier Terrace eviction, but Rod Murray knew little of this hasty departure: John left most of his possessions in the flat and several weeks’ rent unpaid—to the tune of about £15. He just scarpered.

- “Tune In” - Chapter 15; Drive and Bash

“Spice.” Dude really said “spice.” That John, so spicy. And fwiw, that's £300 today.

Maybe John had another jacket to pitch in.

Paul says he's more cautious by nature and I'm sure that's true, but also you know they all relied on him because they knew he wouldn't be as stupid as they were. Who knows what he would've done—whether he would have lived a more libertine life in Hamburg—if he'd felt like that was an option and he didn't have to be the grownup. Who knows what he would have done if anyone else gave a shit whether they ate or smoked.

I'll end by repeating the freakishly weird way Lewisohn told a John psycho-toxicity story that the AKOM ladies pointed out in Ep 8: No Greater Buddy, since it's almost impossible not to talk about John and Prellies without it.

“PAUL AND GEORGE’S HERO-WORSHIP STAYED FULLY INTACT”

George was second only to John in the swallowing of Prellies and knew better than most the sum effect of taking too many for too long, how the combination of pills plus booze plus several sleepless days caused hallucinations and extreme conduct. He’d describe one occasion when he, Paul and Pete were lying in their bunk beds, trying to sleep, only for John to barge into the room in a wild state. “One night John came in and some chick was in bed with Paul and he cut all her clothes up with a pair of scissors, and was stabbing the wardrobe. Everybody was lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh fuck, I hope he doesn’t kill me.’ [He was] a frothing mad person—he knew how to have ‘fun.’ ”

Handling John was something his friends were well used to doing. If he didn’t murder them in their beds there was no greater buddy. They might fear for their lives but they loved him still. No way would they walk out and join another group. John was just John, and Paul and George’s hero-worship stayed fully intact.

- “Tune in” - Chapter 28; You Better Move On

Mark Lewisohn knows nothing about drugs or drug culture. Which is fine. Good. Great, even. But the thing is, it doesn't stop him from knowing everything about it. He has confidently and emphatically stated that John and Yoko weren't doing heroin in the daytime during the Get Back sessions. He even claims that they weren't on heroin during the Two Junkies interview. Even repeating this paraphrase makes me feel ridiculous, but he says that was a hangover from the night before, and that they were too lucid to be high. Which, first of all, is not how heroin fucking works. They were blasted. The aftereffects would be them being antsy and jumpy, not going in extra-slow motion and puking. Blows my mind, the hubris this guy has. To confidently state something he unquestionably pulled out of his ass without even a moment's hesitation. Not only is that not how heroin works, but it is the drug that people wake up to do. Not wake up and do. Wake up to do.

And you can tell from the way he talks about John on Prellies—“a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity”—that he has never experienced anyone who's been up a few days. And I still have a more daring nature than most of my friends, and am in no way shocked by the drug use. Me and my friends in Houston used to take Fastin and go midnight bowling every Saturday. The memories are good and I regret nothing. But the naive way Lewisohn romanticizes John and low key mocks Paul—as if Lewisohn was the ultimate drug buddy and Paul a total prude—is so weird. It's freakishly, embarrassingly, weird. Like he wants to be the cool guy. Like he thinks he can be the cool guy, and is being the cool guy, but to me it's painfully embarrassing and nothing else makes him look more desperate and delusional.

[redpandarascal]

that post about breaking bad has me googling like “I’m so scared, please just tell me that it’s ok, and meth isn’t real…”

Google, I think this search result could be better. Don’t “pitch” it to me. “Is methamphetamine right for you? Talk to your doctor!” well, I do have ADHD and am on a form of stimulant treatment for that, and I’ll google “desoxyn” because I’m curious, but, I don’t think I’m gonna pitch my doctor on seeing if meth will cure what ails me, thanks.

[blueiscoool]

Roman Era Barbarians Carried Tiny Spoons and Snorted Stimulants in Battle

Tiny spoon-shaped implements carried by Roman era Germanic warriors may be evidence they used stimulants on the field of war.

According to a new analysis of the mysterious artifacts and their context, archaeologists and biologists believe that the suspiciously round-ended fittings could have been used to dispense drugs that gave the warriors an edge when they faced their opponents thousands of years ago.

What those drugs actually were is unknown; we'd have to find some evidence of them, such as residues, and that can be challenging after thousands of years have elapsed. But the concept isn't without precedent; and, if it can be validated, the team's hypothesis could reveal evidence of drug use among cultures outside of the Roman Empire.

This would be a big deal: although the use of drugs like opium is well documented in Greece and Rome, the use of narcotics and stimulants in ancient times outside of this region remains a mystery. Historians have previously assumed that the only drug that really saw use by the barbarians was alcohol, at least until much later in history.

Biologists Anna Jarosz-Wilkołazka and Anna Rysiak, and archaeologist Andrzej Jan Kokowski of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland, thought mysterious spoon-like implements might have been evidence to the contrary.

These strange objects keep turning up in the Roman-era burial sites in what are now Scandinavia, Germany, and Poland. Their handles measure 4 to 7 centimeters (1.6 to 2.8 inches) in length, with a bowl or flat disk on one end measuring 1 to 2 centimeters in diameter. They were often attached to the belts of men, but played no role in how the belt functioned.

The team made a careful study of these spoon-like objects, measuring them, studying how they were included in the grave goods, and the context in which they were buried. They cataloged 241 spoons from 116 localities, and made some interesting observations.

One of the most telling was that the spoons were often included among the accoutrements of war. They were found at war sacrificial sites, directly linking them to warriors; or accompanied by elements of weaponry.

"This," the researchers write in their paper, "allows the thesis to be put forward that this utensil was a common part of a warrior's armor, and from here it is close to concluding that pharmacological stimulation of warriors in the face of stress and exertion was the order of the day."

It's certainly not unheard of. For just a handful of examples, during World War I, cocaine was used liberally. During World War II, both Allied and Axis forces made heavy use of stimulants such as amphetamine and methamphetamine. Between 1966 and 1969, US troops were issued 225 million stimulant pills, including the amphetamine Dexedrine. There are even reports of amphetamine use by Russian soldiers in the ongoing war on Ukraine.

With their thesis established, the researchers then investigated the materials available to the Germanic barbarians which may potentially have been used as stimulants. There were quite a few, including funguses, opium poppy, hops, hemp, henbane, and nightshades such as belladonna and datura.

It's unclear which of these plants, if any, were used by the tribes. But humans have a long history of altering their experience of the world around them with drugs, dating back millennia. It seems unlikely that the Germanic barbarians of the Roman era would have used no drugs whatsoever.

[pyrovverse]

KILLER KING .

CW: Gore, abuse, misogyny, general dark themes

Jeffery Woodson grew up in a small town in Arizona named Tolleson. Jeff was always a violent kid who was a bit too much like his father. He would spend his early years being brutally beat, and then going to the playground to project the abuse onto other children. This behaviour followed him into his teen years, even though his mother had left his father and married a better man named Patrick Woodson.

He first took anothers life when he was 15 years old. There was no hope for 9 year old Bradley Henderson as Jeffery held the young boy down in the rushing river. His body was shortly recovered by authorities after it had washed up on the forest edge and found by park rangers. Despite knowing Jeff was last seen with the boy, there was not enough evidence that Bradleys death was foul play and all charges were dropped. Jeffs stepbrother, Liu Woodson, witnessed the murder happen. He knew better than to open his mouth.

Hatred followed Jeff throughout his life like a disease. It stuck by his side and wrapped around his soul, plaguing him with rage. Every word that escaped his mouth was those of disdain and resentment. He lived his life full of brutality, and god forbid anybody get in his way.

Superiority was important for him. He was taught from a very early age that man shall be put on a hierarchy of weak versus strong, predator versus prey. Jeff believed he was at the top of the food chain and this proved true as he began taking the lives of street whores and inferiors in his early twenties. He knew what he was capable of, and better yet, he knew he could get away with it.

Strangely enough, or rather not all that strange at all, a majority of his victims resembled his own mother. Colleen Woodson was a desperate woman. She would often bring men into the house for sex and money while her husband was at work, letting Jeff be exposed to the lustful sin of humanity in his adolescence. This exposure developed a very unfortunate view on women, and humanity in general, for the boy. To him, people like her were nothing but disgusting inferiors who pathetically flaunted themselves as prey to the predators of the world. Predators like him.

Jeff had a very big, and very fragile, ego. He had a vile mix of primal rage and need that painted a clear picture of his life. Often finding himself in the palm of various hard drugs, Jeff was a fiend for stimulants. Cocaine and methamphetamine paved a labyrinth of mania for the man and only encouraged his brutality.

His arrogance knew no bounds, and he had a very morbid fascination with the idea of cults, death, and corruption. These fantasies were only a catalyst for the man he would become. A cruel and dangerous man who would make a name for himself being a notorious piece of shit in not only the civilized world, but the world of criminals as well. Jeffery Woodson was born scum, and he lived his life encased in amber, forever unchanged.

[redd956]

I was thinking about the fact that military sometimes uses stimulants ranging from caffeine tabs to methamphetamine and I would like you to ask if you can think of any whump propts related to that.

Of course!

Content Warnings: Wartime, Drugging/Drugs & Drug Use, Military Characters, Needles

Military Whump: Drugging Prompts

The drugs made it easy for whumpee(s) to ignore their injuries. Now looking at their vehicle shot up to hell as their wounds slowly unveil themselves, it's a wonder they even got out of there.

Enemy Commander has been nothing but a terror. At this rate they've become more an unstoppable mythical figure, than a human leading his fellows. Their success rate is inexplicable. Their combat abilities deadly. Their eyes oddly sunken... Not many knew about the collar secured around their throat that kept the drugs in their system, and them under easy control.

Whumpee popped another tablet into their mouth, not hesitating to take it dry. it was whumpee's last one. Soon enough their old enemy, their true enemy, sleep would be able to find them once more. Who knows what could wrong then... While whumpee's eyes are closed.

The government cut a lot of corners often in war. The capsules now looked eerily similar. It was only a matter of time before whumpee made the mistake, and took too much of the wrong stuff. They just didn't expect such a mistake to bring them out in the middle of nowhere, too weak to walk.

"Fuck." Whumpee slumped against the stone to some half-demolished home. Morphine was an angel last month, but now they're beginning to think they were mistaken in feeling its holiness.

The idea of someone robbing whumpee for a pack of cigarettes, a few unidentifiable pills, and the most disgusting piece of chocolate known to mankind never occurred to them. The idea of getting shot by someone who wasn't the enemy, doubly was out of question.

Caretaker pressed against the plunger as carefully as their jittering fingers could manage, whilst holding up whumpee's limp arm. Whumpee's temporary unstoppableness saved them from some trouble, but for what cost?

[satoko567]

It's so fucking wild that even suggesting that methamphetamine is in the some class of drug as amphetamine salts will make people want to kill you

Meth is even a prescription stimulant (Desoxyn) that is approved for treating ADHD and obesity im not even like trying to say that taking meth or similar drugs for ADHD is like bad even lol like do what you gotta do https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2013/005378s028lbl.pdf

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity: DESOXYN tablets are indicated as an integral part of a total treatment program which typically includes other remedial measures (psychological, educational, social) for a stabilizing effect in children over 6 years of age with a behavioral syndrome characterized by the following group of developmentally inappropriate symptoms: moderate to severe distractibility, short attention span, hyperactivity, emotional lability, and impulsivity. The diagnosis of this syndrome should not be made with finality when these symptoms are only of comparatively recent origin. Nonlocalizing (soft) neurological signs, learning disability, and abnormal EEG may or may not be present, and a diagnosis of central nervous system dysfunction may or may not be warranted

[transmutationisms]

Do you have a perspective on why stimulants aren’t currently widely prescribed as weight loss drugs? Im guessing it’s related to it being a ‘controlled substance’ and ‘scary drug’ but drug marketing in pursuit of pharmaceutical profits is pretty powerful… I wonder why I haven’t seen (effective?) efforts to try to ‘overhaul’ the image of stimulants as only associated with “addiction”, “hyperactive children”, finance bros, and “lazy adults”.

I know vyvanse is also prescribed for binge eating but I get the sense most people are unaware of that. I tried many stimulants and I had the most rapid and “easy” (found food repulsive) weight loss on vyvanse. Granted all of the many prescribed stimulants I’ve tried all greatly suppress my appetite.And I’ve seen it described as a benefit by some people who have it prescribed for adhd (I understand why people do and I sometimes see it as a very depressing benefits because lack of food security despite). Binge eating disorder and prescribing for general weight loss aren’t too far from each other in the fatphobic society we live in but I guess I’m curious how it hasn’t had the ozempic treatment already/ when will it happen. People already look down of folks who can’t function by society’s standards in certain contexts and I see that similarity in how people talk about people who take ozempic for weight loss (admonishing and a moral failure).

stimulants absolutely still are prescribed for weight loss lol, in addition to Vyvanse for 'binge eating' (v unreliable diagnosis that many people receive when they are in fact dealing with subjective loss of control around food as a direct result of restrictive behaviours...) there's also Desoxyn (methamphetamine) and Phentermine (a substituted amphetamine), which are both still FDA-approved for short-term weight management. and yes that's Phentermine as in half of fen-phen. you also have to keep in mind that off-label prescribing is hard to track but is probably still occurring at not-insignificant rates (i know it happens with Ephedra and Clenbuterol, for example). and then there are also patients who use stimulants for weight loss without a doctor's knowledge, either by obtaining them on the black market or by simply getting a doctor to prescribe them for something else.

anyway in regards to pharma marketing strategies i think there are a few things going on here:

weight loss has never actually been the sole market for these drugs, nor was it the first. amphetamine was first synthesised in 1929; it was put into asthma inhalers almost immediately and by the late 30s was being sold as a kind of generalised wellness-producing drug, used by, for instance, college students as a 'pep pill'. the Allies used quite a bit of amphetamine in WWII to keep soldiers alert (the US military was still doing this in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s; afaik they have not stopped this practice). by the late 50s stimulants were also marketed as pick-me-ups for unhappy housewives and for a dizzying array of depression 'subtypes' (postpartum, old age-related, disability-related) and 'modern miseries' (atomic anxiety, economic and political unrest). it wasn't until the 50s and 60s that stimulants really started to be marketed as diet pills, with 'overeating' configured as a symptom of depression. even those formulations also had other use markets: professional athletes, for example. i'm sure pharma companies would love to have the stimulant dominance they once did in weight loss, but it's not really necessary in order to move product: these days the ADHD diagnosis will generally do the job just fine. nicolas rasmussen's book On Speed has more on this history.

speaking of the ADHD diagnosis, i have observed that in the last two or so decades, it has increasingly been invoked in bioessentialist narratives of either 'chemical imbalances' (usually dopamine, norepinephrine) or distinct 'neurotypes' that are said to cause, worsen, or be susceptible to 'overeating', which can therefore be treated by the use of stimulant drugs. i strongly suspect an effect here is that 'overeating', weight gain, or 'obesity' are de facto being used as diagnostic criteria for ADHD, or for other psychiatric diagnoses considered to have high overlap in behavioural presentation. this is not dissimilar to the formulation in the 60s of 'overeating' as a result of depression; in both cases the narrative elides the appetite-suppressant effects of stimulants and presents them as aiding with weight loss by treating an underlying bio/psychiatric pathology. an interesting historical note here is that Adderall is simply a rebrand of the second-gen formulation of the weight-loss drug Obetrol.

presently, weight loss is largely marketed using the language of health rather than aesthetics. although pharma companies are certainly not morally above lying, i do think it would be a tough pill to swallow (pun intended) if they tried to convince anyone that a stimulant prescription is part of this sort of 'wellness' scene. that could change in the future, ofc; these perceptions and associations are socially and historically contingent. in the US even as recently as the 90s, people were definitely still presenting fen-phen as health-promoting (tautologically, because it caused weight loss!), at least until the valve disease scandal.

glp-1 agonists like ozempic are, i think, getting a lot of extremely credulous coverage, from both the medical establishment and health journalists, that is obfuscating the fact that they basically also work by suppressing the appetite. whether it is 'healthier' to do this with a substance that alters endocrine function than to do it with a substance that acts on adrenergic receptors is unclear to me. certainly there are many 'side effects' of the glp-1 agonists that are simply the results of rapid / significant weight loss (fatigue, weakness, osteoporosis, hair loss, gallstones, 'ozempic face', &c). that a process that causes these things can be marketed as health-promoting is a whole other topic lol. but i think the perception of the glp-1 agonists as healthful weight-loss agents has to do with certain misunderstandings of diabetes, metabolism, and body weight, as well as a degree of... not quite blackboxing, but something adjacent, on the part of pharma companies in their promotional materials. which is to say, it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, people looked back at glp-1 agonists as also being risky drugs to use for weight loss, and only being worth using in specific, limited circumstances.

[theharrowing]

Carnival of Terror 🎪 Poll 11: Ducky & Rabbit, #1

this poll relates to events at the end of chapter 3. if you have not yet read it, please do so first!

cw: this poll contains discussion of a recreational drug. if that bothers you, please either skip this one or vote without reading the information below the poll.

hint: from wikipedia, "3,4-Methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine (MDMA) is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant and minor psychedelic properties, primarily used for recreational purposes. The purported pharmacological effects that may be prosocial include altered sensations, increased energy, empathy, and pleasure. When taken by mouth, effects begin in 30 to 45 minutes and last three to six hours."

note: this poll is set to run for 7 days, but in the event that i begin to write sooner, the post will be made private, shutting off the ability to vote. should i choose to do this, i will give a 24 hour notice via reblogs.

there is another poll running tangential to this one!

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