Why I think young teens shouldn't trip

With me? I mostly just wasted a bunch of chemicals that would have been better enjoyed by those old enough. But if I had access to enough of them, I'm sure I would have fried my brain into the tin foil hat realm.

 

acid was a game changer. i was 14. I stopped getting in trouble for the most part. pointed me in the direction of positivity. i'm still not perfect, but i try to be honest in my self-reflection and keep my intentions pure.

but its true i didnt understand how heavy a trip could get back then.

 

Wow, that's interesting. Because pot is very likely to be way more harmful to a growing teen then lsd.

And to balance out guys like you as an example of why not to do stuff in your teens, there are guys like the Google Boys. Ya know, wouldn't want to end up like them. It's such a shame they did lsd as teen agers(and not pot), they should have stuck with something that wouldn't have changed their minds so drastically, they would have avoided all that fame and fortune.

And again, don't you think it likely that kids who trip as a habit were already more likely to end up kinda out of the norm? And doing other drugs? Because most teens I have known who trip, or adults who tripped as teens, were already on a road to becoming what you call a 'useless adult'(wow, that's a pretty cruel epithet), before they dropped. They tend to be broken home kids, or learning or emotional disability kids, or just having serious issues with life kids. Because those are the kids willing to step outside what is socially acceptable and do something like take a bunch of drugs.

And yeah, those sorts of kids aren't going to mesh too well with society, whether or not they trip. Because society just hasn't got a place for them. That isn't the fault of the psychedelics, it's the fault of a society that says 'Whelp, you didn't jump through all the right hoops, so now you're USELESS. Now fuck off'. Though I agree that heavy drug use will make sliding into that cruel and fucked up social category more likely. Drug use of any kind, and high on the list is pot.

I mean, there we're talking about a drug that measurably reduces memory retention a week after consumption. This seems like a bad idea as the drug you think teenagers particularly should stick to. I mean, it seems fine if you're pretty much blue-collar bound, or an adult that's already in that line. It's a great substance for one to take to help them accept life as it is. But I find myself saddened a bit when I see bright kids taking it, as I know it's going to reduce their learning, slow them up, limit their potential. But maybe they'll end up happier for it, I don't know.

Do as you will. But it still seems a silly recommendation to say 'Don't do lsd, stick with pot, as a teen'.

 

lets not forget Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, can't remember his name but the guy who founded Cysco Systems, Dr Kary Mullis,(Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry in 1993 and inventor of PCR, a method for detecting even the smallest amount of DNA in ancient materials. "Would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it," he says. "I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs.")
Crick and Watson. Francis Crick supposedly envisioned the double helix structure of DNA while on LSD
the list goes on and on.

I agree with all the above 200%, from researching it and living it.
Lets not forget the #1 killer of teens in this country; ALCOHOL

I would rather have my teens ask for shrooms or acid rather than alcohol.
And just so there is no question, yes my kids know all about my drug usage, past and present and I am 110% honest with them in all aspects of it.
Drives my wife crazy that I even talk so openly with them about it, but at least I am confident they have factual information and have already made the choice to avoid any drugs until finished with college, and I trust they will stick to that decision.

 

The first paragraph may be your experience but it doesn't reflect most drug users. The most obvious example is think of the glamorous appeal cocaine had in the late 70's, early 80's dubbed 'the champagne of drugs.' Most of the original ecstasy culture was fairly normal, yuppie kids who embraced the hedonistic aspects of the drug during the weekend and went to school or work Monday morning. And yes even LSD from all the studying I've done on it was primarily used by middle to upper class kids and students. Look where the LSD messiah timothy Leary came from, harvard.

There may be some factors that place kids at a higher risk and to start at a younger age, but drug use among the young is certainly not solely for troubled teens who remain on the outskirts of society, quite the opposite in alot of cases. You mentioned the google people and we can throw Steve jobs (iPhone) in there, I doubt they were any more troubled than any other teen. I imagine most of them came from at least middle class families too.

 

The problem is kids and how they self limit, and the consequences of not limiting psychedelic use. not how horrible psychedelics are.

Yes, I stand behind what I said, pot's just fine, and the consequences of not limiting yourself are minimal, other than what it will do to your wallet.

I'm not going address most of your post, because most of it reads like if above the influence still hated pot, but liked acid.

 

That is making an assumption that just because thier family financial situation puts them into those brackets of middle class and upper middle class means that thier family and home/emotional life is all rosy and perfect.
Very big assumption to make.
Money doesn't automatically mean a happy childhood and family.

 

No offense Roorshack, but I have been smoking weed off on, more on, for 17 years longer than you have been alive. When I have stopped for an extended period, 2-3 months or longer, I notice a HUGE difference in myself and the way I view things and my emotional responses to things.

When I'm in the smoking phase I also don't think that there is any real problem or difference and that I can function at 100% efficiency.
I really only notice how much of an impact smoking has on all aspects of my life when I haven't smoked for at least 6 weeks. It is almost as if a fog lifts off my mind and my mental functioning is totally different.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE weed and always have, but I do have to be honest with myself about it and the negative impact it can have if used too frequently.

 

You're quite right, but the negative impact is generally temporary. In general, if you smoke yourself stupid, well.... you're stupid, yes, but if you stop smoking yourself stupid, the stupid will pass. If you fry your brain with as much acid as anyone will sell you, while your brain is developing, bad things will happen to said brain, in most cases.

I'm also rather opposed to the idea that because primitive cultures might use psychedelics in religious settings, it's ok for children to run around with all the hallucinogens they feel like. I've tripped, smoked, drank, meditated, etc with teens/children much too young to do it themselves, (with, of course, family members present and partaking) But that's very different from the idea that they should be allowed to dose themselves however they wish, or be independant in their ability to find/use drugs.

Of course, it's also very dependant on the person in question, some people are just ready before others. But in general, I don't think "young teens" should have ready access to ANY drugs.

 

with that I can agree, if only because I've lived it.
That is one reason I always try to get and relay factual information about drugs in places like these forums, because regardless of what you or I think or say, young teens are going to experiment given the chance at times, and I would rather they do that with the knowledge of what they are getting into.

 

Im not saying that at all. I am saying that most those kids don't live In broken homes like autumn breeze said and they are not living in the outskirts of society. based on the percentage of middle to upper class Americans who have taken LSD and MDMA I am going to have to assume some of them at least used it out of pure teenage curiousity moreso than to deal with some dysfunctional living situation or mental illness. Those latter conditions are certainly possible tho even in a mainstream America household.

 

Going to chime in to ditto PB's comment about middle class by no means saying anything about whether one is 'troubled'. I've spent a lot of time in and out of the rave scene. And most of the kids that I have seen there, despite coming from wealthy backgrounds, are specifically those who had elements that set them apart from general society. Some few might end up on that course despite being otherwise likely to 'succeed', but many end up experimenting with drugs specifically because other ares of their lives have failed them. For many teen-agers, drugs are an escape, a way out of a life that is lacking something significant.

I'm not saying -all- who do so are like this, but I will say that it refers to the majority who make heavy use of a variety of drugs. In the cases of several of the famous people mentioned, and many other successful folks who've made heavy use of cocaine and mdma, most started a bit later in life(like, say, Leary). However there are some who make use of lsd at a young age, then stop with just that drug, and those include a fair number of rather successful and wealthy folks, many of whom now live in Silicon Valley(like the google boys). I've met a number of them actually.

RooRshack, my statements don't come from a hate of marijuana. It comes from numerous studies I've read on it, many done by pro-MJ folk. Showing that the effects of pot are quite reversible, though they take time. And that the worst effects are loss of memory retention, impaired reasoning, slow response time, etc. All fully reversible, given enough time. THC binds to fat tissue. And the brain is full of fat tissue.

I've smoked a fair amount of pot in my time. Thankfully, I waited until a later age. Because the difficulty with pot and adolescents is that it does last, the effects last well after the high is gone. A half-life of a week or more, usually long enough for the user to smoke again. And if you reside in a constant state of reduced memory retention, during the time in your life that is the -most- important for you to be gaining information...well, it bodes ill. During the time when your mid is still very plastic, very able to gain new information, yet sophisticated enough for you to handle complex concepts. This is the time that is most important you not spend with your memory retention impaired 24/7.

Sure, kids doing drugs of any kind indiscriminately, with heaps of bogus information and no guidance they can trust is a recipe for problems. But telling them to 'just say no', or suggesting they stick with -pot-, is not going to work, and is harmful. You lie to kids, or tell them scare stories, about some drugs, and when they find out you were lying, or that you were misinformed, well... They won't believe you about any drugs. And next you know they'll be trying out meth, or whatever the next wave of highly addictive drug will end up being.

For my generation it was meth. It wasn't as well know that it was so bad, though there were stories. But, you know, there were stories about all the drugs, and we all knew that the stories were BS, right? You know, until a bunch of our friends died. And others went crazy. And people ended up in jail. That one sort of sneaks up on you, because at first it's a pretty fun game to play. I dodged it by chance, wandering out of town before I got hooked, before it started distorting my sense of self.

But last generation it was heroin, and before that it was coke, and who knows what it will be next that kids don't believe you about.

Kids, lots of kids, feel a need for -something-. They feel it way more then people a bit older. Something to take the strain off of being young and full of over-powering emotions and full of short-lived but gripping ambitions and no real outlet for their energy. An escape from the pain of day to day living in a broken society, or from existential angst. Something that can offer answers or at least shut the questions up for a while. And they are going to keep looking for something.

Right now, what are the options for that? We have alcohol, which is pretty easy to get a hold of. And is a huge killer, incites violence, is part and parcel to a huge amount of rape, teen suicide, car crashes. We have pot, which is pretty damn harmless, but also dumbs down kid's ability to -learn-. We have MDMA, which can be kind of addictive, and heavy use can lead to permanent depression. We have a bunch of research chemicals that who knows what the effects are. There's meth, and coke, and heroin, which are in a class of messed up all their own. And there are the psychedelics.

Thing is, kids are going to use something in this class of materials. Not every kid, but a number of the kids of -every- generation. Whether we tell them it's all right or not. Whether we tell them truth or lies about them. Whether we make it illegal or not, or call it acceptable or not.

Of these, yes, the least likely to cause specific damage is pot. But the one least likely to cause lasting harm to their life, to have an overall negative influence? The one most likely to have an overall positive influence? I'd call it a toss up between ayahuasca and lsd. Not pot.

Lsd doesn't fry your brain. It causes no damage to the brain at all that we've ever been able to determine. It doesn't hamper a kid's ability to learn, doesn't seem to retard emotional development. Doesn't really seem to be that problematic in all but a very small number of cases, and those manifesting regardless of age. And has a strong positive influence on at least as many people as it harms. People -today- are taking ayahuasca on a regular basis, in cities, from a young age and showing mental health, emotional wellbeing and general lifestyle success notably higher then the general population in their location. Particularly a very low incidence of use of other drugs.

Roor, you sound like someone who's for some reason come to be what he, himself refers to as a 'useless adult'. You've fallen through the cracks, and feel you've wasted your teen years, those years most important for setting your place in this society. And you seem to be blaming it on psychedelic use. This seems to be more about you then it is about kids -today-.

Perhaps you simply need to reevaluate your life today. Instead of looking back at the past and trying to figure what went so wrong, looking for something to blame, wishing it had turned out different, and proscribing such activity in others, perhaps you might look at your life now and see what you could be doing different with the life you do have.

 

If you think that, in the simplest possible terms, putting a delay between the parts of your brain and how they talk to each other, and otherwise interfearing with communication between brain areas (by no means all LSD does, but what accounts for most of what you consider a "trip" ) Is any better for a developing mind than simply slowing it... well... have fun with that.

Oh, and if you know so much about LSD, you should surly know that "fry" is a rather commonly associated term, it doesn't mean your brain is on a griddle, it's slang for "tripping".

I'm not sure where you got the idea I'm trying to blame something, I rather love life, perhaps you're projecting some of your own failure into your psychoanalysis of me? I simply said I can see how you could be seriously hurt by too many hallucinogenic drugs when you are too young, and I have seen other people that have done it.

I think the least harmful psyche that I know of would be salvia divinorum, but we're talking realistically. Salvia isn't a drug of abuse, because it's bizzare and scares people with that sort of personality away most of the time, so it's not really worth mentioning here. A part of kids using drugs is the fact that once they use them, you have little control over them. Read where I said "just say no and stick to pot". Nope, didn't say it, what i said is that I have a habit of sharing drugs with people of all ages, provided that if they're too young to do it without guidance, they have an older family member there. This thread isn't about letting people explore their minds in a controlled situation, it's about children with unfettered access to hallucinigenics.

*edit* So you talk about amphetamine psychosis and a distorted sense of self.... do you have ANY idea of the problems with identity and reality that come with psychedelics, especially used on developing minds? Doesn't look like it. Sorry for the edit, but there was so much bullshit in your post that I've been reading it in bits and pieces, I could feel myself getting stupider when I was trying to read strait through it.

 

I first tripped acid when I was 14. Tripped 4 times in one week when I was 17 in went in to a state of psychosis for a week, had to be hospitalized. So yes, I completely agree. Teens shouldn't trip.

 

No, teens may trip, younger teens should not have access to their own chemicals, which is what most people in this thread seem to think constitutes tripping.

This guy's just what I'm talking about. LSD is usually a fun drug, so the average teen goes and gets more. And more. And more. And more. And then goes to the hospital and makes a fool of themselves and disgraces the entire psychedelic using community, for allowing young, immature people access to more drugs than they should have.

 

All drugs are normally fun though. The real issue I think should be in the title of this thread, it shouldn't be why young teens shouldn't trip, it should be why young teens shouldn't do drugs period, because the overall themes on why a young teen shouldn't take LSD is in fact present for near all drugs.

 

Lots of crazy opinions in here...they should trip because it worked well for me...they shouldn't be allowed to trip because i went into psychosis..blablabla..

I think what it comes down to is the individual. Some are obviously ready, some are not. If we actually educated people from a younger age the TRUTH about these substances, their history, and provided a place for them to have the experience in a controlled setting with loved ones or professionals around then we would be getting somewhere..and having much less casualties (even though the percentage is very low).

I know many teens, like myself back in the day, who are completely ready to have these experiences which open their senses and perceptions flinging them into entirely new realms of thought and possibilities of living in the universe. And for those who aren't ready, there can be various degrees of badtrips- even for those who think there ready and have experience. From the trip to the mental hospital (rarely happens), to the "what have i been doing my whole life!!!". I think the majority of teens on the planet would GREATLY benefit from psychedelics in ways people can't even imagine. The alcohol problem would start to slide away, the ignorance, the mtv, lil wayne, and all those stupid bullshit distractions would be seen by MORE AND MORE people for what they really are. aaah i can see it now, earth the way it should be

Moms gonna fix it all soon
Moms comin round to put it back the way it oughtta beeeee~aenima

ok maybe thats all just wishful thinking

 

I wouldn't expect you to pick it out, it was hidden in a wall of text, but 2 posts ago I said, I think salvia is just fine for anyone to use, there's just about no one that will want to use it on a regular basis, seen plenty of teens trip on it, and walk away before causing any mental harm, though I'm quite sure it could. It's just beause it's not a recreational drug in the usual sense, it's hard to abuse salvia.

Just for example. But you see what I'm saying, how many people have no ability to function because of salvia? maybe one or two, ever. How many people can't function because of LSD? plenty of them. The difference is the capacity for recreational use that LSD has, while if you're really just after spirituality, salvia can be a VERY spiritual drug.

 

But we're talking about one drug that is used, by the average serious user, every couple of weeks or so, rarely more often than once a week. That has a half-life in the brain of 3 hrs. Versus a drug that is used daily by the average user, that has a half life in the brain of several days. One where the users take the drug, has the experience, baselines and goes back to their life, spending a week or several at baseline state before taking the drug again. Versus a drug where the average user rarely ever passes the half-life point before dosing again. Never actually baselines at all.

With acid, if used by teens, it's usually used friday or saturday night, and by monday they've baselined in time to go to school. With pot, the effects stick around and measurably decrease learning potential all week long even for the very rare kid who only smokes up on the weekends.

Well yes, but that's not how you used the term. You talked about frying your brain from taking too much. The connotations of permanent damage were pretty clear. And lsd just doesn't do that.

Shrug, you were the one positing yourself as an example of why kids shouldn't take lsd.

Perhaps you're right about salvia. Though I don't see it as being all that valuable from a spiritual perspective. Shrug.

As to you saying 'just say no and stick to pot', well, you didn't say exactly that. You said that from your experience you'd suggest kids stick to pot and wait a few years before doing lsd. Personally, I'd advise that if kids are going to do some form of drug they do the opposite. Stick with lsd and wait on the pot until they're done with school, because pot will notably hurt their ability to study.

I'd advise parents of kids who are getting into drugs to do lsd with their kids, or take their kids to an ayahuasca church, or find some sort of guide for their experience. That would cover one level of issue around drug use, the indiscriminate aspect.

Sadly though it leaves out one of the reasons kids use drugs: social bonding. Kids take drugs with one another to smooth over social interaction, provide a group 'activity' and intensify bonding experiences. It plays a big role in smoothing over the jagged edges of our cultures psychosexual landscape in particular.

Not sure what the answer to that is. Kids are going to want, at around the age of sexual majority, to start having activities with one another that are outside the influence of adults. Currently our culture finds this idea horrifying, but it's an incredibly basic element of human existence. And yeah, I mean around 14 years old. And this always has, and likely always will, involve the use of -some- sort of drug for a sizable percentage of the population. The question is, will it be alcohol, like it's primarily been for the past few hundred years, or will it be something else? If something else, what?

Actually, I don't think the effects on identity are in any way limited to 'developing minds'. The incredibly rare psychosis effects don't seem to be any respecter of age. And the mystical fruitloop effect doesn't either. Leary was a professor when he found the drug. Kesey in his 20s. Many people who start a bit later in life suddenly go through a second teen cycle and seriously screw up the life they'd been building.

Frankly it seems a better idea to get the chaotic shake-up that psychedelics can cause out of the way during the time period we have sort of set aside for people to have such difficulty(14-16), with a fairly strong support network. Rather than in their 20s, when they're in the midst of dealing with suddenly having all their supports pulled out from under them and if they stray from the prescribed path will end up adrift. Or for that matter late teens, when they're in the midst of the 'what do I wanna do when I grow up' phase, and trying to build up ego-energy to tackle the oncoming life as an adult. In the midst of trying to learn how to 'be responsible' and focus on goals, and thinking about college and the like.

 

You do have an interesting point, that if you're going to mess up, do it while you've got the support.

I see what you're saying with most of this, don't think it's just bouncing off. Of course it's a delicate subject, and depends on the person.

The reason I've been advocating pot use, and pot use alone at first, is that first of all, it IS a good gateway drug if you're looking to get into drugs, it teaches you a lot of the feelings and thought processes that you'll encounter on any drug, and how to deal with it, and can alert you if you're prone to drug induced panic attacks, and we don't want little kids going to the ER because of acid, it's just not good for ANYONE's case.

Also, as you said, kids will want to use drugs socially and be semi independant with them, even if they do have the chance to use them in a monitored setting. Weed is easy and safe, to the extent that they'll probably use it... for sure, safer than the most popular teenage alternative, alcohol.

Also, I guess it's just who you know, but I know plenty of people who smoke weed both only on the weekend, and during the school week, I suppose they have a foggy monday, but at least there's enough of a difference that they feel that it's worth abstaining during the week, and do still enjoy weed.

I concede, going to college, I realized just how far ahead of a lot of people I am in many ways. Not that there's something special about me, but lots of people are just very sheltered, with a sort of culture of ignorance. It's very hard to teach someone how to re wire their brain if they just haven't tried to use it or thought out of the box until they're 20 years old, which could be seen as an argument to take drugs younger. Then again, there's people I've met who take no drugs and have a psychedelic users though patterns before I introduce them to drugs, and some who are not even interested.

*edit* About what demographics use drugs... well... "suburban life ain't what it seems"... Everyone's got problems, I see my family as pretty happy compared to most familys, and we're below "middle class" as far as incomes go.