Stupid Things I've Done (part of an ongoing series)

When I was still a young jackass a younger man, I suffered from an insatiable urge to alter my consciousness, coupled with spotty-at-best access to common recreational drugs. Here are some of the stupid things I tried to get high with.

1. Nutmeg.
My friend Chris and I tried smoking some of the ground stuff from a tin, which only made us cough explosively. Then I did some more research and discovered only the oil (which evaporates quickly once the nutmeg is ground) is psychoactive. So I bought an entire nutmeg - about the size of a small walnut - used a hammer to pound it into the consistency of coarse sand, and ingested it mixed with a glass of lemonade. Saying that this is not recommended is one of the bigger understatements I've ever made. Worst. trip. ever. Even worse than eating a 12-pack of NyQuil tablets (see below). I suffered through a drooling, gagging, nauseated stupor for over 8 hours, followed by a 24-hour hangover that persisted through a night of sleep and a nap. Every time I swallowed or burped the overwhelming essence of nutmeg came roaring up from the depths, laden with holiday cheer and the threat of uncontrolled vomiting. It was a good 5 years before I could tolerate the smell of nutmeg without gagging.

2. Kinnickinnick.
This low-growing, evergreen shrub (also known as bearberry) is a common landscaping feature in the PNW. In pioneer days it was also called 'Indian Tobacco' as the natives used to smoke the leaves when they ran out of the real stuff. It is reputed to have a mildly tranquilizing effect.
Smoking it was not unpleasant - it's at least as tasty as tobacco ? but the net effect was like taking a hit from a pot pipe without any pot in it.

3. Morning glory seeds.
Morning glory seeds contain a psychoactive chemical, lysergic acid amide, which is a precursor to lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). (Any complaints about the accuracy of the names or representation of these chemical compounds may be directed to my lawyer, the Hon. Robert Q. Gofuckyourself.) It's supposed to be a mildly effective hallucinogen - ghetto acid, if you will.
Commercially sold morning glory seeds are supposedly treated with a mildly poisonous chemical to deter you from ingesting them. There were no warnings on the seed packet, so I washed the seeds (just to be on the safe side), then chewed them up. It definitely didn't get me high, but it did make me faintly nauseous. I had another plan in the works, which involved growing my own morning glories over the summer, but I had to go back to school before they produced seeds. Thwarted again.
Later, I remembered reading a passage in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test that made reference to people having lame little trips, vexed by the unpleasant feeling of hundreds of morning glory seeds sloshing half-digested in their bellies. I should have listened. Story of my life.

4. Dextromethorphan
The secret is out on this shit nowadays, and I understand you can now obtain pure, crystalline DM over the internet. But we did it old school, gagging down an entire bottle of cough syrup in exchange for an all-night trip, accompanied by various degrees of unpleasant gastrointestinal side-effects ranging from nausea to bioweapons-grade intestinal gas.
The first time I tried the stuff I drank a bottle of Robitussin DM, which also contains the expectorant guafenesin. I soon discovered that I am allergic to guafenesin. It made my entire face swell up, especially my lips and eyelids, and caused body-wide itching. My face was so swollen that when I stopped by a friend's room on my way to class the next morning, he was unable to recognize me at first. Yet I soldiered on, undeterred as usual.
We soon discovered alternate preparations that featured only DM as the active ingredient, or paired with less-reactionary ingredients like acetiminophen (Tylenol) or chlorphenaramine (OTC antihistamine). Actually had a number of excellent trips on this one as it is a legitimate psychedelic with empathic and euphoric qualities. (It's especially entertaining as an adjunct to the works of David Lynch.) Alas, over time the hangovers got progressively more brutal, featuring not only the typically brain-depleted lethargy common to hallucinogens, but also crushing depression for most of the next day.
An extra special side note to the Cough Syrup Follies: toward the end of my run experimenting with the stuff, NyQuil became available in liquid capusle form. NyQuil does contain DM, but only as a component of a frighteningly potent pharmaceutical cocktail that should probably only be available via prescription, if even then. In theory, this was a fantastic development, given that the encapsulated form eliminated the need to choke down a full bottle of nasty, viscous, nauseating gloop. In practice, eating a 12-pack of those sinister little bonbons caused a horribly unpleasant episode: face-down on Vasky's filthy dorm room carpet for several hours in a paralyzed, drooling stupor, tormented by boring yet irritatingly unpleasant hallucinations.

Looking back, it is downright pathetic what kids will turn to when they can't find weed.

¶ Wednesday, May 10, 2006