Some drugs make you happy, some drugs make you sad, and other drugs destroy your will to live and turn you into something that looks like a zombie extra on The Walking Dead. The latter are the drugs we are here to discuss today.
Now I’m not saying don’t do drugs, kids. I’m not fucking McGruff or Nancy Reagan or whoever the hell is teaching kids to stay off the junk these days. I don’t care what you do. Go nuts. But you might want to avoid the following drugs, all of which will turn you into Gollum – or worse.
Meth
Let’s start off easy. Meth. You all know it. And you’ve all seen the pictures of broken down old grandmas that turn out to actually be 25 year-old waitresses. You don’t smoke meth, meth smokes you. Of course, there are different grades of meth – we’ve all seen Breaking Bad – but chances are you’re not going to get yours from a genius chemistry teacher with some issues. No, you’re going to get yours from some shitty biker gang that doesn’t care if you’re inhaling Windex or whatever the fuck they had laying around the trailer when they cooked that shit. Never take something your cousin who tortures small animals and who dropped out of the 8th grade makes in his bathroom. That’s just a rule I have.
Bromo-dragonfly
Bromo-dragonfly (named for the shape of the chemical compound, which looks like a, duh, dragonfly) is a psychedelic that is so long lasting that users typically trip for three days straight before coming down. That’s just way too fucking long to hang out in the Phantom Zone, man. But even if your brain can handle that – and it probably won’t – you’ll also have to deal with seizures and maybe even having your legs cut off since dragonfly is a vasoconstrictor, which means that your blood flow will be all fucked up for the whole time you’re tripping, and if you take too much, gangrene gets involved and then you’re in the same boat as dudes in a Civil War hospital and that’s no good for everyone.
But say you make it through without being physically ruined. You still have to deal with the mental trauma, and, well, I’ll just let this quote from a Danish dude who danced with the dragonfly sum things up: “It was like being dragged to hell and back again. Many times. It is the most evil thing I’ve ever tried. It lasted an eternity.” Good times!
Datura
Datura is a sneaky asshole of a drug. That’s because nobody realizes it’s that dangerous. It’s the official name for the “harmless” Jimson Weed, but it’s actually a deliriant, which is a particular form of hallucinogenic that makes you, well, delirious. I’m talking get wild and jump off a building kind of shit. That’s not just dangerous, that’s embarrassing, bro.
It can also cause your heart rate to go crazy, give you hypothermia and mess with your eyes so bad that you can’t even handle the light of the Earth’s yellow sun anymore. Sounds fun.
The worst part, though, is that because it’s such a sneaky drug (Jimson Weed has been marketed as an herbal supplement) people don’t really expect to be taken for that kind of a ride. Imagine just trying to clear up your asthma and end up fighting a horse because he dared you that you couldn’t ride him to the moon. And the worst part is that he was a police horse, and now you’re being beaten with billy-clubs and stomped by Secretariat there. Just use your inhaler like everyone else.
Yaba
Yaba is Thai for “Madness Drugs,” so… yeah. Others call it “the crazy medicine,” but that all pales in comparison to its original nickname: “Nazi speed.”
Yes, that’s right, Yaba was developed by Nazi scientists so that Hitler’s soldiers could stay up for epic stretches that would take down even the heartiest of truckers. Of course, it caused them all to lose their goddamn minds, but to be fair it’s not like they were the sanest people to begin with. Still, anytime your drug of choice was developed as a fucking Nazi experiment, it might be time to reevaluate some things. That’s a pretty big red flag right there. Shit, Nazi meth. Hitler had an army of Walter Whites working for him. Your grandpa was up against some serious shit. Don’t disgrace his memory by taking the crazy medicine.
Bath Salts
Look, anytime a drug sparks fears of a legit zombie outbreak, it’s gonna end up on this list. I shouldn’t need to get into this one too deeply. I mean, you all remember that stretch when bros in Florida were eating their neighbors’ faces and throwing down with cops like fucking terminators. This is some crazy shit. It doesn’t even really make you feel good. It just turns you into a crazy animal, and not the cool kind like a lion or something, but the shitty kind like, I don’t know, rabid baboons, only with slightly fewer red asses and more shit throwing.
Scopolamine
Scopolamine is better known as “The Devil’s Breath,” which should give you an indication of what we’re dealing with here. The drug is simple. Basically, someone blows it into your face on the street, causing you to lose all inhibitions and memory and willpower, turning you into a zombie so that they can rob you, rape you or turn you into a street soldier for whatever the hell wild ass scheme they’ve got going on. You wake up the next day (if you’re lucky) with absolutely no memory of what went down.
So far, this shit has been confined to Colombia (but of course…) but it’s become something of an epidemic there, as both native Colombians and travelers from abroad have been victimized. Life is hard enough without having to worry about some Colombian cartel turning you into a goddamn zombie. Thanks a lot, Obama.
Etorphine
Etorphine is a synthetic opiate that is up to 3,000 times stronger than heroin. Well, goddamn. It’s used mostly to subdue wild beasts like giant elephants or Khloe Kardashian, but if a human being even touched that shit, it would mean instant death. Science is a dick.
Krokodil
This Russian form of morphine is technically known as desomorphine, and I’ll just let our good friend Wikipedia fill you in on the effects of Krokodil:
”Illicitly produced desomorphine typically contains large amounts of toxic substances as a result of being “cooked” and used without any significant effort to remove the byproducts and leftovers from synthesis. Injecting any such mixture can cause serious damage of the skin, blood vessels, bones and muscles, sometimes requiring limb amputation in long-term users. Causes of this damage are from iodine and phosphorus (and other toxic substances) that are present after synthesis. The large volume of tissue damage/infection is what gained the drug its nickname of the flesh-eating drug, as homemade versions made by suppliers and users contain multiple impurities and toxic substances that lead to such tissue damage/infection. Gangrene, phlebitis, thrombosis (blood clots), pneumonia, meningitis, septicemia (blood infection), osteomyelitis (bone infection), liver & kidney damage, brain damage and HIV/AIDS are also common amongst users of krokodil. Sometimes, the user will miss the vein when injecting the desomorphine, creating abscess and causing death of the flesh surrounding the entry-point.”
Jesus Christ! Just… goddamn. Say what you will about our drugs over here in the good ol’ US of A, but at least we’re not shooting ourselves up with shit that literally eats the flesh off our bones. I dare you to google image search “krokodil.” Just make sure you have a bucket or a trash can to vomit in. Thanks a lot, Putin.
Crazy man image by Shutterstock