Recreational drug use
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational rather than medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear. Regardless of medical supervision, this label does not apply to the use of drugs for utilitarian purposes, such as the relief of fatigue or insomnia, or the control of appetite.--[1] [Sept 2004]
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By drug: alcohol - amphetamines (speed) - cocaine - ecstasy - hashish - heroin - LSD - magic mushrooms - opium - poppers - pot - smoking
By medium: [2] Drugs in literature - [3] Drugs in music - [4] Recreational drugs - [5] Drugs in film
Related: addiction - consciousness - medicine - mind - prohibition - psychedelic
Psychotropics
A psychoactive drug or psychotropic substance is a chemical that alters brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood, consciousness, or behavior. Such drugs are often used in recreational drug use and as entheogens for spiritual purposes, as well as in medication, especially for treating neurological and psychological illnesses.
Many of these substances (especially the stimulants and depressants) can be habit-forming, causing chemical dependency and often leading to substance abuse. Conversely, others (namely the psychedelics) can help to treat and even cure such addictions. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug [Mar 2006]
Drug subcultures
Drug subcultures are examples of countercultures, primarily defined by recreational drug use.
Drug subcultures may be seen as groups of people loosely united by a common understanding of the meaning and value (good or otherwise) of the incorporation into life of the drug in question. Such unity can take many forms, from friends who take the drug together, possibly obeying certain rules of etiquette, to full-scale political movements for the reform of drug laws. The sum of these parts can be considered an individual drug's "culture".
It should be noted that there are multiple drug subcultures based on the use of different drugs - the culture surrounding cannabis, for example, is very different from that of heroin, due to the different sort of experiences and problems the drugs cause. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_subculture [Feb 2005]
Hole in the Head:
- Early in 1965, I heard of someone who had drilled a hole in his head to get a permanently high {sic}. I put it down as another crankish idea and didn't think much about it. Later that year I went to Ibiza, looking for mescalin or LSD. I knew a few people who had taken acid and said it was even greater than mescalin [...] -- Joe Mellen, Other Scenes magazine, November 1970 http://www.noah.org/trepan/hole_in_the_head.html
- http://www.noah.org/trepan/photos
- http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml PIKHAL, Phenethylamines i Have Known And Loved By Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin
The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics (2001)
Richard Davenport-Hines offers a sharply opinionated history of drugs structured around three major premises: Human beings use drugs; for many that choice will be debilitating, sometimes fatal; and government prohibition of drugs, as opposed to regulation, is counterproductive and doomed to vainglorious failure. --Publishers Weekly
Artificial Paradises: A Drugs Reader () - Mike Jay
Times change--who would have thought that we'd ever see a nonjudgmental mainstream anthology of writings about mind-altering drugs? --Rob Lightner for amazon.com Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible (2001) - Chris Bennett, Neil McQueen
Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible (2001) - Chris Bennett, Neil McQueen
This book is a wonderfully fresh look at the Bible for the religious and non-religious alike. If you're religious you'll probably be offended at first by much of the author's research, but give it an honest read anyway. The worst that could happen is that you come away with greater insight into how the non-religious view your scriptures. I found the book refreshing and challenging; it caused me to fall in love with the Bible at last because for the first time I was able to read it with some historical and archaeological context rather than simply being expected to accept it as sacred because others have believed it to be so for thousands of years.
Read in the context of an emerging tribal culture struggling with the concerns of their time: life, death, food, fertility, war, dominating and avoiding the domination of often more technologically advanced neighboring cultures. This book gave me an appreciation for these ancient peoples without having to accept as divine the horrific treatment they Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (1992) - Thomas Stephen Szasz
== Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (1992) - Thomas Stephen Szasz
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"My aim" states Thomas Szasz, "is to mount a critique of our current drug laws and social policies, based on the fundamental premise that a limited government, epitomized by the U.S., lacks the political legitimacy to deprive competent adults of the right to ingest, inhale, or inject whatever substance they want. . . In summary my argument is that the constraints on the power of the federal government, laid down in the Constitution, have been eroded by a monopolistic medical profession administering a system of prescription laws that, in effect, have removed most of the drugs people want from the free market. Hence, it is futile to debate whether the War on Drugs should be escalated or de-escalated, without first coming to grips with the popular and political mindset concerning the trade in drugs generated by nearly a century of drug prohibitions."--via Amazon.com
