The Doctor is back (from the Bahamas):

On Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:26:03 -0500, Candice Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Erminia, I've taken dexedrine (i.e., amphetamines) since adolescence for
>narcolepsy and couldn't have become a functioning, reasonably productive
>adult without it. It's not the same drug as Ecstasy, is it?

-  Yes, amphetamines and methamphetamine (id est: ecstasy) are similar
things as Dextroamphetamine which is taken for attention deficit disorders
in children and to treat obesity. (Psychological and physical dependence
is possible. Addiction is rare in children but a problem with adults.)They
can cause liver and kidney ill-functioning. But at high doses (overdoses)
they may cause  cramps,  diarrhea, fever,  hallucinations,  high / low
blood pressure,  loss of consciousness,  nausea,   panic attacks,  rapid
heartbeat,  tremors, convulsions, vomiting and even coma. You probably
already know that these risks increase if you abuse alcohol, while taking
this drug. Therefore, it is advisable to suspend any anphetamin derivate
is one has a history of drug alcohol abuse or if you have a psychotic
disorder of any type.  Anphetamins of any kind (among which Ecstasy)
should not be taken at all if one suffers from epilepsy,  glaucoma,
heart / blood vessel disease; if one has high blood pressure,  or a
history of Touette's syndrome.
This is what I found in the site on E.(Other Names:
MDMA, Adam, Ecstasy, XTC, X, E ) I was recommended to read.
"In a paper appearing in the July 25 issue of Neurology, Stephen Kish of
the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto reports that Ecstasy
causes a severe depletion in the brain of serotonin--the very same
neurotransmitter that many antidepressant medications aim to augment. "
Do not drink alcohol while taking this drug.

Chemical Nature: 3-4
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, similar to both MDA and methamphetamine

Psychological Effects:
confusion, depression, sleep problems, cravings, anxiety, paranoia

Physical Effects:
muscle tension, nausea, blurred vision, rapid eye movement, faintness,
chills or sweating, increased heart rate and blood pressure, liver damage

Prevalence:

Percent of Americans who have ever used MDMA ..............1.5
Percent of 8th graders.......2.7
Percent of 10th graders........6
Percent of 12th graders........8



>And how is it possible for heroin addiction to lead to cancer of the eye?
There's such a
>mixture of literary, anecdotal, and pharmaceutical material in this post
>that it's hard to know what to make of it, to tell you the truth.

- As far as I remember, the cancer to Michelangelo's eye was caused
by "dirty" substances with which heroin was "cut". Mind you, he was a
heavy heroin addicted, and mixed it with many other illicit drugs, among
which "cocaine". He survived a few years to that cancer and used to talk
about the terrible progressive deterioration of his health, until he died
(aged 35)...."


(I'd be
>interested in hearing more about the connection between drugs and
_Wuthering
>Heights_, though--perhaps the most baffling of your allusions here.)
>


- In the case of Heathcliff,(i.e. Patrick Bronte,  brother to the
incredible sisters) it was alcohol and opium abuse. That history seemed to
be not a cause but the symphtom of  his evil natured soul. But Emily
Bronte was (at the same time) moralistic about Heatcliff/Patrick's drug
addiction, as well as deeply pityful.


>In any case, I can assure you that people who take addictive drugs
>(including pain killers) for medical conditions don't ordinarily even get
>high on them, much less addicted to them. Me, I get off on such delightful
>brews as David Birc's "Question of Origins"!
>
>Candice

But look, what do we mean with pain killers (certainly not paracetamol!):
in the case of heroin, codein and morphin, given in hospital to patients
in urgent need of sedations (like in trauma or surgical wards), in that
case, when it is a remedy against pain, the patients is allowed to
administer the drug at his/her discretion, and rarely that habit is
extended outside the hospital, if it does, there are serious reasons for
it ( like in the case of terminal patients dying of cancer and needing
extreme sedation).

Erminia (sorry for my eterogeneous science-fiction style. It is out of
necessity, my brain too might bear some damages, at this stage...)





>
>
>
>
>on 1/3/02 3:24 PM, Sonia Lipenolch at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> ------------------
>> Thank you Chris,
>>
>> ...I find amazing how a substance such as the
>> methylenedioxymethamphetamine, designed to have the effects of
>> amphetamines  (meaning soliciting in a chemical way a state of
supposedly
>> efficiency and alertness ) can end by being defined as "ecstasy",  which
>> is infact a state of emotional rapture, an extraordinary elevation of
the
>> spirit, as when the soul and the body are stimulated by love (He on the
>> tender grass would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy. --Milton. ), art,
>> religiosity (Like a mad prophet in an ecstasy. --Dryden.), poetry (Our
>> words will but increase his ecstasy. --Marlowe. ), music and/or sex,
which
>> are all substances other than chemical.
>>
>>
>> As a matter of fact, in medical terms, a state of “ecstasy” (like that
>> of "stupor”)describes  a condition of  complete suspension of
sensibility,
>> of voluntary motion, and mostly of mental power.
>>
>> As for the “drugs”, well, this is a term which has replaced “ pharmacon”
>> (see pharmacology, the study of the effects of poisons over some state
of
>> illness) ,  (in Greek, meaning a “poison” being found as having
>> therapeutical effects, but still noxious at various degrees of intake
and
>> abuse). So, away from the real meaning of drugs, as medical herbs, they
>> designate something that cannot be trusted and that while healing one
>> part, cause damage to another (the  secondary effects or counter-effects
>> of pharmacos/medicines).
>>
>> We all have agreed that we are not at all converned with “drugs” as
>> illegal substances,  but merely with drugs as artificially made
chemicals
>> (presumably intially taken for  medical reasons, or entertainment, or
with
>> the intent of improving one’s performance in a given  activity.)
>>
>>
>> We are dealing (as in the case of Emily Bronte’s  Wuthering Heights)
with
>> histories of physical and  mental illnesses caused by serious drug and
>> alcohol dependency, which one should help those who are  addicted to
learn
>> how to escape from to come back to normal life (although, I can see that
>> the majority of those who abuse drugs, in fact wish to escape from the
>> horrors of what we call a “ normal  life”).
>>
>>
>> Although I am sure that all of us do not wish but to speak about these
>> issues concerning health, I thinki that nobody can sustain a sympathy
for
>> drug dealers, who are still the only way to get to have access to  drugs
>> (with the due exceptions of the civilized countries where drugs have
been
>> legalized).
>>
>> When I was at high school, one of my class mates died of an heroine
>> overdose all alone on a bench, in 1978, at the age of sixteen. At leat
>> five people I knew from the same period have died of AIDS, other two
>> recently died of heart attacks caused by cocaine addiction (one was 35,
>> the other 41).  In my town, we all saw them slowly killing themselves
and
>> could do nothing.
>>
>> In my circle of acquientances, some kids of rich families who had become
>> heroin addicted went to communities to rescue themselves, buhaving in
many
>> cases more than one relapse and more than one permanent damage.
>>
>> One of my school peer friend, Y ,  (he was  a baron who lived in a
>> beautiful ancient villa), who, together with his sister J,  had been
>> heroin addicted, died years later for a cancer of the eye caused by
heroin
>> abuse.
>>
>> But the most terrible story is that of X  (J's husband and brother in
low
>> of Y who, as a youn man, had been a serious case of heroin addiction and
>> had finally rescued himself in India, becoming a Buddist:   his 17th
years
>> old son died suicidal at the age of 17, because he had not passed the O
>> Level exams (sadly, the child had been conceived while the two parents
>> were still drug aburers. He was therefore always put under an incredible
>> pressure to be "proper", and when he failed his parents expectations,
>> failing the exams, he could not cope with the fear of being rebuked. Of
>> course, the disproportion of the child's reaction to failure is
indicative
>> of a family problem, probably caused by their heavy past  history of
>> addiction. Their story is very sad and everybody feels sorry for this
>> tragedy in my town.)
>>
>>
>> If we mind of the physical harm caused by drugs, then we  are deling
with
>> pharmacological issues, say with the part of medical sciences
responsible
>> for the study of the action, use and effects on those poisons (also
>> medicines and drugs) on our  body and brains.
>>
>> Sorry, but after having said what I said about the people I knew – which
>> just account for my transversal experience –  you will be no longer
>> surprised if I am reluctant to define MDMA “ecstasy” in the modern slang
>> implying "delight".
>>
>> I would rather go back to the ancient roots of the term "ecstasy"  ,
from
>> the Greek ekstasis, astonishment, distraction, ( from existanai, to
>> displace, derange )  to the  Latin extasis (out-of-place), terror,: ek-,
>> out of; see ecto- + histanai, to place;
>>
>>
>> Erminia