Ecstacy down; shamans up.

Designer drugs beat Ecstasy�(Science Alert)

Here's a story detailing the current trend in ecstasy and "designer drug" use in Australia and elsewhere.

The trend is down, as it has been in many other countries over a number of years. I thought the explanation may be in the recognition of undesirable effects on long time users, but it might be more mundane than that:

Regular ecstasy users have also indicated that there has been a marked drop in the purity of ecstasy, with a significant number of tablets containing no MDMA, the active ingredient of ecstasy.

Ha.

Mind you, drug users value playing with their brain chemistry over common sense:

Designer drugs which have been picked up by the survey, albeit in small numbers, include mephedrone and BZP, a central nervous system stimulant which reportedly has more side effects than amphetamines.

“In our 2010 survey, 16 per cent of users reported recent use of mephedrone, a synthetic stimulant closely related to amphetamines but with hallucinogenic properties,” said Dr Burns.

Oh yes, like that sounds like a good idea: combine amphetamines with hallucinations. Not only will you find bugs under your skin, you'll be awake for 30 hours to watch them.

It is of interest to me, though, to note that one particularly intriguing drug, DMT, has a small number of illegal users here. This drug was the subject of an interview with researcher Rick Strassman at Boing Boing recently.

If you're going to have a hallucination, I suppose having one in which spirit guides or angels are there to meet you is probably the most interesting kind to experience.

But, as with nearly everyone else older than a teenager, I don't believe the "Doors of Perception" theory that any drug is really letting you see into the true nature of reality. I therefore still wouldn't trust what exactly DMT is doing to my neurons to let me "see" the "spiritual" world. My intuition is that it can't be healthy.