Disinformation Book of Lists (6 page)

1

Hemp oil
—a nutritious substance derived from hemp seed—is sold in health food stores and even some mainstream grocery stores.
The Journal of Analytical Toxicology
spells out the problem: “A dose consistent with the manufacturer's recommendation of one to four tablespoons per day (15-60 mL) would be sufficient to cause a positive finding for cannabinoid metabolites in a workplace urine drug-testing procedure designed to detect marijuana use.” An Air Force master sergeant was court martialed when drug tests labeled him a pot-smoker, but in late 1997 a jury acquitted him on all charges after his use of hemp oil was presented.

2

Newer
antibiotics
from the –cillin family (e.g., amoxicillin) can test as coke.

3

Diazepam
, a tranquilizer, triggers PCP-positive results.

4
5
6

Cold remedies, decongestants, and diet pills can show up as speed due to the presence of
ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, phenypropanolamine
, and similar substances.

7

Some
cough suppressants
can look like opiates to drug tests.

8

Some
antidepressants
cause false positives for opiates within three days of use.

9

The common pain reliever
ibuprofen
, at least in the past, would show up as THC (the active ingredient in pot) on some drug tests, and, in high doses, it might still be causing some false positives.

10

DHEA
, taken by people with AIDS, shows up as anabolic steroids.

11

Testosterone supplements
also can make you look like a ‘roid user.

12
13

Novocaine
and
lidocaine
—two synthetic anesthetics based on cocaine and commonly used in medical and dental procedures—can, not surprisingly, give a false positive for coke.

14

Nyquil Nighttime Cold Medicine and other over-the-counter formulations containing
doxylamine
can show up as methadone for 48 hours.

15

Because pastries and breads with
poppy seeds
contain so few of them, you'd have to eat a lot before you show up positive for opiates, and, regardless, drug tests can now differentiate between baked goods and the stuff that gets you high.

16

Second-hand
pot smoke
can be enough to trigger a false positive.

1

C-4 explosive

It's hard to know what to make of the claim that you can get high from this plastic explosive. It appears in only one place that I've seen, a fairly level-headed book titled
Uppers, Downers, All-Arounders
, written by two people from the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. They devote two sentences to the topic:

Modern veterans have been known to ingest C4 or cyclonite plastic explosives for their psychedelic effects. Tremors and seizure activity can result but usually not an explosion as it takes a blasting cap to set off the chemical.

Seems pretty outlandish, but perhaps it's true. A Marine Corps training document on explosives contains the following warning: “Do not ingest any explosive material.”

2

carbogen

When you inhale this mixture of oxygen (70 percent) and carbon dioxide (30 percent), your brain thinks that you're dying of suffocation, although you're actually getting enough oxygen to function normally. In the Seventh Day Adventist magazine
Signs of the Times
(of all places), Dr. Jack Provonsha writes: “Subjects on carbon dioxide report separation of the self from the body. And as with the [psychedelic] drugs and NDEs [near death experiences], there were reports of caves, tunnels, intensely bright lights, visions of other persons, luminaries, reliving of the past, and ‘spiritual' experiences.” He then reprints the experience of a carbogen user as first relayed in Dr. L.J. Meduna's pioneering work on the subject,
Carbon Dioxide Therapy
(1950):

I felt myself being separated; my soul, drawing apart from the physical being, was drawn…seemingly to leave the earth and to go upward where it reached a greater Spirit with whom there was a communion, producing a remarkable new relaxation and deep security…. I felt the Greater Spirit even smiling indulgently upon me in my vain little efforts to carry on by myself, and I pressed close [to] the warmth and tender strength and felt assurance of enough power to overcome whatever lay ahead for me.

Psychonaut Myron Stolaroff took carbogen once a week for two years under a doctor's supervision. “I always approached the experience with enormous anxiety,” he wrote, “but got considerable relief when I explosively discharged repressed material. I would then feel great for a few days, but then relapse back to my previous condition.”

During the same time that LSD was being introduced into psychotherapy, carbogen was also used. Stolaroff says that around 200 therapists employed the procedure, and they even formed a short-lived professional organization.

3

catnip

Catnip isn't just for felines anymore. Most humans who've smoked it say that it's like a mild, mellow pot buzz. Nothing to get too excited about, but since it's cheap and legal, most recommend it.

4

clomipramine (trade name: Anafranil)

The strange thing about this prescription antidepressant—most often prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder—is the side effect it causes in a few people: spontaneous orgasms while yawning. A 1983 article in the
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry
presents the cases of three people who experience this pleasurable but disconcerting phenomenon. A woman in her late twenties said that she came
every time
she yawned. “She found she was able to experience orgasm by deliberate yawning,” the authors note. A man in his mid-twenties reported that sometimes when he yawned, he would ejaculate, even though he wasn't turned on at the time. “The awkwardness and embarrassment was overcome by continuously wearing a condom.” The final patient, a woman in her forties, didn't necessarily cream each time she yawned, but she would get so intensely horny that she'd often have to masturbate. In all cases, the effects stopped soon after the patients quit popping clomipramine.

5

DDT

When it was still thought to be pretty safe for humans, the now-banned pesticide DDT was used for kicks. As inconceivable as it now seems, a popular cocktail of the 1950s, a Mickey Slim, was made by adding a very small amount of DDT to gin. Since it attacks the nervous system, a dollop produced sensations that were kinda pleasurable in a fucked-up way.

6

DIPT

A tryptamine that's known for mainly affecting auditory sensations. An experiment in the classic book
TIHKAL
by Alexander and Ann Shulgin relates: “Radio voices are all low, music out of key. Piano sounds like a bar-room disaster. The telephone ringing sounds partly underwater.” Orally taking a larger amount results in: “Abrupt sounds have golden spikes attached to them as after-sounds, but I can't focus in on any other sensory changes.” At a much higher dosage: “The voices of people were extremely distorted—males sounded like frogs—children sounded like they were talking through synthesizers to imitate outer space people in science fiction movies.”

A user named Borkhane writes: “At this level of DIPT effects, all music sounded absolutely terrible, with no harmonic structure intact at all. Music that was normally quite familiar sounded totally foreign. It was really like listening to a totally different version of the song, with the only familiar elements being the lyrics.”

7

poisons and venom

Several plants known for their hallucinogenic effects are quite toxic, such as the
Datura
family, which includes Jimsonweed. And, of course, you can make the argument that any substance is toxic if you ingest enough of it. Still, some natural substances known
primarily
as poisons—arsenic, strychnine, and venom—have been used in sublethal doses for their mind-altering effects. Information on this is hard to come by, and an in-depth study would prove fascinating. For now, we have these bits and pieces:

In 1817, when the Queen of Portugal was dying a slow, painful death, one of her slaves gave her a mixture of pot and arsenic which completely relieved her suffering.

In his classic 1885 book
Plant Intoxicants
, Baron Ernst von Bibra discusses the eating of arsenic by the mountain-dwellers of Austria. The two reasons given are that the poison “facilitates breathing while climbing…it makes them well ventilated” and “to obtain healthy and sturdy looks, to appear strong and robust.”

Also in 1885,
Chambers Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art
carried an article discussing arsenic use:

When a man has once begun to indulge in it he must continue to indulge; or, as it is popularly expressed, the last dose kills him. Indeed the arsenic eater must not only continue his indulgence, he must also increase the quantity of the drug, so that it is extraordinarily difficult to stop the habit; for, as the sudden cessation causes death, the gradual cessation produces such a terrible heart knowing that it may probably be said that no genuine arsenic eater ever ceased to eat arsenic while life lasted.

The 1902 book
Morphinism and Narcomanias From Other Drugs
discusses arsenic addiction.

Victorian-era cotton farmer James Maybrick achieved notoriety in 1992 when
The Diary of Jack the Ripper
was published. Now widely (though not universally) regarded as a forgery, this diary supposedly was written by Maybrick, who supposedly was Jack the Ripper. Whether or not Maybrick was the Ripper, he was an actual person who—as the diaries relate—was addicted to arsenic.

In his article theorizing that Napoleon Bonaparte may have been an arsenic junkie, Napoleonic expert Bob Elmer writes: “Arsenic was also used by some as a mind-altering drug, much as marijuana or cocaine is used today. In small doses it gave the user a feeling of well-being, strength, and sexual staying power.”

In 1909, while discussing drug use in the United States, the
New York Times
bemoaned: “…a legion of others habitually use belladonna, arsenic, and strychnine without consulting a physician.”