Author: Emily Oconnor

Hallucinogenic Drugs

Hallucinogenic drugs have been around for centuries being that they are most commonly found in plants and natural substances from the earth. Hallucinogens can cause people to see things that are not there, or in some religious beliefs things that are there but are not seen by the naked eye, and can cause a person to act in ways that can be dangerous to other people around them being that they may not know what they are doing.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there are four commonly abused hallucinogens that people use, these hallucinogens are:

LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide)

LSD is the most commonly known hallucinogen and most powerful mood changer that is made from the fungus that grows on grains, such as rye, called ergot.

PCP (phencyclidine)

PCP was used as an anesthetic in the medical field and was developed in the 1950s. Due to the intensity of the drugs hallucinogenic effects on people it was discontinued in the medical field but is still being made and distributed illegally.

Peyote

Peyote is mostly known to be used in spiritual and religious ceremonies. Peyote is a tiny cactus that produces an alkaloid called mescaline that causes hallucinations when a person ingests the substance.

Psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine)

Psilocybin is also known as mushrooms, being that mushrooms is where the hallucinogen is found at. This hallucinogen is found in types of mushrooms that are native to Mexico, America and South America.

Hallucinogens Addiction Signs

The exact explanation on how hallucinogenic drugs affect a person’s brain are not known but they do highly impact a person’s perception and cause people who abuse the drug to see and feel things that are not real. Because of hallucinogens effects on a person, an individual who takes a hallucinogen will experience the effects of the drug for many hours. When a person is using a hallucinogenic drug, the drug will impact them in the following ways:

• Their pupils will be dilated
• Their blood pressure will raise
• They may fall down a lot
• Their vision may become blurry
• They will see and feel things that are not real
• They can become highly violent
• They may become suicidal
• They can have rapid changes in mood
• Their eyes may roll back in their head frequently

A person addicted to hallucinogenic drugs may have severe depression, uncontrollable mood swings, become suicidal, be highly dehydrated some days, loose rapid amounts of weight and become highly agitated.

Hallucinogens can be extremely dangerous for a person to take and if a person begins to abuse the drug frequently they should seek out help to prevent them from causing permanent damage to their brain and body.