I decided to skip going over the information on all the different and wonderful drugs we have, but if you'd like to hear the facts on any one in particular let me know and I'd be glad to dish it out to you.  Today I'm just going to talk about my personal experiences with all the drugs that I've ever taken, not including the over-the-counter ones.

Heres a list of the drugs I have done for recreational purposes in no particular order:

Marihuana, LSD, Alcohol, Tobacco, Steroids, Opium, Heroin, Ecstasy, Mushrooms, DXM, Ketamine, MDA, Crystal Meth, Amphetamines, Cocaine, Crack, Catnip, Salvia, Vicodin, Oxycotin, Percoset, Darvacet, PCP, Nitrous Oxide (whipped cream can air), and I've tried some seeds and other pills in large amounts to try and get high.

These are the 3 left on my list of drugs I'd like to try before I die:

Mescaline (which I'm finally going to get to do in August after a year of searching.)  Morphine (I will probably only get this on my death bed), and Ibogaine (I found a hookup for this hard to find drug but it fell through)

   Drugs are a very subjective experience, because to some extent we have the power of deciding how they affect us.  My introduction into drugs came at the early age of 8.  I contracted a viral form of Pnuemonia that summer and was hospitalized for 3 days.  During that time I was diagnosed as "borderline asthmatic" which turned into full blown asthma after 2 more cases of bronchitis.  From age 8 until age 17 I used prescription inhaler, and even steroid inhalents.  So at a young and succeptable age I became very accustomed to using drugs to treat symptoms.  Oh if only I had known!

   Of course it wasn't long (about age 13) before I discovered the wonderful intoxicating effects of alcohol.  I had had my few sips of champagne by then, but it was 13 when, as a young rebel Catholic altar boy, me and two of my equally rebellious altar boy friends stole 3 bottles of communion wine and got silly drunk.  (WEE!!)  That was also the night of my first cigarette as well.  For some odd reason that was the last time I did either of those drugs until age 16.  I began drinking regularly that summer and continued all the way through until about 3 monthes ago.  Same with cigarettes, which I quite nearly a year ago now.  Tobacco and alcohol, the two REAL gateway drugs...

   And then came 17, my breakout year.  This was the year that I realized the world was much bigger than my small city of 250,000.  On 4/20/02 I got higher than a motherfucking kite.  This was the first time I tried marihuana and I fell in love with it immediately.  That summer I moved out of my parents house and got an apartment with my older brother.  I worked as a dishwasher/counterperson at a local deli 20 hours a week.  I made exactly 125 dollars a week not including tips.  I paid 200 dollars a month for rent, and my only other bill was for the DSL.  I owned no car and I didn't worry about food because I ate at the deli and the owner would let me take leftovers that didn't sell home.  Also that summer my friends dad, who is a tank seargeant, gave me about 2 months supply of MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat),  the packaged food the US military eats.  So I had a little over 200 dollars a month to spend on drugs.  And believe me that doesn't buy a lot of drugs.  But I experimented that summer.

   The first new drug I tried was mushrooms.  I started with a half an 1/8 of an ounce and it was pretty tame and mild.  My mind didn't really feel much different but I got a body high, and I remember picking up my bass guitar and I started jamming and that was my first experience with synaesthesia.  It is a neurological condition in which two or senses combine, so that you can "hear" shapes or "see" sounds.  I was really focused on the music and I had been staring at my fingers as they played the sounds when I looked up and noticed that everytime I hit a note, colors would stream from my amplifier.  I was shocked to say the least, I had not done my homework on this drug and did not know what to expect.  I did that for another half hour or so and just watched the show of colors spew forth from the speaker.

   A couple weeks later my weed dealer (who was also a co-worker at the deli) invited me over to smoke something "special".  I was curious and went with him to his house after work.  It ended up being a strain of marihuana grown in Afganistan right next to their poppy fields.  This resulted in marihuana dusted with opium.  My first hit and I was done.  I sat back and stayed the highest I had ever felt for nearly 4 hours.  I had waking dreams during, and imagined myself as all sorts of things.  I was instantly hooked and was more than willing to pay a little extra for it (65 an 1/8 vs. 50 for regular chronic).  Unfortunately I was young and niave and hadn't learned my limits yet.  One day I took my girlfriend over and she and I smoked up more of the opium laced weed, I smoked way too much and started to get a stomach ache.  We left and barely made 3 blocks before I had to sit down.  We made it to a gas station and she called her mother to come pick us up.  I don't remember anything after sitting down on the sidewalk.  I passed out and awoke 3 hours later, lying on my girlfriends couch.  She said I at one point I turned yellow and stopped breathing and she had to resuscitate me.  She spent a good amount of time talking her mother out of taking me to an emergency room, which she probably should have.  Well I recovered quickly and, get this... I was smoking opium again less than a week later.  Yes addiction can be an ugly thing and I've had my fair share.  After a second overdose I quit it for good and still haven't used it since.  Everybody has their demon, and mine is opium.  Perhaps today, now that I have learned self control and moderation,  I could enjoy it again.  But I live in a different city and have no way of finding it short of walking up and asking someone.

   That summer was also the first and only time so far that I have smoked heroin.  And boy is that a fun a drug.  I was high for a good 8 hours and saw things I haven't seen since.  I have taken a needle before, except at hospitals, and I don't really have any desire to.  So really that first summer was hit and miss.

   3 years later I had continued to study drugs, and learned as much as I could about them all.  But it wasn't until my 20th summer that I started experimenting again.  More mushrooms and LSD for the first time.  Also my first with DXM, a drug found in over the counter cold medication.  You may have heard of kids drinking an entire bottle of robotussin, vomiting, and then having a very unusual trip.  DXM stands for dextromethorphan and is an antitussive used to treat coughing.  When taken in very large amounts (myself, I took 20 corisetin pills) it acts as a powerful disassociative.  It lasted much longer then I thought.  I wasn't able to fight off sleep the night I took them, but the next day, and lasting all day, I was still high.  And man what a weird drug!  You can do anything, and go anywhere, and you don't feel a thing, mentally or physically.  I just let my girl drag me around town all day, to the store where I just stared off into space as I watched people shop.  It was definetely not a party drug.  But I may try it again sometime.  I hear doing it a lot causes massive damage to your livers and kidneys.  I wouldn't be surprised.  You're basically overdosing on cough medicine.

   These days I don't do many drugs.  I still smoke marihuana for my health (I haven't had an asthma attack since I started smoking.)  and for recreation.  It is nice to be able to come home from a long hard day of work and relax with a bong hit.  It's far more benificial to me than a six pack and a cigarette.  What's not nice is having to worry about going to jail for trying to relax.  But I am confident that it will change, ever so slowly, we will get back our hemp.

   After reading this, if you're still vehemently opposed to doing illegal drugs, whether for legal reasons or fear of addiction or fear of becoming brain dead... etc, just remember that everytime you drink coffee, everytime you eat chocolate, every time you pop a prozac, aspirin, valium, or sudafed,  you are doing a drug.