Druggies at a Self-Con

Posted on November 11, 2003 in Addictions Crosstalk Pointers

Check this article about Kathryn Cramer’s encounter with a convention party crowd high on the “good drug” MDMA:

While I’m not the sort of person who would ever have considered taking MDMA myself, I had a vaguely favorable impression of it as illegal drugs go. By reputation, its primary effect is to increase empathy. What’s not to like about people having more empathy?

My experience this weekend with people on MDMA was very different from what one might have expected, given its reputation as an “empathogen.” To state it flatly, if you take Ecstasy to make yourself more empathic, you are a narcissistic, self-deluded fool.

Kathryn’s experience makes me want to invent a way to induce hallucinations in the obnoxious. Like the sight of a crazed Dubya loading and aiming an assault rifle.

Drugs always look better from the inside than from the out. Many the times have I met people who were clearly crazed on some drug or another and in deep denial about the effects it was having on them. “I’m fine! I’m fine!” is a sure sign of delusion.

On top of that, you have classic mob psychosis where the one must fight the crowd, suffering dearly even though the crowd is wrong. My sympathies are with Kathryn all around.

She should have called the police. Have no mercy on the unmerciful.