‘Shrooms and Effexor

Posted on July 19, 2007 in Psychotropics

Now and then, I read something in an advice column which makes me wonder why evolution hasn’t done a better job of weeding out the less mentally fit among us. I am not, of course, speaking of those of us who suffer from mood disorders or schizophrenia but of members of the druggie subculture who are looking for new and interesting experiences even if it means that your head explodes and turns your walls into a [[Jackson Pollock|Pollockesque]] mix of reds and pinkish grays:

Q: I am taking Effexor 150 mgs daily. In the long past I very much enjoyed an experience on magic mushrooms, ‘gold tops’. I would like to repeat this experience with a repeat of a very small amount of the fungi. What do you think of this?

Please do not say you must not do this, bad bad person. I really want to know what to expect as a result. I hope you can help me.

No, I wouldn’t call you a bad person. I’d call you an especially stupid one.

The advice columnist goes on to explain why this is a patently bad idea from a psychopharmaceutical standpoint. (Summary: Effexor and ‘shrooms both increase Serotonin levels. Too much Serotonin and you turn into a neurological textbook case. It’s no honor to be featured in the textbooks on this one, chummy.)

It has always struck me as the ultimate folly for people to want to acquire bizarre pharmaceuticals for the purpose of becoming — maybe temporarilly — mentally ill. You’d think that someone who’d been battered about by chemical shifts in the brain wouldn’t want to mess with that, but I suppose not having gold tops is like not getting to [[trepanation|trepan]] yourself.