huzzah for psychedelics

drug use and drug policy was and still is a fascination of mine. working with danceSafe for so many years, mingling in and out of crowds who would partake in various mind-altering substances, gotta love those raves! and clubs! or just a good old saturday night. i'd say i had my fair share of drug experiences. getting to visit alexander shulgin and his wife was one of the highlights of my involvement. we won't mention whether any of my drug experiences were direct or not. but drugs, be it alcohol or E, affected my life profoundly on many levels, from the public health classes i took to the people i socialized with to the way it opened my perspective on the marginalized groups of society.

it's been a while since those days, probably for the better, now that i'm all "grown-up" supposedly. doctor must set a proper example. yet, here's an article which sparked my interest for the umpteenth time, publicizing studies that i've been following for the last couple years on using E as a psychiatric treatment, the way it was meant to be used from the 1970s.

http://www.slate.com/id/2158144/?nav=ais

so before you proclaim a "war on drugs" (don't even get me started), consider what is a drug. consider the number of legal substances used and abused that are much more harmful for us as humans. consider why some drugs (alcohol, tobacco) are legal and others are not. think about the benefits that lie in some of those drugs listed under schedule 1, especially those that are plant-derived. if an illegal drug can help a person work through anxiety and post-traumatic stress with little to no side effects, isn't it worth exploring?

perhaps recreational use could be a option too.

crazy med student

as i sit here in my pink adidas headband that pey got me for christmas (along with an excellent racquetball racquet), debating how late to study for fuel metabolism, i ponder about the odd things that people will do. for example, i will be awake for the next few hours studying for an exam that is pass/not pass and has little to do with my ability as a doctor (unless i fail). i have already spent the last few nights awake until the break of dawn going over the pathways of fatty acids and glucose. instead of working diligently this evening, my classmates and i deliberated all the places we would really like to travel to, but do not have the means or time to do so. and then we griped about how our non-med friends seem to have it much easier and better than we do.

earlier in the evening, i had my nose numbed and cleared before an ENT fellow stuck a fiber optic camera in my nose and down my nasal cavity. i saw my pink spotty epiglottis and white vocal cords, which stretched when the doctor told me to say "eee." there's a lot of fleshy tissue down near my larynx. it was SOOO cool. my classmates crowded around the tv display thought so too. i also have very clean ears and an intact tympanic membrane (ear drum).

look what the first four months of medical school can do. i've spent days in scaife just absorbing anatomy terminology without seeing the light of day. i've taken my experimental streak to a new level, being part of a champion kickball team, learning how to climb, and taking on racquetball (yes, so doctor cliche). i'm finally adjusted to life in western pennsylvania, though i'm still marveling when white stuff falls from the sky. i know terms i could barely pronounce six months ago and i can perform a physical exam (don't ask me what's wrong...yet). i've made friends with super intelligent people of all backgrounds and experiences - with a common passion for medicine. i've realized medical school takes all kinds - some intense, some worldly, some empathetic, some erudite - to produce the most able physicians that provide the best patient care. it's crazy stuff. we're crazy people. otherwise we wouldn't be doing this.