Why should you avoid mixing alcohol with LSD?
Partying among teens and young adults is now considered a normal behaviour given the today’s increasing party culture. Yet, it is dangerous to assume so because of the far weighing risks of the designer drugs or the combination drugs that are vogue. Party season is a high-risk time when teenagers more often combine drugs with alcohol to enhance their high.
It seems that about six percent of fatalities around the world, and 88,000 yearly deaths in the United States alone, can be attributed to alcohol consumption, which is responsible for more than 200 chronic illnesses and is the fifth leading factor for premature death and disability worldwide. This alcohol when combined with hallucinogens like LSD results in a range of harms including behavioural risks, toxicity, overdose and mental health issues among teens.
Though we cannot say that LSD means fatality to everyone who had consumed it, there were reports of emergency rooms visits that indicate fatalities among some teens depending upon the dosage they have administered and the reaction of their individual bodies. The effects of this combination are most often unpredictable due to factors including the dosage taken, the user’s mental state at the time, and the place where the drug is administered. Alcohol consumption after taking the combination further aggravates the negative consequences of this duo making this activity even more dangerous and life-threatening.
Mixing alcohol with other drugs is common for many drug users. Since Alcohol is a depressant, some people may add it to LSD because they believe that alcohol lessens the more intense effects caused by LSD. While it is true that alcohol can bring down the hallucinogenic effects of LSD, it also exacerbates other effects of the drug on the other hand. The classic combination of alcohol with LSD is particularly harmful for people between the ages of 13-25 because their minds are still in the developing phase.
Side effects of LSD, alcohol combination can include the following
- Hallucinations
- Intensified emotions
- Out of control sexual arousal
- Distorted visual perception of shapes, colours, movements, touch, and sound (such as “hearing colours” or “seeing sounds”
- High body temperature
- Dry mouth
- Sleeplessness
- High Bp
- Dilated pupils
- Distortion of time
While all the other side effects can be treated, intense emotions, feelings of closeness and out of control sexual arousal can land teens in irreversible harm such as initiating or falling prey to aggressive sexual attacks, engaging in violent behaviours, trusting strangers ( the risk of getting abducted or raped), unwanted pregnancies and unprotected sexual intercourse resulting in sexually transmitted diseases
‘Also, the distortion of time, colours, movements and touch cause miscalculations on the road and result in fatalities that account for a major portion of road fatalities during the holiday season.
Mixing these two substances increases a person’s heart rate to undue levels. In some serious cases, the combination of alcohol and LSD might even cause someone to pass out or have a seizure. Mixing alcohol with hallucinogens such as LSD can also raise a person’s body temperature to dangerous levels that can cause death in the user.
Due to the effects of hallucinogens, many of which impair self-awareness, prevent users from realising how much alcohol they’ve already consumed, thereby causing them to drink more. This increases the risk for alcohol poisoning in this combination users. Ultimately, since both alcohol and hallucinogens impair judgment in the users, a person who uses them in combination is likely to behave recklessly and endanger others’ lives too especially when driving.
