Interesting Drug Facts

Drugs, particularly illicit ones, are often surrounded by myth and folklore that either exaggerate or underplay the danger of taking them and the effect they have psychologically and physically. The truth about certain drugs is often the polar opposite of received popular wisdom.

LSD

• There has never been a confirmed case of an individual dying from an overdose of LSD. The human body can tolerate huge doses of the drug meaning that users are more likely to come to an end by taking the cliched leap out of a sixth story window in the belief that they have developed the ability to fly, rather than from the pharmacological effects of the hallucinogen.

Drug Deaths

• A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found 800,000 deaths were caused in the year 2000 as a direct result of either tobacco or alcohol use, compared to 17,000 deaths attributable to the direct or indirect use of illicit drugs.

Ecstasy

• A British man was treated by doctors in 2006 for memory problems, paranoia and depression after taking some 40,000 ecstasy tablets over a nine-year period. At the peak of his elongated binge, the man would consume up to 25 tablets a day.