In Summary: A High by Any OtherName: Exploring the Motivations forConsumption of 'Legal Highs'
January 1, 2017 DOI: 10.21767/2471-853x.100050 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
People who regularly use legal and semi-legal synthetic and organic drugs for recreation are motivated by a desire to achieve specific psychoactive effects, such as marijuana-like, opiate, stimulant, hallucinogenic, or deliriant experiences. These substances, sold online as novelties labeled "not for human consumption," include Spice, Salvia, Kratom, Ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, and certain seeds. Users seek out these drugs to replicate or vary the highs of illegal substances while navigating legal gray areas.
Study at a glance
| Design | qualitative field study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 26 |
| Population | people who regularly used synthetic and organic drugs for recreational purposes |
| Key finding | Users of legal and semi-legal drugs are motivated by a desire to achieve specific psychoactive effects similar to those of illegal substances. |
Abstract
Citation: Thompson WE (2017) In Summary: A High by Any Other Name: Exploring the Motivations for Consumption of ‘Legal Highs’. J Drug Abuse. Vol. 3 No. 2:10 A large number of legal, semi-legal, synthetic, and organic drugs are sold online and through commercial vendors as novelties, often bearing the label “not for human consumption.” This qualitative field study was based on extensive ethnographic interviews conducted over a five month period with 26 people who regularly used synthetic and organic drugs for recreational purposes. Some of the more popular and common legal and semi-legal drugs of choice among these users included, but were not limited to: “Spice” (typically sold as incense or potpourri containing marijuana-mimicking substances), Salvia (salvia divinorum, a South American brush that produces a deliriant effect when ingested or smoked), Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa, which has varying effects similar to opiate highs, stimulants, marijuana, and alcohol), Ayahuasca (a combination of herbs and plants that produces powerful psychedelic effects somewhat similar to LSD, “Magic Mushrooms” (spores that produce a variety of hallucinogenic effects), Hawaiian Baby Wood Rose and Morning Glory seeds (both of which when brewed as a “tea” produce hallucinogenic experiences) [1].