off and on for the past 25 years, but reliable access to anything illegal has probably saved me a lot of trouble. The last Class A experience I had - and the first for years - was MDMA crystals at a festival earlier this year : it was hugely enjoyable, but followed by a nasty dose of the fear about a month later. The two are almost certainly connected, so I'll be laying off for the forseeable.

Actually, I never have. I'm intrigued as to what they're like, but not enough to want to experience it for myself.

Having said that, I have had a bit of alcohol in my time (which i suppose is a drug). However I'm teetotal these days as even a thimble of alcohol can make me painfully hot, flushed and sleepy. Not fun.

E's LSD, downers of all kinds and mushrooms.
Nothing at all in the last 10 years, and very little in the 10 years before that.
Most of this was done and dusted by my mid-20's
Can't say it's left me with any ill-effects..
(get off..get off....get off!..)

Thats what drugs do!
13 years ago in a club in Manchester. It was my 30th birthday so it is probably fair to say I should have known better.
Was enjoying the chilled out dancy vibe a little more than I probably should have done due to the ingestion of what were called 'Tango's' and decided to rest my head against a speaker unit the size of a small Barratt House. Suffice to say it wasn't an orange flavoured fruit drink that had done the trick.
Arrived at a friends house after leaving the club with an almighty screaming in my ears expecting it to subside within a day or so.
Am now struggling to hear Cee Lo on Later due to the aforementioned screeching.
I haven't had any particularly bleak episodes other than that one but jesus I wish I'd stayed in that night.

Smoking cannabis in any form makes me violenly sick. I have learned subsequntly that this is called a "whitey" because of the pale colour of he who parks his breakfast.

Had more than a passing nod to the charles ten years ago. Enjoyed it, but the moment passed.

And that's it.

My intoxicant of choice will remain C2H5OH

Most people can dabble in gear and come out of it untouched, although there are those who unfortunately cannot. It has to be said that most of my patient group has more problems with alcohol than it does from drugs and it's certainly the case that the whole locality (from which I draw my punters) seems to be permananently off its face on booze and drink, thus keeping the local Rozzers gainfully employed.

But, drugs have changed and we have had problems with the so-called legal highs that are currently being retailed as plant food. It's also the case, as the RCP will happilly tell you, that there are around 20,000 young people with a psychosis that they probably would not have had, had they had not taken up the skunk. We've got a few at the moment who have right royally fucked their circuits in this way and they are never going to be fully right again, ever. Very sad.

Hacking cough if I smoked, sneezing fits from trying coke, too scared to fry my brain with acid.

Looking forward to a nice red tonight though

...any lasting side effects and...

...why are you all looking at me like that........????

If it were tested I'm sure weed has effected my short term memory. I don't think other drugs have had any long term effect. I now live in a country where you'll be jailed for having it in your bloodstream so apart from a joint on holiday I've given up for 10 years which is on the whole a good thing.

..short term thingy.

...Oregon is awash with pot. It's illegal, but more common than coffee after a meal for most people. I dabbled a lot at Uni, but far prefer beer, and a couple of weeks back was a timely reminder why.

I'd been drinking a fair bit, as it was open house at a neighbours, and that seemed the polite thing to do. By the time a tiny bong was proffered in the basement of the house, I thought I'd show how well I'd assimilated myself into my new surroundings with a generous inhale. I made it to the garden and plonked myself in front of the fire pit. The fire was intense and mesmerising, but people wanted to ask me about the differences between US and UK healthcare. I improvised, but my voice appeared to be from coming about 18 inches in front of my mouth, which was rather strange.

My erudite critique of the pros and cons of socialized healthcare complete (doubtless inspiring a neighbourhood Tea Party to brew), and without further ado, I sat super still for 10 minutes, until I was convinced I might stand up without plunging head first into the flames, attractive as they were, got up and set course for their back door. Into their house, straight through, out the front door, across the street across my garden, wrestle with key, into my house, collapse on bed - in a state I can only describe as uncomfortably numb. Lizard brain roused me to my feet, clamped a retaining hand over my mouth and led me to the porcelain god, at whose ivory throne I said a succession of prayers, each more colourful than the last. The next three hours were spent either diagonal across the bed, unable to move, or at worship - sometimes to the god, sometimes to the holy carpet.

I've never had quite such a startling reaction to grass before, thus I can only conclude it was something I ate. The next morning, I was in a position to examine most of the somethings, yet lacked motivation.

on a similar thread on smoking,sorry an all that people,I'll just say I've taken a variety of drugs over the years and I'm sure they must have had a deleterious effect,but for the life of me I can't remember what that deleterious effect might be.Just say no,most of the time.

I just cannot see the need. A couple of pints, or a few glasses of wine will do for me.

I seem to have acquired a lot of Hawkwind albums at some point. Nothing on CD though.

so the loss of control through drugs never appealed to me.
I used to hang out with a bunch of stoners in my youth, they politely offered but never insisted when I politely declined. Some second hand smoke might have been inhaled in unventilated quarters, but not with a noticeable effect.
After a year or so a few of these guys started to use heavier drugs and a couple of people got HIV from sharing needles, and as this was in the beginning when Aids was a death sentence, one of them didn't want to wait, so he got himself a rope and a ceiling to hang it from.
And when some frightening incidents happened involving the guys now hooked on heroin ( one featuring an axe, another some stolen items ) us non-users quickly got out of the gang and found better friends.
I have a lot of alcoholics among my relatives, but though I have inherited the great tolerance to drinking that played a big part in their addiction ( must drink twice as much to get half as drunk as everybody else, never gets hangovers ) I was never the addictive type.
I drank a lot on the occasions when I did drink in my youth, but never really liked it. These days I drink extremely little. I have a lot of assorted bottles of booze at home, but I keep forgetting that I have them, so they stay untouched.
The tap water is excellent where I live! And I get my highs from music.

but did dabble on occasion. I spent a memorable, psilocybin-enhanced night on the top of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire watching a bunch of longhairs celebrating the Summer Solstice by dancing naked around a fire. At around five in the morning a couple of very friendly policemen politely informed us that the party had to end. One of them offered my friend and I a lift back to Avebury in his police car. We gladly accepted, and as I climbed in the back I found myself sitting next to a gigantic teddy bear. The fungi hadn't worn off yet so this had a most unusual effect on my brain, even though I had been told that it was a present for the driver's daughter.

the fruits of a reasonably successful session career through a 10 year addiction to the nose-ningle during the late 70s/early 80s.

The industry was awash with it then but perhaps, unlike now, it wasn't cheap and/or available on every street corner. When trying to cram several sessions into a day it was a handy way of keeping at top performance and, of course, any club or music biz party was a bit of a blizzard.

At some point the fun stopped and I was spending a lot more than I was earning so I had to cut myself off from 'the scene'; this was about the same time as the sessions started to dry up due to changes in the way music was made - the start of the digital era etc.

Smoked a small to middling amount of dope at school and uni, and dabbled in some more snorty stuff from time to time. Had a few really nice times on acid, too, but was very careful not to touch it unless I was conspicuously happy and untroubled beforehand. Hate to think how it might have fucked me up otherwise.

Haven't touched anything other than booze since Glastonbury in 2003. That was nice: wandering around in the warm evenings with a spliff, feeling contented. But really my drug of choice is a pint, and in my case dope reacts so horribly with booze that I've no interest in it any more.

My stance against drugs isn't to do with the legality or moral issues, it's more that I know what I'm like.

I enjoy drinking and I mean that in the actual sense of the phrase. When most people say they "enjoy a drink", it means they drinks a lot whereas I (try to) drink in moderation, but I really enjoy it.

I'm pretty sensible, but I do think I'm the kind of person who could get addicted if I wasn't careful. As I say, luckily I am careful, and most weeks I'm probably under the recommended alcohol limit with my intake.

So, I don't smoke or do drugs. I'm worried I'll like it too much.

I've had alcohol and prescription drugs and that's it. Can't even handle the former anymore. Friends of mine often do drugs in my company and I find it all a little seedy.

Don't anymore. Not because of any bad experiences but because I've moved towns several times in the past ten years and so I'm no longer connected in the way that I was. I cant be bothered dealing with youthful miscreants and dont know anyone my own age who deals so I guess I didn't so much "stop" as "run out."

I don't regret my drug days much. Frankly I was as shy as a mouse when I was young and a large amount of drugs at least got me dancing and talking. Dancing badly and talking shit perhaps, but at least I wasn't hiding silently in corners anymore.

The only thing I regret is the time spent wasted when I could have read, written, created or done anything else like that. Especially when I consider that I met Mrs Sprocket during a sober phase when I was acting in a play and doing the creative stuff that I should have been doing instead of being on drugs.

in that I still not only smoke but also continue to enjoy the opportunity of lighting up a nice joint. Opportunity meaning having to find time in my schedule for a bit of down time, usually involving a listening session, usually involving one of only a handful of friends also still doing it. All very sensible really.

Availability has never been an issue, living as I do in a city in Germany less than an hour away from the Dutch border. Quality is traditional hash, not this high-tech, high-powered stuff. Like I say, all very sensible.

Dabbled variously in my college days, don't drink much (although, being Irish, I sure can), no, hash would appear to agree with me more than most. Not absolutely certain though that it isn't affecting my memory, sometimes suspect that Mailer was right when he observed that his years of dope smoking had left him with a brain like Swiss cheese.

Not sensible enough then.

Weed - never got on with it. Smoked like a chimney but this never really agreed with me, apart from a couple of tokes coming down from

E - a wonderful drug. I was a shy guy but this helped immeasurably in coming out of my shell. I made loads of acquaintences, hundreds over the years, had the most amazing nights out and in and discovered dance music. The down side was an overwhelming urge to wee but not being able to. Liver packing up or something. Hey ho.

Coke - OK. Got me through some long weekends. People on coke are invariably dull though. They are much more interesting when they are not on it. Also it becomes THE focus of the night. That wrap becomes the focus and it also splits the group up with people dashing away to do it all the time. The mood swings lost me more than one job as well.

K - don't know can't remember.

Speed - awful awful comedown.

Acid - had nothing but the strangest most amazing times on it.

Now? May have a pill if I'm off to a festival but the problem is getting good ones. Don't miss it at all, but I'm glad I did it. Great times.
Long term effects - I have a terrible memory. Really bad.