Now we are sitting down at the table, so to speak, I'm willing to talk.
First-thanks, Raxy, both for the insight posted upon my behalf, and for speaking out for me whilst I was not here to do so (I've not been about, today, online I mean, I had an appointment which took more or less all the time since I woke up for good for the day (the rest of the wakings up, were, unfortunately, inter-ictal periods. Today has been rather a shit with a perhaps potential for improvement in things future served at one end. A turd with a silver lining, albeit one that proved to be tin foil last time with somebody else handling the appointment the rest of the day held a similar one, and never bothered to contact me again (it was their job, not a friendship, so they ought to.), thankfully his predecessor socialworker is a really quite nice lass with her brain and heart both in the respective right places and got someone to replace the particular imbecile in question, and I trust her judgement in getting the same lady who mentored her to do the job of the bugger who couldn't even be bothered to call or answer more than once. Guy might have had a heart attack, been hit by lightening, got meatpasted by a car or eaten by ravenous piranhas for all I know. I'm the autie, I'm the one meant to be the 'not a people person'-person, not someone who is, nominally, a social worker. Friendly, talkative, super-useful guy don'tcha think, 'Raxy?)
Anyhow. Thanks hun, you are appreciated.
Now, elle, both you and 'Raxy are right. Although you are seeing a picture in parts at a time, reassembling the pieces of the picture to form a whole. The correct ones are there, along with some incorrect pieces that don't fit the scene this autistic puzzle-piece at all and are incorrect assumptions.
Am I, genuinely a chronic pain patient? yes, as I mentioned, childhood accident and subsequent assault by a pack of chavscum and further damage done, a little more further damage done during surgery, including nerve damage. Not going to heal, Bursitis as a consequence. Long story short-hurts like hell most of below the waist most of the time. Alternative being less to little mobility and almost all of 'from the waist down' bar me' dangly bits and ass cheeks' all the time.
And, at the same time, Raxy, quite perceptively pointed out that biochemistry is a part of my scientifically oriented, special interests. Elle, said 'drugs' are. Elle approached the truth of the matter, but whilst hitting the target, missed the bullseye.
It isn't 'drugs', at least not in the sense of 'recreational substances' and 'use thereof'. My interest in that part of the field is biochemistry, pharmacology. And yes, I do use recreational substances to...well..to recreate:P (if there is going to be any debate as to whether or not people, not me personally, people as a whole, should be judged for this, then IMO too, it ought to take a separate thread), and what are often considered recreational substances in other aspects of their uses. For example, I did a lot of self-therapy work employing AMT [alpha-methyltryptamine, its an indolic analog of amphetamine, structurally, but given its similarities with serotonin isn't a pure stimulant, and rather, its a strong, quite long lasting entactogen/empathogen (cf.MDA/MDMA, MDAI) coupled with serotonergic psychedelic effects in the true sense, where in the methylenedioxy-ABC-soup kind of compounds, that aspect is more scattered on the surface like the icing dust on a mince pie, part of the proper mince pie, but not the filling, so to speak. Anyhow I found I work with it a lot more positively when doing self-work than i do MDxx, which is about as much as needs to be said of it, a basic explanation given many wouldn't be familiar with it like most, whether they have or do take them or not, as they are with MDMA 'ecstasy' )
I don't make the claim that it 'cured' my PTSD, in fact I'd go so far as to make quite clear that it didn't. Rather it allowed me to enter a psychic (in the sense of 'of the psyche'; not 'clairvoyant crystal ball and tarot cards schtick') state where I could face, accept, come to terms with, dissect, reject portions, etc. and ultimately, for the most part, insofar as is possible, serve through introspective meditation (of a sort) sessions, picking the bones of the problem, and be my own therapist.
I'll not go in to the root cause of the PTSD, its irrelevant here. My point is, I have other uses for such things than recreation. Other uses than medicine. And indeed, other uses than biochemical/pharmacological study.
'Raxy-as far as the rest of science goes. Dead on target. With the exclusion of studying math as a science, (now that, that would be a trainwreck to end all trainwrecks, given how dyscalculic I am. So I leave that one as a nonstarter) I'm interested in a very large, broad slice of the scientific pie. From those which involve the human body, (no, I don't have people cut up and wired to car batteries and sparking electrodes in the basement. Not that I have a basement....................probably just as well=D) I'm interested in chemistry, including many, many things that nobody in any mind but masochistically suicidal would ever DREAM of consuming, or in some cases approaching without a hazmat suit), but too in geology/mineralogy, aspects of biology all over the show, human or otherwise, cosmology, condensed matter physics, high-energy particle physics, low energy particle physics (knowing of course there are limits on what I might hope to accomplish, what with not having the room for a country boundary-passing superconducting LINAC and massive heavy ion collider setup. What wouldn't I give for......
)
As for 'junkie'. That, that I reject. Its a pretty damn offensive and perjorative label, which all manner of pain patients have been slapped with both by governments, medical practitioners, and populace at large. Yes, I NEED some pain relief prescribed. I've seen what happens when before being physically dependent on the medication (yes, I knew it would happen. I found myself in the position of making a pact with the devil)., and sure, SOME portion of my scientific work involves, now and again, work on opioidergics (although not always of the sort elle would assume, or even close. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes on other endogenous opioidergic systems like DOR/KOR ligands)
And yes, if I ended up working on something recreational, I'm not above partaking, of things in that particular, narrow strand of my scientific interests, I figure 'I'm ALREADY physically dependent. I've got to walk, so that bargain, I struck, faustian as it is at times. BUT, that does, in a manner of speaking leave me with little to worry about 'developing a habit'. I've already got to take my pain meds daily at various times, and breakthrough ones. The occasional research project isn't particularly likely now, as a result, to cause that kind of trouble. And if an experiment is enjoyable, why should I not accept its being so?
If I were a junkie, I'd have turned my synthetic efforts to knocking out an ice-cream tub full of bottles of significant quantities of various synthetic opioids and gone to party, on my way to hell in a handbasket, would I not? I certainly have the capacity to do so, the equipment, the skillset, the knowledge, so, if I am a junkie, why do I not, I might ask, for example, take every prescription for morphine I get, and go at it with some propionic anhydride, make dipropionylmorphine and significantly more than quadruple, sextuple the potency even, and render it far more euphoric stuff? It really isn't too demanding a reaction.
I could, if I chose, put on my shoes, go to the lab, pausing to pick up my morphine script, one of my mortar and pestles and some dichloromethane, or maybe prepare some chloroform, and use the bottle of propionyl chloride, plus a base to absorb the HCl (or if I was being even more picky and precise, go for better results using the acid halide to prepare the corresponding anhydride for acylation, catalyzed with EPNS etc. )...
If I was a junkie, would I not use each and every such script, do just that and sextuple or so, maybe more, the potency of the morphine ? because I don't. And it sure SOUNDS like the sort of thing a junkie with the skillset to vastly boost the potency and euphoric nature of the resources by way of opiate product he has at his disposal, or to synth something from scratch in large quantity, would do, does it not?
