When someone uses a hallucinogen and experiences anxiety, paranoia and a panic reaction it is called a “bad trip.” It is difficult to predict who will have a “bad trip” because individual response to drugs vary and can be dose dependent. A group of people may be partying with psilocybin and some may have a bad reaction while others do not. The best predictor of who will have an adverse reaction is a history of having a “bad trip” in the past. Treatment of an adverse reaction is usually supportive, with a quiet, low stimulation environment. Sometimes, medications (benzodiazepines) may be administered to control extreme agitation or seizures (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2009).
Our topic for the criminal newsletter this month is Psilocybin/Mushrooms. Toxicology is a key component of many criminal cases, and mushrooms are certainly not absent from the list of drugs that come up in discovery. The subtopics for this month are:
- Overview (5/9/14)
- Ingestion (5/16/14)
- “Bad Trip” (5/23/14)
- Detection (5/30/14)
