Reindeer also seek out hallucinogens. They eat a kind of mushroom that is toxic to humans. Their piss keeps the hallucinogen, but the toxin is filtered out. As such, the natives in the area discovered, and I'm not sure how-I don't want to know how-that drinking the urine of reindeer who ate this specific mushroom caused them to go on a vision quest. The reindeer ended up figuring out that the urine of the people who drank their urine gave them an interesting experience, too. The hallucinogenic chemical didn't really get used up quickly, so it kept getting expelled in urine. It's the circle of piss!Sela wrote:Hallucinogens
We understand how they affect us, how to produce them, and then we actually seek them out purely for our pleasure. I think it's a badass achievement.
Many other animals seek ways to get high in various forms, too.
Humans have, however, done a damn fine job of making more and more potent hallucinogens, with our strongest being LSD, which causes noticeable changes in perception at doses as low as 25 micrograms. While DMT is more potent, at a dose of about 15 micrograms, it doesn't last nearly as long as LSD, which has trips measured in hours, rather than minutes.
Not that I consider making drugs* more potent or creating new drugs to be awesome from the stand-point of being able to more effectively fuck you up. I find the awesome in it from the perspective of the science that goes into it.
*drugs in this case referring to the ones intended to alter your perception of the world for the purpose of recreational use, rather than to control medical problems (self-medication doesn't count, dammit)