What drug did my niece accidentally consume?
December 29, 2014 3:14 PM Subscribe
So my niece was in a home that was burning incense. Later she had a reaction as if she had taken a hallucinogenic drug. What could they have been burning that would cause this reaction?
So my niece went over to the home of some people she didn't know very well. She says that they were burning "dragon incense" and they kept putting "cones and sticks" in the burners while she was there. She said that it smelled "off" and that after a while she decided to leave. Note that my niece is extremely sweet and innocent and some of her descriptions might be a little inaccurate. Later that night she and her friend were laughing and crying hysterically. Then she said that she had a powerful hallucination of someone sitting next to her friend. It scared her and she started to freak out. She also said that it felt like "balloons were going off" in her brain.
She couldn't get to sleep that night. The next day she felt terribly sick.
That's about all I know. Can anyone make a guess about what drug could be distributed via incense that would have an effect like that? Thanks.
So my niece went over to the home of some people she didn't know very well. She says that they were burning "dragon incense" and they kept putting "cones and sticks" in the burners while she was there. She said that it smelled "off" and that after a while she decided to leave. Note that my niece is extremely sweet and innocent and some of her descriptions might be a little inaccurate. Later that night she and her friend were laughing and crying hysterically. Then she said that she had a powerful hallucination of someone sitting next to her friend. It scared her and she started to freak out. She also said that it felt like "balloons were going off" in her brain.
She couldn't get to sleep that night. The next day she felt terribly sick.
That's about all I know. Can anyone make a guess about what drug could be distributed via incense that would have an effect like that? Thanks.
Response by poster: She didn't mention eating or drinking anything but it's possible. I'll look up Dragon's Blood right now. I've never heard of it.
posted by crapples at 3:21 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by crapples at 3:21 PM on December 29, 2014
Synthetic pot is sometimes sold as "herbal incense."
posted by dortmunder at 3:22 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by dortmunder at 3:22 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: BTW - When she said "dragon incense" I read that to mean that the incense holder was in the shape of a dragon (or something). I don't think she would know what Dragon's Blood was.
Thanks for the second lead, dortmunder.
posted by crapples at 3:25 PM on December 29, 2014
Thanks for the second lead, dortmunder.
posted by crapples at 3:25 PM on December 29, 2014
It's unlikely it was synthetic pot. Synthetic pot is not burned in cones or sticks in an incense burner. It doesn't look like or burn like incense.
Did your niece eat or drink anything while she was there?
posted by erst at 3:31 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Did your niece eat or drink anything while she was there?
posted by erst at 3:31 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
I had a similar reaction (hysterical laughing and hallucinations) to PCP-laced marijuana -- did she experience any time/space dilation as well?
Adding PCP to incense isn't the most efficient way to get high but PCP is a relatively cheap drug so who knows what kids are doing these days. Or they could have been trying to get her high without her knowing for nefarious purposes -- the person who laced my marijuana with PCP (without my knowledge) did it so that he could date-rape me.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:34 PM on December 29, 2014
Adding PCP to incense isn't the most efficient way to get high but PCP is a relatively cheap drug so who knows what kids are doing these days. Or they could have been trying to get her high without her knowing for nefarious purposes -- the person who laced my marijuana with PCP (without my knowledge) did it so that he could date-rape me.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:34 PM on December 29, 2014
Some sages have mild hypnotic effects. They have a very distinctive culinary smell which tends to transfer to clothing. But the giggliness sounds like pot.
posted by scruss at 3:41 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by scruss at 3:41 PM on December 29, 2014
Can you check with her whether she just meant a dragon-shaped incense burner or whether the people burning it referred to the actual incense as dragon-something-or-the-other? Because another possibility is a synthetic drug sold under the name "Smoking Dragon Potpourri."
posted by Jacqueline at 3:44 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by Jacqueline at 3:44 PM on December 29, 2014
Yeah, check on the food. I had a really terrible reaction after eating banana bread that I didn't realise was cooked with marijuana.
posted by divabat at 3:45 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by divabat at 3:45 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sounds more like she unknowingly ate a pot cookie/brownie/baked goodie while at the house.
posted by pintapicasso at 3:46 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by pintapicasso at 3:46 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Mugwort, aka black sage, is mildly hallucinogenic, though you'd have to burn a metric butt-ton of the stuff to get that effect… and it's not generally in cone or stick form unless you've gone to the trouble of grinding it yourself and shaping it into cones or sticks. There's also wormwood… but like mugwort, that's not sold in cones or sticks unless you're making it yourself from scratch. Dragon's Blood resin… maybe? Depends on the resin, and whether or not it's synthetic, etc.
posted by culfinglin at 3:53 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by culfinglin at 3:53 PM on December 29, 2014
Apparently, sometimes people sell dragon's blood incense as opium (as in, there's no opium, but they tell the buyers it's a kind of opium). Maybe this was the opposite? (I don't know anything about the use of opium, or if burning it like incense would do anything...)
posted by Weeping_angel at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by Weeping_angel at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2014
Response by poster: Well she's in a situation where she can't get back online until next Monday (long story - but she's part of a service organization that results in limit communication).
But she was there for an hour, she says, and I think the strong probability is that she ate something while she was there - snacks, dinner, what have you. So as I'm reading your responses I'm growing more convinced that it wasn't the incense at all. I bet she ate something.
posted by crapples at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2014
But she was there for an hour, she says, and I think the strong probability is that she ate something while she was there - snacks, dinner, what have you. So as I'm reading your responses I'm growing more convinced that it wasn't the incense at all. I bet she ate something.
posted by crapples at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2014
Yeah, nthing the food possibility. She probably didn't notice because the incense was weird for her, but it sounds like her food or drink had pot or something in it.
posted by bedhead at 4:17 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by bedhead at 4:17 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Could also be psilocybin mushrooms. They can be ground up and added to food (or chocolate) as well. I had trouble sleeping and my skull felt like it was full of broken glass after the first (and only) time I tried them.
ETA: I mention this because i've never known pot to cause difficulty sleeping, usually the opposite.
posted by torisaur at 4:18 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
ETA: I mention this because i've never known pot to cause difficulty sleeping, usually the opposite.
posted by torisaur at 4:18 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Sounds like psilocybin to me, as torisaur says.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 4:21 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 4:21 PM on December 29, 2014
Well if it smelled 'off', maybe she's so innocent she can't detect the odor of marijuana and she got a contact high. Especially if she was in California or Colorado, places where weed is incredibly potent. If she's never been high before it might make her paranoid and lead to having a bad time, even if she didn't inhale a big dose.
If she was drinking, it could also be a combination of dehydration and anxiety about the 'weird incense'
posted by hamsterdam at 5:05 PM on December 29, 2014
If she was drinking, it could also be a combination of dehydration and anxiety about the 'weird incense'
posted by hamsterdam at 5:05 PM on December 29, 2014
Even normal incense is available as "cones and sticks". Those aren't codewords, as far as I know.
posted by unknowncommand at 5:21 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by unknowncommand at 5:21 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
I've never heard of visual hallucinations beyond swirly lights or whatever with cannabis, even when eaten. As covered already, most drugs burning as incense will be nowhere near potent enough to do anything, particularly if you're not inhaling deep lungfuls of smoke.
Psilocybin mushrooms might possibly do it, though you can't cook them - when people use them in food prep, they're usually powdered and added to a drink. The taste of an effective dose is fairly obvious though, earthy and not great. I vote LSD or something like 25i-NBOMe, which can be added indetectably to a drink and is awfully cheap. The inability to sleep is what makes me think this - people can usually drift off after some shrooms but LSD will definitely keep you awake.
The good news - apart from an unpleasant experience, there's no toxicity issues with psilocybin or LSD - the jury is still out on 25i but I don't think that's what it was - you really need to insufflate your dose, which sort of rules out sneaking it to someone.
The other option (which I incline towards) is anxiety and nervousness about a new location and possibly weird people / an environment that seemed "druggy" gave her a sort of folie a deux effect with her friend. Remember telling ghost stories as a kid and someone swearing on their life that they just felt someone touch their arm or whatever? Same thing.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 5:34 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
Psilocybin mushrooms might possibly do it, though you can't cook them - when people use them in food prep, they're usually powdered and added to a drink. The taste of an effective dose is fairly obvious though, earthy and not great. I vote LSD or something like 25i-NBOMe, which can be added indetectably to a drink and is awfully cheap. The inability to sleep is what makes me think this - people can usually drift off after some shrooms but LSD will definitely keep you awake.
The good news - apart from an unpleasant experience, there's no toxicity issues with psilocybin or LSD - the jury is still out on 25i but I don't think that's what it was - you really need to insufflate your dose, which sort of rules out sneaking it to someone.
The other option (which I incline towards) is anxiety and nervousness about a new location and possibly weird people / an environment that seemed "druggy" gave her a sort of folie a deux effect with her friend. Remember telling ghost stories as a kid and someone swearing on their life that they just felt someone touch their arm or whatever? Same thing.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 5:34 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
I'm just speculating here, but so is everyone else...
I agree that the incense is probably a red herring. Incense is usually there to cover up the smell of pot, or just to add to the hedonistic atmosphere.
"Edibles" have quickly become a popular way of ingesting cannabis – even eclipsing the traditional smoked form in some areas / circles. You would have to smoke a heroic amount of high-quality cannabis before you'd experience open-eye hallucinations – but it's easy to consume way too much when it's in edible form, and the effects of an edible overdose can be similar to what you've described. And any amount of herb can keep you awake at night.
(In areas of the US where cannabis has been decriminalized, things have mostly been going smoothly – except when inexperienced users take crazy-high doses of edibles because the packages aren't clearly labeled, or because users don't heed the warnings. And when I say "crazy-high doses": it's common for one-eighth of a cookie to constitute a dose. So if a first-timer eats one cookie, they've just taken eight doses. For their first time.)
Cannabis isn't the only possible culprit, though – the symptoms you describe also match up with the possible effects of many psychedelics. LSD isn't out of the question, and it's a colorless, odorless substance (sometimes sold in liquid form) – a single drop of which can turn your brain inside-out for twelve hours. (The liquid form can even be absorbed through the skin – well, that may be one of the many urban myths that floats around drug culture, but a reliable-enough narrator convinced me that it happened to him.)
Stupid, young drug users sometimes think it's funny, or clever, or something, to administer drugs to other folks without their knowledge or consent. Someone may have given edibles to your niece and her friend without telling them what they were – or they did tell your niece what they were, but your niece didn't understand – or they mistakenly assumed that your niece would just know, because why else would she be at the drug party, right?
So, yeah, my bets are squarely on some kind of edible – either an excessive dose of edible pot, or a psychedelic such as psilocybin or LSD.
A "contact high" (basically, the getting-stoned version of secondhand smoke) wouldn't be nearly enough to cause open-eye visual hallucinations, even for a first-timer.
Even normal incense is available as "cones and sticks". Those aren't codewords, as far as I know.
Yeah, that's just the two main forms of commercial incense. Nothing suspicious there, unless there have been dramatic developments in drug technology since my less-responsible youth.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:36 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
I agree that the incense is probably a red herring. Incense is usually there to cover up the smell of pot, or just to add to the hedonistic atmosphere.
"Edibles" have quickly become a popular way of ingesting cannabis – even eclipsing the traditional smoked form in some areas / circles. You would have to smoke a heroic amount of high-quality cannabis before you'd experience open-eye hallucinations – but it's easy to consume way too much when it's in edible form, and the effects of an edible overdose can be similar to what you've described. And any amount of herb can keep you awake at night.
(In areas of the US where cannabis has been decriminalized, things have mostly been going smoothly – except when inexperienced users take crazy-high doses of edibles because the packages aren't clearly labeled, or because users don't heed the warnings. And when I say "crazy-high doses": it's common for one-eighth of a cookie to constitute a dose. So if a first-timer eats one cookie, they've just taken eight doses. For their first time.)
Cannabis isn't the only possible culprit, though – the symptoms you describe also match up with the possible effects of many psychedelics. LSD isn't out of the question, and it's a colorless, odorless substance (sometimes sold in liquid form) – a single drop of which can turn your brain inside-out for twelve hours. (The liquid form can even be absorbed through the skin – well, that may be one of the many urban myths that floats around drug culture, but a reliable-enough narrator convinced me that it happened to him.)
Stupid, young drug users sometimes think it's funny, or clever, or something, to administer drugs to other folks without their knowledge or consent. Someone may have given edibles to your niece and her friend without telling them what they were – or they did tell your niece what they were, but your niece didn't understand – or they mistakenly assumed that your niece would just know, because why else would she be at the drug party, right?
So, yeah, my bets are squarely on some kind of edible – either an excessive dose of edible pot, or a psychedelic such as psilocybin or LSD.
A "contact high" (basically, the getting-stoned version of secondhand smoke) wouldn't be nearly enough to cause open-eye visual hallucinations, even for a first-timer.
Even normal incense is available as "cones and sticks". Those aren't codewords, as far as I know.
Yeah, that's just the two main forms of commercial incense. Nothing suspicious there, unless there have been dramatic developments in drug technology since my less-responsible youth.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:36 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Apparently, sometimes people sell dragon's blood incense as opium (as in, there's no opium, but they tell the buyers it's a kind of opium). Maybe this was the opposite? (I don't know anything about the use of opium, or if burning it like incense would do anything...)
Probably unlikely. Opium is gently heated and the vapors inhaled. If anyone were to burn it as incense they would probably not get high, unless they were burning huge amounts in an extremely wasteful way.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:07 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Probably unlikely. Opium is gently heated and the vapors inhaled. If anyone were to burn it as incense they would probably not get high, unless they were burning huge amounts in an extremely wasteful way.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:07 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Agreed with oneirodynia. I've never been around opium much, but nothing I know about it makes this scenario sound plausible.
Anyway, "opium incense" is named after Opium perfume. And opium has calming and sedative effects, very unlike the agitation and sleeplessness that your niece and her friend experienced.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2014
Anyway, "opium incense" is named after Opium perfume. And opium has calming and sedative effects, very unlike the agitation and sleeplessness that your niece and her friend experienced.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2014
Could it be that the power of suggestion/placebo effect or whatever affected her? Just breathing smoke/incense can make one feel lightheaded. Maybe that, plus talking with the friend led to the "symptoms" and "hallucinations" with the subsequent freaking out being an actual panic attack. Or, she legitimately was sick from something else (bad food, bad water, general illness), and misattributed it to the "mystery drug."
posted by melissasaurus at 6:42 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by melissasaurus at 6:42 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
That sounds more like an Afterschool Special version of drug use than actual drug use. Hallucinations aren't "there's somebody sitting next to you", they're "the entire world is fucked up". Unless somebody's actually burning grass in the incense burner, you're not going to get high. Etc.
posted by disconnect at 7:35 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by disconnect at 7:35 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
I feel like she would've had to eat or smoke something to get those hallucinations. Unless she was in a small "hot box" room and they were lighting a ton of incense/drugs, I don't see how that's possible.
And sometimes sweet, nice people try drugs sometimes.
That said, if she is that innocent and all, she may have just felt gross from the smell of incense (I am very sensitive to smells and they can absolutely make me feel sick) and thinks she "hallucinated" but it's just a placebo effect. How old is your niece? It sounds like me and my friends thinking sparkling grape juice made us tipsy when we were kids.
posted by AppleTurnover at 7:43 PM on December 29, 2014
And sometimes sweet, nice people try drugs sometimes.
That said, if she is that innocent and all, she may have just felt gross from the smell of incense (I am very sensitive to smells and they can absolutely make me feel sick) and thinks she "hallucinated" but it's just a placebo effect. How old is your niece? It sounds like me and my friends thinking sparkling grape juice made us tipsy when we were kids.
posted by AppleTurnover at 7:43 PM on December 29, 2014
Stupid, young drug users sometimes think it's funny, or clever, or something, to administer drugs to other folks without their knowledge or consent. Someone may have given edibles to your niece and her friend without telling them what they were.
Nthing this scenario - it sounds way more likely to have been something she ate than the incense. It sounds like she may be on a mission? If so, I bet somebody thought it would be super hilarious to get the missionary kids high.
posted by lwb at 7:53 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Nthing this scenario - it sounds way more likely to have been something she ate than the incense. It sounds like she may be on a mission? If so, I bet somebody thought it would be super hilarious to get the missionary kids high.
posted by lwb at 7:53 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sensitive to even some of the regular, common incense. I've had some make me just plain sick, and others (also one mentioned as Dragon-something) that gave me a doozy of a migraine with all sorts of fun visuals. And this is stuff that's commonly burning in local retail shops, even years ago, so not likely to have been pot-laced.
I've pretty much learned that incense of any sort is just something I need to stay away from - my body just doesn't like it.
Odds are, there was something more to it, but it IS possible that she's super-sensitive to something that doesn't usually affect people.
posted by stormyteal at 11:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've pretty much learned that incense of any sort is just something I need to stay away from - my body just doesn't like it.
Odds are, there was something more to it, but it IS possible that she's super-sensitive to something that doesn't usually affect people.
posted by stormyteal at 11:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
What was the timeline on her telling you about what she did? Did she freak out, and then tell someone it was some crazy incense after they asked her what's wrong with her? If that's the case, she probably knows exactly what she did and just lied about it so she wouldn't get in trouble.
posted by empath at 7:08 AM on December 30, 2014
posted by empath at 7:08 AM on December 30, 2014
Then she said that she had a powerful hallucination of someone sitting next to her friend.
This actually sounds like Salvia to me, not pot or pcp.
posted by empath at 7:10 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
This actually sounds like Salvia to me, not pot or pcp.
posted by empath at 7:10 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
salvia doesn't really last that long, and if she had enough to be visualizing people, she's probably spent the 10-15 minute trip laying on the floor and mumbling. While saliva will raise one's mood after the trip is done, or make one giggly, I'm not aware of having heard of it putting off sleep.
My vote is to N'th melissasaurus - if she's innocent, and with a bad crowd, the placebo scented insense, company, and sleep deprivation could have done it.
Lastly, I guess she could be like stormyteal and just super sensitive to insense.
posted by nobeagle at 7:37 AM on December 30, 2014
My vote is to N'th melissasaurus - if she's innocent, and with a bad crowd, the placebo scented insense, company, and sleep deprivation could have done it.
Lastly, I guess she could be like stormyteal and just super sensitive to insense.
posted by nobeagle at 7:37 AM on December 30, 2014
Yeah my first thought was Salvia too. I've never tried it but from what I've read it can be intensely hallucinogenic (like LSD) and make you feel really ill afterwards (though in the few seconds I searched, I don't see feeling sick listed as one of the side effects). It's also doubtful that she'd get a secondhand high simply from being in the same room as someone burning or smoking it.
Here's the Wikipedia article: Salvia divinorum
posted by topsykretts at 7:54 AM on December 30, 2014
Here's the Wikipedia article: Salvia divinorum
posted by topsykretts at 7:54 AM on December 30, 2014
> I've never heard of visual hallucinations beyond swirly lights or whatever with cannabis
It can happen. Guess how I know.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:56 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
It can happen. Guess how I know.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:56 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
Very much doubt it's salvia - to effectively dose yourself with salvia you need to burn it in a jet lighter; smoking it in a cigarette is pretty useless, and so having it burning along with incense wouldn't do anything. Plus in effect it's more like DMT than LSD - disassociative, abstract, intense, short-lived - not at all congruent with what OP's niece describes.
Tell me that story sometime, library corpse!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 9:10 AM on December 30, 2014
Tell me that story sometime, library corpse!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 9:10 AM on December 30, 2014
If that's the case, she probably knows exactly what she did and just lied about it so she wouldn't get in trouble.
Please don't assume this. This gets you nowhere and just makes the other person feel even more ashamed and distrustful, especially in a vulnerable position. When I was in the ER after my accidental pot high, I heard the doctors claim that I was too embarrassed to admit that I had taken pot. If I had known I would have said so! Urgh!
posted by divabat at 10:49 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
Please don't assume this. This gets you nowhere and just makes the other person feel even more ashamed and distrustful, especially in a vulnerable position. When I was in the ER after my accidental pot high, I heard the doctors claim that I was too embarrassed to admit that I had taken pot. If I had known I would have said so! Urgh!
posted by divabat at 10:49 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Did she eat/drink anything while she was there?
posted by Jacqueline at 3:20 PM on December 29, 2014