Using ‘trip killers’ to cut short bad drug trips is potentially dangerous

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As interest in psychedelics has grown, so has interest in ways to end a bad trip.

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The Conversation

URL:

https://theconversation.com/using-trip-killers-to-cut-short-bad-drug-trips-is-potentially-dangerous-222527

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

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Summary

Key Points:

As interest in psychedelics has grown, so has interest in ways to end a bad trip.
Recent research reveals that people are giving potentially dangerous advice on social media on how to stop a trip that is less than pleasurable.
One of the earliest descriptions of a psychedelic experience in western literature can be found in Aldous Huxley’s 1953 book The Doors of Perception.
Research shows that if someone is in a bad mood or depressed then they are more likely to have a bad trip, as are people who take too high a dose.

Trip killers

Few clinical studies have examined trip killers, but one has found that ketanserin – a drug used to treat high blood pressure – reverses the psychedelic effects of LSD.
A recent article in the Emergency Medical Journal analysed posts on Reddit about trip killers.
Trip killers were discussed most often for LSD (235 posts), magic mushrooms (143 posts) and MDMA (21 posts).

Receptor blocking

To kill a trip then, one simply has to give the drug user another drug that blocks (rather than activates) the 5-HT2A receptor.
Many prescription drugs can do this and they tend to be antipsychotic drugs.
Quetiapine from the list above is one popular example, while another antipsychotic, olanzapine, was mentioned in 14 posts in that study.
Similarly, the atypical antidepressants trazodone and mirtazapine also block the 5-HT2A receptor.

Colin Davidson has previously received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH, USA) and the European Community for projects related to stimulant drug abuse and novel psychoactive compounds respectively. He is currently a paid consultant with the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (MOD) working on new psychoactive compounds.