Well Rounded Education
Every now and then we will have a lecturer who decides to keep our interest in class by giving us "practical" aspects of the topic at hand. Today's class on drug abuse was a classic example of that.
Being a pharmacology class, she starts off by giving us a list of prescribed drugs which may be abused, and their effects on the different systems in the body. After getting all the text book examples out of the way the real teaching started.
This ranged from learning the steps in how to cut cocaine (ofcourse after indicating the therapeutic history of coca leaves) and make crack rocks, to quoting a recovering addict who stated that the first time he got high it felt like "a thousand orgasms".
Ofcourse being in Jamaica where one of our major export materials is cannabis, it goes without mention that much of the class was spent discussing the effects of Mary Jane...did you know that the effects of smoking a single joint will only last about 45 minutes, but if ingested (space cake, or bush tea) the effects may remain for a full 24hrs?
Heroine and party drugs were also spoken of, but not in any great deal. Of interest, one of the date rape drugs, Rohypnol (GHB) is actually a prescribed drug used as a sedative (aka Mexican Valium).
And on the schedule for tomorrow's learning we have a Pharmaco (yes, again) lab in which we observe the effects of ingesting large quantities of alcohol in a short period by virgin drinkers (sorry, none of y'all qualify; Trinis were actually banned from participating in this experiment because the liquor would disappear from the lab and surface on one of the halls).
If only all topics we had to cover on our syllabus were as interesting as above (sigh)
Being a pharmacology class, she starts off by giving us a list of prescribed drugs which may be abused, and their effects on the different systems in the body. After getting all the text book examples out of the way the real teaching started.
This ranged from learning the steps in how to cut cocaine (ofcourse after indicating the therapeutic history of coca leaves) and make crack rocks, to quoting a recovering addict who stated that the first time he got high it felt like "a thousand orgasms".
Ofcourse being in Jamaica where one of our major export materials is cannabis, it goes without mention that much of the class was spent discussing the effects of Mary Jane...did you know that the effects of smoking a single joint will only last about 45 minutes, but if ingested (space cake, or bush tea) the effects may remain for a full 24hrs?
Heroine and party drugs were also spoken of, but not in any great deal. Of interest, one of the date rape drugs, Rohypnol (GHB) is actually a prescribed drug used as a sedative (aka Mexican Valium).
And on the schedule for tomorrow's learning we have a Pharmaco (yes, again) lab in which we observe the effects of ingesting large quantities of alcohol in a short period by virgin drinkers (sorry, none of y'all qualify; Trinis were actually banned from participating in this experiment because the liquor would disappear from the lab and surface on one of the halls).
If only all topics we had to cover on our syllabus were as interesting as above (sigh)
posted by me at
10:11 pm
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